University Dally Kansan
Wednesday, December 11, 1974 14
Cancer researchers disappointed; many discoveries in health care
Bv.JANHYATT
1974 was a disappointing year for cancer researchers, who failed to isolate cancer-causing viruses, as predicted last spring. But researchers, doctors and surgeons had learned that modern DNA discoveries and introduced new techniques and devices to modernize health care.
Dr. Albert Sabin, who developed a polio vaccine in the early 1950s, and Dr. Giulio Tarro, an Italian researcher, announced at conferences last April that they had identified a certain virus in patients suffering from cancer of the skin, lip, larynx, kidney, prostate gland and cervix. The virus, herpes simplex Type I, is found in the genital tracts of men and women.
ANOTHER NOTED cancer researcher,
Dr. Adrian Nahras of Emory University,
has been diagnosed with herpes Type 2 infections are eight times more susceptible to cervical cancer than other women, and that wives of men with the virus are also and are more likely to get cervical cancer.
The findings caused a stir of excitement among virologists, and they immediately called for action. Sadly, attempts failed, and Sabin himself failed to back up his discovery with a new set of samples. in September, Sabin withdrew his report in an article written for a scientific review.
Other medical scientists added evidence of viral causes of cancer as opposed to hereditary causes. Dr. Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute isolated an enzyme produced by a virus in human leukemia cells. Dr. Sol Speelman, of the University of Missouri, set of identical twins, one of whom had leukemia. Only the diseased twin carried abnormal nucleic acid strings, which could have been produced by a virus.
EXPOSURE TO vinyl chloride, a colorless gas used to make plastics, and X-ray treatments of youngsters with enlarged bones. These causes of cancer of the liver and thymus.
The case against vinyl chloride received startling evidence when B. F. Goodrich Co. acknowledged that three workers in its Louisville, Ky., plastics plant who were exposed to high levels of the gas had died of angiosarcoma of the liver since 1971. Six workers in this company in these cases were reported in Great Britain and Norway, and all were plastic workers.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the U. S. Department of Labor adopted emergency regulations requiring industries to reduce vinyl chloride content in plastics and PVC from 60 parts per million, an amount that many medical scientists think is still too high.
BREAST CANCER became a widely
discussed topic in the press, on television talk shows and among women following the radical mastectomies performed on Betty Ford and Happy Rockefeller in September. Medical clinics and the American Cancer Society were deluged with requests for information and assistance from NBC's Today show, invited a medical specialist in breast cancer to discuss and demonstrate breast self-examination and methods of treatment.
Breast cancer remained the leading killer of women over 35. There are 90,000 new cases among American women each year, and 30,000 die annually.
Public health issues made big news in 1974. The Department of Health, Education and Welfare announced that immunization of preschool-age children had fallen off in recent years and warned the nation to expect epidemics of measles, mumps, whooping cough and polio during the coming year.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL Protection Agency (EPA) published in October a report that showed almost half of U. S. drinking water is contaminated with carbon-tetrachloride, a poison that acts as a carcinogen in small concentrations. The substance is produced by the combination of chlorine, used by most metropolitan water works to purify water, and organic compounds from industries. The EPA found evidence of cancer caused by ingestion of carbon tetrachloride in New Orleans, which gets its drinking water from the mouth of the heavily industrialized Mississippi River.
A medical college study revealed that 45 per cent of non-smoking Americans live and work in air so crowded with carbon monoxide that they have blood concentrations of the oxygen-choking gas above the safe limit of 1.5 per cent.
THE MEDICAL COLLEGE of Wisconsin published the results of its study in the Journal of the American Medical Association in September. The research found that 76 percent of non-smokers have too much CO in their blood to maintain a good oxygen supply to their hearts and body tissues. (All smokers in every part of the country have exceedingly high blood pressure, but it is one of the gases in ciaerate smoke.)
Residents of Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles and New Orleans also were suffering from high CO levels. The greatest number of drivers among taxi drivers and airport workers.
PERHAPS THE most remarkable surgery of the year was done by a 23-man team led by Koop to separate Siamese twin girls who had pelvis and abdomen. Koop performed the
separation Sept. 18 at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia.
The girls, Clara and Altagira Rodriguez, were 13 months old. Koop restructured the girls' shared urethral system, divided the single liver, built a large intestine into one girl from pieces from the other and broke the shared pelvic bone to reshape and increase the size of the hospital Nov. 28, facing relatively low lives as separate, healthy beings.
