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LIFE/ tite Ctarlotte $0t
Thursday October 20, 2005
Campaign ask parents to open up W^tch
Continued from page 1B “The numbers are still high school students were Hymes said when parents ^
Continued from page 1B
era give often disturbing
details about the state of
young people.
Dr. Robert Durant of Wake
Forest University Baptist
Medical Center said while
the numbers of underage peo
ple drinking and carrying
concealed weajxms to schools
are down, they are still not
good enou^
“The numbers are still
higher than they ought to be,
said Durant, who also cited a
recent study that showed
that at least half of all teens
have engaged in sex at least
cme time.
Tbney said that 49 young
people become pregnant each
day in North Carolina. Last
year in Forsyth County, 163
high school students were
pregnant.
Addie Hymes said that par
ents who expect teachers and
principals to provide their
children with a moral core
should think again. Hymes,
the parental involvement
coordinator for the city-coun
ty school system, said it is
schools’ job to educate chil
dren, not raise them.
Hymes said when parents
are silent, their kids suffer.
She pointed to the system’s
dropout rate as another exam
ple of parents not having an
open line of communication
with their diildren.
“If we can keep them in
school, we won’t have all of the
problems we are having,” she
said.
Cholesterol levels drop in older Americans
Continued from page 1B
statins in the water supply,
cardiovascular disease would
still be the leading cause of
death in America,” Nissen
said.
Average levels of HDL cho
lesterol, the good kind that
helps remove fats from blood,
remained mostly stable dur
ing the study Researchers
increasingly believe that
boosting HDL levels _ and
not just lowering LDL choles
terol _ is a key to preventing
cardiovascular disease.
Physiceil activity and losing
weight can boost HDL levels,
and Eckel said lifestjie
changes “need more atten
tion.”
Drug companies also are
racing to create HDL-boost-
ing medication.
A separate report this week
from Quest Diagnostics Inc.,
a leading provider of diagnos
tic testing, found more recent
declines. Between 2001 and
the end of2004, average LDL
levels fell from 123.7 to 111.7
in U.S. adults 20 and older
under a doctor’s care. The
largest declines were in
adults 70 and older.
The report is based on near
ly 80 million test results
reported by Quest labs
nationwide.
Clifford Johnson, a
researcher with the Centers
for Disease Control and
Prevention and senior author
of the JAMA study, called the
government figures a glim
mer of good news, althou^
cholesterol levels were mostly
unchanged in adults under
50.
Cleeman said a slight
reduction in Americans’ con
sumption of saturated fat
probably contributed to the
LDL cholesterol declines.
Annual deaths fium heart
disease in the United States
dropped from nearly 800,000
in the late 1980s to about
650,000 in 2002. Cleeman
said falling cholesterol levels
may have contributed to that
dedine. Still, cardiovascular
disease remains the nation’s
No. 1 killer.
Notable declines in LDL
cholesterol levels were
observed between 1976 and
2002, when average levels
dropped fiom 138 to 123 in
all adults. Again, the largest
declines were in men over 60
and women over 50.
Government guidelines set
the upper limit at 130 for
people at average risk for
heart disease
On the Net:
JAMA: http:njama.ama-
assn.org
National Cholesterol
Education Program:
www.nhlbi.nih.gov / about /
ncep
Kick the nicotine habit for faster bone healing
Continued from page 1B
time to jump into those cellu
lar docking sites. Hence
Zuscik’s theory that this is a
window during which smok
ers should heal more like
nonsmokers if only they could
abstain.
It will take a few years of
additional animal research
before that theory can be test
ed in smokers, he says,
although there’s no down side
to people trying to kick the
habit in hopes it will help
heal their bones.
Indeed, there’s some indi
rect evidence that quitting
helps: In 2000, Kentucky
researchers reviewed the
medical records of 357 spinal
fusion patients. About three-
quarters of both nonsmokers
and those who kicked the
habit while healing recovered
well enough to return to
work, compared with just
half of the smokers.
Voice for AIDS among black Americans dies
WE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK - LeRoy
Whitfield, a writer who
focused on the battle against
AIDS among black
Americans, died after living
15 years with the HIV
virus—while refusing to take
medication. He was 36.
Whitfield, a contributor to
Vibe magazine, died Simday
at a Manhattan hospital fium
comphcations related to
AIDS.
“He was vmusually commit
ted to exposing the truth
about AIDS in the black com
munity, and he was unafraid
to challenge conventional
wisdom,” Keith Boykin, a
commentator on race and
sexual orientation, wrote on
his Web site.
One convention Whitfield
challenged after being diag
nosed with HIV in 1990 was
the use of antiretroviral
drugs, whose possible side
effects range fix)m fatigue
and naiisea to blurred vision.
But toward the end of his
life, he expressed doubts
about his decision.
“My T-cell count has plum
meted to 40, a dangerously
all-time low, and my viral
load has spiked to 230.000.
I’ve aigued against taking
meds for so many years that
now, with my numbers
stacked against me, I find it
hard to stop,” he wrote in the
August issue of HIV Plus
magazine. “I keep weighing
potential side effects against
the ill alternative —oppor
tunistic infections—and I
can’t decide which is worse to
my mind. I just can’t decide.”
