The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, April 06, 1990, Image 7

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The Battalion
WORLD & NATION
Friday, April 6,1990
Study: Most abortions not stressful
Researchers find no evidence of long-term psychological threats
WASHINGTON (AP) — Legal, voluntary
abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy does
not threaten most women’s mental health or
cause them great emotional distress, according to
a new Study.
Though some women may feel regret, sadness
or guilt, “the weight of the evidence from scien
tific studies indicates that legal abortion of an un
wanted pregnancy in the first trimester does not
pose a psychological hazard for most women,”
said the study, to be published Friday in the jour
nal Science.
Olivia Cans, director of American Victims of
Abortion, called the study “a manipulation” of
data from earlier studies.
“When you look at these studies, you can twist
them any way you need to to get whatever con
clusion you want,” she said.
The new study was commissioned by the
American Psychological Association, which asked
six experts to examine all current research and
determine if a valid conclusion could be drawn
about post-abortion psychological effects.
Nancy E. Adler, a University of California-San
Francisco professor of psychiatry and lead au
thor of the report, said the panel surveyed more
than 200 studies and found only “about 19 or 20”
that met solid scientific standards.
Once those studies were examined, she said,
the conclusion “was really quite clear.”
The APA convened the panel in 1988 after
then-Surgeon General C. Everett Koop reported
that studies were inadequate to draw final conclu
sions about the effects of abortion on women’s
mental health.
In the Science report, the authors said case
studies have shown that some women do experi
ence “severe distress ... after abortion and require
sympathetic care.”
But for the vast majority of women who have
voluntary abortions, “severe negative reactions
are infrequent in the immediate and short-term
aftermath,” the study said.
The greatest distress, the study found, “is
likely to be before the abortion.”
“Severe negative reactions after abortions are
rare and can best be understood in the frame
work of coping with a normal life stress,” the
study said.
“I feel comfortable about the conclusion that
there is little psychological hazard for women,”
Adler said in a telephone interview. But she
noted that there is a need for scientific studies
that would compare the effects of abortion with
that of other stressful events in life.
Adler said studies of the psychological effects
of a death have shown that if there is no negative
mental health response within a few months,
there is little chance that one will develop later.
Parliament declares democracy,
works for German reunification
Singer, senator
express hope
for AIDS victim
KOKOMO, Ind. (AP) — Resi
dents of AIDS patient Ryan
White’s old hometown, many of
whom fought to keep the teen
ager out of their schools, ex
pressed hope Wednesday that
he’d win his latest battle — this
one for his life.
“1 hope he gets better and is
able to do something in life,” said
Brian Correll, 22, a student at In
diana Unversity’s Kokomo cam
pus. “I hope he can enjoy life a
tittle more."
White, 18, remained in critical
condition at Riley Hospital for
Children in Indianapolis, where
he has been hospitalized since
March 29 with an AIDS-related
respiratory infection complicated
by his hemophilia.
Singer Elton John spent his
second full day at White’s room,
playing tapes of his music, family
spokewoman Carrie Van Dyke
said.
“He’s strictly here as a friend,”
Van Dyke said. “He goes in and
talks to Ryan, holds his hand and
changes his music.”
Also Wednesday, a U.S. Senate
committee voted unanimously for
a bill aimed at easing the nation’s
AIDS crisis.
“This one’s for you, Ryan,”
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, ID-
Mass., said in a telephone conver
sation with White’s mother, Jean-
nie, after the Labor and Human
Resources Committee approved
the Comprehensive AIDS Re
sources Emergency Act. The bill,
which has bipartisan support,
would provide an additional $600
million a year for two years to
combat acquired immune defi
ciency syndrome.
White’s physician, Dr. Martin
B. Kleiman, said there was still
cause for hope.
“He’s holding on,” Kleiman
said. “His status deteriorated in
the first day or two and then
reached a plateau. Any patient
who is critical must stabilize be
fore he can recover and Ryan has
stabilized."
White is on a life-support sys
tem. He has been unconscious
and heavilv sedated so the equip
ment would function more effi
ciently.
EAST BERLIN (AP) — East Ger
many’s first freely chosen Parlia
ment declared the nation a democ
racy on Thursday and began
building a political system that will
lead it to unification with West Ger
many.
