We are constantly damaging our DNA just by interacting with the world, by encountering sunlight, or chemicals in our food, air or water. If you’re young and healthy, your natural repair mechanisms generally repair them.
But over time, and with persistent chemical exposures, the repair mechanism begins to fail, leading to permanent genetic changes that cause cancer and other diseases.
So a research team at Case Western Reserve University is studying residents of East Palestine, where a toxic train derailed in February, in hopes to find any cancers early. They will monitor the rate at which residents’ accumulate genetic errors.
Advances in DNA technology and the dramatic reduction in sequencing costs has finally made work like this both possible and affordable.
It’s good news for a community that fears the worst in its environment.
-Laura
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Overnight Scores and Weather |
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Ron Micha shows a video he took from his home following the Feb. 3 train derailment and chemical spill that exposed him and other East Palestine residents to toxic fumes. |
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Derailment study: A team of scientists from Case Western Reserve University went to the Columbiana County Fair to enroll residents in a clinical study to monitor the health impacts of the Feb. 3 train derailment and chemical spill in East Palestine. The research will follow participants for five years and assess how toxic chemical exposures following the train crash may impact local risks for developing cancer and other metabolic diseases, reports Gretchen Cuda Kroen. Rethinking Child Care: The Ohio Chamber of Commerce says a lack of access to affordable child care is one of the most pressing challenges affecting Ohio’s success. Fixing the issue, though, is complex and involves raising wages, lobbying state legislators, changing regulations and even helping to start new businesses. Sean McDonnell reports the chamber is starting to throw its weight behind addressing the issue. Sex change rights? Opponents to the proposed abortion amendment to the Ohio Constitution are hammering the message that it would allow children to get sex changes without their parents knowing or consenting. The claims are only expected to increase in the weeks leading up to Nov. 7. But legal experts told Laura Hancock that while any legal challenge to the amendment is possible, they don’t expect Ohio courts to be persuaded that the amendment guarantees minors a right to sex-change procedures. Today in Ohio: Backers and opponents of Issue 1 have bought the equivalent of wall-to-wall airtime for the final week before the election, and ads include blasting the “porn moms of Shaker Heights.” We’re talking about how the “yes” side is spending around $5.9 million while the “no” side is spending around $5.3 million for wall-to-wall commercials, on Today in Ohio, cleveland.com’s daily half-hour news podcast. |
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Fundraising bonanza: In the month after closing out his duty as a chief architect of the state’s $86 billion budget, Ohio House Finance Committee Chairman Jay Edwards launched a fundraising bonanza powered by nearly half a million dollars from owners and executives of Ohio’s nursing homes. Jake Zuckerman reports that so far this year, Edwards, an Athens County Republican, has raised about $1.2 million, an eye-popping number for a state lawmaker with no defined next race on the horizon. Nursing home executives paid at least $465,000 in July. “Porn moms:” An article from a pseudo-news organization claims that a Shaker Heights “pro-school porn moms group” opposes State Issue 1, reports Lucas Daprile. The post ia from the Cleveland Reporter is a website affiliated with the “Buckeye Reporter,” which recently sent newspaper-looking political mailers to voters across the state. The Buckeye Reporter was active in the 2022 governor’s election and is part of the Metric Media Foundation, which operates as a front for conservative dark money groups. J.D. Vance: On the campaign trail, Sen. J.D. Vance fashioned himself as the sort of conservative fighter that supporters of former President Donald Trump had come to embrace as the new face of the Republican Party. In his brief time in the Senate, though, the paths of dealmaker and culture warrior so far have been more of an intersection than a crossroads for Vance, reports Sabrina Eaton. Viral doctor: After more than two years and 350 written complaints filed when Dr. Sherri Tenpenny publicly claimed to Ohio lawmakers that COVID-19 vaccines are dangerous treatments that magnetize recipients, the state will decide next week whether to strip her of her medical license. Jake Zuckerman reports that a hearing examiner at the State Medical Board, which regulates