Smallpox
shots made
students sick
by Derek Rose
New York Daily News
Healthy college students injected with the small
pox vaccine in clinical trials have developed aches,
pains and fevers that laid them up for days.
The symptoms have been temporary, but they un
derscore the dangers of the vaccination strategy un
der consideration by the Bush administration, ex
perts say.
Unlike other vaccinations, smallpox immuniza
tions involve injections of a live virus called vaccina
that can cause flu-like symptoms, rashes, sores and
more serious ailments. In extremely rare cases, the
vaccine can kill.
"You get swelling, you get tenderness, you can
get pain, you may get chills," said Dr. William
Schaffner of Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
"Getting a smallpox vaccine is not like getting a teta
nus shot"
As the White House considers reintroducing the
inoculations 30 years after they were stopped, the
National Institutes of Health is sponsoring a study
of the smallpox vaccine at Vanderbilt and three other
research centers.
Because vaccina supplies are limited, the study is
aimed at determining whether a diluted version is
still effective. The vaccination involves 15 pricks in
the upper arm with a needle injecting the vaccina
virus.
A pus-tilled scab develops within a week that must
must be kept covered to avoid spreading the virus to
other body parts - or other people. The dressings
also must be changed daily and the scab monitored
carefully.
Study participants said they developed symptoms
in about a week, ranging from nausea, fatigue, itchi
ness and pain where they got the shot.
“At one point I was like, ‘Just cut it off, just cut
my arm off! Be done with it!” said Elizabeth
Forrester, 26, a Vanderbilt doctoral student vacci
nated Oct. 14. “It just hurts, it aches and it's not fun.”
Forrester missed a day and a half of work a week
after being immunized, but others' symptoms were
less severe.
Dr. Patricia Winokur of the University of lowa
estimated that about a quarter of the 218 people vac
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Supreme Court enters debate over
affirmative action on campus
by Shannon McCaffrey
Knight Ridder Newspapers
The Supreme Court set the stage
Monday for what could be a landmark
ruling on affirmative action, agreeing
to decide whether universities can use
race as a factor in admitting students.
The high court in recent years has
chipped away at government affirma
tive-action programs dealing with such
things as government contracts. But it
has not spoken on the use of racial pref
erences in higher education in more
than two decades, which leaves legal experl
wondering how it will rule.
At issue is whether the University of Mich
gan in Ann Arbor and its law school violated
the Constitution by rejecting white applicants
while accepting minority students with lower
grades and test scores.
If the high court strikes down such public
university programs, it would be a near-fatal
blow to the use of affirmative action, which
was conceived of as a remedy for discrimina
tion. If it supports the university, it could pro
vide a blueprint for how such programs should
work.
James Cott, associate director of the
NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund,
called the pending challenges to affirmative
action, both involving the University of
Michigan in Ann Arbor, the "most important
civil rights cases to come before this court in
a quarter of a century."
The high court's rulings in the Michigan
cases will apply directly only to public col
leges and universities. But experts say all
schools, public or private, that use race-con
scious admission policies are likely to take
cues from the high court’s ruling.
"Whatever the court decides, it will have a
profound impact on who goes to colleges and
graduate schools in this country. It will have
a profound impact on the face and complex-
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“Whatever the court decides, it will
have a profound impact on who goes
to colleges and graduate schools in
this country. It will have a profound im
pact on the face and complexion of
higher education. ”
-Mark Rahdert, a constitutional la w professor and
associate dean at Temple University's Beasley
School of Law in Philadelphia.
ion of higher education," said Mark Rahdert,
a constitutional law professor and associate
dean at Temple University's Beasley School
of Law in Philadelphia.
The white students who were turned away
claim they were discriminated against in vio
lation of federal civil-rights laws that ban
race-based bias, and the Constitution's guar
antee of equal legal protection. The univer
sity says its intention was simply the enhanced
educational benefit that comes when students
of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds live
and learn together.
The law school case involved Barbara
Grutter, a businesswoman who was denied ad
mission to the Michigan law school in 1996
when she was 43. She claims that minority
applicants received preferential treatment, and
she still wants to attend law school at Michi
gan.
In the second case, which involves under
graduates, Jennifer Gratz and Patrick
Hamacher argue that they also were denied
admission because of race.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in
Cincinnati ruled in favor of the University of
Michigan's law school in a 5-4 decision
handed down in May. The court heard argu
ments in the undergraduate case but has yet
to rule. The high court's decision to hear that
undergraduate case before the lower federal
court had ruled is unusual.
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The Behrend Beacon
Attorneys for Grutter called on the
Supreme Court to clear up confusion
from its 1978 ruling on affirmative ac
tion.
In that case, Allan Bakke, a white
man, was turned down for admission to
medical school at the University of Cali
fornia at Davis while minorities with
lower scores were admitted. The school
reserved 16 percent of its admission slots
for minorities.
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court
ruled that such racial quotas were imper-
missible. But Justice Lewis Powell wrote
in a separate opinion that schools could con
sider race as long as they did not use quotas.
Universities often have used the late justice's
opinion as a benchmark for affirmative action.
It also has been criticized as vague.
Grutter's attorneys said there was a "sharp
and substantial disagreement in the lower
courts about the lawfulness of using race and
ethnicity as a factor in admissions to achieve
a ‘diverse’ student body."
They noted decisions in the U.S. Court of
Appeals’ sth and 11th circuits that ruled
against affirmative action plans at public uni
versities.
University of Michigan President Mary Sue
Coleman said overturning the Bakke ruling
"could result in the immediate resegregation
of our nation's top universities, both public
and private."
Terry Pell, president of the Washington
based Center for Individual Rights, a conser
vative public-interest law institute that is rep
resenting the white applicants, acknowledged
that minority enrollment dropped sharply at
flagship public universities in Texas and Cali
fornia after race was eliminated as a factor in
admission. But those numbers are rebound
ing, proof that racial preferences are not
needed to secure minorities’ educational op
portunities, Pell said.
. The court is expected to rulp by the end pf
June.
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