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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 5, 2000)
Wednesday,JulyS,; ednesday. July 5,2000 science inis signee js match at ior Wimbledi as A&M's men's tern Ires Davis lost his secor singles match in the pi i of The Championship adon on Tuesday at The d Lawn Tennis and Croqi Wimbledon, England, is, the United States' es player in thejuniorpo] dropped a straight to Slovakia's AndrejKi the tournament's t 3-2, 6-1. is won his openingrou:| s match against Zimba umiso Khumalo in the -6, 6-4, 6-4). He wastr Americans to playinasj aid of 64 and one oft* lericansto advance tot i round. Wimbledon experience TECHNOtOTY Page 5 THE BATTALION resting the waters rug examinations ensure accuracy Stuart Hutson The Battalion aceivedafis 1 jnsidei John has just spent the last five years of his jfein college studying and has now been ired for his dream job, but first, he must is one more exam — a drug test. Ashe drops liis pants to deliver a urine ample, John's mind swims back to a par- w one week ago where his friends were artaking of an illegal, post-graduation ant. over for Davis, the lilt While he did not participate in the weed No. 1 doubles player.S moking, he wonders if the second-hand pot am up with Australia moke will be enough to send him to the unem- K H nnedy uT jj 6 loyment line. s draw on Wednesday.!' 1, , ,, . eded duo received afc These are common c l uestl0ns asked by those jyg ' - Sftced with undergoing a drug test. How precise re drug testing techniques, and what happens Iter someone fills one of those little cups? Dr. Jack Zaun, the chief of laboratory opera- ions for One Source Toxicology Laboratories in Jeer Park, Texas, said the laboratory technicians egin a drug evaluation by sending the sample hrough an immunological or "screening" test T'C Bdetermine whether any drugs are present in O V O IClil he sample. pay. But recent demand: s leaders and politicians tand a rd s often are accomi calls for teacher cash ii ome have even been by the two leal itial candidates. plans mean teachers alaries or bonuses if they to be good at what they xtra or difficult assigni others on how to be® fective, or more cojf we students its. armance pay alary gaps with otherpwi 1 unions — which usually* nembers' salaries based ears they've spent in m or whether theyhar* i degree. ineers and computer sen a cannot do the job are us® a while the successful® gh salaries," said Lisif* a spokesperson for theft lucation Reform. "Thisisi for teachers." McDonald, a Dealt® ollege professor and t of organized higher-edt ilty there, said contracts: 1 to help workers, noh "Tenure does not grand an for the incompetent people to have a fairs!# at to be able to haveyourd local chapters of h 1 aave abandoned or sea! y based on seniority indf /er. Cincinnati made his# th when it became thefi istrict to replace its pay! scale with pay basedonp a. That system is far ft 1 eachers would be rated in areas, every five years,h arid an advanced teaei' :ed into five categories* ordingly, from IP Beato fTnf: Baitalion "Your standard urine test is set up to test for five basic drugs: cocaine, heroin, codeine or morphine, amphetamines, and PCP," Zaun said. "But no drug test is just limited to those. Any thing that is carried in any fluid within the hu man body can be tested." Zaun said the drugs selected for screening are determined by the job or situation of the testing. Tltose being tested under suspicion for illegal drug use by law enforcement may be tested for a gambit of drugs ranging from PCP to Ecstasy. Those being tested for a job fuel ing airplanes may be tested pri marily for nicotine. During this screening, a cocktail of or ganic chemicals is mixed with part of the sam ple. For each drug that is being looked for, there is a reagent, or antibody, that will react with the particular drug for which it is designed. "All drugs are organic in nature — they have to be in order to interact with the organic human body," Zaun said. "As such, there are antibodies that will single each drug out and attack it, just like an antibody in the body would attack a par ticular bacteria." The attack may result in chemical reactions that can be determined by microscopic or spec troscopic examination. The time frame of drug detection measured by the screening process is determined by the kind of sample being examined. For instance, standard urine testing typically will reveal drugs used within the last two or three days. Blood testing normally will reveal drugs used only within the last two or three hours because of the constant filtering of the blood by the body's waste system. Blood testing for drugs is typically used during postmortem work to see if drugs were a factor in the death," Zaun said. "In this case, the drug is still in the blood, and the blood is much easier to access than urine." Hair testing will reveal a general history of drug use from one week to two months prior to the test. "Hair grows at about one cen timeter a month, so we can't test for See Testing on Page 6. Agent Orange toxin shows possible benefits Stuart Hutson The Battalion A chemical called "the nastiest, most toxic man-made organic chemical... sec ond only to radioactive waste" in a 1995 Greenpeace report is being studied by Texas A&M toxicologists as a possible means of beating breast cancer. Dioxin, a toxin formed by combustion of organic materials and a common ingre dient in many herbicides, is being studied by Stephen Safe, professor of toxicology, and his research group because it inhibits estrogen's facilitation of the growth of breast cancer cells. "We were studying the effect of dioxin on liver cancer in rats and saw that those populations who were exposed to it had much lower levels of developing breast cancer," Safe said. Dioxin interacts with animal cells by binding to a cell's "receptor" protein, re sulting in a molecular complex that alters the cell's genetic material. This alteration often counteracts the ef fects of hormones, such as estrogen and testosterone, which work in a similar man ner within cells. In the case of a breast can cer cell, estrogen detrimentally causes the cancerous cell to quickly grow and spread. Safe said dioxin's interference with the cell's genetic material can produce many, often unpredictable, results. "We're not really sure of all the chemi cal pathways used by dioxin, but it has some very odd and interesting effects," Safe said. Safe said among the "interesting ef fects" associated with the chemical is a de creased immune response in mice, while it has been shown to increase immune re sponse in rats. The most drastic response to dioxin in any animal is seen in guinea pigs, which experience a "wasting dis ease" that causes the animals to starve themselves to death. On the other hand, hamsters seem to have virtually no re sponse to the chemical. "The effect most commonly seen in humans exposed to it is a really terrible rash," Safe said. The rash is usually exhibited by those us ing herbicides containing dioxin. According to a report released by the American Medical Association (AMA), Viet nam War soldiers exposed to Agent Orange, a herbicide associated with peculiar illness es, often experienced such a rash due to Agent Orange's high level of dioxin. The peculiar effects of dioxin may be an advantage when the chemical interacts with breast cancer. "It seems that the dioxin works in a very selective manner. You don't see effects on all species or even on all organs," Safe said. "It af fects breast cancer cells but doesn't do anything to the surrounding cells. It's really unusual. We don't really understand all the responses, but that is part of what makes it fun, scientifi cally speaking. It is really a puzzle." Safe and his team are working to pro duce chemicals that mimic dioxin's inter ference with estrogen. "We are trying to produce chemicals that work the same way, but without the potential toxicity levels of dioxin," he said. "We have de veloped a few, but we are still studying them for full effects or any potential side effects." Dioxin and its effects have been the cen ter of public controversy for years. The En vironmental Protection Agency (EPA) has limited the levels of dioxin that may be put into herbicides and produced by industries since the 1960s. Organizations such as Green peace maintain that the chemical is linked to rises in cancer and birth defects among pop ulations near dioxin producers. "The main thing to realize is that we, as a nation and world, have done a great job at minimizing the level of dioxin in the environmen t (it has been reduced from 60 to 90 percent)," Safe said. "And, while if you really do look at the research, it is not clear whether or not it causes cancer — it is a toxic chemical and deserves to be treated as such." 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