Biological Chemistry: Study Finds Regulated Transcription of Novel RNAs Neuroscience: Old-line Antibiotic Saves Neurons After Spinal Cord Trauma Cell Biology: Structure Turns Iron Entry into Cells on Its Head Political Action Students Get Face to Face with Mass. Voters Letter to the Editor   Monkey Protein Blocks Infection by HIV Iron Maidens May Be at Higher Risk for Diabetes Protein Interferes with RNAi   The HMS Faculty Council Academy Honors 75 New Members MD-PhD Program Celebrates 30 Years Finalists Named for Teaching Award, Votes Invited Honors and Advances   Patient-Doctor Gets Dinged on Wards   House Fire Exposes Gaps in Care   Front Page

POLITICAL ACTION Students Get Face to Face with Mass. Voters Bucking a national trend toward decreasing political activity among medical students, last November, first-years Andrew Singer and Andrew Herring mobilized and trained a group of more than 35 HMS students to engage Cambridge voters in face-to-face discussions about the present state of health care coverage in the commonwealth. First-years Andrew Singer (right) and Andrew Herring organized medical students last November to canvass voters on a citizens' petition for a constitutional amendment on health care. (Photo by Jeff Cleary) The students were taking part in a statewide day of action on Nov. 4, election day, identifying supporters and gathering signatures for a citizens' petition on a constitutional amendment for health care. The amendment, if passed at a later date, would make it the "obligation and duty" of the state's elected representatives to ensure that no resident lacks access to affordable and comprehensive medical insurance. Campaign participants include the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Health Care, the Massachusetts Nurses Association, the Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities, and other organizations, which are part of an ongoing effort to improve health care delivery in the state. The Ad Hoc Committee is a coalition of health care professionals who have been organizing since 1997 to rein in the growing trend of market-driven health care that they say is eroding the care patients receive. After a comprehensive health care- reform ballot initiative was narrowly defeated in 2000, the coalition regrouped and has focused on its current campaign, which emphasizes flexibility and private-public partnerships in meeting the health care needs of Massachusetts residents. The People's Choice "In general, it seems that a good proportion of our fellow medical school students--and doctors in general--have a very strong sense of how they personally feel health care should be managed and provided," said Singer. "But many of them are uninformed about what the average voter wants and thinks in regard to health care coverage. For many of the volunteers, gaining a better understanding of what the average person wants out of medicine was one of the prime motivators that brought them out to stand in the cold and talk with voters." In an organized one-day event, pairs of students spread out across Cambridge in morning and evening shifts to speak with voters at strategically selected voting precincts where turnout was expected to be highest. In one-on-one conversations, students talked with people about the proposed amendment as well as other health policy issues and helped gather the signatures required to place the amendment on the ballot. "We found that overall there was overwhelming support for this issue, but where there was hesitancy, it usually revolved around the cost issue, the fear of too much government involvement, and bureaucratization," Herring said. "It was a real learning experience for all of us. I must have talked with over 50 people." Some voters were more eager to engage the students in discussion than others. One student explained: "I was talking with this one guy about the issue of how best to provide health care to people without insurance, and he just kept grilling me on each and every point I brought up. Just as I was starting to feel really foolish, he stopped and said, 'I should probably introduce myself, I'm State Senator Steve Tolman. You are doing a great job, keep it up.' That was a real shot in the arm for all of us." By the end of the day, the students had collected more than 800 signatures in support of the petition, surpassing any other volunteer group that was out gathering signatures on behalf of the amendment. This was a major contribution to the approximately 65,000 signatures that the campaign needed by late November, the first of three hurdles facing the initiative in its effort to pass the amendment. Kudos to Students "What the medical students were able to accomplish was absolutely essential to the success of our signature collection efforts. We benefited from the hard work of a large contingent of HMS students. This was a real experience in the importance of collective activism," said John Goodson, HMS associate professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and cochair of the Health Care for Massachusetts Campaign committee. With the necessary number of signatures now submitted, the amendment moves forward into two separate constitutional conventions, where 25 percent of legislators will have to support it in order to move it forward to the final test: a statewide ballot referendum on Nov. 7, 2006, in which a majority of votes will make it law. But this goal was not the sole point of Singer and Herring's political organizing. "All of my peers are going to face a problem or an injustice at some point in their careers," explained Singer. "How they choose to respond will make all the difference in their ability to change that problem. For me then, Nov. 4 was an opportunity to get some of my peers involved in grassroots organizing for the first time." For more information about the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Health Care or the Constitutional Amendment for Health Care, visit: www.massdefendhealthcare.org and www.healthcareformass.org.