CAMPUS AND AREA
University Daily Kansan, March 7, 1985
Page 10
Sale of bacteria kits halted
By SHARON ROSSE Staff Reporter
A "synchide of companies" involved in a bacteria growing industry were issued cease and desist orders yesterday from the Kansas securities commission, the general counsel for the securities commission said yesterday.
Larry Christ, the counsel, said the order named Culture Farms Inc. and Diversified Labs ICS, both at 2220 Delaware St., and said the companies involved had sold some of the land operated as pyramid and Ponz schemes and had made numerous misrepresentations.
The order also named eight out-of-state companies and 12 individuals, including Terry Taylor, Culture Farms president, and Christopher Mancuso, vice president of Marketing for Culture Farms, Christina
Culture Farms, which employs about 115 people, buys harvested cultures from consumers who grow bacteria in their homes with milk, cheese and activator kits bought from a Nevada company.
ACTIVATOR SUPPLY CO., the Las Vegas, Nev., company, sells the kits to the consumers at a minimum cost of $350. After Culture Farms buys the cultures, it resells the harvested bacteria to Cleopatra's Secret, a Reno, Nev., cosmetic company.
The order, issued by John Wurth.
securities commissioner, prohibits the companies and individuals from marketing or selling securities. The companies had been selling securities in the form of the activator kits and contracts to grow and sell the cultures for Culture Farms, Christ said.
But the order does not prohibit Culture Farms from buying back cultures from investors who have acquired these bacteria and grown the bacteria, Christ said.
Dave Darby, assistant general manager for Culture Farms, said in a prepared statement yesterday that he would continue business as usual.
"THE CEASE AND desist order does not appear to prohibit Culture Farms from continuing to purchase mature cultures from growers and for use in cosmetics and other uses to be developed." Darby said.
Taylor will request a hearing to determine whether the sale of the activator kits constitutes securities sales, Darby said. Christ said the heeding would be within 15 days after the commissioner received the request.
Craig Stancifle, associate general counsel for the securities commissioner, said that although Culture Farms itself had not sold stock in the company, Supply Co., which was closely linked to Culture Farms, had said them.
STANCLIFFE SAID CULTURE Farms was the only market for the cultures and the company would only
buy cultures grown from Activator Supply kits.
Christ also said the operation appeared to be a pyramid-Poni scheme and had made numerous misrepresentations to consumers in order to demand for the cultures and the backdrop of the principal officials.
Pyramid-Ponzi schemes, which violate the Kansas Consumer Protection Act, use funds from new investors to pay returns to previous investors. They require an endless supply of money and they do not have a profitable product to sell
CHRIST SAID THAT the companies had advertised that a high demand for the cultures existed and that people could generate a regular income.
"But there is no sign of a significant domestic market for the cosmetic products," he said. "They would have to rely on an ever-widening set of actors to assure continued payment and that is a pyramid scheme."
Darby said that the Cleopatra's Secret cosmetic line was scheduled to be introduced in April 1885 and that the process was on schedule.
Christ said the companies also misrepresented the backgrounds of some of their principal officials.
"Securities' regulations require every possible risk to be disclosed," he said. "They failed to mention that a principal Roland Nocera, the director of the Vapor Supply, had been previously convicted for securities fraud."
Contractor details asbestos risks
By CINDY McCURRY Staff Reporter
A general contractor last night told an audience of about 20 people of the dangers of asbestos and its careless removal. About half the audience consisted of facilities operations employees.
"Asbestos is harmless if it is left alone in a state that you cannot breathe into your lungs," Bob Fairlie, the contractor, said. "It is impossible to be properly injured is than to have some irresponsible person come in and take it out."
Fairlie, the owner of Messina Builders in Kansas City, Mo., spoke in the Art and Design building. The lecture was sponsored by the KU chapter of the Associated General Contractors, a student organization of engineering and architecture students.
FAIRLIE GAVE EXAMPLES of correct safety procedures that should be used in asbestos removal. He said workers should always be equipped with respirators and disposable clothing. They also should be provided with showers directly outside of the work area.
"We are doing a lot more today to protect employees than ever before in the history of asbestos removal." Fairlie said.
A three-member panel from the Department of Human Resources last week began investigating the demolition and removal of an asbestos-laden boiler at the campus power plant. The investigation followed complaints by facilities workers that federal guidelines for the removal had been violated in the removal, which ended in November.
Larry Rembarger, one of the employees who complained, attended the lecture last night.
"I GET MORE and more scared every time I hear more about this asbestos stuff," he said.
Asbestos is a fire-proofing ma-
causes cancer if fibers become "ged in the lungs. Results of eathing the fibers may not appear for 10 to 40 years after contamination.
"I run into situations where people will say, 'I've been around this stuff for 35 years,'" Fairie said. "We run into that kind of utter disreguard because it doesn't kill you right away."
