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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (May 8, 1986)
Aggie's interest in Civil War helps him land acting job — Page 5 -V maycn - contra n can set if the cor,: betaxeti way aboil efused; j state anilt| an forii A&M track team prepares to vie for SWC championship — Page 10 The Battalion Serving the Gniversity community )r: fol. 83 No. 151 GSPS 075360 12 pages 10 College Station, Texas IopMcn Thursday, May 8, 1986 ajor earthquake strikes Aleutian Islands (AP) l? LMFR ,' Al “ ka «AI*)-A major rmei acihc earthquake shook the Aleu- ian Islands on Wednesday, produc- ng a sea wave that struck the island and promjxting officials as far I ouili as Oregon and Hawaii to urge des occu 11th da' rvacuations for fear a tremehdous Be might hit. J'lie quake, measuring 7.7 on the a g em ^iichtcr scale, generated a series of vaves that washed ashore along the ,,ne 'k l,lt>0-mile Aleutian chain, with the u are a* Ym’ ne st reported to he 5.H feet at tel spies A , the I’d ‘d to god tren’tywl inded. ire that^ i*r trader re displeas' in this casd Adak, the Alaska T sunami Warning (Center said. Minor damage was reported at the Naval Air Station in Adak, an is land near the end of the chain, but it was not immediately clear whether the cause was the wave or the earth quake. No casualties were immedi ately reported. Tsunami warnings were posted for the entire West Coast and Hawaii after the temblor, the largest of a Hurry of quakes to strike near the far western Aleutians on Wednes day. Two quakes came before the powerful one, which was followed by at least three more strong temblors, measuring 5 to 6 on the Richter scale, said the Warning Center. Tsunamis, popularly but inaccu rately called tidal waves, travel across seas at speeds up to 500 mph and gain size rapidly upon nearing land. Their height upon striking shore cannot be accurately predicted. Residents of the Aleutians, a chain with 16 scattered villages that have a total population of about 8,500 peo ple, were urged by the Warning Center to evacuate low-lying areas. A series of waves washed ashore within two hours of the quake, in cluding one measuring about 3 feet at Shemya, about 400 miles east of Adak, the Warning Center said. The wave size in Alaska did not rule out the possibility that a tremen dous wave could hit the West Coast, said Carol Horne, an earthquake program coordinator for the Cali fornia Of fice of Emergency Services. “It could get bigger. It just de pends,” she said. “It may not gener ate anything further.” “It is hard to say what the effect will be in coastal areas in state,” said Hawaii Civil Defense spokeswoman Barbara Henry. Officials in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii recommended evacuation of all low- lying coastal areas and urged resi dents to stay tuned to their radios. The most powerful earthquake struck at 2:47 p.m. and was centered about 100 miles southeast of Adak in the North Pacific, said the Warning Center. The U.S. Geological Survey See Earthquake, page 9 itus to appro’ : betwft" d the > ;nate hoj ;rains in studying A&M itions s'" e this yen" a faculty f ,ich also This fast-tanning display was constructed by stu dents in the College of Architecture and Environ- Photo by John Tate mental Design for the college’s annual “Day on the Lawn” celebration of projects. A&M student, 22, loses his battle against AIDS ■Reagan returns home from Tokyo, pays allies will be tough on terrorists WASHINGTON (AP) — A buoy ant President Reagan returned home Wednesday after a 13-day Far ™it trip, saying U.S. talks with stern allies in Tokyo brought un standings which will make it tougher from now on” for terror ists |‘It certainly is good to he back in the good old U.S.A.,” Reagan told supporters and administration offi cials who greeted him and his wife Nfjfncy on the White House South Bvn. afeagan and his wife arrived shortly before 2 p.m. EDT following al5-minute Marine One helicopter tide from Andrews Air Force Base in nearhv Maryland. Trhe president said in his formal ■jbuirks, “We agreed that the time !1. has come to move beyond words and rhetoric. Terrorism, as expected, was high on the agenda. I am more than pleased by the commitments made in Tokyo by our summit part ners in this regard . . . We agreed that the time has come to move be yond words and rhetoric. The president told a large crowd of White House aides, Cabinet mem bers and others supporters, “Terror ists and those who support them — especially governments — have been put on notice.” Turning to the economic issues of the summit, Reagan said the seven participating nations arrived at “a new framework for strengthening effective coordination of interna- tional economic policy.” Reagan also said he was pleased with the outcome of meetings last week with members of the Associa tion of Southeast Asian Nations, say ing the sessions just prior to the opening of the economic summit “... gave me a chance to bring their con cerns to Tokyo. It