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Washington Post: Inoculation plan at a standstill
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson promised that within 30 days after President Bush announced his vaccination plan, 500,000 volunteer health-care workers would be immunized against smallpox. But the total number inoculated nationwide within that deadline is 4,200 -- less than one percent of the president’s projected target for the first phase of bioterrorism preparations, according to an article in the February 24 Washington Post. “It is as close to stalled as you can get,” says William Bicknell, an SPH professor in the department of international health and a former Massachusetts commissioner of public health, who recently testified before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on the president’s vaccination plan. “There has not been a sufficient push from senior administration officials,” he says, adding that until the government reaches the president’s ultimate goal of vaccinating millions of medical personnel and emergency responders, “We are not protected.”
New Haven Register: Fire tests first-term Rhode Island governor
Upon hearing news of the devastating fire at a popular nightclub in his state, first-term Rhode Island Governor Don Carcieri immediately made plans to fly home from the governors conference in Florida and has been a visible presence in helping his state -- and victims’ families -- cope with the fourth deadliest nightclub fire in U.S. history, reports the February 24 New Haven Register. “What he is, I think, is a calming presence,” says Tobe Berkovitz, a COM associate professor in the department of mass communication, advertising, and public relations. “He’s coming across as a straightforward individual rather than a great political leader. There’s no flash. There’s also no Clinton lip-biting. He’s balancing several different emotional threads.”
The Globe and Mail (Canada): What makes people hoard
It’s one thing to save items, but quite another to hoard them, says Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail in a February 19 article that focuses in part on obsessivecompulsive disorders, including compulsive hoarding. “This is not a condition that has only one manifestation,” says Gail Steketee, an SSW professor and cochair of clinical practice in the department of graduate instruction. One group of hoarders, for instance, may have trouble categorizing items. “When stuff comes into their homes, they’re not good at figuring out where it goes,” she says, adding that a nonhoarder could see a collection of 10 pens as just pens, but the hoarder might see a blue pen, a pen with writing, a pen with a cap instead of a button, and so on.
28
February 2003
Boston University
Office of University Relations