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Friday, December 8, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Dole speaks at conference for disabled
By Melanie Matthes
By Melanie Matthes
Kansan staff writer
The U.S. Congress will continue to blaze a trail in health care programs for people with disabilities, Sen. Robert Dole told a group of about 200 medical and social service professionals, educators and government officials yesterday.
In a morning address to the Governor's Conference on the Prevention of Childhood Disabilities, Dole said he was confident that the conference would come up with ideas that Congress would be able to use to develop legislation.
Yesterday's conference, sponsored by the University of Kansas Medical Center and other state medical associations, will continue today at the Holiday Inn Holdcom, 200 McDonald
Drive
The purpose of the conference is to increase awareness of the preventability of childhood disabilities and to encourage involvement in and support of such programs, said Joseph Hollowell, director of the Children's Rehabilitation Unit at the Med Center.
"There is ample evidence that developmental disabilities can be prevented," he said. "The issues are clear and the possibilities are within our reach. The challenge is great but, by working together to develop these programs, I think that we can go a long way."
Dole said that he had long been a support of programs for people who are blind.
"It occurred to me years ago that, as someone with a disability, I wasn't
doing enough to help the disabled," he said.
Dole was injured when he served in World War II and has a disabled right leg.
He said he had worked to create opportunities and programs for people with disabilities, such as the Americans With Disabilities Act, passed during the last Legislative session, which requires that businesses provide accessibility for people with disabilities.
Dole said that one area in which childhood disabilities could be prevented is
"There are 375 infants born each year added to drugs," Dole said. Many of these addicted infants are going to experience lifetime disabilities."
Hollowell said that many childhood
disabilities could be prevented by interrupting the events that led to injury. Drug abuse and AIDS transmission are instances of events that often lead to disabling injuries.
"Drugs are a big part of handicap prevention that we will deal heavily with in the conference," he said.
Dole said that preventing drug abuse began with education, enforcement and treatment.
AIDS transmission is an issue that also must be looked at carefully. Hollowell said.
The number of children carrying the AIDS virus is increasing. Dole and many mothers with AIDS don't learn that the disease when they deliver their babies.
"Education is important for the prevention of a disease that knows no bounds."
Continued from p. 1
Dole
"I would hope we don't build our hopes on the life of one individual in the world," he said of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
An economic pressures grow in the Soviet Union, the Soviet government will troops out of Europe. Dole said, and some politicians demand paratroon strength
Dole also met with Gov. Mike Hewlett Wednesday and discussed the state's property tax problems, the state's property tax problems, and disassociated himself from the issue.
"I have a pact with state legislators," he said. "They don't give me advice, and I don't give them advice."
He did say he supported Hayden's decision to call the Legislature into special session to seek solutions to the problem. The special session
begins today.
Dole predicted that public outlay about the $260 billion government bailout of ailing savings and loan institutions as many as people learned more about.
"I don't mean that people aren't concerned," Dole said. "They just didn't understand."
Dole ended his campus visit yesterday with a tour of the new Dole Human Development Center, named for him.
He said he resisted any effort to have the building named for him, but said, "I was overruled."
Dole said he planned to return to KU, possibly with his wife, Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole, for the dedication of the Dole Center, which is scheduled for occupancy in summer 1990.
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