MPD REPORTS CRIME DECREASE

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@badgerherald MPD crime report prompts community calls for crime prevention

MPD reports decrease in crime after shift in focus to crime-prevention strategies, increased community engagement

by Meredith Opie

Reporter

The Madison Police Department reported a decrease in crime this summer, from May 24 to Aug. 16, after implementing numerous crime-prevention strategies.

Crime declined in all targeted areas except for car theft, disorderly conduct and simple assaults in that time period, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.

To accomplish this, MPD Chief of Police Shon Barnes said MPD instructed each district to identify three crimes they expected to see a rise in and then to develop strategies, problem-solving techniques and accountability metrics for each of those crimes.

According to Barnes, MPD also used problem-oriented policing, which involves scanning a specific crime problem, analyzing that problem, designing a response, then creating an assessment. One of the most successful strategies MPD used was a focus on community engagement, Barnes said.

“It’s really all about relationships and community building,” Barnes said. “And when I say community, the police are part of that too. When I say community members, I’m talking about the police, I’m talking about people who don’t wear the badge, I’m talking about elected officials, I’m talking about the media. My version of community consensus building is that we all are working towards the good of Madison, not just one group.”

Assistant Chief of Police Brian Austin said MPD also focused on a theory called the Koper Curve. According to the Koper Curve theory, random police presence in crime hot spots for 11-15 minutes and community engagement in those areas will reduce crime and increase community trust.

The Koper Curve theory builds community bonding between everyone from neighbors to police officers. This brings the community together and makes MPD more visible within Madison hotspots, Austin said.

“This was a great opportunity for us to get back out into the neighborhoods, both with our squad patrol and foot patrol, talk to residents and at the same time show a visible presence,” Austin said. “That alone I think helps deter behavior we would like to dissuade.”

Chief Barnes said moving forward, MPD will continue to use these successful strategies, while also continuing to focus on the crimes that have the greatest impact on the Madison communities and residents.

City of Madison District 8 Alderperson Juliana Bennett said crime prevention strategies within MPD are a step in the right direction for the city.

“Crime prevention strategies are important in Madison and really any city in the U.S. because it comes down to responding to community needs and asking

the question, ‘Why are people committing crimes in the first place?’” Bennett said.

Bennett said MPD still has work to do within Madison’s communities of color. She said MPD must evaluate the barriers specific Madison communities face and ensure people’s basic needs are being met in order to help minimize crime.

Bennett said MPD can accomplish this by collaborating with community organizations and continuing to value community engagement and partnerships.

“Addressing these disparities really comes down to a couple of things — responding to the actual needs of the communities, providing services for these folks and the Madison Police Department partnering with community organizations and nonprofits,” Bennett said.

According to Bennett, the MPD budget should reflect all the needs of the community — one of the most pressing needs in District 8 is mental health.

MPD recently launched Madison Community Alternative Response Emergency Services, also known as Madison CARES, Sept. 1, 2021. Madison CARES is a program for Madison residents experiencing behavioral health crises, according to MPD. The program sends a community paramedic and a Journey Mental Health Crisis worker to respond to nonviolent behavioral health emergencies, rather than police officers, MPD said.

“CARES is where we need to start moving funds to support community needs, instead of just adding more cops and hoping that somehow crime decreases,” Bennett said. “Police officers who don’t have extensive training in mental health aren’t the best people to send to these calls. People that are trained mental health providers can respond to those calls.”

Gender Justice Director at Freedom Inc. Jessica Williams said prevention strategies that address the needs of families and residents who are hit hardest in the city are the same strategies that will prevent and reduce crime in Madison.

Lack of housing and income disparity are issues that will lead to an increase in crime, Williams said.

Many Madison residents are struggling to meet the needs of themselves and their families, and crime prevention starts with addressing those struggles.

“Crime prevention is so important because so many people are struggling in so many different ways right now and there are just so many financial factors that are impacting Madison residents and Madison families,” Williams said.

Williams also said MPD has to take steps in acknowledging systemic issues that play a role within policing in Madison. Realizing biases and understanding the history of policing in the U.S. is where transformation occurs, she said.

Austin said MPD was ahead of the curve with instituting implicit bias training, having done so for at least five years now. Chief Barnes said MPD will continue expanding their training but doing so requires certain financial needs.

City of Madison District 10 Ald. Yannette Figueroa Cole said understanding how MPD spends their budget and how successful each of their resources is should play an important part in developing crimeprevention strategies.

In addition to analyzing the effectiveness of the MPD budget, Cole said she believes the best way to reduce the amount of crime in Madison is to maximize collaboration and efforts between agencies across the city.

