wednesday, april 21, 2004
news
the university daily kansan
7A
Delta Force to continue presence in Student Senate
By Andy Marso
amarso@kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
Delta Force keeps sticking around Student Senate, despite winning just one presidential election in eight years. So maybe it should be no surprise that Blake Swenson and Kevin McKenzie don't plan on fading away either
don't plan on coming.
Swenson, Topeka senior, and
McKenzie, Salina sophomore,
ran for student body president
and vice president with Delta
Force this year. They garnered
1,432 votes, 221 more than last year's Delta Force ticket, but lost to KUnited's Steve Munch and Jeff Dlaplast week.
end, both Swenson and McKenzie have decided to apply for one of Senate's three holdover senator spots.
After talking it over with other Delta Force members this week
"The main reason was how energized the group was," Swenson said. "Even though we lost we're still energized about trying to make change on this campus."
McKenzie
McKenzie started off this year as a committee member before becoming a replacement senator for freshman/sophomore College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He said he would be willing to stay involved
in Senate as a committee member if he didn't become a holdover senator.
He said he and Swenson would
McKenzie
"Pretty much all our campus platforms don't need the presidency and vice presidency to
get accomplished," McKenzie said. "They're important issues for students, and someone's got to work on them."
Swenson and McKenzie ran on a platform that included student concerns on the campus city, state and national level. The campus platforms included expanding Saferide and University Career and Employment Services, streamlining online enrollment and prohibiting professors from giving tests the week before finals.
Swenson said the platform issues could still become a reality especially because he won't have to go to all the meetings that are a mandatory part of the president's schedule.
schedule.
"I guess I'll have more time to focus on those." Swenson said of the platform issues. "I just won't have the same access or ability."
Swenson plans to graduate next year, making it his last year in Senate. McKenzie is a sophomore and said he wouldn't rule out running with Delta Force again for one of the top Senate positions, but that it was too early to speculate.
Regardless, he and Swenson both said this year's election was more a beginning than an end.
Other Election Notes:
"We still have opportunities to work for students," Swenson said. "There's no reason to walk away when we can still get things done."
Other Election News
■ Anna Gregory, who won a junior/senior CLAS seat with Delta Force this year, decided to withdraw from the race Monday before the results were certified by the Elections Commission.
Gregory, who was Student Rights committee chairwoman in Senate this year, got the most votes in junior/senior CLAS, receiving 512. Her withdrawal means that Tyler Longpine, who also ran with Delta Force, wins the 14th and final junior/senior CLAS seat. Gregory said she decided to withdraw because she will graduate after the fall semester, while Tyler will be there all year long.
Amanda Marvin was awarded a seat as a graduate senator when the Elections Commission certified results on Monday. Marvin registered as an Independent shortly before the election and got the most votes among write-in candidates. Marvin became the fifth graduate senator elected, leaving six spots still open.
Edited by Robert Perkins
Scientists race to discover West Nile vaccine
Company tests preventative for mosquito virus
By Lisa Coble
lcoble@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Bryce Vermillion, Eudora senior, has earned immunity. He's saved from ever contacting West Nile virus again. Like contestants on Survivor, Vermillion had to earn immunity the hard way.
West Nile virus caused Vermillion to suffer symptoms he said were comparable to the worst hangover he'd ever had. He caught the virus while hiking in Colorado last August. For a week after his trip, sweat dripped from his feverish body, and a rash settled into his skin.
"It's one thing where you don't think it will happen to you," he said.
Doctors prescribed antibiotics, but could do little else. Vermillion just had to wait it out.
In 2003, Kansas health officials confirmed a state record of 90 human cases, more than quadrupling the 22 cases reported in 2002. Encephalitis and meningitis, two types of brain swelling and the most serious symptoms of West Nile virus, caused five human deaths in 2003, the first year people died in Kansas from West Nile.
Since 2002, 723 presumed cases of West Nile virus in Kansas have been identified by commercial clinics, but not confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control or the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. There is no vaccine for the virus.
This spring, Kansans will prepare for the third bout with the virus by frequently refilling their birdbaths and removing standing water, two places where mosquitoes populate. Mosquitos transfer the virus from birds to humans, so stocking up on insect repellent with deet, the active ingredient in most insect repellents, is encouraged.
While these precautions are necessary, people may have less to worry about than in previous years, said Sharon Watson, public information director of the Kansas Department of Health.
"If we follow the trends in other states, in the third year we should experience a decline in the occurrence of West Nile virus," Watson said.
