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Tuition, fees head to chancellor
Recommendations by the Tuition Task Force and the Fee Review Committee will be presented to Marye Anne Fox today for her review.
Town hall
meeting scheduled for Sunday
The Tuition Task Force is going to listen to community response about the
proposed tuition increases.
Open
house puts mansion on full display
The glamour of Chinqua-Penn Plantation was back and beautiful Thursday, if
only for an evening.
What
a wild idea!
An NCSU design student creates a winning costume with his Sendak sendup
Tepper:
ASG not living up to ability
UNC-Chapel Hill Student Body President Matt Tepper says he feels the tension.
Writer's
house could be leveled
The former home of famed writer and gardener Elizabeth Lawrence could be headed
toward demolition.
Some
don't get Web site's joke
No, oral sex cannot reduce a woman's risk for breast cancer.
McLendon
might play
Amato optimistic about back's return
Cloned
Animals To Gain Support As Food Source
cites Thomas J. Hoban, sociology
Medical
Textiles 2004 For The Global Medical Textiles Community
cites NC State's involvement in Medical Textiles 2004
Tuition, fees head to chancellor
Oct. 31, 2003
The Technician
By Carie Windham, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The Technician.
After several late night Student Senate debates and countless committee and task force meetings, tuition increases and students fees will enter their next chapter today when they land on the desk of Chancellor Marye Anne Fox.
Fox will use those recommendations and student input from the Tuition Town Hall on Sunday night to formulate her own recommendations to the Board of Trustees early next week.
"It's a lengthy, complicated process," Tom Stafford, vice chancellor for student affairs said. Stafford explained that campus committees were charged to provide recommendations by today for the chancellor's review. Her recommendations will be sent to the Board of Trustees on Tuesday for their mid-November meeting. In the final steps, the Trustees will take the numbers to the Board of Governors for the final decision.
Those decisions - and therefore the definite impact on students' pocketbooks - could arrive as early as February but as late as March.
For her part, Chancellor Fox will have recommendations from the Fee Review Committee, Student Senate and the Tuition Task Force.
The Fee Review Committee made the most recent decisions late Thursday afternoon. The committee voted in favor of proposals to increase fees for the Carmichael Gym expansion, education and technology, Student Center repairs and renovations and Student Center operations. Proposals to increase fees for athletics and PE operations tied and therefore failed.
The recommendations of the committee, which includes representatives from business affairs, financial aid, student affairs, the student body and an additional member appointed at the chancellor's discretion, did not mirror resolutions passed the night before by the Student Senate.
Senate voted in favor of passing all fee increases, despite previous concerns about the Carmichael Expansion and the Student Centers Operations fee.
The chancellor will receive recommendations from both groups but Stafford, a committee member, said that the outcome of the senate meeting was brought up several times during Thursday's committee discussions.
"I asked each one of [the committee members] to individually decide on the extent to which they would take that into consideration and the extent to which their actions would determine their vote," he said.
From the beginning, the weight that senate's recommendations would carry with the committee and the chancellor has been an issue of debate. Members of the administration and committee have openly criticized the way the senate has handled their end of the review process.
Stafford is one that has vocalized his concerns.
"We've got to decide if senate is the right body to provide student input into the fee process," he said. "Right now, based on what I saw this past cycle, I'm not at all convinced that they should be."
But Stafford says that controversy and complications are nothing new to the fee process but that he has never seen one with as many problems and concerns as this.
One reason could be changes in the overall process, as mandated by a new tuition and fees policy adopted by the General Assembly in February.
The establishment of the Fee Review Committee was one major change.
Natalie Duggins, the student representative on the committee, says that the timing and establishment of the committee has made the process a little "frantic."
"Given that it's the first year, it's to be expected. But that still doesn't excuse what happened," she said.
Duggins said that many of her concerns are still lingering, such as the role that Student Senate should play in the committee's recommendations and how the students' voice, as a whole, should be represented.
She pointed to the "across the board" nature of the policy as a source of the problem. The new policy was adopted by the Board of Governors to apply to all campuses and Duggins said she feels that N.C. State should be an exception to the rule because they already have a clear process.
