UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editors represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of other authors.
October 16.1979
Nuclear plant needs well-trained workers
It appears almost inevitable that the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant will be built as it continues to receive stamina support from Kansas Gas and Electric Co. and Kansas City Power and Light public public condemnation of the project.
But when the plant begins operation in 1983, state officials and representatives of these utilities should be sure that all the proper precautions have been taken to avert a nuclear catastrophe that would jeopardize the lives of thousands of innocent people across the state.
Proper disposal of nuclear waste, adequate cooling systems and the correct design of the reactor all need to be considered by state legislators and these utility companies. But another important aspect that has been delayed until recently is the qualifications of the personal working at the plant.
Nuclear power plants are almost completely run by computers, but there is still room for human error—error that can have devastating an accident. But add to the potency of an accident, Stu was the case with Three Mile Island.
The investigations conducted after the Three Mile Island breakdown pointed to human error adding to the seriousness of the accident.
Consequently in considering the importance of the human element at the Burington reactor, state officials now are beginning to question
training programs for plant workers and those workers' qualifications.
Officials are disturbed with a report by the Kansas Corporation Commission last spring that may have found deficiencies in training programs run by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and they are concerned about whether Kansas should use these training programs.
Questions also have been raised by state officials about statements that some workers who will be operators at the Burlington plant did not score well in their training programs. However, Bob Rives, a vice president for K&G/E, supported the workers saying, "They are a very outstanding group of guys, and I think their grades show that specifically."
But the abilities of the workers for the Wolf Creek reactor is an important concern and if there are any questions regarding their abilities, the state has a right and an obligation to the people of Kansas to look into these questions to determine the capabilities of the workers.
Who works at a reactor plant can be just as important as how well the plant is designed. It is important, then, for the safety of the people who live in the state that capable and responsible people are employed to operate the Wolf Creek plant and that they are trained properly.
Hopefully state officials will continue to investigate these matters further in an attempt to make sure there is no risk of further and reduce further the possibilities of a nuclear accident.
Technology—we have praised it as a deity since the days of the Industrial Revolution in England in the 18th century. With it we have created who we are and what we are
*a nas developed into an awesome power and in many ways we have, knowingly or not, found a way to enact fictives every aspect of our lives today, and we use it even to measure the success and failure of our efforts.
One of those side effects created by technology that threatens man's existence is air pollution. Air pollution has been known to cause lung cancer and respiratory problems. In some areas of the world, people need to wear masks to avoid breathing contaminants that might be harmful to their health.
Technology has given us color television sets, dishwashers plastic goods, hot combs, vacuum cleaners, and more to make life just a little softer. It has sent men to the moon and space probes
Most of our technological mishaps, however, affect us indirectly by affecting our environment. But since we are part of the world, we must take great consequences for us in years to come.
An example of this is farming practices today. Farmers set their goals for maximum crop production to meet the needs of America and the world.
Bad side effects of technology already have rendered life-threatening problems for us, but so far we have been able to adapt them. However, if we continue at our high rate of destruction and exploitation of the earth, we will no longer will be able to support human life.
And yet this "god" in which we have placed so much faith and trust in destroying us slowly, but surely. An alarming thought and one that we overlook too often.
New director of FDA has rocky road ahead
In trying to maximize production year after year, the land becomes overworked and is robbed of its nutrients. Although crops are grown in a way that becomes so poor that they are no longer farmable. Consequently, this reduces the production levels and puts a strain on the amount of粮食 exported to feed people in the country. Today, States is the only exporter of grains today.
Postmaster: Send changes of address to the University Daily Kanson, Flint Hall, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS6940
It was Kennedy's bad luck to be on the spot when public and legislative opinion came about regarding the decision from the FDA's judgment on such matters as saccharin. Lantelie and the use sodium saccharin in foods.
Moreover, Goyan comes to Washington at a time when the general prestige of the FDA is relatively low. Of his predecessor, Donald Kennedy, it was remarked in the *The New York Times* that he was resting 'after losing himself in the policy battle in which he engaged.'$^4$
More generally, in the present conservative mood of the country, the FDA is in a position to implement typical agency, an organization founded on the assumption that the consumer is incompetent to take care of his own affairs without government telling him what he should do.
