Wednesday • April 22, 1998
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:ath caused by fungus remains topic of hospital controversy
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HOUSTON (AP) —There is no way to tell
B a common fungus that killed an M.D.
Bson Cancer Center patient originated,
■ing the hospital should not be held liable,
law i r for the famed cancer center said.
Buie admitting that a fusarium fungus in-
Bn killed David Cozad, 43, in 1995 while
ewa staying at the University of Texas facil-
ttorney lohn Giberson said the hospital
sijiiit responsible.
He fungus is found everywhere, including
Hi ngernails, teeth and in our hair,” Giber-
jilaid, and it would be impossible to tell
■ and where Cozad became infected.
Ajtorney Richard Jaffe, representing
Cozad’s family, argued officials were aware the
facility was contaminated but did nothing
about it.
The family filed the malpractice lawsuit
upon learning there had been internal dis
putes at the cancer center over the possibil
ity of fusarium contaminations in some of
its areas. They seek unspecified damages.
The common fungus is normally harmless,
but it can become deadly when it infects pa
tients like Cozad undergoing treatment for
cancer of the blood system. Such patients
have little or no immunity.
The hospital is not abnormally contami
nated with the fungus, Giberson said, adding
that its high number of reported deaths from
fusarium compared with other facilities shows
Anderson has been much more careful to
monitor deaths from fusarium.
“If India does not report tuberculosis and
the U.S. reports 10,000 cases, it does not mean
we have 10,000 more cases of tuberculosis in
the U.S.,” he said.
Jaffe said that in the late 1980s, Elias
Anaissie, an infectious disease physician at
Anderson, noticed about 10 deaths there
from fusarium.
Anaissie, now at the University of
Arkansas, asked hospital officials to study the
matter as the deaths continued to increase,
Jaffe said.
And, Jaffe said, a few Anderson physicians
wrote a paper on the deaths in 1988, but the
hospital “didn’t do anything.”
Graduate student Robert Kushar produced
a master’s thesis in 1996 saying the hospital’s
water was contaminated with fusarium, as
were three units where patients are isolated
for treatments, Jaffe said.
Cozad developed a fusarium infection af
ter a bone marrow transplant in the summer
of 1995, Jaffe said.
He was re-admitted that November after
developing the fungal infection in December,
a few weeks before he died.
irty laundry
JAMES FRANCIS/The Battalion
Hephen Lair, a junior marketing major, does his laundry at Har-
|ye\ Washbangers Tuesday afternoon.
Scientists find evidence of other worlds
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Signs of
a new family of planets orbiting a
distant star are the clearest evi
dence yet of worlds forming be
yond our solar system and suggest
that planets where life could evolve
may exist throughout the universe,
astronomers say.
Using powerful new instru
ments on telescopes in Hawaii and
Chile, two teams of astronomers
independently found a doughnut
shaped disk of dust rotating around
a star 220 light-years away.
They said at a news conference
Tuesday that the hole in the dough
nut may have been caused by the
birth of planets.
“A solar system like our own is
being constructed in the middle of
this disk,” said David Koerner of the
University of Pennsylvania.
He is a member of an astronomy
team that used the Neck II tele
scope in Hawaii to study the star.
He said the finding, along with
similar discoveries reported this
week in the journal Nature, sug
gests that planets may be very com-
‘A solar system like
our own is being
constructed...”
David Koerner
University of Pennsylvania
mon throughout the universe.
“Perhaps there are lots of places
for life to exist,” he said.
Another astronomy team, using
the Sarah Tololo Observatory in Chile,
made a confirming observation.
Both teams focused on a star
called HR 4796 .
Earlier studies had suggested
that this star could be at the cen-
Environmental agenda blocked
1
Hero soft’s true intentions
Bges consider motive behind Internet Explorer
WASHINGTON (AP) — Three fed-
ppeals judges, asked to consider
luial questions in the Justice
fartment’s fight against Microsoft,
ad went to the heart of the debate:
|the company illegally trying to dom-
/fs competitors?
/licrosoft is appealing a judge’s
11 preliminary injunction that
hibited it from forcing computer
;ers who sell Windows 95 to also
fer Microsoft’s Internet browser.
ie company claims the browser is
died so tightly within its domi-
tWindows operating system that
Irnet Explorer is not actually a
arate product.
J.S. Circuit Judge Patricia M. Wald
questioned Tuesday how that in
junction was granted.
The Justice Department, which is
considering a broader antitrust case
against Microsoft, contends the soft
ware company is using its Windows
market-muscle to foist its browser on
customers unfairly, illegally squeez
ing other companies’ browsers out of
the market. Government attorneys
say “tying” the sale ofWindows 95 to
the use of Internet Explorer is anti
competitive and “plain wr ong.”
