North Carolina Now; 4479; Interview with Michael Knowles

It's Thursday May 7 tonight providing financial opportunities for some of our newest residents in North Carolina. Hello I'm Merida try a pleasant Thursday evening to you. Thanks for joining us for tonight's edition of North Carolina now. Some of the latest research in the treatment of cystic fibrosis is taking place right here in our state. This evening you'll meet the researcher who's heading up studies of some groundbreaking advancements. But up first tonight we focus on a major problem facing many Hispanics as they adjust to life in a new land. North Carolina suspended population is growing rapidly. Some face serious problems because of their status as aliens. Right now more than

230000 immigrants from Central and South America are estimated to be living in the Tar Heel State. The immigrants come here for work. Most of them find jobs. But many of them run into problems on payday after they've cashed their paychecks. Producer David Haines and photographer Michael McGinnis have the story from Charlotte. Many people think that most of these people come here for there are no country and they don't even know about the American dream. They go when they have to when they don't fight any other way to make a living in their countries. From his tiny office near uptown Charlotte Alberto Herrera Thompson has seen the city's population of Hispanics explode in the last decade from 5000 in one thousand eighty eight to an estimated 45000 today. The Hispanics from Central and South America live in aging apartment complexes like this one scattered throughout the city. They share a common language and on payday

a common problem. A lot of Hispanics do not have bank accounts and worked very hard and get paid on Fridays and go and convert it into cash and carry around their cash. And I think the criminals know this and they're targeting them specifically. And a lot of them will give me an attack like that. You know don't talk. And for the new gun to my head. Like 20 year old Benjamin Martinez originally from Mexico had only been in Charlotte a few days last July when he was assaulted in a laundromat. He had no cash but feels he was targeted for the crime because he looks Hispanic. His assailants angry with him for not having any money beat him and ran him over with a car. He speaks through an interpreter you got him in the middle but you're in the cellar in the car and I jumped and the car hit me it hit below me because people are hoping like oh you know that's you know

I fell to the ground. But the car was going very fast and if they were going up in a back to MacArthur and I hit my head he met me at the top of the cynical at all. And I built my skull in that area that I wanted. Martinez spent 17 days in a coma. His assailants were never captured. Charlotte police operate the station in the Hispanic community. They say until recently they received three to four reports of this kind of crime every month. But that's changed now they receive three to four reports per day and the police readily admit most of the victims do not report this crime. If you look up and down the Central Avenue corridor here you've got Hispanic shops. Hispanic restaurants so it's it's really grown this by the population here in Charlotte is really growing. And Officer David was sorry or the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department is Hispanic. He knows that most of Charlotte's Hispanics are undocumented illegal aliens. He says that fear of deportation combined with cultural barriers to make solving the crimes

difficult. They don't call the police because of the fear that that of the repercussions of calling the police. They think they might get the ported and they think that we're going to arrest them even though they are the victims. The language barriers have a lot to do with it. And they figure that I don't speak any English so the police are not going to understand what I'm saying. One solution to the problem is for Hispanics to open bank accounts. Until recently that's been impossible because to open a bank account you need a Social Security number and of course the illegal aliens aren't allowed to have Social Security numbers. But recently the IRS began issuing Taxpayer Identification Numbers to undocumented aliens. The IRS gets tax revenue the Spanish can use the number to open a bank account. Attorney stuff on the tour right works with Hispanics to get the ID numbers. The Ikea number allows them to go in there but the number when they're asked for security number instead of a number they can up and down. The problem is a lot of people don't know

about it. You talk about people that don't speak the language. And many of them are here illegally. So they think that maybe if immigration catches them. There was a money they put in a bank account but the money can't be seized simply because it's deposited by any illegal alien. The IRS is forbidden by law from giving the identification numbers out to anyone that includes the Immigration Service and the Charlotte Police Department has a don't ask don't tell policy when it comes to illegal aliens who are the victims of a crime before being robbed. Benjamin Martinez it didn't have a bank account. Now he says he doesn't need one. Before I had a very happy life he wouldn't want us to do not like this has been sad because I can't move my hand on my fingers and I have room. What kind of work did you do before this happened and what are you able to do you know I'm just going to open if I do it you know and the euro was one of my favorite job was to work as a roofer. But now I look for a job that's really like