The lawmakers, elected March 18
in the nation’s first democratic bal
lot, convened for the first time and
formally dismantled the Communist
system that ruled four decades.
Meeting in the Palace of the Re
public built by the former Stalinist
regime, the 400-member Parliament
began rewriting the constitution to
mirror that of West Germany.
The new legislature and the gov
ernment it creates could be East Ger
many’s last as a sovereign state be
cause of the moves toward
unification with West Germany.
The Parliament empowered
Christian Democrat leader Lothar
de Maiziere, whose party holds the
most seats in Parliament, to build a
new government from the 11 parties
represented in the legislature.
Dr. Sabine Bergmann-Pohl, a
Christian Democrat, was elected
president of Parliament and urged
that lawmakers “do justice to our re
sponsibilities and that we soon sit in
a common German Parliament.”
Bergmann-Pohl said legislators
must work with their West German
counterparts to merge the nations
and bring the capital of a single Ger
many back to a united Berlin.
The gathering was rich in symbol
ism and was the culmination of the
revolt that toppled the former Com
munist regime in October. But the
shape of de Maiziere’s government
and the pace of reunification will
likely be worked out in backroom
negotiations.
“Forty years of difficult times
have ended in this moment,” said
Lothar Piche, 63, the oldest member
of Parliament. “God support our
German fatherland.”
The first thing the 390 lawmakers
in attendance did was elect Berg-
mann-Polh to be Parliament’s presi
dent.
Others seeking the post were out
going Communist Premier Hans
Modrow, who leads a rebuilt pro-de
mocracy party that finished a distant
third in the March elections. He fin
ished third in the voting for Parlia
ment president, behind Social Dem
ocrat Reinhard Hoeppner.
The Parliament also created an
office of president to be a ceremo
nial head of state and abolished the
old Communist collective body, the
Council of State.
Bergmann-Pohl will serve as head
of state until a president is elected by
Parliament.
Phillips reformulates gas in effort
to make environmentally sound fuel
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Phillips Petroleum Co. on Thurs
day became the latest oil company to introduce a re
formulated gasoline designed to be less harmful to the
environment than existing grades.
Phillips’ reformulated fuel — blended to reduce cer
tain hydrocarbon emissions — will be tested in St.
Louis, one of more than 100 cities that fall below the
Environmental Protection Agency’s minimum stan
dards for air quality.
Charles Bowerman, a Phillips senior vice president,
said the mid-grade gasoline, SuperClean Unleaded
Plus, contains 20 to 30 percent less olefins and aromat
ics and 35 percent less benzene than the average gaso
line sold in the St. Louis area. The company did not
make a comparison with the average gasoline sold na
tionally.
The rush by America’s oil companies to make gaso
line less toxic comes in response to stepped-up govern
ment efforts to reduce air emissions from the tailpipes
of cars and trucks.
George Caspar, a stock analyst for Robert W. Baird
& Co. in Milwaukee, said oil companies are trying to
protect their markets by developing “cleaner” gasoline
that will help auto companies meet tougher air emission
standards.
“If the auto companies don’t get any help they may
have to take some major actions that could hurt the pe
troleum industry,” said Caspar. “We’re going to hear a
lot about how great reformulated gasoline is.”
The new gasoline is made by removing the more
toxic compounds and replacing them with methyl-tert-
iary-butyl-ether, a blending component with a high ox
ygen content.
Other oil companies that have introduced reformu
lated gasolines include Arco, Marathon, Exxon,
Amoco, Mobil, Citgo and Sun Oil.
While the new gasolines are slightly better for the en
vironment, they’re only a small step in attempts to end
smog and other pollution in America’s cities, said Scott
66 T
I hey’re missing the forest for the
trees. These new gasolines are a little
more benign on the environment, but they
are not the best way for us to reduce
pollution.”
— Scott Denman,
director,
Safe Energy Communication Council
Denman, director of the Safe Energy Communication
Council.
“They’re missing the forest for the trees,” said Den
man. “These new gasolines are a little more benign on
the environment, but they are not the best way for us to
reduce pollution.”
The Safe Energy Communication Council, based in
Washington, is a national coalition of environmental
groups working to promote alternate energy sources
and better use of current ones.
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NEW YORK (AP) — Each night
Shirley Dawson went to bed, unsure
if this would be the night the rare
disease that had crippled her sons’
immune systems would take their
lives.
