Reduced bond denied in heroin death

A man accused of selling the heroin that killed another man will be allowed to try and keep the dead man's cell phone and a hypodermic needle from being used against him as evidence during his trial.

Meanwhile, David Givhan will remain in custody on $100,000 cash bond.

Givhan, 24, of Beloit is charged with felony first-degree reckless homicide. He is accused of selling heroin to Luc A. Marsh, 29, of Milton on March 31, 2009, in Beloit. Marsh later was found dead from an overdose in a bathroom at Edgerton Hospital, where he worked.

Givhan, who is defending himself, requested an evidentiary hearing as he tries to suppress evidence in the trial scheduled for December. Rock County Judge Richard Forbeck granted the motion. The hearing is scheduled Oct. 7.

Givhan said prosecutors should not be allowed to use Marsh's cell phone and the needle as evidence in trial.

Givhan said the phone could have been tampered with because police released it to Marsh's mother before taking it back into custody. He also has concerns about the chain of custody records kept for the needle, he said.

Assistant District Attorney Richard Sullivan said Marsh's mother gained ownership of the phone but did not have physical contact with it. Chain of custody arguments do not support suppression of evidence, Sullivan said.

Forbeck on Tuesday denied Givhan's request for a reduced bond. Givhan said he does not have a history of fleeing and could better prepare his defense if he were released on a signature bond.

Sullivan said Givhan's past police record makes it likely he would face a substantial sentence if found guilty of reckless homicide.

The 1970's Vortex Of Sexual Addiction

Assessing modern gay culture, consider that two important components from Stonewall forward were the result of external factors.

The first was the explosion of the "sex, drugs and rock and roll" 1960s counterculture in America that shifted - like a gigantic earthquake shifting a tetonic plate of the planet's crust - the national ethos, among other things plunging the emerging gay liberation movement into a toxic sea of unbridled and counterculture-mandated sexual excess. This did not arise from within gay culture, but overwhelmed it from without.

The second was what happened as a result: in major urban centers indulgence in relentless, impersonal and casual sex, often multiple times daily, quickly led not only to a loss of sensibility for genuine romance and love, but to a loss of control. I submit it was due to a ferocious clinical addiction to the potent narcotic of sex, itself.
It explains the compulsive behavior of that decade, and its persistence to this day, if on a more limited scale. But addiction, a medical condition, is not inherent to being gay, so to the degree it impacts our culture, it comes from without.

Beyond my own experience and references to addictive casual sex in Andrew Holleran's "Dancer From the Dance" (1978) in my previous installment, gay writer Edmund White made multiple references to addiction in his autobiographical works. In his "My Lives" (2006), he wrote about being caught "in the grip of a compulsion that didn't have much to do with pleasure."

He wrote, "I was too addicted to its sexual rewards to renounce this system," referencing the 1970s gay scene's "new esthetic, which I dubbed the Pleasure Machine (that was) frank, hedonistic and devoid of irony," in his "States of Desire: Travels in Gay America" (1980).

(Christopher Isherwood felt that book was "deeply disturbing" as a literary tour because it "used the predicament of the homosexual minority to demonstrate what is very wrong with the social health of the country.")

In his "City Boy: My Life in New York During the 1960s and '70s" (2009), White wrote about an addictive force compelling him in the dark holds of long-haul trucks parked under the piers on the Lower West Side beside the Hudson River, and in the dark abandoned piers, themselves.

In the backs of trucks or in the piers, he wrote, "I simply couldn't make myself go home. Even after a satisfying encounter with one man or ten I still wanted to hang around to see what the next ten minutes would bring. What it brought was the morning light." He then confessed, "Not that there was much happiness in a life of pleasure."

Tennessee Williams, the most famous openly-homosexual American of all, also wrote about the addictive nature of frequent, impersonal sex. In his "Small Craft Warnings" (1972), the first openly homosexual character in one of his major plays, Quentin, says, "There's a coarseness, a deadening coarseness, in the experience of most homosexuals. The experiences are quick, and hard, and brutal, and the pattern of them is practically unchanging. Their act of love is like the jabbing of a hypodermic needle to which they're addicted but which is more and more empty of real interest and surprise. This lack of variation and surprise in their 'love life' spreads into other areas of sensibility..."