“I really want to maximize the importance of collaboration with all the agencies in the city,” Cole said. “We need to do a better job of acknowledging that the police department does too much and we should be working collaboratively to solve some of these issues.”

Photo - State Street liasion officers Jessica McLay and Kenneth Brown served to steward the realtionship between the public and the police department in 2015

Jason Chan

The Badger Herald

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Proposals to build luxury apartment on State Street cause concerns

‘[UW] really should get more involved with the conversation of sustainable, affordable housing for its students,’ Ald. Bennett says

by Caroline Robson

Reporter

With plans for a new luxury apartment on State Street, students and city officials are worried about the impact it will have on an already expensive student housing market.

The City of Madison is looking at proposals to redevelop a surface-level parking garage on the corner of Lake Street and State Street. Seven developers have submitted proposals for the site all of which would include building a new parking garage and— as well as an upscale apartment complex ranging from 100 to 300 units, according to the City of Madison.

“I think there’s also something to be said about how the university really wants to create a campus that is more inclusive and welcoming,” District 8 Alderperson Juliana Bennett said. “They really should get more involved with the conversation of sustainable, affordable housing for its students.”

The University of Wisconsin offers on-campus living for all students, but it’s mostly firstyear students who live in on-campus housing, according to the UW Housing website. The average rent for student apartments is around $800 per person, which many UW students consider unaffordable, Bennett said.

Many older houses typically located in neighborhoods a few blocks away from campus offer a cheaper alternative to the more centrally-located high rises, according to RentCollegePads.com. Building high rises in the city allows for these houses to stay more affordable by maximizing the space closest to campus and the city, UW Urban Planning Professor Kurt Paulsen said in an email statement to The Badger Herald.

“If you build more and taller housing closer to the downtown area, folks can walk, bike or take public transit,” Paulsen said. “But if that near-in housing is not built, it gets forced further out in the city or region. If growth is displaced to outlying areas without adequate bus service, folks have to drive cars and this causes traffic congestion and pollution.”

Madison’s geography makes expansion difficult, according to the Madison Neighborhood Indicators Project.

Nestled near the heart of the city and in between two lakes, there is not much room for expanding near campus so building up is one of the only ways to meet the needs of a rising city and student population, Paulsen said.

Apartments may offer low-income units — particularly those that are priced lower and are able to be subsidized through low-income housing tax credits — according to the Tax Policy Center. There are still many roadblocks to giving low-income students affordable housing, Paulsen said.

“One of the challenges for providing affordable housing for students is that most students under age 26 are considered “dependent children” for purposes of qualifying for means-tested federal benefits such as the two major affordable housing programs,” Paulsen said. “Therefore, dependent children are not eligible for either of these programs.”

According to Bennett, UW students and members of the Madison city council have debated the effects of building more luxury high rises. Research and studies on other cities show that meeting the demand for housing will actually drive prices down, Paulsen also said.

“Research is quite clear that building new market-rate housing to accommodate this demand does not cause the price of existing housing to go up,” Paulsen said. “In fact, the opposite is true — not building housing to accommodate demand is the main cause of rapid increases in housing costs in an area.”

Many of these units in the proposed apartments would be priced above market rate, according to current proposals the city.

The population of UW and Madison is growing, with 2021 being UW’s largest freshman class in history, and Madison growing 16% in the last decade. But there isn’t enough housing to meet demand, and building taller apartment buildings is how the cost of housing for students will eventually decrease, Paulsen said.

Many of the proposals feature rooftop spaces, pools, hot tubs, extra parking and luxury amenities — all of which drive up the price of construction and rent, according to the proposals.

“Adding all of these new, shiny luxury high rises isn’t doing anything in the way of actually trying to make [the] campus more affordable in the long run. They want a pool and a hot tub, but we live in Wisconsin,” Bennett said. “A lot of these luxury apartment developers come from out of state and are just using carbon copy models of things that they’ve done in other cities like it will work for Madison. That is not what we need.”

$2.5 million awarded to Dane County to combat youth homelessness Grant will further efforts to aid ‘invisible population’ in city of Madison through Department of Housing and Urban Development

by Graham Brown

Reporter

After four years, the Dane County Continuum of Care and its community received a $2.5 million Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, also known as HUD.

The city’s application was rejected in 2019, but with help from HUD advisors, they were able to position themselves to succeed this time. HUD distributed $142 million to 33 communities, and Dane County was one of 22 non-rural populations to receive the money, according to a recent press release.

