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Iowa prison inmates making more than license plates

November 25, 2011 By

Iowa prison inmates are doing more than creating license plates these days. Dan Clark, director of Iowa Prison Industries (IPI), says inmates are now producing “green” cleaning chemicals, converting text books into Braille for the blind, and making clothes – including the familiar orange prison jumpsuits.

“We also make a lot of school furniture for different school districts and community colleges,” Clark said. “We make dormitory furniture for all the Regents universities and a number of private colleges and community colleges in Iowa.” In Rockwell City, inmates even weld and assemble prison cells.

IPI does not receive an appropriation from the state. Clark says they’re able to sell their products and cover expenses. “In fact, last year we returned to the state or the prisons – more than a million dollars from our various activities,” Clark said. “We don’t use any taxpayer money and actually return some taxpayer refunds to the state.”

Some IPI products are donated to charities. Earlier this month, Iowa inmates built and installed a custom business center for the Ronald McDonald House in Iowa City.

IPI employs roughly 700 inmates at eight Iowa’s prisons – with the largest operation in Anamosa. Clark says prisoners who work for IPI are shown to be more successful upon release.

“A prisoner who’s released and hasn’t held down a job and doesn’t have good work habits – they’re really going to struggle to reenter society,” Clark said. “We work with our offenders to have a resume, sit through performance reviews and work in a team environment. So, when they get out (of prison) they can speak to employers about what they have done. That makes a huge difference when they do get out.”

Filed Under: Crime & Courts, Human Interest, News

Using measles to fight cancer? It’s possible…

November 25, 2011 By

Medical researchers at the University of Iowa are taking part in an international study on measles that could eventually provide a new weapon in cancer treatment.

Dr. Patrick Sinn, a pediatrics professor at the U-of-I, says their research has up-ended the long-held school of thought on the movement of measles, which afflicts ten-million children globally each year.

“Measles has always been thought to infect the lung cells first and then spread throughout the body,” Dr. Sinn says. “What we found over the course of our investigation is that’s backwards. It gets in through immune cells and gets directed to your lymphatic system and then it replicates throughout your body and then the last place is hits is your airway cells.”

Central Iowa had a measles scare this May when a Dallas County child tested positive for measles after taking a flight from Chicago to Des Moines.

About a hundred people were tested in connection with the case, but no one else was infected. In 2009, a child from Spencer was infected, prompting hundreds of people to be tested though again, none were infected.

“In the United States, we don’t typically think of measles as a problem because most people are vaccinated,” Sinn says. “However, you do see on the news where measles outbreaks have occurred especially among people who don’t have their children vaccinated. It’s also a huge problem in foreign countries where they don’t have access to vaccinations.”

While measles kills about 120,000 children worldwide each year, the measles virus is also deadly to certain cancer cells.

Researchers are still learning how measles attacks and destroys select types of ovarian and brain cancers and hope to apply their findings.

It’s possible other cancer types, including lung and breast, could be targeted with measles virus, which researchers hope will prove to be a less toxic treatment than chemotherapy or radiation.

Sinn says, “It’s still important to really understand how measles is spread, not only within your body but between people, since measles is typically considered one of the most contagious viruses that exist.”

Symptoms of measles include: a high fever, cough, runny nose, watery eyes and a red rash that moves from the face to the rest of the body.

Other university research teams taking part in the study are in: Minnesota, North Carolina, Germany, Canada and France.

Filed Under: Health & Medicine, News

King says race against Christie Vilsack in “top five” nationally

November 25, 2011 By

Republican Congressman Steve King says he does not anticipate voluntarily going back into the business world.

King, who is 62 years old, owned and operated a western Iowa earth-moving company when he was elected to the state senate in 1996. He’s been a member of the U.S. House of Representatives since 2003.

“I don’t anticipate going back to the private sector. I’m all in on public service,” King says. “I love this work and I’ve told people a number of times that this is nine years in congress — it’s gone by like it was a single year.”

King plans to seek reelection to congress in 2012 and he will likely face Democrat Christie Vilsack, Iowa’s former first lady whose husband is a cabinet secretary in the Obama Administration. King predicts the contest will be among the top five most closely-watched congressional races in the country.

“I take the reelection effort for the new fourth district very seriously,” King says, “…seriously enough to put out some effort to raise some money the last quarter.”

King raised over $600,000 in the first three quarters of the  year and had half-a-million dollars cash in his campaign account at the end of September. Christie Vilsack raised nearly $760,000 during the same period and on September 30 had over $545,000 cash on hand.

But there’s a major political event before the November 2012 election — the Iowa Caucuses. King sponsored a forum last February in Des Moines that featured a handful of politicians who said at the time they were mulling a race for the White House. King says there are a “couple of things” that are “holding him back” from endorsing one of the 2012 candidates.

“I don’t yet see a presidential candidate that’s laid out a financial plan for America, that fixes this financial problem that we are in. I am calling upon them to do that, put that plan out,” King says. “The second thing is I haven’t heard yet from any of them the ‘Shining City on a Hill’ speech that lets me understand that they have the vision for the destiny of America. Those two things are a couple of things that could settle me on a candidate, if I heard them.”

King has been a long and ardent critic of the concept of “amnesty” for illegal immigrants and he says the views Newt Gingrich holds on that issue make it “hard” to think of endorsing Gingrich.

King made his comments during taping of the Iowa Public Television program, “Iowa Press,” which airs tonight at 7:30. The video of the show has been posted online.

Filed Under: News, Politics & Government Tagged With: , , ,

Three Iowa cities rank among best in U.S.A. for credit scores

November 25, 2011 By

On this big shopping day, Iowa’s three largest cities rank toward the very top of a new survey that lists metro areas based on their average credit score.

