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(03/26/03 4:07am)
Dramatic images of the war in Iraq have left people across the country struggling to decide when to watch TV and when to turn it off.\nAt the Cleveland State University student union Monday afternoon, the large-screen television set that had carried the war on Friday was tuned instead to soap operas.\nSitting on a campus park bench with a newspaper on her lap, Kathryn Quinn said the television images of war had become too much for her.\nQuinn, 40, a professor at the university's college of nursing, said she wants to stay informed on what's happening in the war, but "it's disturbing to watch too much of it."\nRobert Thompson, professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University said the 24-hour coverage of the war may have made people lose interest in the war more quickly and could reduce public support for a long conflict.\n"If you've got people after four and a half days saying they've had enough of the war, think of the magnitude of that statement," Thompson said. "World War II took four years."\nRichard Wald, a former news executive at both NBC and ABC and now a professor at Columbia University School of Journalism, said that for news executives, the need to inform the public has to be balanced against how much the public will actually watch.\n"How much bombing should you show? How much should you be on live with? At the outset of a war it is simple because everyone wants as much news as possible. But once it settles in and becomes a daily news report, it becomes a harder question," he said.\nAt Carolina Ale House in Cary, N.C., the Monday lunchtime crowd could choose from any of three dozen television sets to watch, all but a handful showing sports.\nRobert Jordan, 41, of Cary, said coverage of the war was more information than he wanted.\n"You get to a point where you see so much that I think it does affect a person's psyche. It just kind of bogs people down," Jordan said. "Even stress levels get up there, too. I hit a point where I just have to turn the TV off."\nSome school districts, concerned about the stress on children, are asking teachers to turn off war coverage in classrooms except when there is a specific academic reason to watch.\nPeggy Caldwell, spokeswoman for the 5,600-student school district in Shaker Heights, east of Cleveland, said principals have agreed that television sets should not be on in elementary classrooms.\n"In upper grades, it should be sparing, related to the curriculum and should be turned off in time to allow for discussion," she said.\nTodd Stogner, spokesman for the 40,000-student Oklahoma City Public Schools, said there has been no formal policy set by the district, but "the general thinking is to keep the coverage away from elementary students. This is the first time we've had live coverage of a conflict like this and you don't know what you might see."\nIn places where the TV was not tuned to war coverage it was probably tuned to highlights of the weekend's NCAA basketball tournament, which resumes Thursday.
(03/14/03 4:53am)
CLEVELAND -- Doctors have implanted electrodes in Christopher Reeve's diaphragm in an experiment they hope will allow the paralyzed actor to breathe without a respirator, hospital officials said Thursday.\nReeve, 50, has needed help breathing since he broke his neck in a horseback riding accident eight years ago.\nThe actor, best known as star of the "Superman" movies, can now breathe for more than two hours without the respirator, compared with 10 minutes before the surgery.\nThe assistance of the electrodes eventually might strengthen his diaphragm muscles enough to allow Reeve to breathe on his own, said Dr. John McDonald, who has helped design the actor's treatment.\n"This procedure is designed to breathe for Chris," said McDonald, director of the spinal cord injury program at Washington University in St. Louis.\nReeve scheduled a news conference for later Thursday to discuss the Feb. 28 procedure. In a statement, Dr. Raymond Onders, who performed the operation, said initial tests yielded "impressive results."\n"As the diaphragm contracted, his lungs filled with air and the volume of air that was exhaled and measured was certainly adequate for us to believe that this device would provide successful breathing support," he said.\nOver time, Reeve also will be able to speak more normally, Onders said. The implant also could greatly reduce other medical complications caused by the ventilator, including infections, McDonald said.\nReeve is the third person to undergo the procedure.\nThe first was a 36-year-old Ohio man who was paralyzed in a 1998 swimming accident. He has been breathing with the help of the implants for two years, the hospital said.\nThe operation, called diaphragm pacing via laparoscopy, involves threading tiny wires through small incisions in the diaphragm. The wires connect a control box worn outside the body to electrodes on the diaphragm.\nThe control box sends a signal to the electrodes 12 times a minute, causing the diaphragm to contract and air to be sucked into the lungs. When the nerve isn't stimulated, the diaphragm relaxes and the air is expelled.\n"Diaphragm pacing unlocks a door to greater independence, one of the most important goals for all people living with disabilities," Reeve said in statement.\nAccording to University Hospitals, the alternative treatment for someone with Reeve's paralysis is a thoracotomy, in which doctors open the patient's chest to attach electrodes directly to the nerves that control breathing.\nThe surgery costs about $100,000, carries significant risk of damaging the nerves and requires weeks of recovery, the hospital said. By contrast, the procedure Reeve's underwent can be performed as outpatient surgery and could cost about $50,000, the hospital said.\nThe researchers estimated that out of 10,000 spinal cord injuries each year, about 1,000 patients require mechanical breathing assistance for some time after the injury. About 300 may require mechanical assistance for the rest of their lives.\nReeve's surgery was funded by a joint research project of the Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Surgical Corp., which makes surgical devices, with the assistance of the Veterans Administration and the National Institutes of Health.
(02/13/03 4:43am)
KIDRON, Ohio -- America's terror alert has some people buying wood stoves, drums to collect rainwater, duct tape and plastic sheeting -- just in case.\nAt Lehman's Hardware and Appliances, which specializes in non-electric household products and serves a large Amish community, sales are up among the non-Amish, much as they were during the Y2K scare and again after Sept. 11.\n"Whenever something like this happens, we get a lot of phone calls," said Glenda Lehman Ervin, whose father opened the store in 1955. "We get a lot of questions, like, 'Do you have a wood stove that will cook and heat my house?' or, 'How hard is it to dig a well?'" \nThe government raised the nation's terror alert Friday from yellow to orange, the second-highest level, because of intelligence information indicating that al Qaeda was planning attacks on the United States.\nFederal officials have recommended that Americans take basic disaster-preparation steps such as maintaining a three-day stockpile of food and water. They also recommend obtaining duct tape and plastic sheeting to seal a house in a chemical or biological attack.\nAround the country, many Americans say they do not think there is much they can do to defend themselves from terrorism. But others are taking steps to prepare themselves.\nPaul and Melissa Jackson of Tulsa, Okla., bought two 1,000-square-foot rolls of plastic sheeting and 11 rolls of duct tape Tuesday at Home Depot.\nThe couple said they have also agreed to rendezvous with about 30 family members at their vacation house near Grand Lake northeast of Tulsa if there is an attack. Their families have also secured satellite phones in case communications are disrupted by terrorists.\n"These people are crazy," said Melissa Jackson, 29. "You don't know what they're going to do. We don't think anything's going to happen, but it's better to be safe than sorry."\nPaul Jackson, 34, said he had spent less than $100 on supplies, "so it's worth the risk if nothing happens"