She also raised concerns about "ambiguities" with the process, namely questions about a clause that says the committee cannot raise fees for faculty funding and if the committee could increase indebtedness to pay for a new building.
Finally, the new policy states that if the committee finds that an increase is needed, they should all attempt to decrease another fee so that the students do not feel an increased burden. This year's timetable, she said, made that almost impossible.
She hopes to take her concerns to members of Student Government in the near future.
Stafford sees an opportunity for criticism and review with the overall process.
"I'm not putting the blame in one place or another, there were problems all around," he said. "My objective now is to get the right group together before the next cycle and agree on a good process that will eliminate all the problems that surfaced during the process."
In addition to fee recommendations, the chancellor will also officially receive a recommendation from the Tuition Task Force to initiate a $300 campus-initiated tuition increase each year for the next three years. The task force voted 8-6 in favor of the resolution on Monday.
The recommendation also suggests that revenue from the increases be used for financial aid and a category called "academic excellence." Included in "academic excellence" is funding for the Graduate Student Support Plan and "academic enhancement" ventures such as funding for addition class sections and seats.
Town hall meeting scheduled for Sunday
Oct. 31, 2003
The Technician
By Michele DeCamp, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The Technician.
The Tuition Task Force voted on Monday to institute a $300 student tuition increase every year for the next three years, and now it is time for the community to have one last chance to voice their concerns or support for the increase. Chancellor Marye Anne Fox has called a public Tuition Town Hall Meeting on Sunday, Nov. 2, at 7 p.m. in Nelson Hall Auditorium to listen to community response on the task force's decision.
"I'm interested in everyone's opinion because I have to make a recommendation to the Board of Trustees and I want that to be an informed decision," Fox said.
Fox will have to present a tuition proposal to the N.C. State Board of Trustees during their Nov. 20-21 meetings. The board will also make a decision about student fee increases as well. She called the town hall meeting because she wants to find out how students feel about the tuition changes.
"I think it's important for students to take the opportunity to voice their concerns and their interests, not only about tuition, but year after year budget cuts - have [the cuts] affected the quality of their education?" Fox said.
The task force, which is co-chaired by Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor James Oblinger and Student Body President Tony Caravano, has proposed that the tuition increase go towards financial aid and areas that will help maintain the university's academic excellence.
Open house puts mansion on full display
Oct. 31, 2003
The Greensboro News & Record
By Tim Yeadon, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The Greensboro News & Record.
REIDSVILLE -- The glamour of Chinqua-Penn Plantation was back and beautiful Thursday, if only for an evening.
For three fleeting hours, Sotheby's of New York turned on the charm and opened the doors of the historic plantation in hopes of courting potential buyers to the state-owned gem.
The evening was by invitation only, for those who may have hinted at an interest in purchasing the estate, and also for those in high-spending circles who may know potential buyers.
"This is really just a chance to have the place all lit up, with music, flowers and food," said Rick Moeser, a senior vice president with the realty division of Sotheby's International. "It's a chance to see the house in action."
Moeser stood among several guests in the reception hall, his glass of red wine nearby. A string trio softly played behind him in the home's living room, a cavernous chamber with a 35-foot cathedral ceiling and two-story bay window.
So, have there been any offers?
"I'm not at liberty to say," Moeser replied.
The famous auction house was hired this summer by the home's owner, N.C. State, which chose to sell the estate-turned-museum after the locally operated and nonprofit Chinqua-Penn Foundation could no longer afford to continue its operation.
Sotheby's will not auction the home but has placed it on the real estate market, selling it much like any home.
This home, however, is listed at $3 million, and Sotheby's is willing to sell the estate either furnished or separate from its antiques collection.
Built in 1925 by tobacco magnates Jeff and Betsy Penn and filled with unusual and expensive artifacts from their world tours, the estate is considered Rockingham County's most prestigious historical site.
On Thursday, about 60 visitors slipped from room to room through the mansion. Wine glasses clinked as the prospects ate delicate finger foods off plates offered by waiters.
