Jonathan Skinner, the John Sloan Dickey Center Third Century professor in economics, was among the 65 new members of the Institute of Medicine announced on Monday. The IOM is an internationally recognized resource for independent research on human health issues. IOM President Harvey V. Fineberg said Skinner was picked during "a highly selective process," and has been granted "one of the highest honors in the fields of medicine and health." Skinner's work, done alongside Dartmouth Medical School professors Elliot Fisher and John E. Wennberg, has studied the nature of unequal health care in the United States. Skinner's research has concluded that regional differences can account for as much as $125,000 per person in health care expenditures, and that hospital quality tends to be worse when dealing with African-American patients.
Ed and Elaine Brown, a Plainfield, N.H., couple convicted of tax evasion in January, were arrested without incident at their home on Thursday, according to the Valley News. The Browns, who refused to turn themselves in to authorities after receiving their April sentence to five years and three months in prison, had barricaded themselves in their home for the past four months. The home, which is sequestered on a lonely dirt road, boasts a turret with a 360-degree view of the property. The circumstances under which they were taken into custody remain unclear. The couple was convicted of hiding $1.9 million of income between 1996 and 2003 in order to avoid federal income taxes.
College President James Wright advocated the creation of a new GI Bill by the federal government in an op-ed in Saturday's edition of the Boston Globe. In the column, Wright discusses his experiences visiting military hospitals around the country, contending that the hospitals "are overwhelmed by the numbers of casualties and are struggling to address the shortcomings highlighted last year." Wright says that the soldiers he met on his visits expressed desire to "get on with their lives," a task Wright says requires significant enhancement of the government's education and rehabilitation programs for veterans. As the country discusses the ways to exit the war in Iraq, Wright argues in his piece, it also needs to be discussing the ways to reintegrate the war's veterans into society through new legislation.