by the University of Michigan

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Overweight men have a better chance of surviving a crash, but only if they’re wearing a safety belt, according to the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.

In a new study in the current issue of the journal Traffic Injury Prevention, UMTRI researchers Michael Sivak, Brandon Schoettle and Jonathan Rupp found that belted male drivers who are obese (those with a Body Mass Index between 35 and 50) have a 22 percent lower probability of being killed if involved in a fatal crash than belted male drivers who are underweight (those with a BMI between 15 and 18.4).

However, the opposite is true for unbelted males, they say. The probability of being killed is 10 percent higher for unbelted male drivers with a BMI between 35 and 50, compared to those with a BMI between 15 and 18.4.

The UMTRI researchers analyzed data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for nearly 300,000 drivers involved in fatal crashes in the United States from 1998 to 2008—about 51 percent of whom were killed. They found that, overall, drivers who fail to wear safety belts are 2.1 times as likely to die in a fatal crash as those who are belted.

Further, their results indicate that female drivers are 1.1 times as likely to dies as male drivers. However, for women who wear safety belts, a normal BMI leads to the lowest risk of death, while both higher and lower BMIs increase the risk.

Belted female drivers with a BMI between 35 and 50 have a 10 percent higher probability of being killed in a crash than those with a normal BMI between 18.5 and 24.9. Likewise, the probability of being killed is 8 percent higher for those with a BMI between 15 and 18.4, compared to those with a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9.

The researchers found no statistically significant differences among the BMI categories for unbelted women drivers.

“Our findings suggest that for increasing BMI, the optimal balance between the positive effects of extra cushioning and negative effects of extra mass and momentum depends on the gender of the driver and the use of safety belts,” said Sivak, research professor and head of UMTRI’s Human Factors Division.

­“At a similar BMI, men are generally heavier than women because of height differences. Therefore, a man is more likely to overload the airbag, resulting in the increase in risk with increasing BMI for unbelted men. The decrease in risk with increasing BMI for belted men is likely because the safety belt tends to prevent this overloading.”

Overall, Sivak and colleagues say their findings suggest that the designs of airbags, safety belts, knee restraints, seats and other components of occupant-restraint systems may need to be improved to better protect drivers and their passengers at both extremes of BMI.

“Doing this will likely require new tools that can be used to evaluate the ability of restraint systems to mitigate injury potential, such as new crash-test dummies and finite-element models, because current dummies and models represent normal BMI occupants,” Sivak said.

­by the El Reportero’s news services

Alvaro Uribe

Colombia’s electoral campaign for presidential elections on May 30 officially got underway last week, but voters are none the wiser as to who will be contesting them.

Until the constitutional court decides whether or not President Alvaro Uribe is able to stand for a second re-election, his prospective rivals have not even bothered to pull together electoral manifestoes.

The uncertainty surrounding Uribe means that rather less attention has been paid to the congressional elections due to be held on March 14. The deadline for candidates to register for these elections was Feb. 2. The signs are that parapolitics (the term coined to denote collusion between politicians and paramilitaries), which so discredited the present congress, has not been purged from political life.

The Cubanisation of Venezuela

On Feb. 4, President Hugo Chávez commemorated the 18th anniversary of his failed coup attempt against the former president, Carlos Andrés Pérez, with a defiant call to battle, as the Caracas metropolitan police again dispersed opposition students with tear gas and water cannon. Chávez is in provocative pre-electoral mode, though it is unclear what his next move will be.

His most wild-eyed opponents claim that he is preparing to declare an ‘autogolpe’ and cancel this year’s scheduled legislative elections. We would argue that given his near total control over the main state institutions, including the army, he has no need to do so. Furthermore the opposition has the habit of tripping itself up, without any input from Chávez.

In other Venezuela’s news:

After more ‘pre-war’ tirades Hugo Chávez, says he’s considering talks with Obam

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez continued to raise the temperature of what has been described as a ‘pre-war’ situation, accusing the US of violating Venezuelan airspace with aircraft flying from Curaçao, and Colombia of preparing to launch an incursion on the pretext of attacking a guerrilla camp inside Venezuela.

