Friday, September 29, 2006 - The Michigan Daily - 7
63 Kazakh children
. infected with HIV
Medical negligence
from corruption, illicit
sale of blood blamed
SHYMKENT, Kazakhstan
(AP) - This industrial city is
reeling after learning that at least
63 children have been infected
with HIV through medical negli-
gence many blame on corruption
and the illicit sale of blood.
At least five infected toddlers
have died after receiving injec-
tions or blood transfusions in
hospitals in Shymkent, a city in
Kazakhstan's most densely popu-
lation region 1,000 miles south of
the capital.
Valentina Skryabina, leader of
the nongovernment group Nade-
zhnaya Opora, which works to pre-
vent AIDS among drug addicts, is
convinced the illegal sale of blood
is the source of the HIV in Shym-
kent's hospitals.
"Blood is an article of trade....
Hospitals are offered blood, and
not always through the (official)
blood center. People trade in blood
like they do in human organs."
Skryabina said addicts and the
homeless have been accepted by
the regional blood center because
they agreed to be paid less than
the official rate of $47 for about a
half-pint of blood.
"Was their blood properly
checked? We are not sure;" she
said.
Officials say they cannot com-
ment on Skryabina's allegations
until their investigation is over.
Authorities do say, however, that
five blood donors who are suspected
to be HIV-carriers weren't found at
their registered addresses.
Parents in this city of 400,000
are trying to conduct their own
investigation. They say regional
health officials were aware of the
outbreak in March, and have been
trying to cover it up by pulling
pages from the infected toddlers'
treatment records to eliminate any
mention of blood transfusions.
The parents allege that up to 40
HIV-infected children aged 3 and
under have died, but the true cause
of the deaths was being concealed
or attributed to diseases such as
cirrhosis. Authorities declined to
comment on these allegations, too,
pending ,the investigation.
Some 13,000 children who
were possibly infected have yet
to be tested. Adults, too, could be
infected: so far, three mothers of
infected toddlers have tested posi-
tive for HIV.
Lawmaker Satybaldy Ibragimov
says nothing will improve until
Kazakhstan roots out corruption,
which penetrates even universities
where future doctors are graded
according to the amount of money
they give professors _ and later
treat people based on their ability
to pay.
President Nursultan Naz-
arbayev's government has taken
tough action. The health minister
and the regional governor were
fired this month, and several top
regional health officials, the head
of the regional blood center and
several senior doctors are under
criminal investigation.
New governor Omyrzak
Shukeyev, former mayor of the
capital Astana, called the situation
in Shymkent's health care system
"a catastrophe." He ordered an
appraisal of medical staff in the
region to root out incompetent or
corrupt staff.
Shukeyev, under orders from
Nazarbayev to urgently resolve
the crisis, pleaded with experts at
an AIDS crisis meeting this week:
"I'm waiting like nothing else for
a moment when you say that the
virus has been contained."
"We cannot give you a time
frame. This is going to be alinger-
ing epicenter of disease," replied
Vyacheslav Dudnik, the region's
new health chief.
Shukeyev said the government
would restructure and modernize
the region's medical institutions.
Each infected toddler's family will
be given about $800 - twice the
average monthly salary - in com-
pensation and all treatment will be
paid for by the government.
The most immediate problem is
the lack of local expertise on how
to treat young children with the
AIDS virus.
Four AIDS specialists from
UNICEF and several experts from
Russia have been asked to help.
But for now, said Sagdat Masau-
rov, whose 18-month-old grand-
son is infected, "nobody can tell
us where to go, what to do and
how."
Officially, by the end of 2004
Kazakhstan had about 4,700 HIV/
AIDS cases, but the real number
is believed tobe higher. In the first
six months of this year, the coun-
try recorded 828 new HIV car-
riers and 70 AIDS patients, a 70
percent increase over 2005.
Parents carrying toddlers come
in a steady flow to the rundown
two-story AIDS center in Shym-
kent for HIV tests.
COURTESY OF REBECCA SCOTT
History Prof. Rebecca Scott won a $25,000 award for her book on slavery, "Degrees of Freedom: Louisiana and Cuba after slavery."
S A Rviduals' lives. She studied Rosalie book apart. next February.
from France. "I think that my book was in part The prize, sponsored by the
Continued from page 1 Although she could not say why fueled by the stimulating experi- Gilder Lehrman Institute, is the
To research the book, Scott
spent time in neighborhoods near
sugar plantations in Cuba and
Louisiana. She talked with several
families about the effects of slav-
ery on their lives and the lives of
their ancestors. Since her book was
published, Scott has continued to
research slavery's impact on indi-
her book was chosen over the other
two finalists, "Carry Me Back: The
Domestic Slave Trade in Ameri-
can Life" by Steven Deyle and
"The Sugar Masters: Planters and
Slaves in Louisiana's Cane World,
1820-1860" by Richard Follett,
Scott speculated that the time she
spent with these families and the
relationships she developed set her
ence of collecting oral histories,"
she said. "If I could tell someone
else's story, that made me feel suc-
cessful."