Dr. Christiana Barnard, the first heart transplant surgeon, placed a second heart in a 38-year-old man in a five-hour operation Nov. 25. Barnard cut away much of the diseased left ventricle of the original heart and placed the new heart in the right side of it, where the connected the cavities and vessels so that blood flowed through the donor heart.
Each heart has its own pacemaker set at synchronized rhythms. The heart recipient is in satisfactory condition at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, but it is too early to judge how successful the operation was. We then transplant the heart into a patient treated of treatment in the past few years because of the body's rejection of foreign tissue.
Nutritionists released important studies showing that bulk in the diet and daily regularity may be as important as the television commercials say. British and South African doctors studied the waste habits and output of Africans and British people, and found gastrointestinal diseases in both groups. The British had much higher rates of gall bladder ailments, appendicitis, diverticulosis and cancer of the colon.
The scientists concluded that the difference resulted from the large amount of highly refined corianderhydrates, such as white wheat bran and dried wheat diet. They recommended daily consumption of whole-wheat bread, bran, or barley or cereals and more root vegetables to satisfy their dietary needs.
Arthur Rand, professor of food chemistry at the University of Rhode Island, found a
way to make milk a more attractive food for blacks who cannot drink it now. Almost 75 per cent of American blacks lack the ability to digest lactose, a complex sugar in milk.
Rand discovered that by adding lactase, an enzyme already commercially available, the sugar would break down into galactose and glucose, sugars that are used in many foods. It is slightly sweet, but it has the same nutritional and caloric value as whole milk.
A supermarket item became the treatment for a common back alliment, the slipped disc. Dr. James Huddleton and Dr. James Farris of Mountains General Hospital, reported that injection of pain, an enzyme derived from the papaya plant and the principal ingredient in meat tenderizers, relieved the pain of a slipped disc in 180 of 250 patients.
Alcohol drinkers and marijuana smokers heard bad news from the medical profession and federal government all year long. A four-year study at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York showed that excessive drinking alone causes hardening and shrinking of the Doctors' knuckles and the liver; a found in skid row drunks resulted from poor eating habits as much as from drinking, but the M. Sinai study disputes that theory.
Alcoholism remained the #1 1 social problem afflicting almost 10 million Americans.
Three major studies of the effects of marijuana smoking were combined in the 193-page report delivered to Congress by the American Cancer Society, showed the regular smoking, defined as four times a week over a six-month period, debilitates the immune system, makes marijuana users more susceptible to disease by about 40 per cent. It also reduces the risk of being infected with HIV, mones, and impairs the fertility and potency of males taking no other drugs.
THE
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STUDENT SENATE ELECTION
Filing Deadlines President and Vice President January 22
"TUNA AUCTION"
Petitions may be picked up in Student Senate Office, 105B Union
ELECTRONICS
Filing Fee: '5 00
RMS
CLOSE: DEC. 12
OPEN: DEC. 5
WHAT IT IS . .
- Bids will be accepted and posted continuously during business hours with the bidder's number.
-An auction of stereo equipment that lasts eight days and has the bids anonymously posted.
-On December 12 at 7:00 p.m., the highest bidder on each item will receive the item upon payment.
*The terms are cash only, no refunds, no exchanges; winners must pay in full at close of sale (unless prior arrangements are made), and bids have to be made in person . . . however, bids can be checked by phone.
*All bids over $100.00 require a $10.00 deposit, refundable upon supercession of bid.
including JVC, Miracord, BIC, AR, Marantz, ESS, Akai and many more.
Major Brand Stereo Components
- Entire stock not included . . . selected items including floor samples, trade-ins, and overstock. . . most with manufacturer's warranty.
841-2672
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842-0530
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more . . .
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drug stores
Pepsi
64 oz.
59¢ reg. 89¢
Tide
49 oz.
77¢ reg. 1.44
Aluminum Foil
reg. 29¢
14¢
Plum Rose Ham
reg. 1.99
1³9
Woolite
8 oz.
49¢ reg. 99¢
Schlitz
6 pk.
99¢ reg. 1.29
Hamilton Beach
Butter-up
Corn Popper
9¹⁹£ reg. 11.99
Scope
24 oz.
89¢ reg. 1.39
Club
Crackers
1 lb.
69¢ reg. 89¢
Mari Lou
Mixed Nuts
12 oz.
69¢ reg. 89¢
Schick
Time Machine
Hair Dryer
25¹⁹£ reg. 31.99
8-Track
Auto-Tape Player
26¹⁸¢ reg. 29.99
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