Whitfield used his personal
experience —including rela
tionships with both men and
women—as a prism on the
larger issues surrounding the
disease.
He linked AIDS among
bladks with public housing,
poverty and violaice, which
he said contributed to the rise
of HIV in the black communi
ty However, he debunked the
notion voiced in some circles
that AIDS was a white con
spiracy to spread the disease
among blacks.
“Widespread violence, for
example, is not a reality in
upscale gay communities
Gay white men do not over
populate public housing. Gay
communities have no short
age of HIV services neaiby,”
he wrote in the September
1997 issue of Positively
Aware magazine. “AIDS is
the gripping issue of the gay
community. For African
Americans, it’s the atrocity
dujour.”
According to the 2000
Census, blacks make up 12
percent of the U.S. popula
tion. However, they have
accounted for 40 percent of
the 929,985 estimated AIDS
cases diagnosed since the
first ones were reported in
1981 by the federal Centers
for Disease Control.
A Chicago native whom
Bojkin remembers as a man
with “beautiful locks” and “an
infectious smile,” Whitfield
attended the University of
Chicago and the city’s DePaul
University, then worked as
an associate editor at the
Chicago-based Positively
Aware and as a community
educator for Positive Voice,
an AIDS awaraiess oiganiza-
tion.
He moved to New York in
2000, contributing to Vibe
and becoming a senior editor
at POZ, a magazine aimed at
HIV-positive people.
Among his projects was a
trip to a South Dakota prison
to interview Nikko
Briteramos, a black youth
who was convicted under
that state’s HIV transmission
law.
But in the end, Whitfield
was forced to focus on his own
illness, while writing about it.
He dubbed himself
“Marathon Man” after a
Harvard Medical School
researcher studied him as a
rare longtime HIV survivor
who had “never popped AIDS
meds” — as Whitfield wrote
three years ago in a POZ arti
cle.
The doctor ‘bas stopped
short of shakin’ a Magic 8-
Ball to understand spedm^is
like me,” he wrote. Whitfield’s
grandmother said the
longevity without medication
was due to his being “protect
ed by the blood of Jesus.”
Whitfield himself attributed
his survival to ‘better nutri
tion, good exercise and a low
stress level.”
Whitfield is survived by his
mother, Imogene Whitfield,
his sdster, LaRonya Whitfield,
and his brother, Crofton
Whitfield.
Highway widening could cover historical area
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEAUFORT, S.C.-Some
historians and archaeologists
worry that widening U.S.
Highway 17 in rural Beaufort
County will destroy or cover
up significant Civil War arti
facts and building sites.
Archaeolc^ists hired by the
state TVansportation
Department to probe the area
before the highway have
found remains they think
show the location of a
Combahee River ferry cross
ing used in a Civil War raid
led by famed abolitionist
Harriet IVibman. An eariier
study also found an old black
cemetery in the area.
But in the recent search
uncovered artifacts fium a
house or tavern near the
ferry crossing where Thbman
and black Union soldiers sur
prised local plantation own
ers in the 1863 raid. More
than 700 slaves fixan planta
tions in Colleton and
Beaufort counties were fi’eed
in what is widely considered
the first raid in U.S. history
to be led by a wcanan.
Thlsnan is best known fca*
escaping slavery eind helpng
others to do the same along
the famed Underground
Railroad, made up of safe
houses and secret passages.
But no sin^e act in Tlibman’s
life would fi^ more people
than the Combahee raid.
“It has significance for
African-American history,
women’s history, military his
tory,” said historian Jason
EUerbee with Broddngton
and Associates, the private
firm working on the site. “In
this one night, (Tubman)
fi’eed over 700 slaves Ibis
hits so dose to home.”
In the raid, Thbman, who
had been sent to Beaufort by
Meissachusetts Gov. John
Andrew in 1862 to woric as a
spy gathered the information
for the raid.
She had met local blacks
who knew the area well and
got word to slaves on nearby
plantations to run to the river
when they heard Union gun
boats blasted their h(»ns.
When the boats arrived and
slaves came to the river,
TXibman ushered them on
board the Union boats and
sang to them during their
flight.
“It was completely personal
to her,” said Kate Clifford
Larson, who wrote a llibman
biography “Bound for the
Promised Land.” “She had
grown up in a violent culture
and knew that it was life or
death.”
Union reports put the num
ber of fieed slaves at 725;
Thbman said it was 756.
Brockington’s historians
say the site should be protect
ed with a histcaical designa
tion.
U.S. Rep. James Clybum,
D-S.C., whose congressional
district includes a
Ck)nfederate earthwoiks on
the CkJleton Cbimty side of
the Combahee, wants the
area to be included in a pro
posed GuUah-Geechie history
corridor.
Tbe area al§o includes a
cemetery where two black
soldiers whose regiment par
ticipated in Tlibman’s raid
are buried.
Still, residents and politi
cians say U.S. 17 needs to be
widened Tbirty-four people
have died and hundreds have
been iiyured on the stretch of
road since 1997.
“It’s one thing to say *Let’s
just leave this area alone and
never touch it,”’ Clybum
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wounds, saith the Lord” - Jeremiah 30; 17
said “But it’s another to do
the work, retrieve the arti
facts and put them on display.
I think there is a win-win
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