Named for Frederick Douglass,
a man who escaped slavery to
become one of the 19th Century's
great abolitionists, writers and ora-
tors, the award will be presented to
Scott at a dinner in New York City
largest one awarded in the field.
Larry Hudson, who chairs the
committee that selected the win-
ners, said the ample prize should
be considered in terms of "the
esteem in which Frederick Doug-
lass's life and work is held by the
Gilder Lehrman Institute and by
the academy and the country as
a whole."
Mexico opposed to
U.S. border fence
DONATION'
Continued from page 1.
riculum development in the his-
tory department, expanding the
distinguished speaker series and
recruiting distinguished profes-
sors for fellowships.
One of the institute's priorities
this year is extending its outreach
beyond campus to elementary, mid-
dle and high schools in the area.
"We want to make our faculty
available to pre-college teachers"
Canning said. "We'd like to have
professors running summer pro-
grams and workshops, which would
provide for these teachers access to
cutting-edge information."
In the coming months,the insti-
tute will feature presentations by
various history scholars as part
of its program "The Thursday
Series." Discussions in the series
will cover a variety of topics,
including urban history, cultural
hegemony in Europe and global
Christianity. The lectures will
explore the institute's theme this
year, "History and the Visual."
Although the Eisenbergs' dona-
tion is the largest ever received
by the history department, it's
only a quarter of the amount of
LSA's largest donation. The larg-
est was a $20 million donation to
LSA for the creation of the Fran-
kel Institute for Advanced Judaic
Studies.
The University's history
department is frequently ranked
as one of the top five programs in
the country.
Canning said she believes the
department, aided by the Eisen-
bergs' donation, will eventually
take the number-one spot.
"We definitely think we can
reach it," she said. "In fact, I
think the dean would like to see
us reach it."
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico
warned yesterday that the U.S. pro-
posal to build miles of border fence
will damage relations between the
two countries.
The Foreign Relations Depart-
ment said it was "deeply worried"
about the proposal, which is work-
ing its way through the Senate,
adding it will "increase tension in
border communities."
"These measures will harm the
bilateral relationship. They are
against the spirit of co-operation
that is needed to guarantee secu-
rity on the common border," the
department said in a statement.
The House of Representatives
and Senate are maneuvering to
speed construction of a 700-mile
fence along the United States'
southern border aimed at keeping
migrants and criminals from enter-
ing the country illegally.
A House-Senate homeland secu-
rity funding bill containing $1.2
billion to begin building the fence
could be passed and sent to Presi-
dent Bush before lawmakers depart
Washington this weekend.
Mexico's Foreign Relations
Department said that only a com-
prehensive immigration reform
would stop millions of Mexicans
sneaking across its northern des-
ert and swimming over the Rio
Grande into the United States.
"A partial measure that is exclu-
sively focused on security does not
deal with reality and represents a
political answer rather than a viable
solution;'it said in the statement.
President Vicente Fox has rallied
against the wall, calling it "shame-
ful" and comparing it to the Berlin
Wall, which divided Germany.
CODE
Continued from page 1.
opposed the amendment said
legal representation for students
could make the academic hear-
ing resemble a criminal or civil
procedure.
This year, Holzrichter said
MSA's Code of donduct Adviso-
ry Board plans to put the right-
to-counsel amendment back on
the table, but with a few changes
he hopes will make the proposal
more palatable to administra-
tors.
"We're going to try and find a
compromise over what types of
cases and in what circumstances
a lawyer can be involved," he
said. "We may not get every-
thing, but we'll at least make
some progress."
Currently, a student is allowed
to have a personal adviser - who
may be an attorney - present at
hearings. However, the personal
adviser cannot speak for the stu-
dent or question witnesses.
The advisory board also plans
to tackle the code's alcohol pol-
icy. Infractions such as illegally
possessing, distributing, manu-
facturing or selling alcohol are
subject to the same consequenc-
es as other violations listed in
the statement.
The advisory board plans to
propose that first-time offend-
ers for alcohol-related violations
be referred to counseling or to
University Health Services rath-
er than undergoing disciplinary
action.
"It's important to address
alcohol issues on this campus,
but we have to be educational
and fair to their records," Hol-
zrichter said. "Any time you're
found to have violated the state-
ment, it goes on your record.
Your record can be disclosed to
grad schools and future employ-
ers."
Some students have reser-
vations about both the current
statement and the proposed
changes.
LSA senior Kaitlin Towner
said she didn't believe counsel-
ing is necessary for students
who are caught drinking.
"I don't think that most people
drinking on campus are alcohol-
ics," Towner said, pointing at a
copy of the statement. "Drink-
ing is just a part of college life.
Nobody really thinks about this
before they're going to drink."
Others believe loosening the
alcohol policy could be benefi-
cial to students.
"I think you should definitely
not get punished your first time
for alcohol," Kinesiology fresh-
man Jerald Wolff said.
Other issues being considered
by the advisory board include
whether gender expression
should be protected, the Uni-
versity's stance on fake IDs and
allowing students to wait a day
before they accept responsibility
for an accusation leveled against
them.
