University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, April 15, 1987
9
Campaign will fight tampering
The Associated Press
CHICAGO — The scene is a phone booth, and a caller is threatening to poison a food or drug product.
The TV commercial is part of an advertising campaign to curb the growing number of product-tampering threats.
"Make a product tampering threat from this box," warns the voice of actor Dennis Franz, Lt. Norman Bunt on "Hill Street Blues," as the scene shifts to a prison cell, "and you'll end up in this box, for five years."
"More than $1 billion in perfectly good products had to be destroyed because of threats that people phoned in," said Bill Weintraub, vice president of marketing for Kellogg Co. in Battle Creek, Mich., and one of the coordinators of the ad campaign.
The campaign, being launched this week in Chicago, where seven people died in 1982 after taking cyanide-laced Tylonol capsules, is a cooperative effort by the Food and Drug Administration, the FBL, the Advertising Council and several industry associations.
Last year, 1,692 tampering threats were reported in the United States, up from 128 in 1985, according to FDA statistics.
Industry sources said most of the threats were phony.
Psychiatric studies indicate that product-tampering threats tend to come from males age 20- to 30-years old who usually have no criminal record, said George Schott, vice president of the National Institute of U.S.A., in Chicago, the agency that volunteered to develop the anti-tampering campaign.
Drug companies are spending $500 million to $1 billion a year on protective packaging, he said.
The ads focus on the consequences of product tampering under federal law — up to five years in prison or a $10,000 fine for making a threat, and up to life in prison or a $250,000 fine for carrying out the threat.
"It's the people who think it's a joke or a lark — that's who we're trying to dissuade." Weintraub said. "The FBI is pretty effective in tracking down people who actually tampered with products. But the people doing it as a joke are more difficult to trace. We think the public doesn't understand the severity of the problem."
The campaign, which includes racecards and boardrooms, will be expanded and finally marketed.
Danny Ray/KANSAN
Boxed in
Jeff Daymont, Hinsdale, ill., freshman, juggles cigar boxes to prepare for performances at festivals across the country. Daymont practiced yesterday at Robinson Center.
Bomb injures 16 during drug trial
The Associated Press
KOKOMO, Ind. — A man on trial for dealing drugs was believed killed yesterday when a briefcase he was carrying exploded in the Howard County courthouse, and at least 15 other people were injured, including the sheriff, officers said.
The defendant, Robert Gray of Marion, was believed to be dead in the blast, prosecutor James Andrews said at a news conference. However, he refused to comment further, and other law enforcement officers would not comment.
Andrews said confirmation of a fatality would come only after the county coroner was allowed into the blast site, but by late evening the coroner still was not allowed into the building.
injured by the blast. Gray's attorney and two other law officers were hospitalized, and 11 people were treated and released from hospitals.
Police said the courthouse was sealed off because they feared more explosives might be inside. Authorities also feared that the building had received severe structural damage that could endanger searchers.
Sheriff John Beatty was seriously
Katherine Walsh-Miller, a spokeswoman for Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, said Beatty was in serious but stable condition and would undergo surgery to clean the wounds.
The other injured were listed in either good or fair condition at St. Joseph Hospital in Kokomo, said spokeswoman Mary Lindgran.
Med Center offers testing for AIDS to some patients
By JENNIFER WYRICK
The University of Kansas Medical Center recently began offering free acquired immune deficiency syndrome testing to pregnant patients and those undergoing elective surgery.
Staff writer
The Med Center staff routinely draws blood from patients when they check into the hospital, said Kermit Krantz, chairman of the department of gynecology and obstetrics. The staff now will offer some patients the opportunity to have the AIDS test
This early testing could prevent the spread of AIDS. The American Red Cross, as well as other health agencies, has published research that says pregnant women who carry the AIDS antibodies run a high risk of infecting their babies.
Krantz said that the test eventually might be available to all Med Center patients.
If the Med Center staff receives a positive reading on a patient's test, they will then offer counseling to the patient, Krantz said. The patients will be notified of the test results in absolute confidence.
"If the patient is positive, he or she is susceptible to many infections in an overwhelming way." Krantz said. "We protect those patients in advance."
develop an AIDS infection.
Researchers estimate, however that among those in certain high-risk groups, a mortality rate ranging from 50 percent to 100 percent exists for individuals who test positive for AIDS antibodies.
For this reason, Eugene Staples vice chancellor for hospital administration, said that he thought the AIDS test was a necessary measure. He also said an obligation to inform patients of any risk that they might carry, be said
The AIDS test is conducted at the Med Center, Krantz said, but tests were double checked by other laboratories if the one-day test comes back positive.
"It has become evident that heterosexual men and women can contract the AIDS virus with only one sexual encounter." Staples said.
A positive test for AIDS antibodies indicates only contact with the virus.
On the Record
A personalized license plate valued at $40 was taken Monday from a motorcycle parked in the 706 block of West 23rd Street, Lawrence police reported.
■ A bank card was taken from a person in the 900 block of Ohio Street and used to withdraw a total of $320 on several different occasions between Feb. 8 and 20. Lawrence
police reported.
A car stereo cassette player and equalizer valued at $700 was taken Sunday from a car parked in the 1500 NU Place, Lawrence police reported.
reported.
A gold watch valued at $100 and five quarters were taken between Sunday and Monday from an office in Murphy Hall. KU police reported.
A white truck and its contents, valued at $825, were taken between April 3 and 5 from the 1300 block of West 24th Street, Lawrence police
■ Unidentified persons threw penn on the walls, ceiling and carpet on the south side of the second floor in Wescoe Hall on Sunday morning between 3:15 and 3:30.
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