RIB

Tuberculosis identified

The Gallagher Student Health Center has announced that they have identified a student with an active case of tuberculosis. The student with TB does not live on-campus and is being treated in isolation off-campus.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, TB is transmitted via the air when a person with an active case coughs or sneezes. People having a latent or dormant case of TB do not suffer any symptoms and cannot spread the disease until the infection becomes active.

CDC recommendations state that anyone who has had 30 minute one-on-one meetings with infected individuals should be screened, but RPI is trying to go beyond that. The Health Center is contacting students who have had casual and short meetings with the individual and offerering them free screenings.

Anyone who has TB can be treated and cured if they seek medical care. Dormant cases can be confirmed by a skin test that the Student Health Center is offering for free to students, faculty, and staff.

The Health Center can be reached at 276-6287. When classes are in session, the Health Center is open Monday through Friday from 8 am until 6 pm, and Saturday and Sunday from 1 pm until 5 pm.

Anthrax antidote

RPI Merck Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering Ravi Kane was recently awarded a $2.1 million grant from the National Institute of Health to develop an antidote for the anthrax toxin that could be used as both a preventive measure on healthy individuals and as a cure to for people who have come into contact with the poison.

Though existing antibiotics can destroy the anthrax bacteria, they cannot destroy the toxin that kills people. Kane has said of his team’s research that “the goal is to develop a compound that can be manufactured quickly and affordably to effectively eliminate the threat of a large-scale bioterrorist anthrax attack.” Kane has already created a substance that neutralizes the anthrax toxin, but it has not been tested on anthrax spores or in people.

The goal of the NIH study is to have human clinical tests at the end of the four year study. Working with Kane on the RPI team are graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and chemistry professors Jim Moore and Mark Wentland. The other teams in the study are from the University of Toronto, Biophage Pharma Incorporated in Montreal, and Ordway Research Institute Incorporated in Albany.

State of the city

Troy Mayor Harry Tutunjian gave his first State of the City address last Thursday. Among his proposals will be a plan to not assess property taxes on people who build houses on land that is currently vacant.

The Republican mayor cited Columbus, Ohio as a community that had seen success from a similar program. Republican City Council President Marjorie DerGurahian

said she was in favor of such a program and one of the two Democrats on the council agreed.

Another issue that Tutunjian spoke of was cleaning up blight in the city. He cited recent cleanups of sites throughout the city and said that he would lead an “action team” to continue the trend. He stressed that he wants to give people more reasons to move into Troy.

The mayor also addressed financial issues related to the tripling in retirement benefits. According to Tutunjian, he has made over $140,000 in salary and benefit cuts. After the speech he stated, “We have a big challenge ahead of us.”

Bishop denies claims

Last week, Bishop Howard Hubbard of the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese denied allegations that he had sexual involvement with two men in the 1970s.

The first allegations were made public by Andrew Zalay last Wednesday after he found notes written by his brother while cleaning out his late mother’s house. His brother Thomas committed suicide by lighting himself on fire in the family home several years ago. The two notes Andrew Zalay made public included a typewritten note detailing an affair with Hubbard and a handwritten suicide note that did not name Hubbard.

After Hubbard denied the allegations in Zalay’s notes, saying that he has “honored [his] vow of celibacy,” Anthony Bonneau also accused Hubbard of having an affair with him. Now 40, Bonneau claimed that between 1976 and 1979, Hubbard paid him at least twice for sexual encounters.

Bishop since 1977, Hubbard denied Bonneau’s allegations as well. The Diocese, in the meantime, has asked Albany County District Attorney Paul Clyne to investigate both claims against Hubbard.