The Battalion
Thursday, November 19,1987
College Station, Texas
Vol. 87 No. 58 (JSPS 045360 12 Pages
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Conflict over sex education in
public schools about contraception
accor( | and AIDS dominated a panel dis
cussion Wednesday night in the E.L.
a || ow Miller Lecture Series program
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By Mary-Lynne Rice
Staff Writer
“AIDS: Why Should I Care?,” spon
sored by MSC Political Forum.
The lecture, “AIDS and Ethics,”
brought together representatives of
different ideologies and concerns:
discussion moderator Dr. Clarence
Alfrey, medical director of the Gulf
Coast Regional Blood Center in
| Knowledge of AIDS dangers
tS may not scare risk-takers
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By Clark Miller
Staff Writer
Knowledge of the dangers of
AIDS may not be enough to stop
people from taking risks that may
expose them to the disease, a Uni
versity of Houston sociology profes-
or told an audience of about 30
people Wednesday.
Dr. William Simon made the re
marks during the E.L. Miller Lec
ture Series program about acquired
mmune deficiency syndrome in
Rudder Tower.
Some people who know the dan
gers of AIDS will take an “it can’t
happen to me” attitude, Simon told a
group of about 30 people.
“We all know that smoking ciga
rettes is not good for us, but some of
us still smoke,” Simon said.
Sex is the same way, he said.
“The sexual drive is a powerful
thing,” Simon said. “Knowing about
AIDS may not be enough to stop
that drive.”
Simon used the teen-age preg
nancy rate of the United States as an
example.
The United States has the highest
" U.M me teen " a g e pregnancies of any
M( ® industrial nation, Simon said. Even
with the major eftort in recent years
5 Lo111 to educate teens to the problems of
min ? pregnancies, there is still a problem,
iowan| h e added.
“People know about the problem,
but they don’t change their lifesty
les,” he said.
However, Simon predicted there
will be changes in people’s morals
and behavior because of AIDS, but
added that the changes could be ei
ther negative or positive.
There will be an increase of sexual
activity among young people, he
said, because young people will en
gage in more “coupling.”
But, he said, the increased sexual
activity probably will occur between
couples with steady relationships,
and there probably will be a decline
in promiscuity.
Simon also said there may be an
increase of people who will abstain
from sex until they find the person
they think they will spend their lives
with.
“These people are more likely to
be swept off their feet much more
easily,” Simon said.
Because of this, they run the risk
of irrationally selecting a sexual
partner, he said.
Simon warns that it’s important to
understand the dangers of acquired
immune defiency syndrome, but
people shouldn’t become hysterical
in reacting to the disease.
He said the disease is a special
problem to college-age students be
cause it’s spreading at a time when
these students are starting their
socio-sexual development.
Houston; Jeff Levi, executive direc
tor of the National Gay and Lesbian
Task Force; political activist Phyllis
Schlafly, and Dr. Earl Shelp, assis
tant professor of ethics at the Center
for Ethics, Medicine and Public Is
sues at the Baylor College of Medi
cine.
“When you look at the audience
that is in the public schools, it’s a
very different audience from what
we have here tonight,” Schlafly said.
“In the public schools in this coun
try, we have minor children who are
pretty much a captive audience, and
it seems that over the last few years,
two movements have developed,”
she said.
“One point of view is that whoever
has control over the school establish
ment can do whatever he wants to
with the captive children who are at
the public school,” she said.
“There is another point of view,
that the child in the public school,
being a minor and being a captive
audience, does enjoy certain rights
in that classroom that can’t be taken
away,” she said.
Those rights, she said, demand
that anything they are taught about
acquired immune deficiency syn
drome be “true, healthy, legal and
constitutional.”
“There is a great effort at the pre
sent time to come into the public
schools and teach what is called ‘safe
sex,’ ” she said. “I would contest that
the way that is taught today does not
meet the four criteria.
“In fact, there is only one teaching
that meets all those four tasks, and
that is the teaching in regard to sex,
that we should have and should pro
mote sexual abstinence before mar
riage.”
Schlafly’s remarks met with ap
plause, mainly from older members
of the audience of more than 250,
and hissing from others, mostly stu
dents.
Levi, however, challenged her as-
See Ethics, page 12
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Researcher warns A&M audience
of potential for spread of disease
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By Cindy Milton
Staff Writer
An AIDS researcher Wednesday
told an A&M audience that 2,500 of
the nation’s 45,000 AIDS cases are in
Texas — and six of them are at
Texas A&M.
And he said the number of cases
probably will double in the next 14
months.
Dr. Peter Mansell, medical direc
tor at the Institute for Immunologi
cal Disorders and head of AIDS re
search at M.D. Anderson Hospital in
Houston, discussed the rate at which
AIDS is spreading during “AIDS
Research,” a lecture sponsored by
■ the E.L. Miller Lecture Series.
