The University Daily
University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
KANSAN
Vol. 90, No. 150 Monday, June 30, 1980
CHUCK ISAACSON/Kansan staff
Rozelle Sanderson of the Samaritan Lodge Adult Care Home points out weeds to pull in a garden tended by Bridge Goebel, 1 of, Lawrence and other children from the New York Elementary School. The grade school children and residents of the home are growing a garden together in an effort to better unite the elderly with the Lawrence community. See related story back page.
Yearbook's future uncertain
By TAMMI HARBERT
Staff Reporter
The 1981 Jayhawker yearbook may be the last one published because of its unsuccessful business dealings with Rappaport Studios last spring.
"The 1980 Jayhawker is badly broke." Tom Yoe, adviser to the yearbook and assistant director of internal publications for University Relations said last week.
The yearbook spent 88,000 in advertising and clerical expenses to process students having their pictures taken. Rappaport was supposed to reimburse the Jayhawker.
But the company, based in New York, has disapeared.
Although the Kansas attorney general's office
allough to locate the owners, the owner has little
interest in them.
"The attorney general's office is not overly hopeful, and frankly I not," he said.
DESPITE $14,000 in a reserve fund, printing
costs for the 1980 Jayhawker must be still被聘, Yoe said. He said he was not sure how much the costs would be, and had no idea how much would be left in reserve.
Usually, the yearbook starts financially from the sale of yearbooks and资金 from the sale of yearbooks at enrollment.
Yoe said he feared sales would be down this year, and the company plans to survive on reserve funds.
However, if reserve funds are depleted and yearbook sales do not increase, Ye said the yearbooks must be sold.
"Theoretically, the 1811 Jayhawker may be the last one we have." he said.
PAM McCOY, of the consumer complaint division of the attorney general's office, said Rappaport's telephone had been disconnected and he received no reply to letters of inquiry to the company.
She said the office was working with the New
York attorney general to try to locate the owners of the company,
McCoy said the office had received many requests for photos that did not receive photos ordered from Rampart.
The other students have received negatives of their photographs and a letter explaining that the company has run out of money. The letter also suggests that the student find another photography company to make the prints. No refunds have been received. McCov said.
About half of the 150 students who filed complaint with the office, have received their oration.
YOE SAID HE did not know how many seniors had ordered pictures from the company, but anyone who did not receive an order should contact the attorney general's office in Topeka.
Police, city near agreement
"They should send them a letter explaining their situation," he said.
"I don't think the attorney general is overly optimistic about getting anything," he said.
By MARK PITTMAN
Staff Reporter
The Lawrence Police Officers Association and the city of Lawrence are very close to signing a new working agreement according to Gary Sampson, chairman of the LPOA.
Although Sampson would not discuss the terms of the agreement, he said. "In 24 hours, anything happened," he told reporters.
Sampamon had two meetings yesterday to discuss the proposals of both sides. Sampamon and Harun had a meeting on Wednesday.
"Things are happening, we're making some movement," Sampson said.
HOWEWER, KEVIN BURT, chief negotiator
of the treaty for that today was the
end of formal offers for it.
If the issue is not solved today, he said, the matter will be taken to the Lawcourt City Commission.
"I don't think we should beg them to take a voluntary agreement." Burt said.
According to Burt, the city would submit a one-year agreement to the commission containing a 10 percent pay raise and a provision for a bigger payroll tax. The commission this as a "bare bones" benefit "by the city."
Burt said the city's final offer of a 19 percent salary raise over two years was generous enough and that the LPOA had returned to its previous demand of a one-year salary raise of 18 percent.
"One side is going to be unhappy if the situation goes to the commission," Burt said. "There's no sense in making anyone unhappy for more than a year."
SAMPSON SAID THE comprehensive written agreement he had hoped for was still out of reach.
"Sooner or later, a federal or state agency is going to have to step in," Samspson said. "We need a disinterested party to come in, listen to them and come up with a fair and just agreement."
He said Lawrence must eventually adopt a school-based municipal employees involved in emergency work.
Lawrence is one of a few cities in Kansas which has elected not to have arbitration with municipalities.
Chancellor search committee appointed
By DAVID STIPP
Staff Reporter
Wanted: an individual dedicated to higher education, with impressive administrative experience and academic credentials, who can stimulate the flow of ideas from teacher to student and of dollars from state capital to university.