He then went on to accuse the US of using the earthquake in Haiti as cover for a military occupation of that country. Then came a sudden change of tack: an announcement that he was ‘evaluating’ an offer of talks by US president Barack Obama.

­Congress reconvenes amid uncertainty

On Feb. 1 congress reconvened for its second session since the mid-term elections in July 2009. The current short session (which ends before Easter) looks as though it will confirm President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa as a lameduck. The opposition-controlled congress has signaled that it will not approve many of Calderón’s ambitious political reform suggestions. The consensus in congress, and among political commentators, is that the reforms, far from strengthening the legislature as Calderón claimed, will weaken it…

by Adrian Rochaand Ruth Gened

Despite the short shrift President Obama gave immigration reform in his State of the Union speech to Congress Jan. 27, the White House remains firmly committed to passage of comprehensive immigration reform this year, claim key advocates who follow the issue on a daily basis.

Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, the nation’s most prominent immigration reform advocacy group, and Angela Kelley, vice president for immigration policy and advocacy at the Center for American Progress, briefed Hispanic Link News Service and a select group of other journalists Jan. 29 about their ongoing sessions with White House and congressional leaders in the seemingly never-ending reform negotiations.

Rejecting conventional wisdom, they have pieced together the essential scenario for gathering enough votes to move a bill through Congress before the mid-term November elections. “The White House is operating full steam ahead,” Sharry insisted. “The activity on the inside, which they are deliberately not making public, is with an intensity that shows they are getting ready for a legislative battle.” Capital Hill veteran Kelley contributed, “This remains a priority for the President. It is an issue where I have never seen so much being done by Cabinet secretaries, high-level White House people, senators and staff that nobody knows about.

“That’s not an accident. This is an initiative. We know that if you put a bill out there, it has a major target on its back and the [opponents] will go after it and go after it hard. So, it’s very deliberative,” she said.

Earlier that week, a high-ranking Administration official described to Hispanic Link the President’s assessment as “optimistic,” but conceded, “We all know that it is not going through without Congress’s support.”

Sharry and Kelley said Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (RSC) are close to completing work on bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform legislation — a bill that unlike health care, will pick up some bipartisan support.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (DNev.), they added, remains fully committed to moving forward with a bill. He faces a difficult reelection battle in a state with a significant Hispanic population.

“They are working on it,” Sharry said. “Schumer and Graham want an additional Republican and Democrat to flank them when they roll it out. Clearly, Graham doesn’t want to be the only Republican out there. Who will it be? Well, there are lots of names being mentioned but no one has signed on, and we are not interested in putting targets on anyone’s back.”

The strongly pro-immigrant bill introduced last month by Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) will dates can and must appeal to this swing group. “The politicians have finally figured out that the Latino immigrant vote is where\ the action is,” Sharry said.

Still, many — maybe even most — Hispanic advocates and leaders (the latter not for attribution) hold little hope for passage of an immigration bill this election year. Only one Latino in Congress, Democratic Rep. likely be pushed aside, but he is expected to remain a player in the process.

To gain a bit of bipartisan backing, Kelley said, “There’s a small window of Republicans who are possible, maybe six or seven.”

Sharry and Kelley asserted that immigration reform is no longer a divisive issue that congressional moderates need to shy away from. Referring to the 2006 and 2008 elections, Sharry said, “Illegal immigration didn’t work as a wedge issue. In fact, the demonization of Latino immigrants served to mobilize Latino voters who turned out in record numbers in the last two elections,” It is really why immigration reform has a chance in this Congress, he said.

Sharry said Republican Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts to fill the U.S. Senate seat of the late Edward Kennedy would not stall immigration reform as it has health care.

He mentioned a poll (Politico/Insider Advantage, ­www.southernpoliticalreport.com/storylink_128_1238.aspx, showing Brown won more than three-fourths of the Hispanic vote as evidence that GOP canddates can and must appeal to this swing group. “The politicians have finally figured out that the Latino immigrant vote is where the action is,” Sharry said.

