Wednesday, April 8, 1987/The Battalion/Page 3
State and Local
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Texans may have to puffin private
Bill could restrict public smoking
By Christi Daugherty
Staff Writer
Hold on tight to those ciga
rettes, and enjoy them while it’s
legal. The Legislature is in ses
sion.
The Texas Senate has ap
proved and passed to committee
a bill that would considerably
limit tobacco smoking in public.
The Texas Smoke-Free Indoor
Act, the bill sponsored by Sen.
Chet Brooks, D-Fasadena, carries
the endorsement of the American
Cancer Society, which also claims
credit for originating the idea.
As written, the bill would pro
hibit smoking in most indoor
areas except designated smoking
space. The bill excludes bars, to
bacco shops and restaurants with
under a 25-person capacity.
These smaller areas would be al
lowed to permit smoking in their
entire establishments.
Lisa McGiffert, a legislative
aide in Brooks’ office, said the bill
is now in a House committee, and
although it passed the Senate
smoothly, things are now starting
to look rocky.
She said the bill was not sent to
the committee where Brooks had
expected it to go, and it is having
trouble getting a hearing.
“We’re definitely disappointed
it didn’t make it to the Public
Health Committee,” McGiffert
said. “We certainly feel that it’s a
health issue. It will definitely have
a rough ride over there (in the
House).”
She said the idea of such a bill
was recommended two years ago
by the Legislative task force on
cancer, and Brooks sponsored a
similar bill last year that failed.
“We’ve worked for two years
with people who oppose the idea
as well as those who support it,
trying to come up with a bill ev
eryone can live with,” she said.
Cindy Morgan, the media af
fairs coordinator for the Ameri
can Cancer Society’s Texas divi
sion in Austin, said the Cancer
Society is part of a coalition that
wrote the bill.
“We have a directive out of our
national office to work as part of
a coalition with the Heart 8c Lung
Association for a clean air bill,”
Morgan said.
The bill is necessary, she
added, because studies have pro
ven that non-smokers who asso
ciate frequently with smokers also
suffer health problems com
monly associated with smoking.
“There are a lot of people out
there who consider it an irritation
or an aggravation to be around
the smoke,” she said. “But now
the surgeon general came out
with the fact that involuntary
smoking, or passive smoking, ex
ists. In fact, family members and
children of smokers have a
higher incidence of smoke-re
lated illnesses than the average
population.
“Since the U.S. surgeon gen
eral came out with this evidence,
we’re being taken more serious-
iy”
Bryan-College Station Rep.
Richard Smith said he hadn’t yet
read the bill, but that he’d heard
of it, and tentatively agreed with
most of its precepts.
“I support the protection of
people’s rights not to smoke if
they don’t want to, but also I want
to protect the rights of those who
smoke — I wouldn’t want to in
terfere with their rights,” Smith
said.
The bill would allow smoking
in an individual’s private office,
or in designated smoking areas,
but prohibits smoking in the open
office environment favored by
many companies.
This has been an area of dis-
sention among detractors of the
bill, and Smith wondered if the
bill properly solved that problem.
He suggested offices develop
designated smoking areas where
smokers could retreat for a peri
odic puff.
“Teachers have been doing it
this way for years,” Smith said.
“I’ll bet all the way through grade
school you never saw your teach
ers with a cigarette. And I’ll guar
antee you a lot of them smoked.”
Ben Hardeman, a Bryan city
councilman who in the past has
been known to oppose similar
legislation, favorably compared
the bill to the smoking ordinances
that passed the Bryan Council last
year.
“It sounds similar to the ordi
nance they have in Bryan, and
naturally I would be in favor of
it,” Hardeman said. “While I
would not try to prohibit anyone
from smoking, I think non-smok
ers deserve the right to clean air
as much as smokers deserve the
right to smoke.”
Smith said the best thing about
the bill is that it establishes a uni
form state law, which is prefera
ble to the current situations of lo
cal ordinances that differ from
city to city.