Mansell said the way people look
: at the virus is different depending
on where they live.
“AIDS means different things to
j different people,” he said. “There
have been about six people at the
! University known to have been in-
: fected by the, virus. Clearly that’s a
different situation to persons that
live in Houston — only 90 miles
Dr. Peter Mansell
south of here — where there are
about 2,500 cases of AIDS.”
He said it’s important that people
know that everyone is at risk of get
ting AIDS.
“It’s not a gay disease,” he said. “It
potentially applies to everybody.”
He said although the first case of
the virus in the United States was in
1981, there is evidence of AIDS
cases as early as 1959.
At the presentation, Mansell told
about 50 people about the mortality
rate of individuals infected by the vi
rus. He said over 50 percent of
AIDS cases have died and added
that even though medical treatments
are available, they are expensive.
Mansell said that although the
treatments have potential to prolong
the life of the infected person, the
mortality rate is inevitably 100 per
cent.
AIDS is predominantly a disease
that kills by infections, Mansell said.
When a person has acquired im
mune defiency syndrome, the coor
dination of the immune system dis
appears.
“It’s like shooting the conductor
in an orchestra,” he said.
But he added that several co-fac
tors are involved in the progression
of the disease. The way AIDS affects
a person depends on what health
problems the person may have.
Mansell said the biggest problem
with AIDS is being able to detect and
treat it earlier in the course of the
disease.
Photo by Robert W. Rizzo
Phyllis Schlafly, political activist and syndicated
newspaper columnist, left; Dr. Earl Shelp, assis
tant professor of ethics at the Center for Ethics,
Medicine and Public Issues at the Baylor College
of Medicine; Jeff Levi, executive director for the
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and Dr.
Clarence Alfrey, medical director at the Gulf
Coast Blood Center, discuss AIDS.
discussion at MSC
basics of disease
‘AIDS 101’
explains
By Jenny Hynes
Reporter
Students walking through the Me
morial Student Center between
classes Wednesday may have been
startled to hear explicit talk about
AIDS.
“AIDS 101,” a lecture and dis
cussion session dealing with basic
facts about contracting AIDS, was
sponsored by the Memorial Student
Center’s Political Forum Committee.
The program was one of a series of
talks Wednesday in the symposium
titled “AIDS — Why Should I
Care?”
Judy Weil, senior social worker
from the Center for Immunological
Disorders in Houston, combined a
videotape and question/answer ses
sion in explaining basic facts about
the disease.
“This has been a very difficult
topic to educate people about,” Weil
said, since many believe they are im
mune to AIDS if they are not in cer
tain risk groups.
People at increased risk of con
tracting the disease include homo
sexual and bisexual men, intrave
nous drug users, those who have
received infected blood and blood
products and those who have had
sex with an infected person.
Weil stressed that recent findings
about contracting acquired immune
deficiency syndrome seem to in
crease the numbers of people in
danger.
“As time has gone on we have be
gun to focus more on risky behav-
,iors,” Weil said. He cited promiscu
ous sexual behavior and sharing
intravenous drug needles as espe
cially risky.
“If you’re having sex outside of a
long-term monogamous
relationship, you’re at risk,” she said.
The videotape, which was pro
duced for adolescents and appeared
on television several months ago, fo
cused on two basic themes:
• AIDS is hard to get.
AIDS can not be transmitted
through casual contact such as shar
ing food, makeup, telephones or toi
let seats.
• AIDS can be transmitted
through vaginal intercourse and
anal intercourse. Therefore, con
doms should be used, since they pro
vide a barrier to the transmission of
the disease-causing virus.
The video put special emphasis on
preventing the spread of AIDS by
not sharing intravenous needles and
using condoms:
“It’s better to feel a little embar
rassed than risk getting a disease
that could kill you.”
Weil distinguished between those
whose blood tests positive for HIV
— Human Immunodeficiency Vi
rus, the virus that causes AIDS —
and those who show clinical symp
toms of the disease.
People who show symptoms can
be further divided into those with
ARC (AIDS-Related Condition) and
those with a more serious case of the
disease. Someone with ARC may
show signs of the disease, which in
clude persistent and chronic fever,
diarrhea, unexplained weight loss
and fatigue. To be diagnosed as hav
ing AIDS itself, however, an individ
ual must have acquired a secondary
opportunistic infection common to
those with the disease.
A secondary opportunistic infec
tion is one that occurs because AIDS
breaks down the immune system
and makes a person susceptible to
infections he otherwise would not
get.
Weil said while a test is available to
identify those with HIV in their
blood, the virus may not be detected
by the test until nearly a year after
exposure to the disease.
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School aide
from Bryan
shot twice
An instructional aide at Ste
phen F. Austin Junior High
School in Bryan was shot twice at
the school Wednesday afternoon,
Sgt. Dale Cuthbertson of the
Bryan Police Department said.