Because MSA is in the early
stages of the amendment pro-
cess, University administrators
declined to comment on the pro-
posed ideas.
The Office of Student Con-
flict Resolution, which enforces
the statement, is playing a sup-
portive and consultative role in
the process.
Holzrichter said the advisory
board welcomes students' input
and encouraged students to
become involved in drafting the
amendments.
"This reflects our community
values, these are the rules that
govern our day-to-day lives,"
STUDY
Continued from page 1
to diversity weakens feelings of
threats from other races.
Even people who live in diverse
neighborhoods and say they have
friends from other races often
reported feelings of competition,
Hutchings said.
"If the aim is to reduce percep-
tions of intergroup threats by fos-
tering intergroup contacts, our data
suggests that's not going to hap-
pen;' he said.
Less than 20 percent of whites
said they believed more political
influence for other racial and ethnic
groups threatened their own politi-
cal influence, while more than half
of all Hispanics, Asians and blacks
said more influence for whites
threatened their own influence.
To a lesser degree, minor-
ity groups also view each other as
political competition.
Such feelings of competition
can lead to a lack of cooperation
among groups on important politi-
cal issues, Hutchings said.
"People are more likely to see
folks in these groups as competi-
tion rather than partners," he said.
"And it undercuts the incentive to
work together."
The study, conducted by the
Institute for Social Research,
marks the first time such a large
amount of multi-racial and multi-
ethnic national political data has
been collected, Hutchings said.
"The literature in politi-
cal science about why people
behave politically has been
generated almost exclusively by
looking at white Americans,"
Hutchings said. "We're curi-
ous as to what theories used
to explain political behavior
in whites also apply to Asian-
Americans or Latinos."
Some types of political behav-
iors differ across races, the study
found.
For example, the study shows
that whites who identify them-
selves as more religious tend to
be Republicans, while blacks who
identify as more religious tend to
be Democrats.
Other races show little corre-
spondence between faith and polit-
ical preference.
FBI
Continued from page 1
making wise decisions - a tra-
dition started by former head
coach Bo Schembechler.
"Life is tough, it's tougher
when you're stupid," Stejskal
says, quoting John Wayne. "I tell
them that. Sometimes it works
and sometimes it doesn't."
The Ann Arbor FBI office
frequently works with campus
police investigating high-pro-
file criminal cases and doing
background checks on students
applying to work for the federal
government.
Stejskal has a long history of
working on cases involving the
University.
He worked on the Ted Kaczyn-
ski investigation in the late 1990s.
Kaczynski, a University alum, is
better known as the Unabomber.
Stejskal still keeps a copy of part
of Kaczynski's diary at home.
In 1998, Stejskal tracked
down a thief who stole a meteor-
ite from the University's Muse-
um of Natural History. In 1967,
he helped investigate the theft
of Picasso and Henry Moore
paintings from the University's
Museum of Art.
When former University stu-
dent Jake Baker posted dark
fantasies on the Internet about
raping, torturing and killing
college-age women, including
one of his classmates, Stejskal
headed the investigation.
Baker, who was acquitted
based on his right to free speech,
was the first person in the world
to be prosecuted for making
threats on the Internet.
The Ann Arbor FBI office,
a branch of the main Michigan
office located in Detroit, covers
five counties and over a million
people. Stejskal has worked on
crime investigations throughout
the state and collaborated on
cases all over the continent.
"The thing I enjoy the most is
making cases from nothing and
putting bad guys in jail," Stejs-
kal said.
During Stejskal's first year at
the FBI, he tackled one homi-
cide investigation and four high-
profile kidnappings, including
the mysterious disappearance
of legendary mafia boss Jimmy
Hoffa.
The walls of his office are cov-
ered with news clippings, maga-
zine articles and photographs
that chronicle his achievements
during his time at the FBI.
Stejskal was involved in the
largest steroid investigation in
U.S. history. A decade before
baseball star Jose Canseco
admitted to using steroids in
2005, Stejskal uncovered evi-
dence of Canseco's drug use.
Major League Baseball offi-
cials did nothing, even though
the results of Stejskal's inves-
tigation were published in the
New York Daily News.
The three-year undercover
operation began in 1990. Stejs-
kal tracked down dealers all over
the country and into Canada and
Mexico. Labels torn from the
bottles of seized counterfeit ste-
roids hang on Stejskal's walls.
Stejskal also volunteered
with the FBI's Special Weap-
ons Assault Team for 20 years.
Stejskal has a framed Newsweek
article hanging on his wall with
a headline that reads "Clever-
ness - and luck." The clipping
features a photo of Stejskal's
unit storming the house of Terry
Nichols, the Oklahoma City
bomber, two days after they blew
up most of the Alfred P. Murrah
Federal Building in Oklahoma
City, Okla., killing 168 people.
Senior Resident Agent
Michael Brennan will take over
Stejskal's position at the end of
next month, but the man in the
corner office has yet to make
any post-retirement plans.
For now, Stejskal has more
pressing issues at hand.
Looking around the office, he
said: "I don't know where I'm
gonna put all this stuff."