1750-6800 $649. Published at the University of Manitoba and University of Wisconsin-Madison, days during summer and July except weekends; Sunday and Saturday nights during summer and July except weekends; Monday through Friday on Sundays. Cust.号码 66445. Subscriptions by mail are $31 for six months. Subscription by phone is $25 for six months. Enquiries may be made to the student counselor, postmaster, and through the student activity
It has been a remarkable decline in the fortunes of an agency that was unanimously praised back in the early 1980s. Then the FDA prevented thalidomide, a drug that was commonly used to treat pregnant women, from being widely prescribed in this country. In the euphoria
The government's own General Accounting Office told Congress just before Kennedy left his job that the FDA was guilty of misleading the public and proving of useful drugs needed by the sick, drugs that were available earlier in other countries. A top GAO official agreed with a congressional official that the study could find no benefits to compensate for the lack of testing.
Mary Horiok
Managing Editor
Nancy Dresner
Editorial Editor
Mary Ernt
NEW YORK-If there are any surplus compassion around, part of it ought to be directed to the pharmacy school dean who has served as a staff member for Dr. David Administration, Jere Eidow Goyan. He is leaving a prestigious and well-paid University of California post for one of Washington's most controversial and politically sensitive jobs. He has accepted the position, but whose assured lease on the White Housetax has less than a year and a half to go.
Business Manager
Continua Rew.
Global Sales Manager ... Vincent Connelly
National Sales Manager ... Carl Nelson
General Manager ... Advertising Advisor
Rock Maint ... Chuck Snacks
Farmers also use irrigation in crop production in the Great Plains. But what has not been realized is that the irrigation is often more efficient, and which could very easily lead to the for-
Technology threatens our existence
generated by this feat, the late Sen. Ekafer Kefauver had no great difficulty winning legislative changes to require the FDA to certify the efficacy as well as the safety of new drugs. It is this added requirement that is part of the FDA problems that will face Gavin.
For example, except in a few isolated cases, Laetrile usually has been safe. But that substance's sponsors have not even tried to comply with the FDA's cumbersome, time-consuming and expensive costs of Laetrile. Laetrile actually help cancer patients.
Moreover, Goyan has been a leader in efforts to raise the status and importance of a pharmacist. For many years, a typical pharmacy has had an in-house repackage manufactured pills and powders he bought at wholesale into smaller containers for retail sale. Goyan has sought to train a new breed of pharmacists capable of performing the duties of those who are specialists who are equalls with physicians.
Watching the FDA ought to be an interesting occupation in the months ahead as Goyan leads that agency.
Harry Schwartz recently retired after 29 years' service on the editorial board of The New York Times.
His critics claim he is simply engaged in occupational imperialism, trying to grab additional turf for his profession at the University of Goya's educational policy may well agree with the laudatory comment that Sidney M. Walef, Ralph Nader's chief counsel, insisted that Goya heard of the Goyan appointment: "I thank he will push very hard at increasing the role of pharmacists to interfere with the prescribing practices of many doctors."
Nevertheless, recent years have shown that thousands of American cancer sufferers want the right to try Laetrile even if it has been deemed a political pressure has got an amazing number of state legislatures to pass bills legalizing Laetrile, laws that implicitly challenge the most basic assumption of the Kefauver amendment became law.
It used to be mandated that an M.D. head the FDA. But Goyan is the second accuser of his doctor. The ministeria has appointed. The leaders of organized medicine are unlikely to miss the death of Dr. Goyan.
he has stressed the web of processes in the living environment at its most vulnerable points that there is little leeway left in the system. Time is short. We must begin, now, to respond to these challenges geotechnical power conform to the more powerful constraints of the living environment.*
We cannot ignore any longer the problems of technology. It has been put on the shell too long and further problems have been created,
The pharmaceutical industry complains about the long delays, usually stretching over years, required to FDA approval of a new drug. They have approved medicine for a given ailment tends to look with equanimity on the FDA-market data and is competing in market rival drugs.
As if juggling these and other political issues, he takes office under conditions favoring intangible friction between his agency and the community of physicians that is the target of so many cases.