also gave me a chance to confirm our ties with the industrious people of the Pacific rim.” Aides traveling with Reagan on the 14'/>-hour flight home from the seven-nation economic summit sought to emphasize the president’s successes in Tokyo. Presidential spokesman Larry Speakes said, “I don’t think we avoided any issues. The controver sies weren’t there. Everybody was in agreement.” By Mike Sullivan Staff Writer AIDS claimed the life of a Texas A&M student when a junior com puter science major died of the dis ease April 26 after battling it for three months. The 22-year-old victim was ad mitted to Scott and White Hospital in Temple on Jan. 13, 1986, and was originally diagnosed as having pneu monia, according to hospital author ities. A cousin of the victim said ac quired immune deficiency syn drome was diagnosed shortly after the student was admitted to the hos pital. The cousin, who requested ano nymity, said the student was homo sexual. She said he attended A&M through the fall semester and was working to pay for his education. The student developed a cough during Christmas break and was hospitalized with pneumonia in Jan uary, his cousin said. “One thing led to another, and he was in the hospital in intensive care from the middle of January until he died,” she said. Dr. Claude Goswick, director of the A.P. Beutel Health Center, said he treated the student and one other person at A&M for AIDS. Goswick said the student who died had had sexual relationships with other students at A&M, but told Goswick he had informed his sexual partners when he found out he had the disease. “When (the student) was here and when he was completely conscious and totally aware of the situation, he made those contacts himself, so there was no problem,” Goswick said. The student’s cousin said she thinks the student may have had relationships with bisexuals. “There are a lot of other people who could be involved in this besides homosexuals,” she said. Goswick said that at A&M, to his knowledge, AIDS has not spread to heterosexuals. "We have seen no impact on the heterosexual community at all,” Gos wick said. “I don’t say that we won’t, but we haven’t so far, and I’m keep ing my fingers crossed.” Goswick said he thinks people have overreacted to the threat of AIDS. “I think people are borderline hysterical about it,” he said. Goswick said the potential for the disease to spread is slim. Marco Roberts, president of Gay Student Services, said he thinks that of all the communities to be affected by AIDS, A&M’s student community will be one of the last. “A lot of the students here didn’t come out of the closet until they came to school, so it’s very unlikely that they would be affected by it un less they went to the major cities and brought it back with them,” Roberts said. Roberts said he knew the student who died April 26 and he said he was shocked at how quickly the dis ease killed him. Roberts said he knows one other former A&M student who died of AIDS. He also said he knows of other people who died of AIDS in the Col lege Station area. The Center for Disease Control, in Atlanta, said 1,112 cases of AIDS had been reported in Texas, and fewer than ten cases had been re ported in the Bryan-College Station area as of April 28. Goswick said many students have tested positively for the AIDS anti body, but haven’t developed any symptoms. Simply testing positively for the antibody doesn’t mean a person has AIDS, it just means they have been exposed to the virus that causes it and have the potential to contract AIDS, Goswick said. Roberts said, “The percentage of people (at A&M) who have shown positive on the test is not as high as it is in the cities, but it seems to be pre tty high.” The Public Health Service AIDS Hotline recommends medical eval uations for people who have tested positively for the antibody. Chances of dying of cancer on rise Amendments to assist terminally ill n Death act provides options Editor's note: Phis is the first instal lment ot a two-part series on atnend- jnrs to the Texas Natural Death \ci By Mona Palmer Staff Writer in 1985 the Texas Legislature unended the Texas Natural Death Vet to give terminally ill patients, [their doctors and families more legal tptions to withhold oi withdraw life- suitaining procedures. The new act, sponsored by Rep. Bob Bush and Ray Farabee, became effective /last Sept. 1. fBlhe amendments eliminated thiee major restrictions in the 1977 act. which also was sponsored bv lush and Farabee. -fn the original act, patients had to write treatment directives 14 or more days after diagnosis of a termi nal illness. A directive written before 14 days was not binding on the phy sician. Patients also had to follow the di rective form given in the statute or their directive could be declared in valid, and all directives were invalid after five years. Cathy Seltzer, Bush’s administra tive assistant, said that Bush has been examining the death acts in other states for the past two years looking for ways to amend these