The money will allow the city of Madison and Dane County to more effectively tackle the problem of youth homelessness, an issue the county has fundamentally struggled with, Continuum of Care Coordinator Torrie Kopp Mueller said. It also represents a recent shift in the city’s priorities to make a more concerted effort to prioritize youth homelessness.

Over the past two years, Dane County established a committee to solve the youth homelessness problem as well as the Youth Action Board made up of young people with prior experience being unhoused. These steps not only helped bolster the county’s application but helped local leaders better understand the unique problems of youth homelessness, Kopp Mueller said.

“Young people experiencing homelessness tend not to be seen as much,” Kopp Mueller said. “They tend to couch surf, so they’re staying with friends and family, sort of bouncing from place to place. If they end up sleeping unsheltered they work really hard to hide themselves and not be noticed by people.”

The community will have the next six to nine months to put together a plan for where they want to spend the money. Leaders expect to hear from numerous experts and groups such as the CoC’s Youth Action Board and Briarpatch Youth Services, a nonprofit organization that helps serve youth and families in crisis in the Madison area, Kopp Mueller said.

Briarpatch Youth Services is a non-profit that serves 3,000 young people in the Madison area and works closely with local governments to help combat youth homelessness and children who are dealing with violence or economic insecurity.

Briarpatch Executive Director Gloria Reyes outlined some of its goals in the press release.

“Briarpatch is excited for the opportunity to work in collaboration with our community to elevate the issue of youth homelessness in our community and to develop a comprehensive plan that will support and reduce youth experiencing homelessness and obtain sustainable housing,” Reyes said in the press release. “This funding opportunity allows us to proactively prevent homelessness in our community.”

According to Kopp Mueller, the YHDP money cannot be spent on developing more shelters and will likely be spent on programs to bolster services and increase the resources available to the homeless community.

Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway recently appropriated two million dollars for development to help address Madison’s homeless problem. The grant and the Mayor’s budget represent a policy shift that has community leaders on the issue, such as District 6 Alderperson Brian Benford, excited. Benford has 30 years of experience as a social worker in Madison and is especially involved in solving homelessness, which he said was his “life’s work.” He currently represents District 6 on the Madison City Council and serves on the CityCounty Homeless Issues Committee.

“I think we take for granted how important it is where we lay our head at night, where we can sleep safely, where we can begin to heal and begin to lay a foundation,” Benford said. “This [funding] can offer that hope that currently in the city of Madison there isn’t. I am so deeply appreciative of the mayor and the city and county staff to recognize that this was a need.”

Benford and Kopp Mueller expressed hope that the community partnership on this issue could be extended to include the University of Wisconsin and challenged students to get more involved with helping out.

The coming months will determine how the money will be spent and if the city can come up with a comprehensive plan to make a substantial impact on youth homelessness. While all leaders are optimistic about the future, Kopp Mueller and Benford said there will be the ever-present obstacle of helping what Benford referred to as an “invisible population.”

“We live in a tale of two cities now where Madison is an amazing place for those with privilege, but for those that are vulnerable it’s one of the most dismal places in the United States,” Benford said. “As a student, as someone on campus, what can you do to leave a legacy so that people currently your age never have to suffer?”

Shootings down from 2020 but debate over reducing gun violence persists

Many local organizations, agencies wrestle with how to lower gun violence, improve racial equity in city of Madison

by Phoenix Pham

City News Editor

In 2020, crime in the United States fell, except for homicides which increased both in Dane County and the U.S. But this increase is far from its historic highs of the 1990s.

Many Madison community and governmental organizations are working to reduce violent crimes in Dane County with varying approaches on how to address the problem holistically — and with keeping in mind racial equity.

But despite the increase in homicides, it’s important for the public to have a sense of balance when looking at crime statistics, University of Wisconsin Sociology professor Pamela Oliver said.

“Crime, generally, went down in 2020,” Olivers said. “The only thing that went up were homicides. Notice all the headlines about the homicides and no headlines about everything else going down. So what’s going on with homicides? The answer to that is, we don’t know.”

There are many possible reasons for the uptick, Oliver said. It could be the homicide rate bottoming out after declining for so long, the economic and psychological stresses of the pandemic or the proliferation of guns in the U.S., Oliver said.

There’s no evidence the increase was due to police reform, Oliver said.

“So much happened in 2020, but there’s no evidence that police reform had anything to do with homicides,” Oliver said. “One way or the other, you have a whole lot of stuff overlapping at once — what’s the effect of the pandemic, the economic dislocations, the general level of fear and anxiety?”

Current Madison Police Department data shows the number of shootings this year has decreased since 2020 but is still 14% higher than in 2019, Assistant Chief Brian Austin said.

