No evidence of disease in Ohio deer, ODNR says

No evidence of disease in Ohio deer, ODNR says

COLUMBUS — For the seventh straight year, there is no evidence of chronic wasting disease in Ohio’s white-tailed deer herd.

A total of 1,021 samples were collected late last year from hunter-killed deer across the state, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and its Division of Wildlife.

The testing was conducted by the Ohio Department of Agriculture at its Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory outside Columbus.

Test results have not yet come in for Ohio’s road-killed deer.

Chronic wasting disease is a fatal and degenerative brain disorder related to mad cow disease that afflicts deer and elk. It has been found in wild or captive deer and elk herds in 15 states and two Canadian provinces.

Discovered in 1967 in Colorado, chronic wasting disease is marked by tiny spongelike holes in the brain created by abnormal proteins.

Cincinnati researchers make discovery on smoking

CINCINNATI — The immune system is supposed to protect the body.

But new research from the University of Cincinnati shows cigarette smoke could jump-start an immune system response that actually critically damages lung tissue.

Environmental health researchers led by Michael Borchers have identified a link between cigarette smoke exposure and a specific cellular process that kicks off an immune system response.

That immune response, in turn, is linked to the development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a group of progressive respiratory diseases including emphysema, in which lung function deteriorates over time.

As the disease progresses, lung tissue becomes inflamed and loses its elasticity, making it difficult for the lung to expand and contract.

“People have historically believed that if you smoke, you suppress the immune system,’ Borchers said. “We’ve shown that you actually activate certain parts of the immune system, and it could potentially work against you.”

The finding is key to understanding how the disease develops and developing future medications to treat it, he said.

Hospital could create 600 jobs, proponents say

AKRON — A new hospital proposed for northern Summit County could create 600 jobs with annual salaries averaging $63,760 and generate more than $1.5 million each year in income and property taxes.

Those are some of the healthy economic predictions that proponents of the planned 100-bed facility say they want to share during a joint meeting Wednesday among council and planning committee members from the cities of Cuyahoga Falls, Hudson and Stow.

Stow is hosting the meeting at 6 p.m. in city hall to get answers to questions about plans by Summa Health System and a group of local doctors known as Western Reserve Hospital Partners to build the for-profit hospital off state Route 8 near Seasons Road, likely in Stow.

The mayors from each of the three communities signed off on memorandums of understanding last year to form a joint economic development zone in the state Route 8-Seasons Road corridor and offer incentives to lure the hospital there.

Rather than compete against one another for the economic boon a new hospital could bring, the three mayors opted to sweeten their offers by sharing the costs as well as the potential tax revenues.

Finicky pictures frustrate some digital TV viewers

CINCINNATI — Barbara Craig loves the sharpness of her digital TV picture until it freezes up when a Metro bus goes by her Walnut Hills apartment. Or a firetruck goes by.

“In the afternoon, the buses run 15 minutes apart. It’s a real headache,” says Craig, 53, who lives in a second-floor apartment on busy William Howard Taft Road.

Craig is one of many Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky viewers frustrated trying to receive finicky digital TV over-the-air.

Though many get good pictures from analog signals, which will be turned off at 11:59 p.m. today by WSTR-TV (Channel 64) and 367 other stations nationwide, viewers say the hassles receiving modern digital TV make them feel they’ve regressed 50 years, to the early days of television. Congress in 1996 ordered the switch to digital TV, which provides better pictures and sound, more channels and data (on-screen program guides).

About 12 percent — or 109,868 TV households here — receive TV programming over the air, which mirrors the national average, says Centris, a national research firm tracking DTV trends. And 59,045 of those homes (54 percent) are in “reception-challenged” areas that receive less than five over-the-air stations, says David Klein, Centris executive vice president.

Ohio News Organization