Decline or no decline, people like Vermillion, who survived the virus, can frolic along the riverbanks at sunset — when mosquitoes come out — footloose and deet free. West Nile virus infection induces a lifelong immunity.
biodiversity. Vladimir Yamshchikov, associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Kansas, said he would like to build from that fact. He is creating a West
Nile virus vaccine made from the virus.
He studies the virus in his locked, airtight lab so that he can change the pathogenie virus into a vaccine. The goal is to make a vaccine using West Nile without causing a disease, a process called attenuation.
attenuation. Yamshchikov developed his interest for West Nile virus before the virus hit the United States. Many people were suffering and had died from West Nile virus infections around the world, but Yamshchikov's work in the states was not considered crucial research.
"Until '99 it was extremely difficult to justify West Nile work," he said.
The justification and opportunities for federal grants came after 1999 when the virus first emerged in the United States. Many scientists speculate that an infected bird brought into a New York Zoo caused the outbreak.
caused the outbreak. Certain types of female mosquitoes feeding on infected birds became infected and transferred the virus to humans in the form of a mosquito bite.
It was originally thought that humans could not give it to other humans. But blood donated by infected humans has been found capable of transmitting viruses to other humans who were given blood transfusions. Alarmed CDC and health officials instituted screening of the nation
blood supply for West Nile virus, in addition to other pathogens such as HIV and hepatitis C virus.
such as HIV and hepatitis In 2003, 818 infected bags of blood were discarded by the CDC. That same year, six people came down with West Nile virus because they were given infected blood, according to information on the CDC Web site, www.cdc.gov. As new diagnostic tools are developed, improved screening strategies are being implemented, according to a CDC press release on the Web site.
Meanwhile, the race for the vaccine is being conducted, and Yamshchikov is not in it alone.
Yamshchikov is not in need. One contender, a company out of Cambridge, Mass., is conducting phase 1 human clinical trials on a West Nile vaccine in Lenexa under a U.S. Food and Drug Administration Investigational New Drug application. Acambis' vaccine uses a backbone of what Yamshchikov refers to as the best vaccine ever created, yellow fever 17D vaccine, in combination with a genetic material from West Nile virus.
Nilevirus About 60 volunteers receive either a single vaccination with one of the three different dose levels of ChimeriVax-West Nile vaccine or a licensed yellow fever vaccine that is being used as a control in the trial, according to a press release from Acambis.
While Acambis, buoyed by commercial drug profits and corporate investments, is already studying the effects of its vaccine on humans, Yamshikhov is trying to acquire monkeys to test.
The trials are being focused on adverse effects and proper dosage
His vaccine has already proved to protect mice from West Nile virus. If there is success in monkeys, then human test subjects could be next, he said. He said he planned to develop a vaccine that would be effective in humans and horses. Besides birds, horses are the most susceptible animal to the virus.
There is a horse vaccine available, which requires repeated booster shots and is only partially protective, Yamshchikov said.
protective, Yanshenxiong
“This is the best of what is now available for veterinary use. They have to use what they have now,” he said. “I'm certain they would be happier with a more efficient vaccine, and that's what we are trying to create.”
In the meantime, horses will get the booster shots and humans will have to lather up with insect repellent or wear protective clothing to avoid being bitten.
clothing to avoid bunging. Mosquitoes that commonly carry the virus in Kansas, the Culex species, will not emerge until June. The peak months for the spread of West Nile virus are July and August.
— Edited by Kevin Flahertv
Official wants removal of downer meat ban
WICHITA—Kansas Secretary of Agriculture Adrian Polansky asked federal regulators yesterday to give state and federal meat inspectors the flexibility not to bar all so-called downer cattle from human consumption.
Polansky's comments were submitted in response to an Agriculture Department interim rule on disposition of nonambulatory cattle published Dec. 30, a week after discovery of a case of mad cow disease in the United States. It banned the use of downers, or animals that cannot stand up before slaughter, in food.
before slaughter, in local Polansky said the Kansas Department of Agriculture agreed with many of the measures taken by its federal counterparts in the wake of the case but believes the rule should be modified. He urged federal regulators not to apply the rule arbitrarily to obviously injured animals.
"Federal and state inspectors have the knowledge and experience to differentiate between an animal that's nonambulatory due to injury and one that's nonambulatory for other reasons," he said. "We should avoid unnecessary losses from the indiscriminate condemnation of all nonambulatory cattle."
If the Agriculture Department makes the distinction, those animals could be tested under the agency's mad cow surveillance plan, he said.
The Associated Press
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