Some of the incidents, such as the driveby shooting of a 17-year-old school student on Lathrop Street, have occurred near the UW campus, according to an MPD incident report.

“Regarding our shots fired [in Madison], it’s more people-based, meaning you’ve got ongoing disputes among different groups of people, and the shots fired occur kind of when those people encounter each other,” Austin said. “They’re not necessarily tied to a particular location.”

Crimes that happen off-campus are outside the UWPD’s jurisdiction, UWPD Department Director of Communications Marc Lovicott said. The UWPD has an alert system, called Off-Campus Alerts, that anyone can opt into to receive information on crimes that the UWPD deems could affect UW students.

The UWPD only issues off-campus alerts for events that happen in the Langdon and State Street area because it’s the densest area of offstudent housing, Lovicott said. The UWPD calls the MPD for each incident to evaluate whether it qualifies as an “ongoing threat to the UW community,” meaning if the MPD resolves the incident before UWPD, then it doesn’t become an off-campus alert, Lovicott said.

For these reasons, some shootings near the

UW campus haven’t triggered off-campus alerts, Lovicott said.

The UWPD works closely with the MPD to monitor crimes occurring near the UW campus, Lovicott said. The MPD works with many partners to prevent violence, Austin said.

“The issue of violent crime is … very serious and it’s also really complex.” Austin said.

“And I think that it gets to the point that it’s not a problem that the police can solve by ourselves. And it’s something that has to be kind of a community wide effort.”

One such group is the Focused Interruption, a non-profit that receives city funding to intervene and stop shooting and prevent retaliatory action. Founded in 2016, Focused

Interruption has provided counseling and support to over 300 victims and perpetrators of gun violence, according to their website.

The MPD also works with Public Health

Madison and Dane County, which is currently treating violence with a public health approach, Austin said. When asked on how the MPD was working to improve racial equity, Austin said the MPD is “very cognizant” of the issue, and has been proactive in reducing bias in policing.

“Frankly, we hire people [who] we believe are our ethical guardians of this community and treat people fairly, no matter who they are,” Austin said. “... A lot of these issues regarding equity span well beyond the criminal justice system ... We are happy to partner with whoever wants to partner with us, is some of those issues certainly can’t be solved by by the police department.”

In a Wisconsin Law Review article, Freedom Inc. Co-Executive Director M. Adams said the police serve as “occupying forces” in Black communities. In order to stop high arrest rates, police brutality and police killings of Black people, Black communities must initiate democratic control over the police in their communities, Adams said.

One way this could be accomplished would be creating civilian boards that have complete authority over the priorities, policies, and practices of the police, Adams said.

Recently, Freedom Inc. called for defunding the MPD after the arrest of Katoine Richardson. At the time of Richardson’s arrest, one MPD officer shot another MPD officer, but many media outlets wrongly attributed that Richardson shot the officer.

Freedom Inc. works to end violence against women, gender non-conforming, transgender folks, and children within communities of color by addressing the root causes of violence, poverty, racism and discrimination, according to their website.

“The police stopping, brutalizing, and kidnapping Katoine in no way served public safety,” Freedom Inc. said in a press release. “Their incompetence endangered the life of someone they were supposedly sworn to protect, as well as the lives of those on State Street, one of the busiest areas in Madison. This reckless, racist behavior again demonstrates why we do not need police in our communities when all they do is criminalize young Black youth, especially those who are low-to-no income, femme, trans, and queer.”

Erin Gretzinger

The Badger Herald Photo - Hundreds of Wisconsinites gathered to commemorate the National Day of Action in support of gun violence prevention following a shooting in an Orlando, Florida nightclub that killed 49 people and injured 53

Amos Mayberry

The Badger Herald

Chancellor Rebecca Blank leaves behind a mixed legacy at UW

‘I have to imagine [UW] is in the best possible position for a new leader to come in and make their mark,’ University Committe member says

by Sam Watson

Campus News Editor

Chancellor Rebecca Blank will leave the University of Wisconsin after the 2021-22 school year and become the president of Northwestern University.

This decision surprised many, including University Committee member Lauren Papp.

“On the one hand, I was thrilled for her to have this opportunity and also at the same time, disappointed that I wouldn’t have next year to work with her,” Papp said.

Blank has led UW since 2013, according to the UW News page. During this time, she continuously proved her strong leadership skills, especially in the pandemic, according to Papp.

As a University Committee member, Papp facilitates communication between staff and campus leaders. Papp joined the committee in early 2020, which let her observe Blank’s leadership skills in action, she said.

“I have seen her really strive to keep those lines of communication open,” Papp said. “She welcomes input and takes shared governance, faculty, staff and student input very seriously.”