Thus, Williams, the compassionate truth-teller, the often promiscuous homosexual, was no fan of casual gay sex because of its addictive nature.

The combined external factors of the counterculture and addiction led to AIDS through the formation what public health experts call "core groups," environments in which human immune capacities are compromised, as Gabriel Rotello documented in "Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men" (1998) and Ronald Bayer in "Private Acts, Social Consequences: AIDS and the Politics of Public Health" (1989).

The explosion of sexually-transmitted diseases in such "core groups" and their damage to the immune systems of their hosts almost guaranteed that a dormant, inactive virus like HIV would awaken and flourish. And so it did.

Although imposed from without, homosexuals caved in to the pressures of counterculture excess and its addictive, fatal consequence, such that undoing the persisting influence of those factors in homosexual culture today will require enormous effort. It may take generations. So, while my contributions are addressed to readers today, so they are also to homosexuals yet unborn, and it is theirs whose judgments I value most.

White, in a 1991 third edition afterward to "States of Desire," conceded that all the 1970s "self-centered pleasure seeking...was a betrayal of an earlier philosophy that had linked homosexual rights with feminism and socialism," a passing, partially adequate reference to what I and my "Effeminist" gay activist colleagues were fighting for at that time.

Wis. clinic warns of possible disease exposures

A Madison-based clinic is trying to track down hundreds of patients after a nurse apparently spent years improperly using diabetic injection devices on them, potentially exposing them to blood-borne diseases such as HIV.

Dean Clinic officials on Monday began trying to contact by phone and letter 2,345 patients who saw the nurse between 2006 and when she left her job two weeks ago. They want the patients to come in for testing for HIV as well as hepatitis B and C. State and local health officials said they're monitoring the situation, but no one had detected any diseases connected to the nurse as of late Monday afternoon.

The clinic's chief medical officer, Dr. Mark Kaufman, said the nurse is a certified diabetic educator. Her job called for her to train newly-diagnosed diabetics on how to inject insulin and test their blood sugar levels.

Clinic officials declined to identify the nurse.

Earlier this month, another clinic employee reported that the nurse was improperly using a device known as an insulin demonstration pen, which resembles a large hypodermic needle and injects insulin into the bloodstream, as well as a more widely-known finger prick device for blood tests, Kaufman said.

The nurse was supposed to demonstrate how to use the pen on pillows and oranges, not on the patients themselves, Kaufman said. But an internal investigation showed she was using the same pen on people. She used clean needles each time, but using the pen on a person could allow a microscopic backwash of blood to flow back into the pen's reservoir, potentially contaminating it and putting the next patient at risk, Kaufman said.

The finger prick device is supposed to be used on people, but the entire device should be used only once per patient, Kaufman said. The nurse changed needles but used the same handle from patient to patient, creating a risk that blood could get onto it, dry and infect the next fresh needle and patient.

The nurse left her job on Aug. 10, the same week the other clinic employee came forward about her practices, said Dr. Craig Samitt, the clinic's chief executive officer. He declined to say whether she resigned or was terminated.

Samitt and Kaufman said the nurse was experienced, noting her certification as a diabetic educator, but it's unclear why she didn't follow the devices' guidelines or clinic protocols. Clinic officials have interviewed her, but Samitt declined to elaborate.

"This is an ongoing investigation," he said.

Kaufman said the nurse's actions probably pose little danger to the patients. The HIV virus degrades in a matter of days, and the hepatitis strains can't survive for more than a month, he noted.

It's unclear just how many of the nurse's patients underwent an insulin pen or finger prick demonstration or even if anyone who did was infected with a blood disease and could have passed it on.

"The risk is minimal, but remains a theoretical risk," Kaufman said.

Dean Clinic includes about 720 health care providers located throughout southern Wisconsin. Samitt declined to say where the nurse worked.

Stephanie Smiley, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health Services, said agency officials learned of the potential exposures Monday morning and have been in contact with the clinic. They also have notified the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, she said.

"This is a very serious situation and it appears that Dean Clinic is taking the appropriate steps to notify patients of possible exposure and performing follow-up testing as necessary," she said in an email.