Though no one would come right out and say they were doing anything other than browsing, those who attended had no shortage of ideas of what the estate could become.
Perhaps a cooking school, a conference facility or a high-priced bed-and-breakfast would be successful, several of the guests ventured.
More likely, said many, it will become a very nice private residence.
Regardless, someone will buy it, said Gary Husted, a retired antiques dealer from Ramseur. He said he is not a potential buyer.
However, Husted thinks that the eventual sale will be a great mistake for the state of North Carolina and a steal for the buyer. A similar home in Florida's West Palm Beach, he estimates, would sell for $30 million.
"Chinqua-Penn is one of the crown jewels of North Carolina," Husted said. "I think the people of North Carolina are insane for letting this out of their hands."
Nicholas Koehbler, a retiree from Chapel Hill, said he was just looking around.
Would he want to buy the house?
"No," said Koehbler with a smile. He glanced around the 27-room house. Twenty-three acres of estate property were outside the window.
"That would be a lot work," he said.
Someone with that desire will arrive someday, said Bill Bondurant, a Chapel Hill resident who retired after a career of managing philanthropy foundations.
Bondurant said that person would not be him.
"If someone has a dream that this place would enhance and that place needed to be somewhat magical," Bondurant said, "then Chinqua-Penn might just be that place."
Oct. 31, 2003
The News & Observer
By Matt Ehlers, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The News & Observer Publishing Company.
You can slap something together at the last minute, or if you're Aaron Nace, spend 70 hours crafting your Halloween costume. Nace used foam, spray paint, cardboard, glue and yarn to transform himself into a monstrous character from the classic children's book "Where the Wild Things Are," by Maurice Sendak.
This is what Halloween can be if you're willing to work at it.
An N.C. State University sophomore from Chapel Hill majoring in industrial design, Nace had some class time to work on the outfit. Visiting professor Timothy Buie assigned a Halloween costume for one of this semester's projects in Industrial Design 201.
"I knew right away I wanted to be a Wild Thing because I could go all out," Nace said.
His efforts paid off last weekend when he won the College of Design's annual Halloween bash costume contest.
Nace made the shirt and pants out of upholstery foam, stitching a layer over a set of regular clothes. He spray-painted the shirt's stripes.
The head is more foam stretched over a cardboard skeleton. Nine skeins of yarn went into the hair and tail. Styrofoam balls rest in the eye sockets, and they're removable in case he'd like to chuck one at a partygoer.
He can peer out through the costume's mouth. Supplies set him back about $70.
Nace, 19, thinks that one day he'd like to put his design skills to use in the computer graphics field or the film industry. His talent for design started at an early age.
"Ever since I've been a kid I've always made my own costumes," he said. The first ones were robots styled from cardboard boxes. This year, though, he grew up a bit.
"This is the first time I applied my major to my costume."
Staff writer Matt Ehlers can be reached at 829-4889.
Tepper: ASG not living up to ability
Oct. 30, 2003
The Daily Tar Heel
By Cleve R. Wootson Jr., staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The Daily Tar Heel.
UNC-Chapel Hill Student Body President Matt Tepper says he feels the tension.
Past student body presidents and UNC Association of Student Governments presidents say they felt it, too.
At the very top, in the organization that governs the governments, student leaders say tension is something that has run deep, especially in the first part of this year.
The ASG is a consortium of the student governments of the 16 UNC-system schools. ASG president Jonathan Ducote serves as a nonvoting member of the system's policy-making Board of Governors.
The 16 study body presidents form a council that discusses and acts on pivotal university issues, such as the proposal to raise the 18 percent out-of-state enrollment cap.
"You have 16 people who come into a room and they're the big shot on their campus," said former ASG President Andrew Payne. "On their campus, they're head honcho, and when they get in a room with 15 other people, and they're the big honcho, you have some ego clashes."
Tepper said he thinks the ASG is not acting to the full extent of its capabilities. He said he agrees with the ASG's mission and values the opportunity to speak frankly with the presidents from other system schools.
