ARTIFICAL BLADDERS IMPLANTED IN CHILDREN; CALIFORNIA MOVES TO CONTAIN GLOBAL WARMING; BLACKS, LATINOS, AND THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE
ARTIFICAL BLADDERS IMPLANTED IN CHILDREN
Transplanted organs are in short supply and, even when a match is found, patients are required to take a complicated array of immune suppressing drugs to ward of rejection. But all of that is slowly changing. Scientists have now successfully grown and implanted the first lab-grown bladders cultured from patient’s own cells. The bladders were implanted in five children with spina bifida, a disease that, among other things, leave children with hardened bladders that cause kidney damage. This research also holds amazing promise for the 54,000 Americans who develop bladder cancer each year. The bladder is a relatively simple organ, but there’s also hope that some day other organs, such as kidneys, will be grown. Larry talks to one of the researchers on this project about the promise of lab-grown organs.
CALIFORNIA MOVES TO CONTAIN GLOBAL WARMING
California officials have pushed forward on two fronts in the fight against climate change. Officials at the California Environmental Protection Agency, or Cal/EPA, released a plan suggesting how the state can meet the Governor's greenhouse gas-reducing goals. Simultaneously local Assemblywoman Fran Pavley introduced a bill to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Both the Cal/EPA and the bill propose mandatory emissions-reporting by industries that release CO2, as well as market-based incentives to help them to lower their greenhouse gas output. Larry Mantle talks with Governor Schwarzenegger’s Senior Advisor Terry Tamminen and others about California’s attempt to slow global warming.
BLACKS, LATINOS, AND THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE
Latinos have made huge inroads in all walks of life in Southern California, but with their growing influence has come cleavages with the African-American community. The immigration issue, especially, has fragmented Southern California’s blacks and Latinos, and many sit on different sides of the debate. African-Americans, by a slim majority, supported proposition 187 in 1994, which denied public service to illegal immigrants. And now many support anti-immigration legislation. Larry talks to Fernando Guerra, Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Gustavo Arellano, and Joe Hicks about relations between the Southland’s black and Latino communities and the immigration debate.