Still, many — maybe even most — Hispanic advocates and leaders (the latter not for attribution) hold little hope for passage of an immigration bill this election year. Only one Latino in Congress, Democratic Rep. Henry Cuéllar of Texas, has dared to opine publically that it’s a dead issue.

Speaking to Adrian Campo-Flores of Newsweek, Rev. Samuel Rodríguez of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, which has campaigned for a reform package, referred to Obama’s remarks as “the death knell of immigration reform in 2010.” If that happens, it’s a given that the Democratic Party, with Obama at the top of the list, will be the biggest immediate loser with the Hispanic electorate. Obama’s failure in his State of the Union address to utter the words “comprehensive immigration reform” or mention its essential elements infuriated thousands who trusted his oft-repeated campaign promise to address reform during his first year in office.

A “Viewer Guide” released to the press by the White House the day of Obama’s speech clearly stated his commitment to “a path for legalization” for the country’s estimated 12 million undocumented residents. These words were absent from his address to Congress.

Cuando salgas a bailar, deja la pistola en casa

­by the El Reportero’s staff

SFPD investigate a shooting in the Mission­.

A peaceful and cool night outside and a joyful dancing event inside were interrupted on Wednesday, Feb. 3, when two African American men started a brawl at a local night club near Mission and 22nd St. at approximately 1 a.m. After they were removed from the club by security guards, the issue didn’t end there, one of the individuals pulled a gun and shot the other in a leg, according to witnesses.

While the wounded man was taken to the hospital, the police cordoned the area of 22nd and Capp to Bartlett streets, and on Mission from 22nd to 23er Street, searching for the bullet shell and questioning witness who gave vague accounts of the incident (see photo above).

According to Mission Police Station’s officer Ortega, the suspect was still at large. A woman in handcuffs was questioned. A couple of Muni buses remained unmoving as the street was closed with police yellow tape for approximately one and half hour.

­by the University of Michigan

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A protein acting as a switch to activate the cell death process may prove to be an effective targeted treatment for killing cancer cells.

University of Michigan researchers discovered that the protein called RIP plays a role in mediating both the life and death of squamous cell carcinoma cancer cells, said Yvonne Kapila, associate professor, Department of Periodontics and Oral Medicine at the School of Dentistry.

This is key because cancer cells elude the normal cell death process. If that process could be activated artificially by a targeted introduction of RIP into cancer patients, those cells could be destroyed before they circulate out of control in the body, Kapila said.

The findings are promising but still a long way from being used as a therapy, Kapila said. Researchers still need to show that introducing RIP is safe before it can be tested in humans.

Kapila’s lab set out to find a mechanism that activates cell life and death. “The cell must analyze multiple signals and say, ‘OK, am I going to die or am I going to live,’” Kapila said. “We felt there must be some kind of communication between pathways of life and death otherwise the cell will be confused and not know what to do.”

­Researchers looked at squamous cell carcinoma cells from head and neck tumors and also fibroblasts from mice, but the findings could apply to other cancers as well since the death process is largely the same. They found that RIP was indeed the communicator, interacting with a cell death protein called FAS and with a protein called FAK during cell survival conditions.

Normal cells usually need to attach to a matrix to survive, and die if detached, Kapila said. This unique type of cell death caused by detachment from the matrix is called anoikis. Cancer cells can detach from a matrix but elude anoikis and circulate freely, which allows them to spread and metastasize in the body.

“This is a great advantage,” Kapila said. “They can go wherever they like and find a happy home and set up shop there.”

Next, researchers modified, or knocked out, portions of RIP to see which parts were critical in each process, Kapila said.

“In the future if one were to use this for therapy, if we know which pieces of the protein are important for each function, we know where to focus,” Kapila said.

The next step is to study the process in mice and analyze patient samples of RIP at different levels.

In a separate project, Kapila’s group is examining a separate molecule and its success in shrinking tumors, and how it interacts with RIP.

­