But Tepper said he's frustrated.
"I think that ASG has so much potential," he said. "They're located right in Raleigh. They're speaking for 16 schools, and now they have a budget for $165,000. It's a lot of power there, and they really need to take advantage of it."
Tepper's situation differs from that of most system student body presidents. He is president of the system's flagship university, which is also one of the system's two large research universities and is close enough to the N.C. General Assembly for student government members to lobby legislators on their own.
The University and the ASG vocally clash on matters Tepper said are important to UNC-CH. After a recent meeting in Pembroke, Tepper said he thought the ASG Council of Presidents acted wrongly when it voted to oppose the cap increase proposal.
The ASG hasn't let him down, Tepper said, but he thinks he's not getting two very important things from the organization. "Accountability and information -- for Carolina those are things that we really need to happen."
Tepper spoke specifically about the $1 per student fee the BOG recently approved, giving the association about $165,000. He and Rebekah Burford, UNC-CH student body vice president, said that they don't think the ASG is mishandling the money but that they would prefer a better accounting of the funds' use.
"I won't completely cut them down because I understand that it's only been a year," Burford said. "But, no, I do not think they are using the money to the best of their ability right now. I feel that there is work that can be done on that."
Tepper said he repeatedly has been disappointed by information he thinks is not adequately relayed from BOG meetings. If the ASG doesn't provide adequate information to presidents, he said, his attendance at meetings is a waste of time.
The vote against the cap increase, from which Tepper abstained, was just icing on the cake.
"I have to weigh what's worth my time and what's not worth my time," Tepper said. "If I'm sitting there and I'm discussing this ridiculously divisive topic, ... I think that's definitely a waste of my time to be involved in something like that."
Ducote tells a different story. He agreed with Tepper that collaboration among the 16 system schools is important, but he pointed to UNC-CH's low attendance at ASG meetings. That, he said, creates more problems than it solves.
"I'm not hearing any of these types of feelings from N.C. State University," he said. "One thing I'm hearing from N.C. State is that they consistently show up at meetings. They're always there."
Payne also said that when new student body presidents take office, they bring to the association new personalities that can change its dynamics dramatically. Communication is key, he said.
"Specifically, if you don't go to meetings -- that's what makes the ASG real to the individual members," Payne said.
But some people say quibbles within the ASG are bound to happen. The association mutates every year as students graduate and new administrations take power.
Former UNC-CH president Jen Daum said that although she thinks her relationship with the ASG was mostly positive, tension was bound to arise among people interested in what is best for their own universities first and the system second.
"We need to remember that sometimes we need to make compromises and that Chapel Hill can't always get its way and that's not always a bad thing," she said. "That doesn't mean the University is going down the drain."
Writer's house could be leveled
Oct. 31, 2003
The News & Observer
By Sarah Lindenfeld Hall, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The News & Observer Publishing Company.
RALEIGH -- The former home of famed writer and gardener Elizabeth Lawrence could be headed toward demolition.
The FarmHouse, a fraternity at N.C. State University, owns the property on Park Avenue and received permits from the city this month to tear down the house, grade the property and build a new fraternity house.
The move has rallied neighborhood residents and historic preservationists to find a way to save it. Mayor Charles Meeker and council member Benson Kirkman are scheduled to meet with fraternity representatives this morning to review possibilities for saving what is left of her gardens, the house or both.
John Farnum, who lives in the Pullen Park neighborhood, said neighbors and preservationists hope to find a way to save it.
"It's their property, so they have the legal right to tear it down," Farnum said. "Our question is whether that's appropriate behavior to tear down historic property."
Lawrence moved to the house as a child in 1912 with her family so she and her sister could attend St. Mary's School. She left in 1922 to attend Barnard College in New York, returned after graduating and lived there until 1948 when she moved with her mother to Charlotte, said Emily Herring Wilson of Winston-Salem, who is writing a biography of Lawrence.
Lawrence, who died in 1985, based her book, "A Southern Garden: A Handbook for the Middle South" on her garden at the Park Avenue home. It was published in 1942 and remains in print, as are the other books she wrote and collections of her letters and columns.