But Teaching Assistants’ Association Political

Education Committee member Jack Phillips said a lack of communication was one of Blank’s biggest flaws.

She refused to meet with the BIPOC Coalition during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and onward. During a virtual meeting, she rejected two of the BIPOC Coalition’s ten demands to improve the experience of students of color on the UW campus.

The BIPOC Coalition declined to comment on Blank’s departure.

Blank regrets this lack of communication, citing the limitations of meeting virtually as a complicating factor, she said in a recent interview with The Badger Herald.

The BIPOC Coalition is not the only student organization that has had difficulties with Blank in the past, Phillips said.

Blank also abruptly canceled meetings to discuss COVID-19 policies with the Associated Students of Madison, according to a tweet from former ASM Chair Matthew Mitnick.

Blank defended her decision and said ASM passed several important motions in early September without much communication with the UW administration, “setting the tone” for the rest of the year.

Office of the Secretary of the Faculty Chair Eric Sandgren said Blank’s public persona enhanced her leadership. Simple things like going to Badger games made Blank relatable to students and publicized her devotion to UW, Sandgren said.

“She has this public image of being quirky, like [she’s] everyone’s friend, but the moment anyone has any sort of criticism, she just hides,” Phillips said.

On a more serious level, Blank’s hard-working attitude helped faculty maintain positive attitudes during the lockdown, Sandgren said.

“More than anything, [Blank] helped us maintain morale so that we recognize that there’s someone out there fighting for us,” Sandgren said.

Another notable accomplishment during Blank’s chancellorship is Bucky’s Tuition Promise — a financial aid program that offers free tuition to low-income students, according to the Office of Student Financial Aid website. This program enabled countless disadvantaged students to get a college education and publicized Blank’s commitment to higher education, Sandgren said.

But Blank is not always consistent on this front and her handling of Act 55 shows this, Phillips claimed. Act 55 was passed by the Wisconsin legislature under Scott Walker, limiting ASM’s influence on campus policy and effectively destroying shared governance, Phillips said.

While Blank had the power to push back against this new legislature, she did not do so in a meaningful way, prioritizing money instead, according to Phillips.

“She was running UW-Madison, a public institution of higher education as if it were a forprofit corporation,” Phillips said.

As a TAA Political Education Committee member, Phillips works to educate graduate student workers on various political issues and help the student body push back against legislation that might negatively impact them.

Under Blank’s leadership, there has been a lot of work to do on this front, Phillips said.

Sandgren thinks many of Blank’s critics fail to realize how well-regarded UW is both in the state of Wisconsin and throughout the world. This reputation has only been strengthened by Blank’s leadership, Sandgren said

“I know how the world views UW-Madison,” Sandgren said. “They know it’s an incredible powerhouse. I was so confused to hear what people are criticizing about it.”

While UW has not yet announced plans to replace Blank, Papp has high hopes for the next chancellor. According to Papp, Blank’s prior accomplishments will make it easy for her successor to adjust to the leadership position.

Thanks to Blank’s leadership, UW already has robust education, research and public outreach programs, Papp said. UW has also seen a recent increase in undergraduate applications, resulting in the largest freshman class in the school’s history, according to the UW News page.

“We all have benefitted already and will continue to feel the positive impact of Blank’s strong leadership,” Papp said. “I have to imagine [UW] is in the best possible position for a new leader to come in and make their mark as well.”

But Phillips is less optimistic. The next chancellor will have a lot of work ahead of them to undo the damage Blank has done to UW, according to Phillips.

To avoid doing more harm to the campus, the new chancellor will have to revert the status of shared governance to what it used to be prior to Act 55, Phillips said.

The new chancellor must also rebuild a relationship with the BIPOC Coalition and other student organizations that represent marginalized communities on campus, Phillips added.

“No matter what happens, even if we get someone who’s a good person, the position has been so corrupted that whoever fills that role is going to have to actively work against their own best interests,” Phillips said.

Photo - During an interview with student publications in October 2021, Chancellor Blank said one of the things she will miss most about UW is her office atop Bascom Hill

Arushi Gupta

The Badger Herald Photo - Blank, who has been UW’s the longest-serving chancellor since 1986, will become the first female president in Northwestern’s history.

Arushi Gupta

The Badger Herald

Medical cannabis research shows great potential but still faces barriers

‘A lot of this hasn’t been rigorously studied ... that’s one of the things we really need to look into,’ UW expert says

by Elsa Palmieri

Science Reporter

Recent studies on the use of medical cannabis provide differing evidence regarding the benefits or risks of the drug in medicinal treatments and applications.