John
COLUMNIST fischer
mation of deserts. That, in turn, could reduce crop production-leaving the possibility of starvation in underdeveloped countries.
If the oil spill had occurred in the spring when crops were growing, it could have been deterimental to the farmers in the area where it might have caused crops to wither and do not grow.
Technology should not be condemned because it will play an important role in trying to resolve the problems created by it.
And our technology mishaps also affect our climate. The recent runaway oil well off the coast of Mexico and its effect on the climate in America is a good example.
Because the oil spread over a great extent of the ocean's surface, it reduced the amount of water evaporated by the sun into the air.
Since this results in less water vapor in the air, precipitation is reduced and does not carry as far. Consequently, this is an impertinent event. Kansas has not received rain for a month.
But we must take a more active role in the technological future, including determining alternative forms of energy and stricter pollution-control regulations.
Man has tried too long to live without nature—but that cannot be done because he is part of it. And one must not forget that technology also is dependent on nature.
We go into new technology blindly, not knowing all the consequences that will arise from it. We make amends and corrections—but by then it has had a possibly irreversible result on our lives.
We need to call for stricter regulations of those things that greatly affect the well-being of the environment. For too long we have allowed man-made floods. Now it looks tick to stick to nature's rules.
Man is destroying himself through his own endeavors with technology.
The outlook for the future is not pleasant, and Barry Commer, the director of the business school at MIT, writes. We have become, not less dependent on the balance of nature, but much more dependent on it.
YOU CAN BOUNCE IT!
U.S. cooking in microwave beams
Like it or not, the world we live in is becoming more and more similar to a microwave oven. We are bombarded daily by dozens of blasts from many different sources of microwave radiation, from short-wavelength to long-distance communications towers.
One is in danger of being cooked to a crisp by these microwaves, however, some scientific claims. The radiation we receive is too small a dosage even to be harmful, they
But is it? Other scientists, especially those in Europe and Russia, maintain that even the smallest dose of microwave radiation can kill cancer, over a period of time. Some scientists also insist that small doses of microwave radiation can affect behavior.
Despite the contentions of these scientists, who are backed by reams of papers from studies conducted on the effects of antibiotics on human liver, a liberal standard to companies using microwave equipment. That standard, 25 years old, allows dangerous amounts of antibiotics to be used.
The current American standard was developed in 1953 by Professor Herman Schwan, a professor of electrical engineering and physical medicine at the University of Michigan. He designed the metal ball as a model of the human body and made some assumptions as to how much
john COLUMNIST logan
heat the human body can handle. At the time, the heating effect of microwaves was the only effect known on the human body.
Using the metal ball, Schwan decided that man can handle safely an exposure of 10 milliwatt (thousandths of a watt) per square centimeter of body surface. That material is being developed by the United States armed forces and the American Standards Institute.
But a number of scientists insist that lower radiation doses than 10 milliwatts are extremely dangerous. Doctors have written on the subject of microwave damage, according to the Government Accounting Office. Among them is Dr. James Shipley, whose papers have reported are central nervous system disorders, genetic damage, reduction of the brains electrical activity, and damage to the brain's blood vessels.
One scientist has demonstrated that a dose of just 0.2 milliwatt (one-fifth of the government standard) affects the bloodstream of mice, and it allows them to choose what substances enter that organ.
The Russians have long known the harmful effects of microwave radiation. Their
safety standard is only 10 microwatts (millionths of a watt).
That irradiation has resulted in the State Department declaring the embassy a hazardous duty post, despite the radiation exposure and the American safety standard. How hazardous that radiation might be is reflected in the fact that three of the most recent American cancer centers are still battling cancer. Two have died, the third, Ambassador Stoeffel, is suffering from Leukemia. The Ambassador's office is in the weak of the Korean microwave beam.
This is interesting in light of the fact that microscopes are used to microwave radiation at the United States Embassy in Moscow for the past two decades, twice their own safety.
Just why the Russians are irradiating the embassy, no one is sure. It is known that Russians believe that microwave radiation burns skin and can be used to influence behavior.
