esday, November 21,2000
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Page 5 A
THE BATTALION
EERing into youthful minds
iy Noni Sridhara
r/je Battalion
A $1.7 million grant from the National Insti
tute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)
I Has been given to Texas A&M’s Center for En-
I Hironmental and Rural Health to begin a project
I Balled Partencrship for Environmental Education
I flnd Rural Health (PEER), aimed at improving
| Bcieoce education for middle school students in
lural areas.
Larry Johnson, a professor of veterinary
Inatomy and public health, said in a press release
^■hat the program targets rural schools because
|J§hey are less likely to receive current informa-
[ion on scientific subjects.
Johnson said these students need this type of
ducation the most.
“There is an increased concern for environ-
lentally related diseases in a rural setting, such
s lead poisoning, birth defects and other condi-
|ions caused by expasure to chemicals,” he said.
Johnson said for a long time he has been in-
erested in promoting science among youth.
“ I grew up on a farm, and ever since then, two
)f my childhood goals were to perform public
ork as a scientist and also to be an inventor,”
™ie said.
He said another reason for targeting this age
ange is because the highest dropout rate occurs
in the ninth grade in these underprivileged areas.
“Prior to this time, the students are extreme
ly malleable,” Johnson said. “This is when we
want to jump in and stimulate the students’ in
terest in the biologically related fields.”
Johnson said three main factors helping make
this program effective—the faculty at the Cen
ter for Environmental Education and Rural
Health, the College of Education and contacts
with schools within the rural system initiative.
“The College of Education helps package the
curricula in a way that is very palatable to the
students,” he said.
Johnson said faculty at the center ask heads
of schools in rural areas, if they would like a sci
entist to make a presentation at the school.
Johnson said he fondly recalls his trip to
Hereford in West Texas this week.
“In our center we have a lot of anatomical
specimens, which makes the students’ eyes open
and jaws drop,” he said
To coordinate with Quit Smoking Week and
teach the students that smoking is bad for their
health, Johnson said he brought half a dead dog
with a tumor. He said the dog looked like a reg
ular dog until he turned it over and all the stu
dents stared in awe.
“This little blind girl came up to the front of
the classroom, and she felt the tumor in the dog.
I asked her to guess what it was, and she said it
was a tumor which was indicative of cancer.,” he
said.“When I told her she was right, she had all
the determination she needed and said she would
go become a scientist to help treat animals and
humans.”
Johnson said the girl’s statement shows the
need for more programs to encourage science ed
ucation ^
Marisa Cervantes-Flores, a former teacher in
the Rio Grande Valley and Class of ‘95, said al
though she has not seen a similar type of pro
gram ,she feels would make the students more
valuable to society.
“Many of these students do not feel they have
the potential or opportunity to pursue jobs in the
scientific field, so they just settle for blue-collar
work and act satisfied with their positions,” she
said.
The majority of the presentations deal with
environmental issues because the students some
times live in polluted environments and can un-
■ derstand the importance of the situation better.
“There are many times when students want to
jump out there and do calculations to solve wa
ter runoff problems or take on the role of a con
gressman to fix the state of their environment,”
Johnson said.
By the end of this year, Johnson and other
Texas A&M professors will have spoken to more
than 5,000 students.
lu vaccines reach companies first
irpo ration,
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Dr.
aymond Scalettar is angry: He has
o send elderly lung-disease patients
o nearby supermarkets for a flu
hot. Why? Some huge grocery
hains received thousands of vac-
ine doses before manufacturers
hipped them to many private doc-
ors whose patients are so frail in
fluenza could kill them.
The sick standing in store lines is
not doctors’ only frustration. Manu
facturers acknowledge shipping
shots to large corporations for em
ployee-vaccination programs ahead
of many doctors.
“We have patients on cancer
■ chemotherapy, who have chronic
■ bronchitis and obstructive lung dis-
lorder, and immunodeficiency —
■ people who really need the protec-
"‘p ^ soqn, as .possible’” said
Itllettar, a prominent Washington
physician who eventually will get
the vaccines but does not want his
sickest patients to wait.
“It doesn’t make sense for corpo
rations to give it to healthy people
and we can’t give it to sick people.”
Doctor after doctor reports being
cornered by healthy 30-somethings
[demanding vaccination. Tempers
flared at a recent South Carolina vac
cine fair that temporarily ran out of
shots and turned away 100 people.
Influenza is not threatening yet
and plenty of doses are coming.
Federal health officials are urg-
doesn't make
sense for corpora
tions to give it to
healthy people
and we can't give
it to sick people”
— Raymond Scalettar
physician
ing healthy people to wait until late
November for vaccination.
“We want to make sure that high-
risk people get vaccinated first,”
stresses Dr. Keiji Fukuda of the Cen
ters for Disease Control and Pre
vention. Other people “are anxious,
and we recognize that. But know
that more vaccine is on the way and
it’s pretty quiet right now on the in
fluenza front.”
Contrary to earlier fears, the
CDC insists there is no impending
shortage. Some 75 million flu shots
ultimately will be distributed.
Typically, doctors finish vacci
nating most high-risk patients, and
lots of healthy people, by late Octo
ber. This year, vaccine shipments
only recently began and just two-
thirds of doses will be sent out be
fore December.
November or December is not
too late to vaccinate healthy people,
the CDC insists. While some flu
strains typically start circulating by
then, in 14 of the last 18 winters,
large outbreaks did not begin until
January or later. It only takes two
weeks after vaccination to reap full
protection.
The flu typically kills 20,000
Americans annually, mostly the el
derly and chronically ill. Thus, they
need the earliest protection.
Capitalism means high-volume
corporations that placed early orders
may get their vaccines before many
private doctors. Manufacturers like
Aventis Pasteur are helping the CDC
publicize the high-risk recommen
dations, but no one can enforce them.
So the CDC, receiving physician
complaints like Scalettar’s, is asking
corporations to offer the first shots
only to employees who are high-
risk, and vaccinate healthy workers
later.
—Science in Brief—
Physicist accepts
position in Asia
HOUSTON (AP) — Supercon-
ductivity physicist Paul Chu, a sci
entist at the University of Hous
ton, has been appointed the next
president of Hong Kong Univer
sity of Science and Technology.
Chu will lead the institution for
“a few years” starting in July
2001 and then return full time to
UH, according to Monday’s edi
tions of the Houston Chronicle.
“I really had no desire to be a
president, but this was such a
unique situation it was too good
to turn down,” said the 58-year-
old Chu Chu will retain his en
dowed faculty chair at UH but not
be paid for it.
Chu has been UH’s most
prominent professor since his
1987 discovery of a compound
that allows electricity to flow with
out resistance at a temperature
higher than the boiling point of ni
trogen — high-temperature su
perconductivity. Considered the
Holy Grail of the field, it is ex
pected to lead to better ways to
store energy, propel trains and
transmit electricity.
The discovery earned Chu a
host of awards and honors, in
cluding the National Medal of
Science in 1988.
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