and I don't have a job at all. The police department has established a task force to deal with the growing crime problem but that may be just the beginning. There is general agreement that more education is needed to teach Hispanics about bank accounts. Trusting the police and justice in the land of the free we can just forget about some people because they're illegal. I mean they're here and they're very important to our community. Several of the state's larger metropolitan cities are experiencing the same situation as in Charlotte and Durham. The police department has staffed a Hispanic task force to respond to increasing reports of robberies and other victimization. And there's a new two member a civilian operation called hoist or Hispanic outreach intervention strategy team hoist has recently taken part in meetings with a half a dozen major banks in North Carolina to coordinate better cooperation between the institutions and Hispanics. Well still ahead a visit to the Thomas Wolfe house in Asheville. But first let's head over to the news desk to get caught up on today's

statewide headlines. Good evening Mitch. Thanks Zoraida. Good evening everyone. Topping our news Governor Jim Hunt today signed into law a measure to make some sort of his health coverage available to thousands of uninsured children and signing the measure the governor said the new law will bring a never before seen level of health care security to North Carolina's working families. The children's health insurance plan will impact about 70000 children and offer tax breaks to about 400000 families already buying health insurance. The federal government must approve the state insurance plan before it can be enacted. Senate Democrats say they're unlikely to accept Gov. Hunt's plan to delay a cut in the state sales tax on food. Senate Appropriations co-chair Aaron Plyler says the Senate is committed to making the sales tax reduction this year. The mood expressed by Senate Democrats coincides with those of House Republicans the tax cut would be part of a three step reduction beginning this July. Lieutenant governor Dennis Wicker today announced a new initiative for students entering the state's community college

system. The proposal would permit high school graduating seniors to enroll in any of the state's community colleges free of charge in order to qualify a prospective student must be a graduating senior and sign up for a full complement of community college classes workers and the new initiative will be an important step in North Carolina's ability to meet the rising standards of today's workplace. It can it can become the first state in the nation to provide free community college tuition to our hostile graduates. This is better than a scholarship. It's free tuition free education. This will put North Carolina in the forefront in meeting the standards for today and tomorrow as job market moving forward and our goal for creating a seamless education system helping working families better afford higher education and providing a higher level of skill training. The lieutenant governor says the program will cost 10 million dollars a year to implement and cover the cost of enrollment for approximately 6000 students beginning with the fall class

of 1909. Wicker who chairs the North Carolina State Board of community colleges will present the plan to the state legislature for possible consideration during the upcoming short session. The chairperson of the state Democratic Party is calling on Republican leaders to join Democrats in restoring a state law banning campaign contributions from corporations. Barbara Allen cited a recent decision by a U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle that overturned a 65 year old law banning such contributions. Allen says the General Assembly should make reading act in the law a top priority for the short session that starts Monday. The receding news river has revealed a 9 a.m. human waste spill in Kinston. The extent of the latest spill wasn't known until last week when state inspectors visited the city to check out another problem. Heavy winter rains caused sewage plants across the state to overflow but officials have had continuous problems with Kinston history of sewage mismanagement and violations which inspired tougher legislation last year. In March the city was ordered to pay a record fine of nearly $90000. State regulators are

considering additional fines. The State Department of Transportation is facing a $100000 fine for intentionally dumping hazardous chemicals behind a departmental facility in Buncombe County. The finest thought to be the largest ever levied against a state agency for a chemical spill the state Division of Waste Management levied the fine after learning about the dumping from an anonymous caller. Deputy transportation secretary David King says the deal t has already spent $50000 to clean up the site and they plan to appeal the fine. And now for a look at tomorrow's weather. Temperatures in the mountains will range from the mid 60s to the lower 70s. The rest of the state will see highs in the mid 70s to around 80. Cloudy skies and chances of rain and thunderstorms are forecast for most of the state. In business news several community consumer groups have filed a protest with the Federal Reserve Board over the recent nation's bank merger with Bank of America. They want the Reserve Board to block the merger on grounds of racial bias by nation's bank. The protest claims the bank abandoned low income communities and disproportionately denied loans to blacks and Hispanics. Similar