The discussion surrounding cannabis is becoming more prevalent within the medical field as its use recreationally and medicinally increases nationwide. At the University of Wisconsin, experts are examining the history, potential advantages and potential downsides of using cannabis as a treatment in a variety of patients.

One of the groups looking at these effects is UW’s Continuing Education Program for pharmacists, which includes a class called Cannabinoids as Medicines. The class is run by Faculty Director of the Carbone Cancer Center Natalie Schmitz and professor of pharmacy and neurology Barry Gidal.

Schmitz and Gidal’s course aims to address the knowledge gap that exists within the medical field when it comes to implementing medical cannabis as an option for patients, while giving students a combination of perspectives from experts on psychiatry, oncology and pharmacy.

Schmitz said the class is important given the current coalescence of cannabis’ increasing application and an undereducated sector of medical experts on the topic, shown through a survey recently done on Wisconsin pharmacists.

“With patients’ increasing use, it’s really important that providers, pharmacists, physicians, nurses — the full care team — is well educated on the topic, because there’s mixed results on the appropriate applications ... the potential risks and drug interactions [and] what the appropriate doses are,” Schmitz said.

According to the Alcohol and Drug Foundation, the benefits of medical cannabis can vary extensively based on the targeted application, along with the specific cannabinoid. There are around 120 different cannabinoids found in the cannabis plant, with the most commonly used being delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, and cannabidiol, or CBD.

Schmitz said CBD dominates as a treatment for different seizure disorders because of its FDA-approved medication, Epidiolex, whereas therapeutic applications of THC focus on pain and relief. Additionally, there is an FDA approved synthesized version of THC targeted for the symptoms of chronic wasting, a consequence commonly seen in patients with HIV or cancer.

According to Schmitz, there are still many unknowns when it comes to the different cannabinoids and each of their target applications, despite confirmed benefits.

“A lot of this hasn’t been rigorously studied and so that’s one of the things we really need to look into,” Schmitz said. “Better understanding the roles of each cannabinoid in different therapeutic indications and how, or if, they are working together in these therapeutic indications.”

Associate pharmacy professor Lucas Richert ties in the classification of cannabis within the Drug Enforcement Administration as Schedule I, categorizing drugs with no medical value and high potential for abuse.

Richert said despite changes being made at the state and national level over the past decade, cannabis is still within the most restrictive category.

“I guess the debate today within pharmacists or physicians is whether or not cannabis is appropriate for a certain mission,” Richert said. “How appropriate is it for a certain condition and how appropriate is it in the absence of randomized control trials?”

Research done in 2017 on the effects of medical cannabis at a national level aimed to answer these types of questions. Using all available and current research at the time, a committee synthesized a Consensus Study Report within the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to conclude which areas of medical cannabis application held promise.

According to the report, there is substantial evidence that cannabinoids are effective for treatments of chronic pain in adults and chemotherapy-induced nausea, along with improving patient-reported multiple sclerosis symptoms.

Furthermore, the study indicated no statistical association between cannabis smoking or use and incidence of lung cancer, head cancers and neck cancers — though all are common concerns that circulate through discussions of cannabinoid use.

When asked about the possible correlation between cancer and cannabinoid use, Schmitz concurred with the 2017 Consensus Study Report’s findings.

“Maybe there’s more research coming out, but typically, cancer isn’t at the forefront of my concerns,” Schmitz said. “The forefront of my concerns is mostly mental health. And if a patient has a history, or current unstable mental illness, if they have a familial history of schizophrenia, those are either contraindications or precautions to using some of these products.”

Lab Report: Motor and Brain Development Lab studies motor skills

Motor differences in people living with autism can tell us about what is happening in the brain, principal investigator says

by Maeve Griffin

Science Reporter

Editor’s note: The Lab Report is a weekly series in The Badger Herald’s print edition where we take a deep dive into the (research) lives of students and professors outside the classroom.

The University of Wisconsin Travers Lab uses their study of motor skills to bridge the gap between the neuroscience of autism spectrum disorder and the daily living skills it impacts.

Principal Investigator Brittany Travers is especially interested in underlying motor differences she observed through learning paradigms, such as typing and folding in individuals with autism.

“We think of motor skills as at the nexus between the everyday life tasks and better understanding the neuroscience of autism and other conditions,” Travers said. “We take for granted so often our ability to move our bodies in a way that allows us to react to, and interact with, the world around us.”

The lab studies motor function, cognition and daily living skills in individuals with autism spectrum disorders through an interdisciplinary combination of neuroimaging techniques and quantitative measures.