“What is all comes down to in the
end is, what is an integrated prod
uct,” Wald said, and much of the
hearing was spent trying to answer
that question.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The shrill
partisan rhetoric over environ
mental regulations — a hallmark
of the Republican revolution three
years ago - no longer echoes on
Capitol Hill.
Gone are the calls to strip the
Environmental Protection Agency
of its power or to gut the Endan
gered Species Act to protect
landowners.
The abandonment of frontal
assaults on environmental regula
tions does not mean congression
al Republicans are ready to em
brace President Clinton’s top
environmental priorities.
From a modest package of tax
cuts and incentives to address
global warming to new efforts to
clean up the nation’s waterways
and purchase new parkland, the
Clinton environmental agenda is
being blocked at every turn on
Capitol Hill.
Marking Earth Day on Wednes
day, Clinton plans to highlight his
frustration with Congress over that
agenda during a visit to the Ap
palachian trail.
Republican congressional lead
ers maintain the disputes simply
involve disagreements over spend
ing priorities as well as serious
doubts - voiced by both Republi
can and Democratic lawmakers -
about the global warming agree
ment the administration agreed to
last December in Kyoto, Japan.
“Congress has learned to be
more surreptitious,” said Rodger
Schlickeisen, president of Defend
ers ofWildlife.
“There’s not as much chest
beating. Now they’re being much
more cautious in their approach.
But there’s still an anti-environ
ment agenda.”
“Sure there’s still an anti-envi
ronmental agenda (among some
lawmakers)... but it’s essentially a
handful of people who shout the
loudest,” said Sherwood Boehlert,
R-N.Y., a moderate supported by
most environmental leaders.
“There’s no doubt in my mind
there’s a heightened sensitivity to
environmental issues,” continued
Boehlert. He blames the adminis
tration for not pushing some envi
ronmental issues, such as Super
fund reform, more aggressively.
Have you...
: Picked up or purchased your '97 Aggieland?
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ter of what is called a protoplane
tary disk.
“These disks are thought to
be the birthing rooms of plan
ets,” said NASA astronomer Ed
ward Weiler, head of a space
agency program that is search
ing for evidence of extrasolar
planets and life.
“We haven’t actually detected
any planets,” said Lee Hartmann
of the Harvard-Smithsonian Cen
ter for Astrophysics and a mem
ber of the Cerro Tololo team.
But he said the most likely ex
planation for the absence of dust
in the hole of the disk is that
planets have formed.
He said new and highly sensi
tive instruments are allowing as
tronomers to move “from just
speculating about planets form
ing to actually seeing it.”
Hartmann said that over the
next few years, there will be many
new planetary families discov
ered outside the solar system.
Forthcoming Title...
JAPANS
HIDDEN
FACE
A Call for Radical
Change in Japanese
Society & Commerce
By Toshihiko Abe
Former Trade Director,
Casio Computer Ltd
May 1998 $27.50 Hardback
371 pp. ISBN: 1-891696-05-X
A Japanese businessman
critiques his country, calling for
freedom and democracy -
not feudalism & submissiveness.
AT YOUR BOOKSTORE
or write: Trans-Atlantic Pub.,
311 Bainbridge, Phila PA 19147
www.transatlanticpub.com
Earth Week Celebration!
Wednesday, Apr. 22 - Friday, Apr. 24
10 a.m. - 3 p.m.
* Booths
• Bands
• Prizes
• Fun
• Free T-shirts!
(
EjlC.
2001
Do you want to be a leader of our class?
Your chance is here!
Apply for a Committee Chair Position
and get involved in ‘01 Class Council.
Applications are available on the 2nd floor
of the MSC, Spo-West in the 2001 cube.
It’s a great opportunity to meet people and
become part of an exciting organization that
represents ‘01 for A&M.
Applications are due by 5:00 on Tues., 4/28
in the President’s box.
IT’S THAT TIME OF
YEAR AGAIN!
Fall Open House is Sunday, September 6
from 2 to 6 p.m.
Tables are now on sale! Don’t miss out!
It’s simple! Just go to the MSC Box Office in Rudder Tower
and pay $30 for your recognized student organization. We take
cash, check, aggie bucks, credit cards, or departmental accounts
(you’ll need an IDT).
euuf 'teeftetH^en . , .
Space is limited! Remember, Open House tables are limited,
and are awarded on a first come, first served basis! Only one table
per organization.
Please come and join us! Any questions? If so call the Relations Office at 845-7627.
Spojvsorer By: MSC RELATIONS TEAM - IK-^nK-.-sa eoopl
<k
Persons with disabilities please call 845-1515 to inform us of your
special needs. We request notification three (3) working days prior
to the event to enable us to assist you to the best of our abilities.