protests by the same consumer groups have failed to block other mergers. It seems Charlotte residents feel the same about a public funded baseball stadium as voters in the Triad. A recent survey taken in Mecklenburg and six surrounding counties shows no increase in support for a baseball referendum since last December. The poll indicates 64 percent of those surveyed would vote against public funding of a baseball stadium. Meanwhile business leaders in the Triad are concerned that the defeat of the baseball tax will hurt that area's ability to attract new business. The president of walk over the bank said the triad fumbled a huge opportunity by not financing the stadium. And now for a look at what happened on Wall Street today. The

one on one. Because of its past success in studying and treating cystic fibrosis the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine has been selected by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation as one of seven new therapeutics development centers nationwide. The seven centers will form a clinical research center network where

researchers will evaluate the most promising drugs. And joining me now is the man who will be heading up that center he is Dr. Michael Knowles a professor of medicine at U.N. CCH Dr. Knolles Welcome to the program. It's a pleasure to be here Maria. Tell us first about the reasoning behind setting up this network of treatment centers Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disease children are born with it. And the thing that kills people who have cystic fibrosis is the lung disease because huge research efforts over the last two decades. There are now much clearer insights in the possible new therapeutic approaches. For the challenge for cystic fibrosis is to really trends for information this developed in the research laboratory into effective therapy for the patients. The cystic fibrosis Center has really identified a network of centers that can nail try to coordinate integrate and implement clinical studies of promising new drugs that can come from either a university based or pharmaceutical companies as treatment

for CFS and Chapel Hill was chosen to be one of these centers because of the work currently going on there. That's why I'm a part of a large research group in Chapel Hill that's really had both a basic research interest and a clinical treatment research interest in CFS since the early 80s as a part part of our experience in the past with doing both basic research and clinical research. We were chosen to be a part of this network because I think we can provide not only intellectual ideas about how to do studies but we have the largest patient centered group in the country. So we have a large number of patients that could participate in promising the new therapeutic trial. So what are some of those promising new therapeutic trials. Well there are basically two kind of therapeutic agents. The one which we're most familiar with are traditional drugs. Drugs are the medications that can be taken either by mouth or by the inhaled route and can help liquify secretions kill the infection in the lungs of C

patients or thin Airways secretions by dissolving the thick mucus there. Another kind of therapeutic drug are actually genes. So we've heard much discussion about gene therapy gene therapy is really a concept the idea of using genes as drugs. So there are actually several different ways in which one can think about therapeutic approaches with genes as drugs and the therapeutic development network will actually be investigating a number of different individual items and both lists is the gene therapy that we've been hearing so much about is this something that is still just in theory or has it actually been started to be put into practice. I think we're in a transition phase. The science for gene therapy is sale and but in fact we should probably say we're doing experiments in gene transfer in safety. They are clearly different

ways to do gene transfer. Some of those have been successful in S.F. but not at the clinical level. So we've done laboratory tests even in patients that show some small amount of activity but not enough to be truly called there. And that brings me to my next question then how do you bridge that gap between finding out what works in the lab and then actually transferring that into the patient. I think this is the idea that the cystic fibrosis Center Foundation has for this therapeutic development centers they're trying to streamline the process get good gene transfer vectors or good drugs design good studies have lots of patients who are participating in centers that are used to doing clinical trials and push the prices more quickly. If we have 10 candidates then perhaps one or two will be useful therapies at the end of the line.