“I was on guard 24 hours a day,”
she says. “If they would even cough
at night, I would jump up. It was
fear. We were always living in fear.”
The boys — Dwayne, 15, and Le
roy Jr., 12 — are victims of severe
combined immunodeficiency dis
ease, better known as “boy in the
bubble” disease after a SCID child
who survived by living in a sterile
plastic bubble.
Only 40 SCID children survive
around the world. Thirteen of them
live in the United States; two of them
live in the South Bronx, in the Daw
son household.
But thanks to a new drug treat
ment that essentially replaces a miss
ing enzyme needed to fight common
infections, the Dawsons sleep easier,
the years of worry relegated to pain
ful memories.
The boys’ early years were
marked by infections of every kind.
They received weekly blood transfu
sions and were stuck five, six, seven
times with needles. The prospect of
each hospital visit made them sick.
They went to school, but were out
more than they were in.
Researchers create enzyme
that fights rare SCID disease
“Every night I went to bed not
knowing — would I find them alive
the next morning,” Mrs. Dawson re
calls. The emotional toll was enor
mous.
“I felt trapped,” she said. “I
couldn’t go anywhere. I couldn’t
dare think of a family vacation,
which was sorely needed.”
Her husband, Leroy Sr., remem
bers working all day and spending
all night at the hospital, watching his
children grow amid IV tubes, oxy
gen lines and monitors.
“It was rough; trying to hold a job,
worrying about the kids at the same
time,” says Dawson, an electrician.
Dwayne was diagnosed as having
the disease when he was 18 months
old. “He always had fevers, infec
tions, they would just never go
away,” Mrs. Dawson said. “I knew
something was terribly wrong.”
Dwayne once spent nearly 10
months in isolation at a hospital. He
was released a week before Leroy Jr.
was born, and lightning — in the
form of SCID — struck twice.
The Dawsons were prepared.
Amniocentesis, a prenatal genetics
test, had revealed the worst.
When the test results came back,
in Dawson’s fifth month of preg
nancy, “I thought I was gonna die. I
could have, you know, terminated it.
But I didn’t want that. I felt we
would just deal with it,” she said.
For nine years, they did. But then
Enzon Inc., a small, South Plainfield,
N.J.-based biopharmaceutical com
pany, developed what its president
jokingly refers to as “our hairy en
zyme.”
Researchers believe SCID is
caused by a lack of adenosine deami
nase, or ADA, an enzyme needed to
stave off infection. The enzyme is
killed out of SCID patients in about
a half hour.
The treatment developed by En
zon, PEG-ADA, is basically an en
zyme with a hair-like protein at
tached which allows it to stay in the
bloodstream for up to a week.
PEG-ADA, used experimentally
since 1985, was approved by the
Food and Drug Administration on
March 23. There are no known side
effects to the treatment, which costs
about $60,000 yearly. The Dawsons
long ago exhausted their insurance,
and Medicaid is paying for the boys’
treatments.
PEG-ADA was developed with a
$160,000 grant from the federal “or
phan” drug program, which encour
ages companies to research diseases
afflicting fewer than 200,000 pa
tients.
Most SCID patients don’t live in
circumstances as extreme as the boy
in the bubble, but no one would ar
gue that theirs is not a lonely, iso
lated existence. Their immune sys
tems cannot fight infections as
common as pneumonia and chicken
pox; most have died before they
turned 2.
To date, the only cure was bone-
marrow transplants. Those who
could not find a suitable match had
to be isolated from the public to
avoid germs.
Abbey Myers, executive director
of the National Organization for
Rare Disorders, applauds Enzon for
researching this disease that affects
so few.
“These children can look forward
to happy and healthy lives now be
cause Enzon took a risk,” Myers savs.
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846-2977
M-Th 10-6, F-Sat. 10-9, Sun. 12-6
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owned and operated by Tommy J. Cook
A
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• Minor Emergencies
clinics • General Medical Care
• Weight Reduction Program
10% Student Discount with I.D. Card
(Except for Weight Program)
846-4756 693-0202 779-4756
3820 Texas 2305 Texas Ave S. 401 S. Texas
(next to Randy Sims) (next to U Rent M) College Station (29th & Texas)
EXPRESS
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Collcse Station • Culpepper Plaza Bryan • Manor East