A&M profs research
helps paralyzed males
in fathering children
By Kellie Copeland
Reporter
Most young men who suffer spi
nal-cord injuries lose not only the
use of their arms and legs, but also
the ability to become a father.
But paralyzed men now have the
chance to father children, thanks to
a technique originally developed for
endangered species by a Texas A&M
professor of veterinary medicine.
Stephen Seager, director of the
Wildlife and Exotic Animal Center,
has collaborated with doctors at the
University of Michigan Medical Cen
ter, the National Rehabilation Hos
pital in Washington, D.C. and the
Baylor College of Medicine in Hous
ton to collect sperm from about 80
paralyzed men by using a technique
called electroejaculation — a process
in which a low-voltage electrical
probe is used to stimulate ejacula
tion. The sperm then can be col
lected and used for artificial insem
ination.
The wives of five paraplegics have
been impregnated successfully using
the technique; the first baby is due in
August and the second in October.
These pregnancies, Seager says,
are the first reported in the United
States involving paraplegics and qua
driplegics who are unable to have
sexual intercourse.
Only 2 percent to 3 percent of
some 10,000 to 15,000 American
men who suffer spinal-cord injuries
each year ever regain the ability to
ejaculate, Seager says. The rest are
cost oi
Staff parking spaces behind Reed McDonald reassigned by vandals
Someone decided it was about time the
staff parking lot behind the Reed McDonald
Building be repainted with assigned spots for
The Battalion staff members, but many
Texas A&M University staff members didn’t
find any humor in the prank.
Director of University Police Bob Wiatt
Tuesday said, “We’ve been receiving calls
from irate people all morning. T wo of them
ailed me personally.”
Sometime in the wee hours of Tuesday
morning, parking spaces reserved for the
journalism department head, journalism pro
fessors, printing center employees and other
A&M staff members were painted over and
reassigned, by job title, to several Battalion
staff members.
Wiatt said the act was criminal mischief and
it will be investigated.
An investigation will be conducted and if
the person or persons responsible are found,
class A misdemeanor charges will be filed,
Wiatt said.
He added that a class A misdemeanor is
punishable by up to one year in prison and a
$2,000 fine.
“Grounds maintenance people estimate the
damage to the parking lot to be at least $400,”
he said.
He said some of the people who called
UPD this morning want to see someone pun
ished for the vandalism.
Officers took pictures of the parking lot
and questioned a couple of journalism stu
dents who said they didn’t know anything
about the incident, he said.
Wiatt said from September of 1986 to
March 31, 285 parking tickets had been is
sued in the approximate 35-space lot.
“Since the spaces in the lot are reserved, we
usually don’t even go intq that lot unless there
is a complaint,” he said.
left infertile because their injury
blocks signals from the brain.
“These statistics are especially tra
gic because 80 percent of paraple
gics are males between the age of 18
and 27,” Seager says.
“It’s very tragic to see these young
men become paralyzed,” he says.
“Some can only move their heads.
“One of the first things
some of them have been
told is that they will never
be able to father chil
dren. ”
— Professor Stephen
Seager
One of the first things some of them
have been told is that they will never
be able to father children.
“Spinal-cord injury is really a male
disease. Women are usually more
careful. The injuries almost always
happen because of motorcycle, div
ing or gunshot accidents.”
Most of the paralyzed young men
are married or end up getting mar
ried, Seager says. “Many times they
marry their nurses,” he says.
Paraplegics wanting children
commonly have resorted to sperm
banks or adoption.
Electroejaculation also may help
young men who have had surgery
for testicular cancer, Seager says.
Seager developed electroejacula
tion in his pioneering work with wild
and endangered animals such as go
rillas, giant pandas, leopards, rhi
noceroses, chimpanzees and dol
phins. The technique has enabled
him to collect sperm from anesthe
tized animals for analysis and artifi
cial insemination.
“This work wasn’t destined for
humans, it was destined for the
propagation of animals,” he says.
“Mankind was a purely secondary
benefactor.”
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