If you meet these requirements and are an
aggressive self-starter, contact the search committee for permanent chancellor at the University of Kansas, whose first meeting will be at KU this week.
THE 12 MEMBERS of the Search Committee, formally appointed Friday by the Kansas Board of Regents, are George Woolf, chairman of the board, and Michael Kleinberg, professor of chemistry; Ross
Mckinney, N.T. Veach professor of civil engineering; David Robinson, professor of surgery at the KU College of Health Sciences; Greg Schnacke, student body president; Matthew Davis, student body vice president; Michele Van Lawrence graduate student; Anita Sauerwen, a senior in nursing at the College of Health Sciences; Frank R. Becker, president of
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Agent Orange sickens Vietnam vets, offspring
Staff Reporter
By HURST LAVIANA
Jimmy "Sail" Tucker once watched the greenery around the air base at Bien Hua, Vietnam, shrieval and die but he had no way of knowing that the chemical killing the vegetation, Agent Orange, contained traces of one of the most toxic synthetic substances known to man.
The U.S. Department of Defense sprayed 109 million gallons of Agent Orange, a potent defoliant, over nearly four million acres of Vietnamese forests between 1966 and 1970.
TUCKER, 1613 KENWOOD, a former KU student, said last week, that during his tour in Vietnam, which lasted from July 1968 through July 1969, he often came into contact with areas where he was suspected of being. He said these areas looked as if someone had scoured the land with a silent death ray.
"It strangled the life out of everything," he said. "It was like wintertime. There were some areas that were four, maybe five, miles wide, and it was snowing. It almost seemed like it went on forever."
In 1970, scientists discovered that Agent Orange was contaminated with small amounts of dioxin, and the program was scrapped. By that time, the only source of dioxin by dioxin, a chemical that is toxic even in extremely small quantities. The Food and Drug Administration has estimated that dioxin is 100,000 to one million times as potent as organic pesticides in children whose parents were exposed to it.
IN JUNE 1976, five years after he was discharged from the Air Force, Tucker began to feel numbness and pains in his head, back and left hand. It did not occur to him that these were in any way related to Vietnam, Agent Orange or dioxin.
"I thought it was just a sign of age." Tucker said.
The immediate effect of exposure to dioxin is a rash called chloracne. Although little is known about its long-term effects, some doctors now think that dioxin can be stored in fatty tissues and remain dormant for years. If the doctors are right, thousands of veterans who were exposed to Orange or Mistral toxins will be waiting until Tucker's bomb exploded in July 1976.
"It was like someone had stuck an ice pick in my back," he said. "The pain shot up into my head, and it felt like it had been split open. Then it fell on the skin of lightening bottle, with little fingers coming off it."
He said his left hand was completely numb for the next two months.
DURING THE NEXT three years Tucker went through four hospitals and more than a dozen doctors and was still unable to find out what was wrong with him. Last spring he saw a newspaper article about Agent Orange, and the pieces finally began to fall toogether.
Willie Tucker
Another study showed a disproportionate number of miscarriages among women living in Alsea, Ore., near areas where 2,4,5-T had been spraed.
Agent Orange, which is no longer manufactured, was a 50-50 mix of two potent herbicides—2.4-L-T and 2.4-D. Last year the Environmental Protection Agency suspended most uses of 2.4-L-T because of a study that linked the herbicide to miscarriages and cancer in animals.
“It’s weird, but it just never clicked,” he said. I never thought they would be using in vivo cameras.
studies are inconclusive, and points out that the 2,4,5-T it manufactures today contains only one-fifth the concentrations of dioxin that were present in Agent Orange. Nevertheless, the EPA has refused to lift its tight restrictions on the herbicide.
DOW CHEMICAL, the company that manufactured most of Agent Orange and that is most responsible for the contamination 2.4.5 x cm².
