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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 6, 1987)
The Battalion m 83 No. 26 GSPS 045360 8 pages College Station, Texas Tuesday, October 6, 1987 ork’s chances hurt y Byrd’s opposition OS WASHINGTON (AP) — Robert . Bork’s Supreme Court hopes suf- red major new setbacks Monday as nate Majority Leader Robert ||iyrd, a conservative Democratic nator, and two liberal Republicans Isclared opposition to his confirma- Byrd had been publicly unde led, even suggesting that he and IBhcr Senate Judiciary Committee ^Bembers should send the nomi- ^Jtion to the Senate floor without taking a stand on it when they vote Tuesday. I But on Monday he called the nomination “doomed,” said Presi- nt Reagan shouldn’t have picked trk in the first place and suggested at withdrawing the nomination ould spare Mr. Bork.” At the White House, Reagan said he would fight on, declaring that Iv y uc ‘ u Snlv“over my dead body” would the n in f Inomination be defeated before Baching the full Senate. ■ Before Byrd’s announcement, Bief White House spokesman Mar- B Fitzwater called the nomination ■ery much alive.” After hearing xmt Byrd, he said, “It’s getting lugher but we’re still working on nen and Kara Tom Korologos, the administra- to Rick Massif, an lobbyist working on Bork’s be- ne-sided victon alf, said, “It doesn’t look good, but the Oilers skt e’re still in there slugging.” 1 their record ill In addition to Byrd, Sens. Dennis season to 2-LBeConcini, D-Ariz., Lowell P. ■eickerjr., R-Conn., and John H. I up forthegamt hafee, R-R.I., left the undecided :rs, who were,ta imp for the opposition, with De- ■threatening,and foncini telling reporters, “I think it’s during the firsl ver,” isiasm began to DeConcini said his personal count , as the Oilen lows at least 53 senators opposed to rst possession ol 1 as Seale put tk Bork, while Sen. Alan Cranston — who counts noses as the Democratic whip — added that he now counts 53 opposed and 42 in favor with five senators’ positions unknown. “The outcome is now pre-or dained,” Cranston said. “I don’t see how it can be turned around now.” Fitzwater said Reagan telephoned four senators Monday, lobbying for “The White House should recognize that this nomi nation is going down, not up. The nomination is doomed. ” — Robert Byrd, Senate majority leader their votes, but he wouldn’t say who they were. He said Reagan, who briefly an swered several questions on Bork at an unrelated White House cere mony, intends to speak out for him at the re-scheduled swearing-in Thursday of FBI Director-designate William Sessions. Asked if Reagan planned a television address, Fitzwa ter said, “Every option is being con sidered.” The decisions by Byrd and De Concini also will affect the Senate Judiciary Committee vote Tuesday on the type of recommendation the panel will make to the full Senate. They became the seventh and eighth lawmakers on the 14-member panel to announce opposition to Bork. Cranston said the vote “would likely turn out to be a negative rec ommendation” although a decision of “no recommendation” is still pos sible. Both sides have said the nomi nation should be sent to the full Sen ate, no matter how many committee members oppose confirmation. Five Republican members of the committee favor Bork and Sen. Howell Heflin, D-Ala., is to make his decision known on Tuesday. Weicker and Chafee became the third and fourth Republicans to speak out against the nominee, fol lowing Sens. Arlen Specter of Penn sylvania, a member of the Judiciary Committee, and Bob Packwood of Oregon. Democrats who say they support Bork are Ernest Hollings of South Carolina and David Boren of Oklahoma. Byrd said he would vote against Bork because of concerns about pri vacy, the right of Congress to sue the president in federal court and be cause the nomination is “too contro versial to go forward with.” Byrd said he decided to switch from the undecided camp now be cause, “Over the weekend I made a lot of calls to West Virginia and found a great feeling of concern, distrust, unease. “The White House should recog nize that this nomination is going down, not up. The nomination is doomed.” DeConcini said Bork’s career as a professor and an appellate court judge “indicates a lack of under standing of the effect of judicial de cisions on real people.” “Judge Bork views the Constitu tion as a bloodless and sterile con tract,” he said. Back to the bass-ics The Paladins, a rockabilly group that hails from San Diego, perform at one of the local clubs, Eastgate Live, Sunday night. The band, consisting of Scott Campbell on drums, Tom Yearling on Photo by Jay Janner bass and Dave Gomez playing guitar, is on tour supporting their self-titled debut album, which was produced by members of the Fabulous Thun- derbirds and Los Lobos. -^Recruiting, scholarships hike minority enrollment nalds I® EVERY )RS jes in the In- ">9- yak roil ses- . 