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Thursday, August 30, 1990/ University Daily Kansan
Complaint filed against Slattery
Kansan staff report
A formal complaint alleging campaign violations was filed Monday with the U.S. House of Representatives against Rep. Jim Slattery, D-Lawrence, by Slatier, a Republican opponent, Scott Morgan.
According to a news release from Matt Tills, Morgan's campaign manager, one of Slattery's staff members has been using Slattery's congressional office for campaigning purposes.
Lynn McVay, Morgan's press secretary, said no candidate could use a congressional office as campaign headquarters. Campaign headquarters are stationed at a separate location and are finance committees and independent donors.
He said Paul Murray, Slattery's campaign manager, had directed questions from Morgan campaign manager. At Slattery's congressional office.
Murray said the complaint was frivolous and the only telephone calls directed back to Slattery's congressional office were those requesting to speak to the press secretary.
FBI to receive new drug kits
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The FBI will soon field test kits that enable police officers to wipe someone's palm and determine within minutes whether that person recently has been handling drugs or explosives.
"It's a much less intrusive method of testing for drug use than the traditional urine test," said Dean Fetterolf of the FBI's forensic science research unit in Quantico, Va. The test does not require hours, or days, of work by laboratory technicians.
Fetterolf described the new test for drugs and explosives at a meeting of the American Chemical Society.
The new test uses antibodies produced in laboratory animals to detect the presence of micrograms — millions of a gram — of the target
substance on skin, desktops or other surfaces. The antibodies trigger a color change in an indicator in the kit if the target is present.
The tests are calibrated so that they will not pick up the tiny but detectable amounts of cocaine on their skin. They hold 800 bills in circulation, Feteroli said.
Antibodies are specific to the triggering substance and the test should not be triggered by other chemicals, he said.
Such "false positives" are a bane of many current tests. Some urine tests, for example, indicate drug use and the subject has eaten a lot of pepper seeds.
The first drug test kits, 200 for cocaine and 200 for heroin, should be delivered next month for FBI field tests, and future kits might also be
used for amphetamines and phenylcylidine, also known as PCP, he said.
The drug kit are being developed under a $50,000 contract by Bio-Metric Systems Inc. of Eden Prairie, Minn. A similar kit for certain explosives is being developed for $35,000 by Westinghouse Corp. of Baltimore
"Taking laboratory technology from a three-hour analysis with a trained technician down to a 30-second analysis that can be done by someone who's not trained as an analyst or is not a trivial task," Fetterol said.
A sample test kit displayed by Fetterolio and other FBI agents consisted of three tiny tubes of liquids in a container smaller than a matchbook.
Patrick Guire, Bio-Metric's vice president for research and develop.
meet, said the company is ahead of schedule and may even ship the kits early.
Guire said the kits will be mass-produced and sold either by Hycor Biomedical of Garden Grove, Calif., with which his company has a licensing agreement for other antibody tests, or by Bio-Metric itself.
Fettertoi predicted each one would pay $7 to $8, but Guire said he expected the cost to be about $5 once mass production begins.
The FBI will soon receive a prototype of the antibody test kit for explosives, Fetterol said.
"It's very well documented in the scientific literature that . . . someone (who) handles explosives and then picks up a briefcase, will transfer the explosives from the outside of their hand to the briefcase," he said.
Stephan begins state gas price investigation with aid from Hayden
The Associated Press
TOPEKA — Gov. Mike Hayden asked the state Corporation Commission yesterday to provide data collection assistance to Attorney General Bob Stephan for his investigation of high gasoline prices in Kansas.
A spokesperson for the KCC said the agency, which regulates utilities
in the state, can provide the needed information and is ready to help Stephan.
The attorney general, meanwhile,
cautioned Kansas citizens to be wary of
salespeople offering them gasoline and energy-saving devices, saying there are "seams and rip-offs" aimed at taking advantage of consumers' concerns about the high price of gasoline and oil in the wake of Iraq's takeover of Kuwait.
"I've asked the commission to assist Attorney General Bob Stephan in looking into this matter," Hayden said. "The commission has excellent industry sources which should help us determine what caused the price
of gas to rise so significantly and if that increase is justified.
Emily Wellman, energy program manager for the KCC, said her office already was compiling data that Stephan might use.
"As a matter of practice, we have sources regarding information on production, consumption, capacity
and wholesale cost of gasoline which may be helpful in the investigation," she said.
Hayden said he wants the KCC to look into why the prices of gasoline have varied so greatly from city to city in Kansas.
While there is no shortage of petroleum products in Kansas, Hayden
urged citizens to become more economy-minded in their driving habits.
"Energy efficiency is the most effective defense Kansas has against the economic hardship that may result from the loss of imported oil from Iraq and Kuwait," the governor said.
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