The problem of microwave radiation has recently taken on a local aspect with the construction of a microwave relay tower in downtown Lawrence. The five-story tower, one of 70 to be built in the state by South Carolina, is designed for long distance telephone communication.
According to Bell, the tower will use five watts of microwave radiation, beamed at
the next tower in a tight pattern, much like a searchlight.
At the base of the tower, stral ray transmission will measure about five micromatrics, according to Southwestern Bell engineers, and be pointed at the Embassy in Moscow.
That searchlight beam will spread slightly over the journey, however, and persons along the path of the beam can be exposed to radiation, particularly if they are on a hill.
It raises some interesting questions. With all the doubts about the effects of electromagnetic radiation, safety hazards, why was the middle of a metropolitan area chosen for a microwave relay tower? What effects will the radiation have on people living or working near the tower?
No one seems to have the answers, or perhaps no one cares. What is sure is that there is going to be more radiation in River City. Perhaps not enough that we can stick a finger into it, but at least enough that someone should begin to check into the possible dangers.
There should also be a greater effort made to develop a new safety standard for the entire nation. There are far too many dangers from lesser levels of microwaves for the current standard to be regarded as safe. The development of mushroom-like sprouting of microwave towers and booming sales of microwave ovens, something needs to be done soon.
West Campus parking lot suggested
To the Editor:
as a former editor and publisher of two weekly newspapers in South Dakota, I am very much concerned with the parking situation on the KU campus. All of this has nothing to do with my past experiences, but it also has my attention to the situation at hand.
I am a bookbinder II at the KU Printing Service, just doing my job and minding my own business, but this parking situation takes the cake.
Lately the KU Police Department has been ticketing the campus area like crazy. I suppose they are just doing their job or else the department is short of funds. Who knows. And I understand that the fee goes to the upkeep of the department.
But it isn't fair. One would think that the department is in charge of the legislature for their funds, like other departments on campus do, and not take it to the faculty; the students are the ones who need the Student Senate or the newly formed classified organization would be up in arms about all this.
In an earlier article in the Kansas, it was mentioned that a majority of the faculty members do not pay the fines that are imposed on them. So why should the lowly professors pay the fines? There is no big push on to collect the faculty's fines, but the students cannot
register for classes, I bear, until theirs are fully paid. Now is that fair or isn't it?
Let's look at the situation from a different point of view. We all know that the main campus is very crowded, but the west edge is more open and provides land of land close to campus, why could it put a large lot out there, and provide shuttle bus service for the people who park in that area. A lot of students drive on campus, when they could be walking or riding
Of course, in the wintertime the situation would not be as good. But during the other seasons, you have to take it just as a suggestion. The students committing from a distance would have to park somewhere.
But as far as West Campus is concerned, there is no traffic to speak of, only trucks loading and unloading merchandise. So why the permits at all?
Overall, the employees on campus do not make a fantastic wage to start with—and then the extra burden to buy permits. The department has been so busy that myself am not that bad off, since my wife works, as do a lot of wives on campus. They have to these days with rising costs and inflation, and now the prime bank rates for mortgages are higher than before. I can think of, but will not bother to mention.
UNIVERSITY DAILY letters KANSAN
The legislature gave us a small increase termed a cost of living increase, but that is not enough to cover the inflation rate, or even the cost of parking permits.
Bill Combs
West Campus employee
There has to be a way to justify this situation. I hope that someone can come up with an answer.
Maybe if the permits were only $1 instead of $4 it would not be so bad. But the high cost to purchase them, and the $0.60 for $7.50 are too much for anyone to handle.
Amplifying equipment low-power consumer To the Editor:
Wake up and smell the coffee, people. The fact is that any blow dryer, toaster, broiler
Now I'm just a anti-nuke as any of your average liberal-thinking, ecologically-minded individuals. But I want to do your research better than to keep printing cartoons based on the premise that nature is public address systems and the like are good examples of a 'power-gobbling'
or even a large light bulb uses more power than 95 percent of the band equipment on the market today.
J.D. Willhite
Lawrence musician
Letters Policy
The University Daily Kanan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and include the name of the author, include the writer's name, address and telephone number. If the writer is afraid to type, please include the writer's class and home town or faculty or staff position. Letters should also include the right to edit for publication.