The FarmHouse fraternity started at N.C. State in 1954 and moved into the house about 30 years ago, said Mac Winslow, president of the fraternity's alumni association and a member of the building committee. It was in bad shape when the fraternity moved in and, despite some improvements, members need a safer place to live, he said. Other options, including fixing the house, were too expensive, he said.
"We understand it is an historic site," Winslow said. "The only issue we have to deal with is the well-being of our members."
Plans call for a new 10,800-square-foot building expected to cost $900,000, according to the permit. The house wouldn't be demolished until the new building is complete, Winslow said. The fraternity hopes members could move into the building as soon as next fall, he said.
The house isn't on the National Register, though it likely would qualify, said Claudia Brown, architectural survey coordinator at the state's historic preservation office.
"It's a house that sort of slipped between the cracks for no good reason," said J. Myrick Howard, president of Preservation North Carolina, who has talked to the fraternity about the home's preservation.
"This really is an important property," Howard said. "I hope a solution can be found."
Staff writer Sarah Lindenfeld Hall can be reached at 829-8983.
Some don't get Web site's joke
Oct. 31, 2003
The News & Observer
By Barbara Barrett, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The News & Observer Publishing Company.
RALEIGH -- No, oral sex cannot reduce a woman's risk for breast cancer.
But a parody Web site created by N.C. State University junior Brandon Williamson says so, and it's both gotten him into trouble and earned him unexpected notoriety in the past month. His hoax is all over the Internet, showing up on personal Web logs and being read on the air by national radio shock jocks.
Williamson created the fake news article about a month ago, posting it on his personal Web site and on a student-sponsored message board. The spoof looked just like a CNN.com health story, with the headline "Study: Fellatio may significantly decrease the risk of breast cancer in women."
The story ran under an Associated Press byline and claimed the research was conducted at NCSU. That's what brought trouble.
CNN and The Associated Press said the spoof infringed on their trademarks, and they threatened legal action against the university. The school, in turn, told Williamson to take down both media references, because the Web site is run through its server. After thinking about it, officials asked him to remove the references to NCSU, too.
Now, there's just a blah-looking page of text on Williamson's site. But his earlier posting took on a life of its own. The story has been forwarded around the globe, praised on message boards and even reprinted -- as actual news -- in foreign newspapers that likely didn't get the joke.
"A lot of people have told me I should write more," said Williamson, a 20-year-old honors student majoring in materials science and engineering. "I don't know if I could ever write something as funny. I don't know what my limits are."
He's received about 200 e-mail messages, including several from cancer survivors thanking him for the levity, he said. "One woman wanted to put it up on her Web site."
The story claims that NCSU researchers found through a study of 15,000 women that performing oral sex at least once a week led to a dramatic drop in the risk of breast cancer. Like routine medical articles, the story quotes other "scientists," gives statistics about the disease and explains the study's research methods.
But the story is clearly a hoax. There are several fake names, most of them wordplays on sexual terms, including a doctor quoted as saying, "I'm surprised by these findings, but also am excited that the researchers may have discovered a relatively easy way to lower the occurance [sic] of breast cancer in women."
The researcher at NCSU, who has another fake name, is quoted as saying that she'll change her habits as a result of her study.
"I've gotten a lot of guys telling me they've tried to pass it off, or they weren't going to say anything when their significant others thought it was real," said Williamson, who has a girlfriend. "It makes me wonder, because everyone I know who's seen it thinks it's a joke."
Becky Carver, executive director of the Cornucopia House Cancer Support Center in Chapel Hill, burst out laughing when she heard the fake story. But she pointed out that others might not appreciate the humor and that some patients and their loved ones could be strongly offended by the site.
That wasn't Williamson's goal. He said he simply thought of the article while talking to friends, and he used breast cancer because he wanted a disease that affects primarily women.
"I understand that some people take things very seriously, and I'm sorry I offended them, but that wasn't my intention," he said.
