News & Issues
KU docs say proposed cure for transplant waits would make local patients sicker
When Steve Jobs needed a liver transplant in 2009, the Apple CEO left California and went to Memphis, Tenn. While his home state has some of the longest waiting lists in the country for donated livers, Tennessee has some of the shortest. Many health advocates point to Jobs’ story as an example of the harsh disparities…
Student poets slam dropout crisis through spoken word contest
Unique Hughley likes to compose poetry by the glow of his iPhone while he walks around at night through the urban core of Kansas City, Missouri, where he grew up. “I grew up in a bad place. I grew up right on Prospect and that’s like a horrible place where I come from,” Hughley said….
KC Week In Review: The Missouri Transportation Tax Debate
Critics call it the biggest tax increase in Missouri history. Proponents call Amendment 7 on the August 5 ballot a crucial vote to improve highways, bridges and transit in the state. The 3/4 cent sales tax increase would bring in more than $5 billion dollars over 10 years and add about 8 cents to a…
Med school program emphasizes career possibilities for urban teens
Shannon North can preach and preach to her students that their aspirations are achievable, that advanced education is attainable. And she does just that, as the college and career facilitator at Hogan Preparatory Academy in Kansas City, Mo. The charter school, at 1221 E. Meyer Blvd., has a student population where virtually all the attendees…
Missouri becomes third state to enact ‘Right To Try’ drug therapy law
Missouri residents who have exhausted conventional disease cures will have access to experimental drugs under legislation signed on Monday by Gov. Jay Nixon. The so-called Right to Try legislation gives patients and their doctors the ability to procure drugs that have yet to gain approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration if the pharmaceutical…