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
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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.