Sara Williams, a breast cancer survivor now working on a federal research project on the disease's genetic and environmental risk factors, said she gives the student credit for being creative. "There's a level of genius in this thing, as off the wall as it is," she said.
Staff writer Barbara Barrett can be reached at 829-4870.
Oct. 31, 2003
The News & Observer
By Lorenzo Perez, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The News & Observer Publishing Company.
N.C. State tailback T.A. McLendon has gone from "very, very, very doubtful," in coach Chuck Amato's words, to very, very, very possible for Saturday's game against Virginia.
After two recent knee operations, McLendon was practicing gingerly this week. Amato even joked that he kept McLendon from practicing on a rainy Tuesday because "he might have slipped on a puddle of water."
By Thursday night, however, Amato said he had seen enough from McLendon to call him a game-day decision.
"I feel cautiously optimistic about him playing," Amato said after Thursday's practice. "He won't start. I can tell you that much."
BOWLING FOR ACC TEAMS: It's that time of year bowl-game scouts wearing their corporate-logo sweaters and lapel badges start appearing in stadium press boxes.
Peach Bowl delegations are expected Saturday in Raleigh, Winston-Salem and College Park, Md., for the N.C. State-Virginia, Wake Forest-Clemson and Maryland-North Carolina games. Any of those teams, except North Carolina (1-7) could end up in Atlanta on Jan. 2 for the Peach Bowl.
Georgia Tech rounds out the logjam of five ACC teams with two conference losses apiece. After the Bowl Championship Series selections -- Florida State is the only likely ACC contender for one of those four bowls -- the Gator Bowl gets the first pick of ACC teams, followed by the Peach, Tangerine, Continental Tire and Humanitarian.
The Continental Tire Bowl sent a delegation to the Oct. 16 N.C. State-Clemson game. Tangerine scouts also checked out that game, as well as games involving Maryland, Georgia Tech, Virginia and Wake Forest.
"All of those teams are on our radar screens right now," said Brett Sowell, director of communications for Florida Citrus Sports, which organizes the Tangerine Bowl.
RESPECT THE IRISH: The last time Florida State visited Notre Dame, the Seminoles left with a 31-24 loss 10 years ago -- the only defeat in FSU's national championship season.
Florida State coach Bobby Bowden said he is taking a different tack for this return trip.
In 1993, Bowden said, he tried to downplay Notre Dame's tradition so that his players wouldn't be intimidated. He even had his team show up wearing green hats with the Florida State logo, a fashion switch that Notre Dame coach Lou Holz used to fire up his team.
"It backfired," Bowden said. "You learn not to play around with their tradition, because it's there."
The Seminoles shouldn't have to dig that deep in their memories for motivation. The Fighting Irish (2-5 this season) beat FSU 34-24 in Tallahassee last season.
ROCKY TOP OVERLOAD: Tennessee expects a sellout crowd of 104,079 for Saturday's homecoming game against Duke. In six home games at Wallace Wade Stadium this season, Duke has played in front of a total of 127,205.
Take away last week's predominantly Wolfpack-red crowd of 27,614, and the Blue Devils will see more fans at one game at Neyland Stadium than they did in their first five home games (99,591).
Duke interim coach Ted Roof said he hopes his team enjoys the sights and sounds without being intimidated.
"We've got to enjoy being in that environment and being in that atmosphere and not worrying about how many [fans] there are," Roof said. "They're not going to block or tackle anybody."
HONORED RECEIVERS: N.C. State senior Jerricho Cotchery and Florida State junior Craphonso Thorpe were among 10 semifinalists announced Thursday for the Biletnikoff Award, given to college football's top receiver.
The other semifinalists are Pittsburgh's Larry Fitzgerald, Oklahoma State's Rashaun Woods, Southern California's Mike Williams, Washington's Reggie Williams, Texas' Roy Williams, Miami's Kellen Winslow, Oklahoma's Mark Clayton and LSU's Michael Clayton.
The winner will be announced in December.
HONORED COACH: Amato turned out to be a teacher's pet this week. N.C. State's College of Education chose the Wolfpack coach its 2003 "Distinguished Alumnus."