Out of 143 communties nationwide, Cedar Rapids placed fourth in the country, while Des Moines ranked 16th and Davenport came in at #24.

Rod Griffin is a spokesman for Experion, a consumer and business credit reporting company. Griffin says the state’s showing is very good and Cedar Rapids’ placement is outstanding.

“What it tell us is, the people of Cedar Rapids, despite all of the economic challenges we’re seeing around the country, are still doing relatively well in managing their debts and managing their credit,” Griffin says. “They’re staying on top of things they need to stay on top of to ensure they can get the credit they need.”

The higher the number, the better. Cedar Rapids’ average credit score was 781. Des Moines’ score was 773, while Davenport was 769. The national average is 749. The top-ranking city was Wausau, Wisconsin, with an average score of 789.

“The credit score represents the information in your credit report and it’s a measure of general credit risk,” Griffin says. “Good credit scores mean that a person is a good credit risk and tells us that you are managing your debts well, which is also a sign of financial health.”

Griffin says the report offers consumers some vital financial benchmarks.

Griffin says, “Credit scores are important because they can be a tool people can use to get a good idea of where they stand in terms of their credit-worthiness and their ability to get credit if they need it.”

To see the full state-by-state report, visit: www.livecreditsmart.com, or to get your own free credit report once a year, go to: www.annualcreditreport.com.

 

Filed Under: Business, News

DHS wants to preserve Medicaid eligibility for jailed Iowans

November 25, 2011 By

Officials in the Iowa Department of Human Services are working to prevent some of the folks who’re on Medicaid from losing their benefits if they’re sent to jail.

Right now, when someone on Medicaid goes to jail, their benefits are terminated. The county covers their medical bills during lock up, but when they get out they have to reapply for Medicaid benefits. Ann Weibers of the Iowa Department of Human Services says mental health advocates say it’s a dangerous cycle for some people who are taking medications. 

“What we heard from the advocates was a concern that people were leaving jail and not regaining their Medicaid and then not getting prescriptions filled, not getting back on medications and then reoffending and then going back into jail,” Weibers says.

Weibers says helping mentally troubled individuals get their meds so they don’t commit another crime is cheaper for the state. 

“It’s cheaper than incarceration, absolutely, and it also helps the individual,” she says. “I think we all have the same goals of helping people get the help that they need, especially when they’re dealing with mental health issues.”

Last spring, the governor and state legislators agreed to suspend some Medicaid eligibility for up to a year while  a person was incarcerated, so they don’t have to reapply when released from jail. Weibers says the legislation only covered the elderly and the disabled, but federal authorities require the state to provide the same benefit to pregnant women and minors. 

“These are people who are already eligible for Medicaid when they go in,” Wiebers says, “…so what this will do is it reduces the paperwork that has to happen between the person leaving jail and DHS.”

The new rule should be in affect by the end of the year.

Filed Under: Health & Medicine, News, Politics & Government Tagged With: , , ,

Iowans are warned about buying prescription drugs online

November 25, 2011 By

Rural Iowans who have to make a long trek to a drug store might consider buying their prescription medications online, but they’re being warned against it.

Carmen Catizone, executive director of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, says most of those websites are flaunting the law, in addition to selling bogus drugs.

“It’s a $75-billion industry and you really can’t buy medications online without a prescription, legally, but unfortunately, you’re able to do so and you’re able to do so with websites that are operating illegally, are dangerous and are probably selling counterfeit drugs,” Catizone says.

An association study of online drug stores revealed just how crooked most of those businesses have become.

“We looked at over 8,000 websites selling prescription drugs,” Catizone says. “Ninety-six-percent of those websites were fake, rogue or illegal sites that were breaking both federal and state law.”

He says it’s even more disturbing to hear that any type of drug, from diet pills to pain killers, can be purchased online and without a prescription.

Catizone says, “You can order virtually any prescription drug in the world that you want, but the other side of the issue is, if you’re not using a legal, on-site pharmacy or talking to your doctor, the chances of what you are getting being a real med are probably nil and the dangers of using or taking or buying those meds are high and very significant.”

He says counterfeit medication manufacturers have become very skilled at producing convincing products that look like the real thing, but they’re usually made in unsanitary conditions and contain dangerous substances, like rat poison or lead.

Erectile drugs are the most-counterfeited. The study also found one in six Americans bought medications online last year.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts, Health & Medicine, News, Technology

Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation issues flood report

November 25, 2011 By

A report from the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation shows the organization awarded $5.7 million in grants to help residents of the city recover from the 2008 flood.

Foundation president and CEO Les Garner says the money came from 2,200 donors located in 43 states and four countries outside the United States. “The majority of the funds came from within this community and across the state of Iowa,” Garner said.

The 2008 flood caused an estimated $3 billion in damage in Cedar Rapids – impacting 5,000 homes and 700 businesses.

The report shows the foundation awarded flood recovery grants to 81 local, nonprofit organizations. “A large portion of that money went to organizations that could help individuals with housing issues…to rebuild and restore those homes,” Garner said. “Some of the other grants went to organizations like Habitat For Humanity to help add to the stock of affordable housing for people who couldn’t return to their homes.”

Grants were also directed toward agencies that provide counseling for both flood victims and professionals serving people affected by the flood. Garner said grants also helped nonprofit organizations that were displaced by the flood.

The largest flood recovery grant awarded by the foundation, just over $1.2 million, went to the Affordable Housing Network. That agency helped spearhead the Block By Block program — which, to date, has helped rebuild around 275 homes.

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters, News
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