19 for a roll ) PM in Cain js and $8.00 oin usattlie structorswill dlls through- d of Oct. 23- - nonA&Mal- ate climbers, oamping fees . This trip is ■ogram, con- By Mary-Lynne Rice Staff Writer Texas A&M’s 21 percent in- :rease in minority enrollment this «ar can be attributed to heavy re- Tuitine, more scholarships and the [eneral growth of total University nrollment, said Lynn Brown, asso- iate director for the President’s khievement Award program. Minority student enrollment at McM increased this fall from 2,774 itudents to 3,357, University 12th- iay enrollment records show. Minorities make up 8 percent of total University enrollment this fall, A&M President Frank Vandiver laid at the Sept. 14 meeting of the 'acuity Senate. He said that total is “not where represent signihcant progress to ward our goals.” Black student enrollment rose al most 25 percent, from 780 to 974, and enrollment increased almost 20 f iercent for Hispanic students, rom 1,994 to 2,395 in a total en rollment population of 39,079, As sociate Registrar Donald Carter said. Available records from other Southwest Conference universities show the University of Texas has 47,743 students, with 1,644 blacks and 2,282 Hispanics. Texas Tech, with 21,512 stu dents enrolled, has 560 blacks and 1,337 Hispanics. Southern Methodist University, with 8,794 students, has 267 blacks and 277 Hispanics. Extended recruiting efforts are especially important in attracting minority students to A&M, Brown said. “College Day” information ses sions at high schools give students a chance to learn about A&M and al low recruiters to find the best stu dents. “While we’re in the cities where those are being held, we also make contact with the counselors and ask for their high-achieving minority students,” Brown said. “And if we can, we talk to them (students) one-on-one and follow up leads at home and talk to their parents,” she said. A mail-out campaign is directed toward minority students based on their PSAT scores, Brown said. “We’ll send letters to them every couple of months to encourage them to visit the A&M campus and contact our office,” she said. But just getting minority stu dents to attend A&M is not enough, said Donald Carreathers, coordina tor for the Multi-cultural Service Center. Retaining minority students until graduation is the goal. Figures released by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board after the 12th day of classes show that A&M has had the best minority student retention rate in the state. Eighty-eight percent of Hispanic students and almost 87 percent of black students remained enrolled until graduation. In working to retain minority students, Carreathers said he ad vises student groups, attends va rious student functions and tries to get to know each student. “We find out what their strengths and weaknesses are, what some of their needs are and try to provide some opportunities to meet their needs, whether it be social, psychological, academic, whatever,” ne said. “I do whatever I can to help them survive at A&M,” Carreathers said. Carreathers said extra effort is being made to attract minority stu dents to the University because of its history of low minority enroll ment. “Seeing that A&M had not ever had a real history of having mi nority students on campus, they (administrators) realized their faults and tried to make amends for it,” he said. “If you plan on being a true world-class institution, you need that diversity of students,” Car reathers said. “With the demographics of Texas changing and moving to ward a heavier population of blacks and Hispanics, it’s their mission to recruit the population of Texas,” he said. “And by the year 2000, that pop ulation will be primarily blacks and Hispanics,” he said. Silver Taps will honor one student A Texas A&M student who died last month in a train-car col lision will be honored at the Silver Taps ceremony tonight at 10:30 p m, in front of the Academic Building. Martin Joseph Bottoms, a ju nior mechanical engi neering major from Am arillo, was killed Sept. 19 at the Well born Road and FM 2818 railroad crossing when a train hit the passenger side of the car he was riding in. The Silver Taps cere mony is held on the first Tuesday of each month Trorn September through April, when necessary. The names of the deceased stu dents are posted at the base of the flagpole in front of the Academic Building and the flag is flown at half-staff the day of the cere mony. At 10:20 p.m. today, most lights on campus will be turned off or dimmed, then the Ross Volunteers Firing Squad will start the ceremony, marching in slow cadence toward the statue of Lawrence Sullivan Ross. Shortly after, three volleys are fired in a 21-gun salute and six buglers play a special arrange ment of “Taps” three times — to the north, south and west. Doctor develops transplant process to help combat effects of diabetes By Jenny Hynes Reporter “There isn’t a doubt in my mind that it (diabe tes) can be cured,” said Paul Eston Lacy, M.D., Ph.D., in a lecture titled “Can Diabetes be Cu red.” The presentation was sponsored by the Col lege of Medicine and the University Lecture Se ries of Texas A&M. Lacy spoke on his work with pancreatic-islet cell transplantation. Diabetes is a disease in which cells in the pan creas — beta cells in the islets of Langerhans — are destroyed and cannot function to produce the hormone insulin. An individual with diabetes lacks the ability to break down blood sugar. “The problems faced by diabetics today are