physicians, proposed an indefinite license suspension and a $3,000 fine for Tenpenny, who dragged the state into a viral moment and subsequent national mockery when she told the House Health Committee that the vaccines cause ALS and cancer, and other patently untrue and bizarre claims. Abortion amendment: If the proposed abortion rights amendment needed to identify every Ohio law it affects, the task would be impossible and lead to absurd results, according to a brief filed by its backers Friday afternoon in the Ohio Supreme Court. Laura Hancock reports that backers of the proposed amendment filed a merit brief, telling the court that state law doesn’t require constitutional amendment petitions to include the texts of each potentially implicated law. The state law only requires amendment petitions to show the parts of the Ohio Constitution with which it may conflict. |
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Cleveland’s Promise: As a classroom teacher of about 24 fourth-grade students, Cleveland teacher Mrs. Lenahan writes, it’s hard to really get to know all of them. Through the Cleveland’s Promise series, Cameron Fields and Hannah Drown were fixtures at Almira Elementary School who knew and supported the students. They fought for the children in ways sometimes teachers can’t. |
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Death penalty: Keith LaMar has spent nearly three decades on Ohio’s death row after being convicted of helping to kill five inmates during the Lucasville prison riot in 1993. Last month, Gov. Mike DeWine rescheduled Lamar’s execution from Nov. 16 to Jan. 13, 2027, citing the state’s ongoing problems with acquiring lethal-injection drugs. Companies have refused to sell products to the state if the drugs are used in executions. The state’s harshest penalty continues in a yearslong holding pattern, reports Molly Walsh. Lawyer removed: Minutes before jury selection was set to begin in a trial involving Catholic Charities, a judge removed his staff attorney from the case after learning that she had ties to a local organization that solicits millions of dollars in donations to Catholic Charities each year. Cory Shaffer reports the case involves 5-year-old Jordan Rodriguez, who died in 2017 while his mother engaged in a food-stamp fraud with a Catholic Charities employee who failed to check on the family for months. 77 shooting: A driver of a SUV was fatally shot on Interstate 77 on Thursday. Hours later, another man was killed at a campsite in Akron, reports Olivia Mitchell. The first shooting happened about 6:15 p.m. on I-77 in the city of Green, when a passenger of a pickup truck fired several shots into a black Lincoln SUV while both vehicles traveled south on I-77. Security guard shooting: A confrontation at a gas station on Cleveland’s West Side led a security guard to shoot a motorist in the face, reports John Tucker. The driver, who survived, is now accused of using racial slurs and trying to run over the guard with his car moments before the shooting. Fatal fentanyl: A Cleveland man faces decades in federal prison after a jury late Thursday found he sold a fatal dose of cocaine mixed with fentanyl to an Olmsted Township man. Adam Ferrise reports the jury in federal court in Akron decided that Willie Pratt Jr., 34, was guilty of conspiring to distribute drugs, possessing with the intent to distribute drugs and distributing drugs with a sentencing enhancement for causing the death of Kristopher Ford. Kia thieves: The driver of a stolen Kia caused a crash that killed a Cleveland woman and injured a 9-year-old boy Thursday in the city’s Old Brooklyn neighborhood, reports Olivia Mitchell. |
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Photographed food: Which of Greater Cleveland’s restaurants gets high marks when it comes to having the most photographed food? Cleveland.com has partnered with Yelp Cleveland to find the Most Photographed Restaurants in Northeast Ohio, by county according to their reviewers. House of the Week: The West 58th St. Townhomes are located a quiet tree-lined street a stone’s throw from the bars, restaurants and entertainment venues of Ohio City, Hingetown and the Gordon Square Arts District, not to mention the lakefront amenities and recreational opportunities at Edgewater Park. Priced at $549,500, the three-bedroom/three-bathroom townhouse boasts an efficient and open floor plan on three levels, reports Joey Morona. |
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From Farmhouse Saison Ale to DIPAs and more: 10 beers to sip in August Read more Police urge the public to be on the lookout for inmate who escaped from eastern Ohio prison Read more Ohio lawmaker loses home in house fire Read more 62-year-old Cuyahoga Falls man dies following Saturday shooting Read more |
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