Man held on theft, burglary charges

A man suspected in the theft of a $6,000 engagement ring and other items in Woodbridge is facing multiple criminal charges after police caught him leaving the scene of a burglary in Plainfield three days later, authorities said this week.

Thomas Deschaine, 23, of the Avenel section of Woodbridge is facing charges of burglary, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of a hypodermic needle in connection with the drug incident, said Plainfield Police Detective Leslie Hudson, who is investigating the case. Bail for Deschaine was set at $25,000; he was lodged in Union County Jail earlier this week, but on Wednesday was awaiting transfer back to Plainfield to be booked on an additional charge of credit-card theft filed in connection with the earlier incident, authorities said.

A Woodbridge police officer last Thursday was dispatched to the Verizon Wireless store at Woodbridge Center Mall on a report of theft. The officer met a 27-year-old Piscataway woman, an employee of the store, who said someone had taken several items from her purse the day before, according to a police report.

The woman said she had placed her purse in her unlocked employee locker at the start of her shift, but after work noticed that her BlackBerry cellphone had been moved from one pocket to another, the report indicated. The victim initially didn’t think anything of it, but the next day she found that her debit card, her engagement ring, a white gold necklace and her Verizon employee Android Incredible cell phone all were missing from the purse, according to the report.

An investigation revealed that a four-person construction crew was working in the store’s locker area at the time of the alleged theft, but all four workers — Deschaine being among them — denied involvement, authorities said. Deschaine and another worker also claimed to have seen a Verizon cleaning employee in the area sometime that night, the report indicated.

No charges were filed then, but Plainfield police responding to an alarm on the 1200 block of Thornton Avenue a little after 7:30 p.m. on Saturday found that a home had been broken into and a television taken, authorities said.

Man held on theft, burglary charges

A man suspected in the theft of a $6,000 engagement ring and other items in Woodbridge is facing multiple criminal charges after police caught him leaving the scene of a burglary in Plainfield three days later, authorities said this week.

Thomas Deschaine, 23, of the Avenel section of Woodbridge is facing charges of burglary, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of a hypodermic needle in connection with the drug incident, said Plainfield Police Detective Leslie Hudson, who is investigating the case. Bail for Deschaine was set at $25,000; he was lodged in Union County Jail earlier this week, but on Wednesday was awaiting transfer back to Plainfield to be booked on an additional charge of credit-card theft filed in connection with the earlier incident, authorities said.

A Woodbridge police officer last Thursday was dispatched to the Verizon Wireless store at Woodbridge Center Mall on a report of theft. The officer met a 27-year-old Piscataway woman, an employee of the store, who said someone had taken several items from her purse the day before, according to a police report.

The woman said she had placed her purse in her unlocked employee locker at the start of her shift, but after work noticed that her BlackBerry cellphone had been moved from one pocket to another, the report indicated. The victim initially didn’t think anything of it, but the next day she found that her debit card, her engagement ring, a white gold necklace and her Verizon employee Android Incredible cell phone all were missing from the purse, according to the report.

An investigation revealed that a four-person construction crew was working in the store’s locker area at the time of the alleged theft, but all four workers — Deschaine being among them — denied involvement, authorities said. Deschaine and another worker also claimed to have seen a Verizon cleaning employee in the area sometime that night, the report indicated.

Man held on theft, burglary charges

A man suspected in the theft of a $6,000 engagement ring and other items in Woodbridge is facing multiple criminal charges after police caught him leaving the scene of a burglary in Plainfield three days later, authorities said this week.

Thomas Deschaine, 23, of the Avenel section of Woodbridge is facing charges of burglary, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of a hypodermic needle cannula in connection with the drug incident, said Plainfield Police Detective Leslie Hudson, who is investigating the case. Bail for Deschaine was set at $25,000; he was lodged in Union County Jail earlier this week, but on Wednesday was awaiting transfer back to Plainfield to be booked on an additional charge of credit-card theft filed in connection with the earlier incident, authorities said.
A Woodbridge police officer last Thursday was dispatched to the Verizon Wireless store at Woodbridge Center Mall on a report of theft. The officer met a 27-year-old Piscataway woman, an employee of the store, who said someone had taken several items from her purse the day before, according to a police report.