“We think about what motor differences can tell us about what might be happening in the brain and how motor skills impact our ability to do daily living skill tasks,” Travers said.

Undergraduate researcher Michelle Alder, a senior studying neurobiology on the premed track, found her way to Travers’ lab after pursuing a more refined research experience that accommodated her interests in both movement and the brain.

“It’s that intersection between psychology, occupational therapy, and the brain. They don’t leave out any aspect, it’s very holistic,” Alder said. “When you’re looking for results, you’re looking at how is this happening in the brain, how is this presenting physically and how does this relate to helping to improve the daily lives of autistic individuals that may require it?”

Alder’s research experience in Travers’ lab culminated in her recent Hilldale fellowship, providing her with a newfound sense of independence and investment in the lab.

The fellowship provides a unique opportunity to have her own independent project and connect with other students while making a meaningful contribution to the lab’s work, she said. Her project incorporates data collected in the lab with a meta-analysis of existing literature, something she can see the implications of first-hand.

Alder works with two boys with autism in respite care for about a year and a half. She said getting to know the two boys has expanded her understanding of autism on both an interpersonal and neurological level.

“The reading of literature and the results that I’m looking at, I can just see in the kids that I work with how these results could apply to them,” Alder said.

Travers is also excited by the state of their research and how it may translate into meaningful behavioral interventions for individuals with autism.

“We have some work that suggests that intensive balance training may be able to impact the brain and motor ability,” Alder said. “We are excited to think about how intensive behavioral interventions — we call it our biofeedback based video game intervention — and motivating interventions like that may be able to change the entire brain network.”

Travers compared the process of developing a research project to a Venn diagram, with the ideal research project at the intersection of the student’s interests, the literature’s pressing questions and a feasible timeline.

Among suggestions from researchers that motor functions and the ability to move are a result of the evolution of the human brain, the Travers lab focuses a lot on studying the brain stem, an early developing area of the brain lacking neuroimaging perspectives, Travers said.

“It’s opened up doors for us to explore this uncharted territory of the brainstem and better understand all of its functions and how that might lead to motor and behavioral differences,” Travers said.

Alder gained a host of skills thanks to the research process, she said, both in developing her independent project, executing the data collection and assessing scientific literature.

Her mentor played an immense role in guiding her while still giving her a sense of autonomy.

From skills as foundational as learning how to code using an R program to finding and critiquing reliable literature, Alder credits her lab experience as arming her with the tools to be successful.

“This lab is really good at critically analyzing the literature we read, thinking about their choices in their method and how they apply these results to daily lives of autistic individuals,” she said.

‘Vaccine apartheid’ threatens America’s progress against pandemic

‘You could argue that every death that’s occuring ... is unnecessary or preventable, given that we have vaccines,’ UW expert says

by Azul Kothari

Science News Associate Editor

While many parts of the world beg for the vaccine, in the United States, health officials are begging for people to take it.

Supply outstrips demand to the point that pharmacists have been instructed to break the seal on multi-dose vials, even if only one dose ends up being used. In Wisconsin, this results in an average of over 2,000 vaccine doses being wasted daily, according to data from Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services collected between Aug. 29 and Sept. 4.

Though University Health Services does not regularly calculate statistics on dose wastage, they also follow a policy of leaving no willing community member unvaccinated, senior clinical nurse specialist Tami Morin said in an email to The Badger Herald. The clinic has administered 260 doses per week over the past four weeks.

“UHS follows the guidance of the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, which is to have no wasted opportunities for vaccination,” Morin said. “This means that if we need to open a vial to ensure one person can be vaccinated we will do it.”

This reflects plummeting demand domestically. Wisconsin hit a peak of over 420,000 doses administered in a week back in April. Dosage numbers for the last week of September were less than a tenth of that.

Concurrently, a majority of the world’s population has yet to receive a single vaccine dose. Vaccine distribution has left entire continents behind, even when COVID-19 has not. As of October, the World Health Organization estimated just 4.4% of Africans were vaccinated.

Prominent health authorities have been warning of this since the pandemic began. In May, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that “vaccine apartheid” had become a reality.

Wealthy nations were able to cut to the front of the vaccine line by paying higher prices, said Dr. James Conway, the associate director of University of Wisconsin’s Global Health Institute. The timeliness of vaccine delivery demonstrates the prioritization of wealthier nations.

COVAX, a joint venture that aims to provide 92 of the world’s poorest nations their vaccines free of charge, has binding vaccine commitments with manufacturers just like the U.S. and the European Union do. But, wealthier nations have seen their commitments fulfilled much faster than COVAX, Conway said.

