Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 22, 1984)
Wednesday, February22 1984AThe Battalion/Page 9 DeBakey renews transplant ffort because of new drug United Press International iiion lawj doesnoiM tn march ini/atioiu! Ins. ises thai.w jut) is noli: .ind ofiisd HOUSTON — Dr. Michael Bakey, who helped pioneer !art transplants in the late !60s but abandoned them be cause of poor results, an nounced Tuesday he is starting piew transplant effort because of a new anti-rejection drug. The announcement came within hours of the first heart Bmsplant since 1970 by DeBa key, now 75 but still active. A steam led by DeBakey implanted ( the heart of a 17-year-old [trauma victim into a 42-year-old Florida man. ■ “We are going to perform Rransplantalion of organs, and so we will be doing these as the Occasion arises,” DeBakey told a Inews conference. ■ DeBakey said his plans are not limitecl to heart transplants, but that the new Baylor College attox opinion will prevent Bell onded rate increase this week 1. d suit in p, seefatl A spokes KJan muI if a hearf .v Wedm iv ream® United Press International Ter Jorge® AUSTIN — Attorney Gen- the timespral Jim Mattox said Tuesday a es of the | utility reform law passed by the ;f.handae Texas Legislature last year will ion plainiti||revenl Southwestern Bell isTaskF'xflelephone from implementing a $280 million bonded rate in- f crease on Thursday, j; In an advisory opinion re quested by public consumer counsel Jim Boyle, Mattox said lell’s $1.3 billion rate increase quest fell under the new law father than the old law. Bell had claimed that since it led the increase in June 1983 it came under the old law be- fter uak! Q USe new i avv (jjj nol take effect until Sept. 1, 1983. But Mattox agreed with oyle that Bell’s rate filing in ne was “materially deficient,” was not finalized until Oct. 19,1983. “The statement which Bell led on June 24, 1983 was led ‘materially deficient’ in that it did not contain all the iroposed tariffs and schedules as the statute requires,” Mattox jrted tl' e! said. “We conclude that the new ■d.its pr# law governs the bonding date in auseofmf this case.” ;n detent® I Under Mattox’s advisory •chniciaitit opinion, Bell apparently will Center"® piot be able to charge bonded i-footr<)W' rates until April 22. The Public hallenfp 1 tltility Commission has said it that m Ixpects to rule on the Bell case ie recent* on April 24. of Medicine-Methodist Hospital center will transplant lungs, kidneys, livers and ultimately pancreases using the new drug, cyclosporine. Cyclosporine, made from a fungus found in ordinary dirt, recently was certified for unre- gulatecl use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Across the street at the Texas Heart Institute, former DeBa key protege Dr. Denton Cooley also helped pioneer heart trans plants in the 1960s, abandoned them but in 1981 started testing cyclosporine in his own new se ries of transplants. “We didn’t decide to embark on the program at that time,” DeBakey said. “We didn’t apply (to participate in experiments) and didn’t decide until re cently.” Early Tuesday, DeBakey suc cessfully transplanted the heart of an unnamed Houston male into the body of George Ser- rahn of Daytona Beach, Fla. Serrahn had been suffering from terminal heart failure. Serrahn had been in Hous ton for a month awaiting a do nor heart. DeBakey said he ex pected Serrahn, in stable condition after the surgery, to be up and around by Wednes day. “There is no reason why we shouldn’t expect that,” DeBa key said. DeBakey, who performed his last heart transplant in 1970 af ter doing 12 others from 1968 to 1970 in the early days of the procedure, abandoned the op eration in anguish because of the poor results. Even so, he had two of the longest lived recipients in those early days. One patient lived four years, another six. DeBakey attributed his change in attitude toward heart transplants entirely to the emer gence of cyclosporine. The new drug is popular be cause it selectively suppresses the immune system’s rejection, and ultimate destruction, of foreign organs. Old anti-reject- ion drugs broadly suppressed immunity and left recipients vulnerable to disease. Even so, transplant recipients must take anti-rejection chugs the rest of their lives. DeBakey said two other bar riers to widespread heart trans plant surgery remain, the $ 125,000-plus cost and the shortage of suitable donor hearts. '6 ; shuttle f ts recent« he susp< with N sptciotis when. An attorney general’s advi sory opinion has the same effect as law until stricken down in court. But Bell spokesman Dale Johnson of Dallas said he was unsure what effect Mattox’s opinion would have on the PUC. He suggested the com pany would challenge Mattox’s advisory opinion in court. “We feel we’re on solid ground in proposing to imple ment the bonded rates this com ing Thursday,” Johnson said.” Boyle called Mattox’s ruling an “important victory for con sumers.” Bell announced last week it would put the higher rates in effect under bond this Thurs day, contending it has the power to charge higher rales