And so the goal here is to streamline and speed up the process. Doctor your thoughts on where we've come and where we have to go where are we in that. We can smile about that because when I first got involved in cystic fibrosis research in the early 80s we didn't really understand what causes the disease. We now know what Gene is defective that causes this genetic disease. We now have seen the life survival improved by using traditional therapies such as antibiotics and we now have at least 15 different ways in which we could theoretically attack the problem and see and come out with better therapies. So you can look into the eyes of patients to see. And with parents of patients with you and say you know we don't have the full answer yet but we understand it much better. We've got a whole list of candidate drugs or gene transfer vectors that may be useful. And we'll see something happen you know in the next decade with real

advancements in there. Well Dr. Knowles our thank you for being here tonight has sounds like you've got some exciting research and I appreciate you sharing it with us. Now other therapeutics development centers will be at Denver's Children's Hospital Case Western Reserve in Cleveland. University of Washington at Seattle and Cincinnati is Children's Hospital. The Children's Hospital in Boston and John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Thank you for the remainder of this month the Akron art museum in Chapel Hill is presenting an exhibit on the famed North Carolina author Thomas Wolfe. The exhibit shows the

work of Illustrator Douglas Kors line and a reader paging through Wolf's classic novel Look Homeward Angel will see the drawings of course. So tonight we thought it appropriate to look homeward ourselves and take you to the mountains near Asheville and the childhood home of author Thomas Wolfe Thomas Wolfe was the author of novels each a lyrical recording of his life. The first of these novels look home where the angel is set here in a sprawling white boarding house in Asheville North Carolina. Welcome Adri to the Thomas Wolfe memorial Dixieland of look o morning Joe. So this is the home place of Thomas What did you live here most of his life. Yeah someone who lived in this house for 10 years actually it was a boy rather short life for 37 years. When was it that he moved to. Well I moved here when he was six years old and he lived here right up until the time he went to college. His boy Eugene was ashamed of Dixieland and

he was again afraid to express his shame he felt toward that had trapped. He saw plainly by this time that their poverty belonged to the insensate with ology of hoarding. There was no place sacred into themselves no place fixed for their own inhabitation no place proof against the invasion of the borders. All of the furnishings in the house belonged to the wolf family who lived here for 43 years. The house itself was built in 1883 and was open to the public. In 1949 It's now owned by the state of North Carolina and managed by the Department of Cultural resources. Now this is Apollo where a lot of the action you look at when I go to play yes in the novel was describe how a sister Mabel would play the piano and sing for the boarders in the evening some of the more the stylistic scenes and one small solicitation she sang for her.

Helping the enemy with her heavy accurate touch and singing in her strong vibrant somewhat hard Soprano repertory of songs classic sentimental Eugene remember the soft lights of summer. The assembled borders and I wonder who's kissing her now this is Thomas's older brother Ben's room the place where Ben died. Yes there was a special bond between Ben and Ben was the older brother who looked after Tommy was Tom's protector and was Tom's sister Mabel who arranged the furniture in this room. Both Mabel and Tom were here that night and Mabel remembered Mrs. Wolff sitting in the rocking chair holding Ben's hand while he died and Tom's father sat in the rocker at the foot of the bed. Exactly the way it was described and Look Homeward Angel. Eugene worked with cold dry lips to the bleak front room upstairs with its

ugly Victorian bay window as get out of the room he saw Ben lying in the sun a conscious color that precedes death. They seated in the chair at the foot of the bed. Ed and Eliza now that he could deny her no longer now that his fierce bright eyes could no longer turn from her in pain and aversion I sat near his head beside him clutching his cold hand between her rough worn palms as readers of Thomas will know. Eugene escaped from this house from his domineering mother and the Baroness of the mountain life he disliked. When the book came out in 1929 many of the citizens of Asheville were easily recognized on his pages. And Wolf was threatened with hanging in the public square if he ever returned to town. But with the author success came a softening of criticism and a few years later he was welcomed back to Asheville as one of its own.

So are these things part of the original home. Actually they came back to this house after Thomas Wolfe died in 1938 and the family themself put them on exhibit. However all of these things Townes typewriters his writing table his clothes will be moved into our new visitor's center that'll be behind the memorial. The original 1929 publication of Look Homeward Angel has no illustration will see book stayed on Illustrated until the late 1940s when Gore's line was commissioned to do the drawings. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has recently acquired nearly all of the 106 drawings Gore's line produced for the book. If you would like more information on the exhibit you can call the Akron Art Museum at 9 1 9 9 6 6 5 7 3 6. Well that's our program for tonight. Thanks for joining us and please will be with us tomorrow for another edition of North Carolina now. Good night everyone.

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