The nursing shortage is finally attracting attention-and significant funding. In August, Partners Investing in Nursing's Future awarded 11 grants aimed at supporting local solutions to the nursing shortage. The program, led by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Northwest Health Foundation, was funded this year by 27 local foundations along with other sources. This is the second year of the five-year, $10 million initiative that encourages local foundations to create stable nursing workforces in their communities by increasing educational opportunities, fostering leadership, and improving workplace conditions. Visit http://www.partnersinnursing.org for more information.

And thanks to the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation http://www.moore.org, the new Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at the University of California, Davis, will admit its first master's and doctoral students in fall 2008. Eventually, it will enroll 456 students. The foundation committed $100 million over 11 years to building the school, which will be in Sacramento. It's the largest philanthropic gift made in support of nursing education in the United States. Gordon Moore, a chemist and physicist, cofounded Intel Corporation. His wife, Betty Irene Moore, is an advocate of patient safety and nursing care and education.

Carol Potera

NewsCAP

Smokeless tobacco users have higher urinary levels of a potent carcinogen than cigarette smokers do, according to a study by Hecht and colleagues in the August issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, and Prevention. Levels of the tobacco-specific carcinogen 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone and its metabolites were significantly higher in the urine of smokeless tobacco users than in cigarette smokers, even after adjusting for demographic variables and creatinine levels. The authors state that smokeless tobacco products should not be promoted as safer alternatives to smoking because they still carry substantial risk of cancer.