without PUC approval by post ing a bond. Under the company’s bonded rate plan, one-party residential rates would have risen by another $2.75'. The bonded rates would have been in addition to a $653 million emergency rate hike au thorized by the commission ef fective Jan. 1, when Bell split from its former parent com pany, American Telephone & Telegraph Co. Meanwhile, Consumer Union director Carol Barger filed a motion with the PUC Tuesday, asking the commis sion to investigate the relationship between Southwes tern Bell Corp., and its subsidia ries. Barger submitted evidence that she said substantiated her claim that the St. Louis-based holding company is using reve nues from the regulated South western Bell Telephone to de velop new unregulated subsidiaries. She said the holding com pany plans to take $2 million in assets and 100 employees from Southwestern Bell Telephone to develop Southwestern Bell Telecommunications, a com pany that will market telecom munications equipment. But Barger said there is no evidence profits from the new company will be returned to its sister company, Southwestern Bell. Barger also sharply criticized the three-member PUC for re fusing to investigate Bell’s relationship with its sister com panies, declining to order Bell to submit information about its relationship and rejecting of fers by consumer groups to pre sent evidence to the commis- ) was it failed ^ land toiu 01 ® said die 111 wrist app* 1 it. been able' ibfem," b* <s fine 911 Shuttle ride doesn’t help arthritic rats United Press International SPACE CENTER — Three rthritic rats that flew on the re- :ent shuttle mission apparently id not benefit that much from living in space for eight days, an astronaut said Tuesday. Six rats — three of them suf fering from arthritis — were “own on the tenth shuttle flight to see if weightlessness relieves the symptoms of rheumatoid rthritis. Previously, astronaut Ron McNair said the arthritic rats in pace seemed better off than leir counterparts on Earth, ut Tuesday, McNair said re searchers found just the oppo site when the rats returned to arth. In flight, the observations iseemed to support the hypoth- tsis of zero gravity having a pos itive effect in eliminating or possibly inhibiting the spread of arthritis around various joints,” McNair told reporters during a news conference at the Johnson Space Center. “However, post-flight pre liminary data seems not to sup port that hypothesis quite as well as in-flight observations,” he said. McNair said researchers be lieve the conditions of the ar thritic rats may have been af fected by the rats re-entry and readjustment to gravity on Earth. The astronauts said further study was needed to determine the success of the experiments. An estimated 7 million Americans, three-fourths of them women, have rheumatoid arthritis. Aggieland PRESENTS $ 1.25 Night WEDNESDAYS 5 TO 12 STARRING No. 2 HAM + CHEESE No 11 TURKEY INU. I I + CHEESE ny\ Croissan Arty's is now serving breakfast. A real croissant breakfast like no one else's. We have authentic French croissants, made from folded layers of soft, light, buttery pastry. Warm, flaky and melt-in-the- mouth good. Ifyoud like a croissant, filled with your choice of fresh eggs, sizzling bacon, ham, freshly sauteed mushrooms and cheese... Get a FREE glass of orange juice with this coupon when you buy a Croissant of your choice! Two Locations: BRYAN East 29th St. (Across from Bryan High) COLLEGE STATION Southwest Parkway (Next to Pelicans Wharf) Battalion Not good with any other offer Offer expires Feb. 29, 1984 j SEEiijgjI CAR CARE products] i SeSfor C m*mce D OPEN THURSDAY \ from NISSAN FROM Nl**'*™ round! Nissan d * a Smooth war- tenanco-free and £® cked ^ Datsun vehiclss ranty. They m “" "tssan^ jmport and EUHna ’ > w s OPEN THURSDAY EVENINGS TUI 8 PM Starting Jan. 5 BATTERY SALE 48 mo. 24 or 24F With 462 cold crank amps. $49“ ! n O e s I «tosMon.F,i^Mr GALLERYDATSUN |Open till 8pm Thursday^^^ 1214 Taxes 775-1500 Student Government Traditions Council sponsors Howdy T-Shirt Sales o n m 4 p m Monday thru Friday this week ' ' Su pport the "Howdy!" Tradition Buy a Howdy T-Shirt ($7) today! MSC travel TRAVEL SPRING ‘84 March 10-16, 1984 New York City $500 THE _ SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION See this thouaht-orovoking film that seeks a true understanding of the Judeo-ChristiSn heritage upon which our legal system was founded. Listen to the voices of the people who shaped the Amer ican system of law and government. Decide whether our lawmakers have abandoned the original principles set forth by the Founding Fathers. Understand the frightening consequences of replacing the biblical base with a humanistic one. Judge your own position: Apathy toward the present grim reality of a decaying society or action toward a reversal of this trend... A Second American Revolution. Directed by F. A. Schaeffer. Produced by J. Buchfuehrer. Screenplay by Harold Fickett. Zachry 103 Free Sponsored by AAM Christian Fellowship A film by Franky Schaeffer V Productions. Released by WORD, INC., Educational Products Division