not that they have to take insulin,” Lacy said. “The real problems involve complications includ ing damage to the eye, kidney and cardiovascular system.” While diabetic individuals can receive insulin injections to keep their blood-sugar levels within normal ranges, such artificial regulation is not as precise as that performed by the pancreas, he said, adding that poor regulation causes compli cations. To overcome this problem, Lacy is working on methods of pancreatic-islet cell transplantation as a treatment for diabetes. While work in the past has involved transplanting an entire pancreas, which is made up of cells other than tnose that produce insulin, Lacy’s work involves transplant ing only the insulin-producing islet cells. Structures In the Digestive System liver Esophagus Stomach Panereea with Islet* of Langerhans Small Intestine Large Intestine Graphic by Susan C. Akin lly id i Lacy began his research using rats, but is finished one set of tests involving human but now has finished one set of tests involving human sub jects and is beginning his second set of tests. Lacy injects islet cells into the umbilical vein of a diabetic individual. The cells travel to the liver where, due to their large size, they become lodged. While the liver is not the natural home for islet cells, Lacy said they produce insulin nor- need for insulin injections and reduces — or in some cases reverses, complications. Problems involved in the process of islet-cell transplantation include rejection of the cells by the individual receiving them. Difficulty isolating pure islet cells from other cells in the pancreas is also a problem. “The islet cells make up only a small part of your pancreas — only about 2 percent,” Lacy said. ‘*The rest of the cells make enzymes that di gest your food. They have nothing to do with di abetes.” To separate the islet cells in a donated pan creas from the other cells, Lacy tried several methods including zero-gravity, velcro, hair curl ers, tea strainers and a machine modeled after an old-fashioned meat grinder. These methods pro duced a 30 percent yield of islet cells to other cells. Lacy now uses a machine with a stainless-steel chamber to digest the pancreas and liberate the islet cells from the other cells. This machine gives a 70 percent yield of islet cells. The advantage in transplanting only islet cells, rather than the entire pancreas, is most obvious with the problem of rejection. Since the body will normally reject any cells th^t it doesn’t recognize as its own, immunosuppressive drugs must be given after any organ transplant to “fool” the body into accepting the organ. These drugs often produce toxic effects. To prevent rejection of foreign islet cells by the diabetic individual, several methods can be used including culturing in a high-oxygen envi ronment and treating the cells with antibodies or ultraviolet light. The method which Lacy has had the most success with, however, is simply incubat ing the cells for one week at room temperature. “There’s no question that this simple proce dure lets you transplant the cells, give no therapy thereafter and the individual never knows that he has foreign islets present,” Lacy said. “That’s exactly what you want.” Lacy also discussed tests using islet cells from the fetus, since these cells will continue to divide to provide many more cells for transplantation. “It will take about three to four years to deter mine the feasibility and particularly to determine if patients can be taken off the immunosuppres sive drugs after one year,” Lacy said. Lacy, 63, received his bachelor’s degree and doctor of medicine degree from Ohio State Uni versity. He received his master’s degree in anat omy and doctorate in pathology from the Uni versity of Minnesota. Lacy, a native of Trinway, Ohio, has been a member of the faculty of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo., since 1956. His field of research is endocrinology, specif ically in relation to diabetes. Space grant supported by Senate WASHINGTON (AP) — Stu dents of space sciences were given a boost when a Senate panel ap propriated $10 million for devel opment of a space-grant college and fellowship program, Sen. Lloyd Bentsen announced Mon day. The Appropriations Commit tee voted Friday to allow the Na tional Aeronautics and Space Ad ministration to spend up to $10 million on the program, modeled after the country’s land and sea grant programs, during the cur rent fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. “This committee action indi cates the Senate’s commitment to securing American leadership in space science,” the two-term Houston Democrat said. The space grant program will be open to graduate students in fields related to space and the a ace grant college program will ow educational institutions to be designated space-grant institu tions, which will allow them to ap ply for projects, grants and con tracts. Funding is contingent on pas sage of separate legislation autho rizing the space-grant college and fellowship program, which has been approved by the Senate as E art of the NASA authorization ill and is going to conference with the House. The House bill does not contain authorization for the program.