Tucker's symptoms are similar to those of hundreds of other Vietnam veterans who served in areas where Agent Orange was sprayed. The symptoms include headaches, fatigue, insomnia,
"I don't want to have it," hew said. "I don't want to admit that I have it, but I know there a
Tucker thinks there is a strong possibility that he is suffering from dioxin poisoning.
dizzy spells, stomach pains, nervousness, concentration disturbances and birth defects in
TUCKER'S FIVE-YEAR-OLD son, who was born with bowed legs, was forced to wear leg braces for six months. Tucker said his inability to concentrate forced him to withdraw from the University of Kansas during his third semester, in November 1979
His most severe attacks came during times when he was losing weight, Tucker said. He said he has lost more than 30 pounds since he was discharged from the Air Force, but that his weight is now back on the pains are less. But, he said the numbness has begun to spread into his feet and legs.
Tucker is currently seeing a neurologist at the Truman Medical Center in Kansas City, Mo, and is being treated with anti-inflammatory drugs. He said doctors at the Veterans Administration hospitals in Topeka and Kansas City were no help at all.
Physicians at those hospitals told him his problem was psychological. Psychologists told him his problem was physical. Finally he was who would just have to learn to live with the man, he knew.
"They don't want to treat Agent Orange vicinity at Tucker said. "The head of the VA demonstrates that."
VETERANS ACROSS THE COUNTRY are having similar problems with the Veterans Administration's disability claims based on exposure to Agent Orange. It has allowed only three—each to servicemen with scars left by chloracne. The VA contends that there is no evidence to link Agent Orange to cancer.
Jimmy Sparrow, a spokesman for Agent Orange Victims International, which provides
counseling and referral services to veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange, estimated there were 55,000 critically ill victims of Agent Orange poisoning in the United States.
"It's shocking," he said. "The more press we get, the more they come out." He said that as many as two million veterans may have been exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam.
"If you drank the water over there, there's a risk you have it," Sparrow said. He said rain could have washed the herbicide off the leaves and contaminated water supplies.
LAST YEAR CONGRESS ordered the VA to conduct a study to determine whether dioxin exposure is associated with male males. Similar studies conducted in Vietnam have already indicated that defects could be transmitted by females. Preliminary results of the VA's study are expected to be released next
SOME VETERANS WHO have been unable to get help from the VA are taking their case to the VA office, and veterans from suing the government for service-related injuries, so they have filed a class-action suit on behalf of all Vietnam veterans against the five companies that manufactured Agent
The group is seeking a share of the future profits from the companies, and hopes to establish a trust fund to be used to help children with special needs and help to find a cure for dioxin poisoning.
Dow Chemical has, in turn, filed suit against the federal government, asking to be reimbursed for any damages that may be awarded to the veterans. Dow contends that it manufactured weapons, and that it had no control over the herbicide's use.
Weather
The weather forecast calls for temperatures to climb into the 100s by Wednesday with mostly clear skies and high humidity. The high temperature today will reach 96 with southeastern winds at 10-15 mph. There is a slight chance of thundershowers throughout the day. The overnight low will be about 72 with winds continuing from the south. There will be a chance of fog early tomorrow morning. Tomorrow will be sunny, hot and humid with the temperature expected to reach 98. The low temperature tomorrow night will be in the mid 70s and the skies will remain clear.
Action search up to Shankel
By MARK PITTMAN
Staff Reporter
Del Shankel leaves the executive vice chancellorship tomorrow. One of the last decisions he will make concerns the process for selection of a new permanent director of Affirmative Action.
His decision could affect hiring practices at the University for a long time.
The office of Affirmative Action monitors hiring practices at KU and recommends procedures for attracting minority applicants to fill staff positions.
Shankel said yesterday that he had not decided whether the search for the director would be an accident.
Former director Bonnie Ritter, former acting director Clarence Dillingham and some faculty members have said the office's credibility could be improved if Mr. Ritter or if Edwards were appointed without a search.
campus or an appointment of the current acting director. Mike Edwards, to the permanent job.
The affirmative action office often requires that other departments conduct a nationwide survey.
Shankel said he would discuss the selection process, including the administrators today and would decide before he begins.
"I will talk it with others but ultimately the decision is mine." Shankel said.
Shankel becomes acting chancellor of KU Aug. 15.
He said he would use the six weeks between the end of his term as executive vice chancellor and the start of his new appointment to discuss the future of administrators and to plan for the 1980-81 school year.
"I'll still be around the University," Shankel said. "I'll be in the office a few hours every day, but I'm going to take a week off at the end of July for a short vacation with the family."
Robert Cobb, dean of the College of Liberal Arts, will make over as executive vice chancellor on Tuesday.