The woman said she had placed her purse in her unlocked employee locker at the start of her shift, but after work noticed that her BlackBerry cellphone had been moved from one pocket to another, the report indicated. The victim initially didn’t think anything of it, but the next day she found that her debit card, her engagement ring, a white gold necklace and her Verizon employee Android Incredible cell phone all were missing from the purse, according to the report.


An investigation revealed that a four-person construction crew was working in the store’s locker area at the time of the alleged theft, but all four workers — Deschaine being among them — denied involvement, authorities said. Deschaine and another worker also claimed to have seen a Verizon cleaning employee in the area sometime that night, the report indicated.


No charges were filed then, but Plainfield police responding to an alarm on the 1200 block of Thornton Avenue a little after 7:30 p.m. on Saturday found that a home had been broken into and a television taken, authorities said.

Now That’s a Multiplier Effect

Long-term economic growth can only stem from a culture of cutting edge innovation, not from a culture of debt-driven consumption. That’s why I think the taxpayers’ dollars are put to far better use over the long run when the government funds basic research that can potentially create exciting technologies. It’s still a better bet than Wall Street bailouts because you are not incentivizing risk and creating a moral hazard. Of course, proponents of the bailouts will argue about the vast contagion effects of a bank failure – but that’s a different column.

While the government really has no business to be in business, it has the power to fuel the kind of technology companies that will help create jobs and economic growth. The danger of course is turning the system into some kind of corporate welfare, but with strict accountability in place, the grants could well help create the kind of multiplier effect that is needed for sustained growth.

The SBIR and STTR programs provide more than $2 billion in federal R&D grants each year to small, high-tech, and innovative businesses throughout the U.S.

I spoke to the heads of three such companies in north central Connecticut, recipients of grants awarded in 2010.

One of them, John Hanson, CEO of Aquatic Sensor Network Technology LLC (AquaSeNT) in Storrs, said early-stage companies succeed when they have the optimum innovation environment, which, in AquaSeNT’s case, is being a part of the UConn incubator program, and receiving support from Connecticut Innovations.

“It’s a good model to get technology out of the universities and into the market and thereby help create jobs,” Hanson said.

The firm, originally founded by three UConn researchers, received $500,000 in a federal SBIR Phase II grant last year to build and demonstrate a working prototype of its underwater acoustic wireless communication and networking solutions.

In its nascent stage when the founders were involved in academic research, the technology was awarded academic grants by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Office of Naval Research.

“We’ve sold two prototypes to the U.S. Navy for testing and hope to promote our product more broadly in six to nine months,” Hanson said.

He claimed the technology developed at UConn allows the firm to transmit more information from sensors on the ocean floors for climate science and marine biology research.

In some cases, it can also reduce communication time, Hanson said.  He offered an example: suppose a tsunami wave has started far out in the ocean, the firm’s system can transmit the data onshore more quickly.

Biorasis Inc., another Storrs-based company, received a $150,000 NSF grant last year to further develop an auto-calibration system for glucose and metabolic monitoring.

CEO Ioannis Tomazos, Ph.D., claimed that from the information available in public domain, his sensor was unique because of its miniature size – a wee 0.5 mm by 0.5 mm – which is also body friendly and cost-effective.

The device is implanted subcutaneously by a hypodermic needle cannula and transmits blood glucose readings to another device called the Proximity Communicator, which is placed outside the body close to the sensor. The communicator can then send the data to either a smart phone or the PC. 

“We’ve developed a methodology to mask the device from the immune system (so the body does not fight and reject the foreign object),” Tomazos said.

The product is aimed to enable constant monitoring of blood glucose levels to detect hypo or hyper glycemia.

 “We are ready for the non-human market next year and have begun investigating the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approval process for human use,” he said.

Manchester-headquartered Fuss & O’Neill, an engineering firm, received a $150,000 NSF SBIR Phase I grant early last year to develop a cathode that can recapture energy from treated wastewater via microbial fuel cell technology. It again received a Phase II SBIR grant of $500,000 to further develop different aspects of the technology.