Lonnie Welsh, facilities operations assistant director of construction, attended the lecture. Welsh will attend asbestos seminars in Kansas City, Mo., and Atlanta later this month.
Tom Anderson, director of facilities operations, who also attended the lecture, said he was forming a task force of four to eight facilities operations workers who would be deserts removal. Anderson said the disaster would do small maintenance jobs that would involve asbestos.
TV woodwind player visits KU for jazz jam
By SHELLE LEWIS Staff Reporter
Gary Foster, KU alumnus and renowned woodwind player whose music can be heard in movies and on weekly television shows, combined his talents with those of three KU musicians in a concert last night.
More than 300 people attended the concert at Swarthout Recital Hall in Murphy Hall.
Foster, 48, plays the saxophone, clarinet, flute and recorder. He also teaches those instruments in Los Angeles, where he now lives.
Foster is a member of the television orchestra for "Dynasty," "Falcon Crest," "Hotel" and many other programs.
IN ADDITION TO television, Foster has performed for numerous motion pictures, such as "Terms of Deandearment," "The Karate Kid," "The Natural" and "Moscow on the Hudson."
Foster, a native of Leavenworth, said he enjoyed coming back to his alma mater. He received his bachelor's degree in music in 1959 and his bachelor's degree in music education in 1961.
Andrew Jaimez, Lawrence freshman and drummer, said last night's performance was his first with a musician of Foster's reputation.
During a rehearsal yesterday afternoon, Jaimee said, Foster gave helpful suggestions but allowed students to express their own styles.
"HE LEET US do pretty much what we wanted to, and that took away a lot of the tension," Jaimez said.
Richard Wright, associate professor of music who attended last night's concert, is a close friend of Foster
"He is very modest," Wright said.
"He is one of the most in-demand saxophone players on the West Coast."
Foster said being a performer helped him to teach students.
You find out what a student wants to know and know what to teach him.
James Jeffley, Kansas City, Kan. senior and bassist, said he played with Foster at one of his past KU appearances.
"He is one of the best," Jeffley said.
"In these trying times it's nice to see anyone making it, but especially musicians," Jeffley said. "A confident musician will put as much time and effort into mastering his profession as a doctor or a dentist."
Foster said student musicians should practice all they can and set their standards high.
"You're not competing against other schools, but the highest standards," he said.
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Paid Advertisement A TRIBUTE TO THE ARROWHEAD OGRE
In the February 27th Kansas City Star, sportswriter Tom Shatel says: "a day after news of the possibility of moving the KU-MU game of Nov. 23 to Arrowhead appeared in the Kansas City Times—Mr. Johnson (Kansas University Athletic Director Monte Johnson) released a statement saying the plan indefinitely was off."
Although Mr. Johnson claimed he didn't wish "to do anything to anger the people locally", he also told Mr. Shatel that "The more you (journalists) keep writing about it the less chance it has of happening (because) You get people polarized on both sides of the thing instead of getting them together". After admitting that "We looked at it (the proposal to hold the November 23rd Kansas-Missouri game in Arrowhead Stadium) for two months." Mr. Johnson decided "The timing was just not right for it."
Even while one March 1st Journal World editorialist feels the secret negotiations between a few privileged Kansas Citians and representatives of these two universities demonstrate "how college athletics has changed on far too many campuses with loyalty, integrity, and other values and virtues too often taking a back seat to cash and hype," this scribe thinks the gate can be increased and hence the problem solved by each school's fielding "an exciting winning football team."
In his March 3rd column, Kansas City Star sportswriter Joe McGuff attributes to University of Washington basketball coach Marv Harshman the following commentary on college athletics: "Now the bottom line is money. Everybody needs money to run their programs. It's simple: The more you win the more people turn out and the more money you make so you can finance those programs that don't make money."
Mr. McGuff holds that "The NCAA is swimming against the tide of history, and in the end it will lose...(because) College football and basketball are out of control for the fundamental reason that the people who run college athletics...(among whom are those) coaches (who) earn $250,000 a year and colleges (which are) fighting each other in court over television money...insist on enacting amateur rules to govern what fundamentally are professional sports."
When Mr. McGuff praises NCAA Executive Director Walter Byers for recently attempting to "bring honesty to college athletics...(when) he discussed the alternative of opening up college athletics, the premise being that the infractions are wrong, not because society says they are, but because the NCAA rules make them that way", he probably is thinking of the many lexicographers whose creative powers would be tested redefining "amateur" and "professional". Although, in Mr. Johnson's words, "The timing was just not right" for the aforementioned negotiations, when the allegedly appropriate moment arrives liberated lexicographers certainly won't be the only beneficiaries.
William Dann
2702 W. 24th St. Terr.
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