Jo Ann Washington of Bryan
was shot in the elbow and in the
hip. She is in stable condition at
St. Josephs Hospital, hospital of
ficials said.
Cuthbertson said a warrant for
attempted murder is out for the
victim’s estranged husband,
Henry Howard Washington, also
of Bryan, in connection with the
shooting.
Jerry Ellis, principle of the
school, said the incident hap
pened in the snack bar area of the
school cafeteria.
Cuthbertson said the assailant
came on school property and
tried to force Washington to leave
with him. After breaking free
from her assailant, Cuthbertson
said the assailant fired at Wash
ington, hitting her twice. The as
sailant then fled the scene.
No students were present or
were in danger during the inci
dent, he said.
Israeli suggests solutions to world problem
Consul discusses causes of terrorism
By Lee Schexnaider
Staff Writer
The Middle East is an area that has seen
conflict from the dawn of civilization. Israel
has a continuing role in the process of war
and peace in the region.
Shmuel Ben-Shmupl stepped into this vola
tile field when he was promoted from vice
consul to consul of the Israeli Consulate in
Houston in November. The 36-year-old dip
lomat visited the Texas A&M campus Thurs
day to meet with several groups and dicuss in
ternational terrorism and how it relates to
U.S. interests.
Q: Has there been an increase in terrorism
in the Middle East or has it just leveled out?
Are you still having major problems in Israel
with terrorism?
A: Terrorism, historically, was a major
problem in the Middle East. It’s part of the
political system in the Arab society and Arab
societies in the Middle East. So people who
live in the Middle East are used to terrorist
methods for hundreds of years. It is not a
new phenomenon.
But what’s new about this phenomenon (is
that) starting in the the late ’60s it was spread
all over the world, especially the Western
world. That made the issue so important and
so well known in the Western world. So ba
sically its not a new phenomenon, but it’s a
new phenomenon in the Western world.
Photo courtesy of the Israeli Consulate
Consul Shmuel Ben-Shmuel
Also, the Western world was exposed in the
past to all kinds of terrorist activity, so there is
much change in recent years. In the Middle
East concerning terrorist activities, most of
the acts in the Arab world are due to the con
flict between Arabs and themselves . . .
But I would say the reason for the decrease
in terrorist activities nationwide, though not a
major decrease, is due to more firm and
tough measures that the Western world and
especially the United States has taken recently
against terrorist activities.
The raid of Libya, of course, is a good ex
ample. After the raid on Libya, for example,
Moammar Gadhafi became very cautious in
his involvement in international terrorism. So
he’ll still continue to support terrorist groups
but much more cautiously, especially in re
gards to the U.S. interests. So they became
cautious when they found out the price is too
high.
Q: Has it seemed like the Western demo
cracies have finally gotten to the point at
which they are tired of terrorism?
A: What happend is in Western Europe
there was one country that always took tough
measures against terrorism — that was Israel.
Israel found out that the proper response to
terrorism is to use tough measures against it.
It put a lot of pressure on the terrorist organi
zations themselves and the countries that
sponsor terrorists. The new phenomenon is,
of course, the change of the attitude in the
Western world and especially the change in
the U.S. position toward terrorism in recent
years — the willingness to retaliate militarily,
the economic sanctions against Syria that
were approved by some Western European
states. Britain’s broken relations with Syria
also damaged Syria in the world . . . Some of
the states that sponsor terrorism like Libya,
Syria, and in a way, Fran and Iraq, will be
much more cautious in their involvement in
terrorism.
But the major problem when it comes to
the Western world, the whole issue of inter
national terrorism, is not so much with the
terrorist organization, it’s with these countries
that support terrorism. Without the support
of countries such as Syria, Libya, Iran and
Iraq, terrorism will probably revert to its local
manifestation from the 1960s, and will hardly
have an effect in the Western world.
It (terrorism) was spread due to the sup
port of such things as terrorist organizations.
All those states, for example, gave terrorists
money, training and support them with intel
ligence. They use their own embassies, espe- •
dally in Western Europe, as bases for terror
ism, which makes it much easier for terrorist
groups from the Middle East and from Eu
rope to be active in this area. So by putting
pressure on those countries by the Western
world, I would say this is the best way to re
duce the amount of terrorist activity in the
world today. That will be the effective way to
deal with terrorism.
Q: Why do these countries decide to take
the route of terrorism to achieve their poli
cies?
A: In those societies terrorism is part of the
political process. That is only way to get into
power in Middle Eastern countries, such as
Libya, Syria or Iran. The way to remain in
power in those states is through using force
against the opposition. That is also the only
way for the opposition to get rid of the rulers
in those societies. What we see in those socie
ties is not only political conflicts but military
conflicts in the country itself between the op
position using terroristic activities and the re-
See Terrorism, page 12