“Money talks,” Conway said. “The Western countries have committed to pretty high prices, to make sure that they were first in line. Covax signed contractual agreements that they also should be getting a decent amount of vaccine, but my understanding is that they signed on for a lower price.”

While the U.S. and other wealthy nations have succeeded in dosing most of their populations, COVAX has repeatedly had to scale back its distribution goals. Initially, its goal was to have two billion doses administered by the end of 2021 — a marker that current forecasts predict will only be met by the end of the first quarter of 2022.

The topic of vaccine inequity has repeatedly emerged in conversations regarding booster shots, which countries including Germany, Israel and the U.S. have begun offering to certain eligible populations. Germany in particular was criticized for using its vaccine supply on boosters even as it falls short on its donation commitments.

Speaking on vaccine boosters, WHO Emergencies Chief Dr. Michael Ryan said the situation was akin to handing out life jackets to people who already have them while letting others drown.

When asked whether race plays a role in how the lives of those from other countries are valued, UW medical history professor Richard Keller said “it certainly does.”

“It’s the countries with resources that are the ones that have the best vaccine distribution and production, and it’s the countries without resources that have the worst production and distribution,” Keller said. “I think it’s the job of better resourced countries to assist countries with fewer resources.”

For associate professor of population health sciences Ajay Sethi, the unequal distribution is reminiscent of the inaccessibility of antiretrovirals in the Global South for much of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

While the drugs were unaffordable in much of the world, patent laws prevented African companies from making generic versions.

“I know that I saw very similar sort of delays in getting important therapeutics to the world in the context of HIV medication,” Sethi said. “In some cases, companies overseas just began reverse engineering and producing those medications and disregarding the patent laws, simply because this was an issue of human rights and ethics.”

Intellectual property in the context of vaccines and other COVID-19 therapeutics has become a hotbed for controversy. The Brookings Institute, a centrist-liberal think tank based in Washington D.C., recently came out in favor of waiving intellectual property protections for COVID-19 pharmaceuticals.

In a piece published in June, the think-tank wrote that the main function of intellectual property law is restricting the dissemination of ideas in the short term to create innovation in the long term. By preventing the theft of innovation by competitors and guaranteeing short-term monopolies of successful invention, intellectual property law aims to motivate innovation.

But during a public health crisis, society cannot afford to wait for innovation in the long term, The Brookings Institute argued. Governments funding vaccine development and purchasing already create sufficient economic incentives for innovation.

After pressure from activists, in May the Biden administration decided to back a World Trade Organization proposal allowing other countries to design and manufacture COVID-19 vaccines without fear of patent litigation. Switzerland, Japan and Germany are among countries still opposed to the proposal, which requires unanimous approval.

Also in opposition, the pharmaceutical industry came out strongly against the Biden administration’s decision, arguing that it would strain supply chains, lead to counterfeit vaccines and undermine American innovation in biomedical discovery.

Advocates for the proposal contend the U.S. has a vested interest in vaccinating the world. UW professor of pathobiological sciences Thomas Friedrich said unvaccinated populations anywhere, at home or abroad, are a threat to vaccinated populations everywhere.

Unvaccinated individuals are stepping stones that give the virus chances to mutate and bounce to vaccinated populations. In most cases, the SARSCoV-2 virus will bounce around unvaccinated people and be unable to infect vaccinated hosts, but the more unvaccinated individuals there are, the more opportunity the virus has to mutate and attempt jumps into vaccinated populations, Friedrich explained.

The Delta variant threatens the entire world, but it emerged in a population with no widespread vaccination, Friedrich said.

To its credit, the Biden administration has committed 1.1 billion doses to be donated. Still, the U.S. and other wealthy countries need to do more, Friedrich said.

“I think the issue is a billion doses for a vaccine that requires two doses is a drop in the bucket,” Friedrich said. “We need 15, 16, 20 billion doses to vaccinate the world.”

Officially, the death toll for COVID-19 is over 5 million, according to Johns Hopkins pandemic dashboard. The true death toll may be far higher.

The Economist’s excess death calculation estimates 16 million people have died as a result of the pandemic so far. Even a small delay in vaccinating the world could result in catastrophic loss of human life.

“You could argue that every death that’s occurring due to COVID-19 is unnecessary, or preventable, given that we have vaccines,” Sethi said. “There certainly are going to be scientists and modelers estimating how many millions of deaths around the world could be prevented. Very similar estimates were done showing that by not providing the world antiretroviral therapy for HIV, millions of lives were lost.”

Photo · Vaccine distribution remains unequal throughout the world, with some countries holding an excess amount while others are still struggling to gain access

Ahmad Hamid

The Badger Herald