Opinion
Pneumonia Vaccine Saves Lives
Over one hundred years ago, the gold mining industry of South Africa had a problem: too many workers were dying from pneumonia. They turned to Dr. Almorth Wright, a British physician who had successfully created a vaccine against typhoid fever that saved countless lives of British soldiers in World War I and other wars. Wright and his colleagues developed an inoculation of killed pneumococci bacteria which resulted in a substantial reduction of cases of pneumonia and death in the miners.
The Gift
What a week! In our immediate area, we have been nearly blown apart by the 70 plus mph winds in our neck of the woods. I was reminded again of “the good old days” without electricity and of the fact that, indeed, as independent as we view ourselves, we are not “in charge” of our lives.
Legislative Update 3-28-25
We have passed the midpoint of the Legislative session and in the next week will complete the public hearing process and move to all day floor debate for the rest of the session.
Securing American Agriculture
Nebraska farmers and ranchers produce the safest and most abundant food supply in the world. Agricultural inputs have further increased efficiency, improved resiliency to disease and drought, and reduced impacts on the environment. Nebraska producers have led the way on all those fronts. They feed and fuel the world. This week, I introduced bipartisan legislation to secure our food and agricultural supply chains.
Delivering Justice
Last week, ISIS-K terrorist Mohammed Sharifullah admitted his involvement in multiple terror attacks. He admitted that he conducted surveillance for a suicide bombing at the Canadian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2016. He admitted that he trained the attackers who killed 130 people in Moscow, Russia last year. And he admitted that he strategized for the Abbey Gate suicide bombing that occurred during the 2021 withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan—an attack that took the lives of 13 American service members, including Nebraska’s own Corporal Daegan Page.
Learning to Perceive: Visual Thinking Strategies in Medical Education
Effective medical diagnosis depends not just on looking, but on truly perceiving. Recognizing this, many medical training programs have adopted Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) discussions about art to enhance students’ skills in nuanced observation, inference, and communication. In 2004, Harvard Medical School pioneered use of VTS within medical education to refine the diagnostic and interpersonal skills of future healthcare professionals. Now, VTS is embraced in over 30 medical schools.