Amato graduated from N.C. State in 1969 with a bachelor's in mathematics education and received his master's in education in 1973.
Amato was scheduled to be honored today during an N.C. State awards luncheon for distinguished alumni at the Talley Student Center Ballroom.
Staff writer Lorenzo Perez can be reached at 829-4643.
Institute of Medicine elects ACS members
Oct. 30, 2003
Chemical & Engineering News
By staff report
© Copyright 2003 Chemical & Engineering News
Three members of the American Chemical Society are among 65 new members and five foreign associate members elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), part of the National Academies. They are Paul L. Modrich, a professor of biochemistry at Duke University Medical Center; Jim E. Riviere, a professor of pharmacology and director of the Center for Chemical Toxicology Research & Pharmacokinetics at the College of Veterinary Medicine, North Carolina State University, Raleigh; and Peter K. Vogt, a researcher in the division of oncovirology at Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, Calif. Current active IOM members elect new members from among candidates nominated for their professional achievement and commitment to service. The IOM charter stipulates that at least one-quarter of new members be selected from outside the health professions. Established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences, IOM is a source of independent, scientifically informed analyses and recommendations on issues related to human health. The full list of new members can be found at http://www4.nas.edu/news.nsf/isbn/10272003?OpenDocument.
Cloned Animals To Gain Support As Food Source
Oct. 31, 2003
The Wall Street Journal
By Scott Kilman and Anna Wilde Mathews, staff writers
© Copyright 2003 The Wall Street Journal.
The Food and Drug Administration is expected to report Friday that it appears safe to eat cloned livestock and their offspring.
The agency's assessment breathes new life into the moribund livestock-cloning business, which has struggled to find farmers interested in replicating their best-performing breeding animals, particularly bulls and boars.
Still, it will probably be several years before consumers see the meat of cloned animals on the dinner table because cloned animals are far too expensive to eat at this point.
The FDA's assessment is the first step the agency must take before it can lift the moratorium it put in place in 2001 on consuming the meat and milk of cloned animals and their offspring. The moratorium, which was voluntary on the part of the cloning companies, damped the financial incentive of farmers to pay for the expensive procedure. Cloning a bull, for example, can cost $20,000.
Cloning livestock from embryos has been around for decades. The FDA became concerned, though, when a far more powerful cloning method, called somatic-cell nuclear transfer, approached commercialization. This technique -- which created Dolly, the sheep widely publicized in Scotland in 1997 -- uses the nucleus of a cell from an adult animal. The technique makes it possible to know almost exactly what is being replicated.
Since the moratorium began, however, only a few hundred U.S. clones of livestock have been created. Several biotechnology firms have abandoned their work on cloning livestock or sold out to companies with deeper pockets. The upstart industry, involving a dozen firms in the late 1990s, is now down to less than a handful of players, including ViaGen Inc. of Austin, Texas, and Cyagra Inc. of Elizabethtown, Pa.
The agency could lift the moratorium as soon as 2004, said Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, who added that the risk of any food-safety problem "appears extremely remote."
The agency, which is responsible for protecting much of the nation's food supply, must first release its 300-page study on the safety of eating cloned livestock to the public for comment, which probably won't happen for at least several weeks. What the FDA is preparing to release Friday is an executive summary.
If the agency concludes after the comment period that cloning animals for food is inherently safe, it might go even further by determining that there aren't any grounds for requiring labels informing consumers of any milk and meat derived from cloned animals.
Regulators aside, livestock cloning still faces a lot of hurdles as a business. While U.S. consumers have generally accepted ingredients from genetically modified crops in their food, it is far from clear that they will be as receptive to cloning.
"I think consumer reaction to cloning livestock will be very negative," said Thomas J. Hoban, a sociology professor at North Carolina State University in Raleigh who studies attitudes about biotechnology. "The difference is people have an emotional attachment to animals," he added.