re strictions. Alice Mehling, executive director of the Society for the Right to Die, said the Legislature did an excellent job of amending the act and making it more useful and comprehensive. Texas added two very worthwhile protections, Mehling said. The new act allows a patient to appoint a proxy to make a treatment decision and also protects the comatose pa tient who hasn’t issued a directive, she said. A proxy, in addition to a written directive, helps the doctor if some thing unexpected happens, she said. “We see that double protection as a useful thing,” Mehling said. "It’s a good idea to have people you trust and know your wishes to discuss things with doctors and discuss dif ferences with family members. “You (a patient) can’t be all that specific in advance of a situation so it’s good to have someone who knows your wishes.” Mehling also commended the act’s provision for comatose patients which gives guardians and family members the legal authority to with hold or withdraw treatment. She recalled a Texas case that in volved the society. The case centered around an el derly woman who suffered a stroke that destroyed 80 percent of her brain, Mehling said. "She was not brain dead but the respirator was simply prolonging her life in a permanently unconscious state,” she explained. The family contacted the society for help and was able to make a deci sion for the woman under the new act, she said. Mehling said that only three other See Death Act, page 9 BOSTON (AP) — Americans are losing the war against cancer, with the odds of dying from the disease increasing in the last three decades, a new report concludes. The study recommends that sci entists concentrate on finding ways to prevent cancer, not new means to treat it. “We see no reason for optimism about overall progress in recent years,” the researchers wrote. “There is no reason to think that, on the whole, cancer is becoming any less common.” In fact, their statistics suggest just the opposite. In 1950, 170 of every 100,000 Americans died of cancer. In 1982, after the figures were ad justed to reflect the aging popula tion, there were 185 deaths per 100,000, an 8 percent increase. The National Cancer Institute has set a goal of cutting cancer mortality in half by the year 2000. The re searchers said this won’t happen un less there is “a precipitous and un precedented decline” in the cancer death rate in the next 14 years. Responding to the report, a fed eral cancer of ficial said steady pro gress is being made against the dis ease, and he said the institute’s goals are realistic. The report was written by Drs. John C. Bailar III of the Harvard School of Public Health and Elaine M. Smith of the University of Iowa Medical Center. It was published in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine, where Bailar serves as sta tistical consultant. “We’re not saying treatment is no good,” Bailar said in an interview. “We’re convinced that every cancer patient should get a diagnosis as early as possible and the best possi ble treatment. What we’re saying is that cancer treatment is not getting a whole lot better.” Some experts disagreed with the researchers’ contention. At the American Cancer Society, Dr. Lawrence Garfinkel said, “There’s no doubt that the reason the overall death rate continues to go up is because of lung cancer. If you take away lung cancer, instead of having an 8 percent increase, you have a 13 percent decrease.” Dr. Peter Greenwald, head of the cancer institute’s Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, said, “We have had a lot of progress.” He said it takes many years for im provements in cancer treatment and prevention to show up in better can cer survival, and “the mortality fig ures through 1982 really reflect the past decade, not this decade.” Bailar said he would like to see more effort to understand the causes of cancer, especially the role of diet and environmental factors. While it once made sense to search for cancer cures, Bailar said, “those efforts have not paid off. I’m not convinced they ever will, and I think it’s time to start getting serious about prevention.” Garfinkel noted that several po tential therapies, including interleu- ken-2 and interferon, have showed promise in early studies. “I think it would be shame to withdraw money from that kind of treatment re search,” he said. Bailar said that while doctors have made considerable progress in cur ing a few rare kinds of cancer, such as childhood leukemia, these ac count for only a tiny proportion of the cancer problem. Interpreting cancer figures can be tricky. The National Cancer Insti tute contends that nearly half of all cancer victims now survive for at least five years after their disease is spotted, whereas in the 1950s, only a third of them lived that long. But Bailar and a Harvard col league, John Cairns, contend this is misleading because cancers are be ing diagnosed sooner. So people are followed longer until they die, but they don’t really live any longer.