Letter from the Editor
Dear Brother,
The Morehouse College Health Careers Society is more than a collection of students following a pre-medical sequence. It is an organization devoted to the advancement of all students following or interested in the numerous careers in the fields of health and medicine. This means that the society accepts all majors and is not solely focused on the production of medical students. Within our ranks, numerous majors can be found. There are business/finance majors who are considering work in medical administration, engineering majors interested in biomedical engineering and other forms of engineering, other natural science majors interested in medical research, social science majors interested in social work within the medical field, computer science majors interested in hospital systems analysis. As you can see the list goes on and on. All are welcome to become a member of this wonderful resource, one of the few student organizations that has the backing of numerous major companies and corporations. The most remarkable thing about this organization is that it is an active, dynamic society. As years go by, we grow in numbers and in resources. We are one of the few organizations to have an interactive webpage and online newletter, The Pulse. All ideals and thoughts are welcomed to increase the effectiveness of this valuable resource into the field of health and medicine.
I hope that this upcoming year is prosperous for all my fellow brothers as well as an extremely prosperous for the Morehouse College Health Careers Society. Stay focused and look not only towards your inner strength, but the strength found in the unity of this magnificent college know affectionately as "Da' House."
Sincerely,
Christian E. Williams
Editor in Chief
The PULSE
WANTED:
Q. I've heard that tomatoes may help prevent prostate cancer. How can that be true?
A. In a Harvard study of 47,000 men, those who had 10 or more servings per week of tomato-based products were 45 percent less likely to develop prostate cancer. Researchers believe this is because tomatoes are rich in lycopene, which is a powerful antioxidant. Cooked tomatoes (or commercially available tomato juice that has been cooked in processing) are better sources of lycopene than raw tomatoes.
Recently, researchers from the Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit studied men who were about to undergo surgery to remove their cancerous prostate glands. They randomly divided 33 men with prostate cancer into two groups and gave lycopene capsules to one group for three weeks. When the cancers were removed and analyzed, the researchers found that the men who took the lycopene had smaller tumors and less aggressive tumors than those who didn't take it. While the number of patients was small, these results are provocative and suggest that at least some forms of cancer may be more dynamic than had been previously thought.
In an analysis published February 1999, Dr. Edward Giovannucci of Harvard Medical School reviewed 72 studies that looked for a link between cancer risk and food made with tomatoes. He found that 57 of these studies linked tomato intake with a reduced risk, and in 35 of these, the association was strong enough to be considered statistically significant. The data were most compelling for cancers of the prostate, lung and stomach. They also suggest links between tomatoes and lower levels of several other tumors, including pancreatic, colorectal, esophageal, oral, breast and cervical cancer.
Domestic and World Health News
Waiting for a chance to live
BY JENNIFER COUZIN , US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT 8/2/99
In her sister's St. Louis home, Nanette Holloway waits for word that her new liver is on its way, packed on ice in a cooler. Diagnosed with liver disease seven years ago, Holloway, 39, is on the regional waiting list for a transplantalong with 700 others. "I would think with me being on [the list] a year already it shouldn't be too awful much longer," says Holloway, a hairdresser who recently had to quit work because of her illness. "But I know there's a lot of sick people, and not enough organs to go around."
Last year, 4,855 people died waiting for organ transplants in the United States. The scarcity of hearts, kidneys, and particularly livers has sparked a bitter battle between the nation's transplant centers and the Department of Health and Human Services over how to hand them out. Last week, the Institute of Medicine released a report designed to call a truce. The IOM's independent panel recommended loosening the current system of allocating livers by 62 local areas divided among 11 geographic regions, in order to increase the odds that the sickest patients will receive livers more quickly. But the panelists also acknowledged that reforming the allocation system won't end the conflict, as long as there aren't enough organs to go around. The IOM committee focused on livers because they are among the most fought-over organs and last for 12 hours outside the body, long enough to be shipped cross-country.
Sickest first? Fifteen months ago, HHS Secretary Donna Shalala proposed to shift from a regional to a more national system for organ disbursement, arguing that geography unfairly let some healthier patients receive organs before sicker ones. The United Network for Organ Sharing, a nonprofit corporation that represents the transplant centers and matches donors with recipients, countered that a "sickest first" policy would increase death rates. Desperately ill patients "tend to have lower survival rates," says UNOS spokesman Joel Newman. "They may need retransplantation," he adds, or die after the transplant.
The HHS proposal sparked infighting among transplant centers, which fear losing patients, money, and prestige. Some large hospitals that pioneered transplantation techniques, such as the University of Pittsburgh, have more desperately ill patients on their waiting lists and stand to gain from Shalala's regulations. Smaller centers, which have considerable influence with UNOS, feared a "sickest first" policy could cause them to lose business. The IOM panelists could not predict whether and where closures might occur. Under the existing system, an organ is usually offered first locally, then regionally, then nationwide.
The institute's report disputed Shalala's contention that disparities in waiting time among regions make for an inequitable system. But the panelists did agree that too many relatively healthy individuals were receiving organs ahead of sicker ones. They recommended creating areas that serve at least 9 million people, which would give sicker individuals better access to organs.
While Shalala plans to incorporate the panel's recommendations into her final rule, Congress will have the last word on the allocation system later this year. But no amount of tinkering will solve the real problemthere aren't enough organs. While about 80 percent of Americans say they support donation, fewer than 50 percent agree to it when approached upon the death of a family member. People refuse to give up organs for a host of reasonsreluctance to believe their relative is beyond hope, distrust of the allocation system, or simply being too overwhelmed with grief to think clearly. "I don't have a magic bullet" to increase donation, says William Payne, president of UNOS and a transplant surgeon at the University of Minnesota.
But there are some intriguing possibilities. Medical advances that enable partial liver transplants between a healthy parent and child may help reduce the shortage. And the state of Pennsylvania is trying to provide incentives, without violating laws against paying for organs. In the works: a program that will pay families $300 toward the funeral of an organ donor.