Thursday, September 19, 1985/The Battalion/Page 15
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Insurance groups worrying
that AIDS will raise payouts
Associated Press
Insurance companies are keeping
a wary eye on costs from AIDS, wor
rying that health and life insurance
payouts could skyrocket as the dis
ease spreads. Some say they may
have to begin screening applicants
by using a blood test that reveals ex
posure to the AIDS virus.
Wisconsin and California, how
ever, have barred the use of test
findings for insurance purposes and
New York state’s Insurance Depart
ment won’t let insurers ask about
blood test results on application
forms.
The possibility of insurers using
the test has raised fears of discrimi
nation among high-risk groups,
principally homosexual men. They
note that the test, used by blood do
nor centers, detects exposure to the
AIDS virus and that only 5 percent
to 20 percent of those who test posi
tive will actually develop acquired
immune deficiency syndrome.
The insurance industry contends
the blood tests can be a valid tool in
underwriting individual health and
life insurance policies. But group
policies would not be affected since
they are not based on individual
medical reports, industry
spokesmen say.
The Wisconsin law has been at
tacked by Milwaukee-based North
western Mutual Life Insurance Co.,
which threatened this week to begin
excluding coverage of AIDS from
policies in its home state.
George Hardy, legislative counsel
for Northwestern Life, said, “In the
case of all other diseases, we’re per
mitted to get all the facts, but this
legislation prohibits us from requir
ing a test to determine if they have
the AIDS virus. We think we can
show that it’s a reliable test for insur
ance underwriting purposes.”
He has drafted legislation, now
pending, which would allow insur
ance companies to see the AIDS test
results.
Insurance companies say such
Gamma radiation detector
will hover above East Texas
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — A huge, he
lium-filled balloon soon will be
launched into Earth’s upper atmo
sphere carrying a device designed to
help scientists understand how dy
ing stars emit radiation.
Researchers from the University
of California at Riverside hope the
balloon, measuring 400 to 500 feet
across, will hover tor two days at an
altitude of about 25 miles above East
Texas, allowing the device to detect
incoming gamma ray radiation from
neutron stars and pulsars.
The date of the sunset balloon
launch depends on weather and
wind conditions. It could occur as
early as next week at the National
Scientific Balloon Facility in Pales
tine, Texas, UC Riversiae physicist
Allen D. Zych said.
Neutron stars are believed to be
dying stars that run out of nuclear
fuel and are compressed by gravita
tional forces until they measure only
several miles in diameter.
Pulsars are rapidly rotating neu
tron stars that emit pulses of various
types of radiation, including visible
hghc, radio waves and gamma rays.
Unlike normal stars, dying stars
emit gamma radiation, but “the
mechanism for producing gamma
rays in pulsars and neutron stars is
unknown,” Zych said. “By looking in
careful detail at the radiation com
ing from these stars, we can better
try to understand the physics of
what's going on in these objects.”
The $250,000 gamma radiation
detector will be carried above 99.7
percent of Earth’s atmosphere by
the $60,000 balloon, which will be
filled with about $10,000 worth of
helium, Zych said Tuesday.
After the planned 48-hour flight,
ground controllers will transmit a ra
dio signal that will cause a cord to rip
the balloon apart. The 1,800-pound
radiation detector is supposed to
parachute to the ground somewhere
in East Texas.
Zych said the radiation detector,
which will be reused if successfully
recovered, is one of only two of its
type in the world. He said scientists
at the Max Planck Institute for Ex
traterrestrial Physics in West Ger
many plan to place the other, similar
device into space on a satellite to be
launched from a U.S. space shuttle
in 1988.
By rising to the edge of the earth’s
atmosphere, the balloon will let
Zych’s radiation detector determine
the location of gamma ray sources in
space and the intensity of the radia
tion they produce. Earth’s atmo
sphere prevents most gamma rays
from reaching the ground.
One of the stars it will study is the
Crab pulsar, which is about five
miles in diameter and emits radio
waves and light 30 times each sec
ond. The device also will search the
northern sky for other, yet-undisco-
vered sources of gamma rays.
“It is a radiation detector, but it
does serve as a telescope in that we
can locate the sources of (gamma
ray) emission in the sky and there
fore make a crude star map of the
sky,” Zych said.
Alleged members of crime gang
held without bond after FBI arrest
Associated Press
HOUSTON — Two alleged Houston members of a
Taiwan-based crime gang were being held without
bond Wednesday after their arrest by the FBI earlier
this week.
Chen “Yellowbird” Chih-Yi, 34, and Tien Yun
“Peter” Yang, 36, were ordered detained by U.S. Mag
istrate George Kelt Wednesday. The two men are
charged in New York with conducting and conspiring
to conduct a racketeering enterprise.
FBI officials arrested the two men Monday in a
roundup of United Bamboo members in three states.
Kelt said the two men would be detained until their
trial in New York, where the racketeering charges were
filed.
David S. Edward, an FBI special agent, testified
Wednesday that United Bamboo is a Taiwan-based
crime gang involved in contract murder, large-scale
drug distribution, kidnapping, extortion and gambling.
Officials say Chih-Yi is the U.S. leader of the gang.
Chih-Yi has lived in Houston for 12 years and has
operated two businesses. Best Produce and a restaurant
called Shangri-La, FBI agents said. Much of the illegal
activity of United Bamboo has taken place in New York
and California, officials said.
Federal officials have tape-recorded conversations
with Chih-Yi and two other key United Bamboo leaders
who “admitted their participation in the homicide of
Henry Liu,” the complaint says.
Liu, a crusading anti-Taiwan journalist, was killed in
the garage of his Daly City, Calif., home on Oct. 15,
1984. Two members of United Bamboo were convicted
in the killing in April and sentenced to life imprison
ment. Another member allegedly involved in the killing
is still at large.
The federal complaint, filed in New York, says Chih-
Yi and at least three other United Bamboo members
met in September and October 1984 to plot Liu’s mur
der.
“They agreed and planned that he should be shot to
death and took steps to accomplish this aim,” court pa
pers say.
Special agent Edward said Chih-Yi told undercover
agents that he “was aware of how it would happen and
when it would barmen.”
ROBINSON
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846-1700
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"an aggie traditien"
practices are standard with any se
rious illness; higher premiums or an
outright refusal of insurance can go
along with a history of any serious
illness such as cancer, heart disease
or diabetes.
“In general terms, company prac
tices are not different than before,”
said Rob Bier, a spokesman for the
American Council of Life Insurance
and the Health Insurance Associa
tion.
The 630-member council, which
represents 95 percent of the nation’s
life insurers, recently adopted a pol
icy that insurers would not seek to
obtain or use the results of blood
tests from blood donation centers
because to do so might discourage
donors.
However, Bier said, insurers “do
seek to reserve the privilege of ad
ministering medical tests, including
the tests for antibodies for the AIDS
virus .. .
Otherwise, he said, costs could get
out of line and premiums would
soar.
ii Problem Pregnancy?
we listen, we care, we help
Free pregnancy tests
concerned counselors
Brazos Valley
Crisis Pregnancy Service
We re local!
1301 Memorial Dr.
24 hr. Hotline
823-CARE
The
Battalion
SPREADING
THE NEWS
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Any student wishing to withhold any or all of this information should fill out,
in person, the appropriate form, available to all students at the Registrar's
Office, no later than 5 p.m. Friday, September 20, 1985.
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