Some food companies are leery of the consumer response. Smithfield Foods Inc. of Smithfield, Va., the nation's biggest hog farmer and pork producer, invested $1 million three years ago in a livestock-cloning business in Georgia. But the company Thursday said it hasn't made any hard plans. "We have severe skepticism about the consumer reaction," said Jerry Hostetter, a Smithfield spokesman.
Some scientists worry that there is relatively little published research on the question of whether there are dangers in eating cloned livestock. Indeed, the authors of a study issued last year by the National Research Council, which gives science and technology advice to the federal government, complained about the scarcity of published data on the composition of milk and meat from cloned animals. Given that lack of information, the National Research Council report found "no current evidence" of food-safety concerns.
The FDA's position is simple: Cloning, by its nature, is designed to replicate livestock that regulators already consider safe for human consumption. To be sure, the cloning process for some animals such as cattle is still so rough that only about 10% of attempts are successful, and it often results in malformed animals. But the FDA figures the deformities are usually so severe that these animals would be rejected for food use under existing safety regulations.
The FDA is also largely discounting the possibility that a cloned animal could appear healthy, yet harbor some subtle change in its genetic instructions that would make it dangerous to eat. Among other things, some scientists wonder whether the act of cloning itself might somehow jostle the genetic blueprint of a cow so that it, for instance, produces a harmful level of a hormone in its milk or can't fend off pathogens that could end up in food.
FDA officials said the report it plans to eventually release, "Animal Cloning: A Risk Assessment," will contain extensive information from unpublished studies that eased their concerns about the possibility of hard-to-detect changes in cloned animals.
If the moratorium is lifted, the first product that consumers might encounter from a cloned animal would probably be milk . The U.S. is already home to a few cloned dairy cows. While the cows are intended for breeding purposes, they must also be milked .
Still, it is unlikely that an FDA endorsement of the safety of livestock cloning will change the diets of most consumers anytime soon. The biotechnology industry has long promised that cloning would improve the quality of America's livestock herd by replicating the animals best at producing meat and milk , lowering costs and raising quality.
But the price tag for cloning animals is so high that the procedure will likely remain out of the reach of most U.S. farmers for several years. "Getting government approval would open doors, but what we really need to do is get our prices down," said Steve Mower, marketing director for Cyagra, which has a long-term goal of charging one-third of what it does now.
For the foreseeable future, the most likely customers for the cloning industry are livestock breeders seeking to replicate their elite bulls and boars. Scott Davis, president of ViaGen, said livestock-cloning firms would probably begin receiving orders to clone thousands of breeding animals annually if the FDA lifts its voluntary moratorium.
Write to Scott Kilman and Anna Wilde Mathews.
Medical Textiles 2004 For The Global Medical Textiles Community
Oct. 31, 2003
Fibre 2 Fashion
By staff report
© Copyright 2003 Fibre 2 Fashion.
Due to recent market demands and an increasing number of textile applications in surgery, general and veterinary medicine, nursing, rehabilitation and biomedical engineering, a substantial number of new technologies are being developed. Medical Textiles 2004, a platform to educate the global medical textiles community about these new technologies, will take place Oct. 26-27, 2004 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh.
Medical Textiles 2004 presents a prime networking opportunity for professionals working in the medical textiles, medical devices, healthcare products and pharmaceutical industries. Participants will gain knowledge in several medical textile product areas including wound care, bandages and pressure garments; implantable devices; biomaterials; orthopedic support and immobilization devices; healthcare and hygiene products; and medical and pharmaceutical devices.
This event, organized by North Carolina State University and the Industrial Fabrics Association International, also will offer participants a comprehensive compilation of peer-reviewed technical papers covering new research and testing procedures for medical textile materials, unique applications for designing and engineering medical textiles, methods and applications for constructing quality end products, and market data and trend perspective studies.
Medical Textiles 2004 will be held in conjunction with the 4th International Conference on Safety & Protective Fabrics, Oct. 26-27, and IFAI Expo 2004, Oct. 27-29, which will include exhibits, education, dynamic speakers, recognition opportunities, certification testing, networking - everything manufacturers of specialty fabrics products need to develop their businesses.