Death toll grows; survey launched ,( t HARRISBURG' (AP) The death toll from “legionnaire’s disease” climbed to 27 yesterday as medical detectives launched a statewide survey in an at tempt to pinpoint the cause of the mysterious ailment. The two latest victims were men in their 60s. > State health officials said the total number of cases is 152, including the 27 deaths. Some of the ill are in critical condition. Scientists announced they were asking the thousands of men and women who attended the American Legion con- vention in Philadelphia and didn’t get " sick to fill out a questionnaire. Health ) officials hoped the results might isolate a common source for the disease. Special couriers will 'rush the questionnaires to every Legion post’ in Pennsylvania in time for meetings called for tonight. The legion said 10,000 people attended the _ July' 2i-24 corivention, but no registration was kept, making an ac curate list impossible. Only 2,400 hotel beds were occupied by the con ventioneers. “We’re following the very orderly processes of epidemiology,” Leonard i Bachman, Pennsylvania health secretary, told a news conference in Harrisburg. “First you check those who died, then those who are sick, then those who were exposed but didn’t get sick,” he said. “We’re trying to get a very detailed profile of all the conventioneers and y what they did at the convention to try to make a physical-comparison of those that became ill and those who didn’t,” he said. The questionnaires will ask where the conventionners stayed, what they ate and drank, who they saw, and when they arrived and left. This kind of in formation has already been gathered from the sick and the families of the Pesticide found in Spring By 808 FRICK 1 Collegian Staff Writer High levels of the poisonous pesticide Kepone have been found Inside fish in Spring Creek, a streamlet running from State College to Bellefonte. “It has not .been determined that a significant health hazard exists,” said Theodore Clista, a Department of En vironment Resources engineer, accord ing to the'Associated Press. ' ~~ The traces of Kepone were - found during a May sampling of the creek , downstream from the Nease Chemical 'kCo., which produced Kepone in 1958, 1959 and 1963. The sampling was taken of soil where Ford, Reagan battle nears KANSAS CITY (AP) The long, divisive struggle between Gerald R. ■ Ford and Ronald Reagan for the Republican presidential nomination neared its climax as advance parties for both candidates arrived at the site of the GOP National Convention yesterday and began preliminary maneuvering for advantage. Convention managers hoped the down- to-the-last-delegate scramble wouldn’t touch off bitter conflicts over the party ■y platform, rules and seating of delegates. Farr begins filing lawsuits By JANICE SELINGER Collegian Summer Editor Jo Ann Farr, an associate professor of psychology at the University, has in structed her American Civil Liberties (ACLU) lawyer to begin filing several lawsuits in connection with her ter mination of services at the Juniata Valley Tri-County Mental Health-Mental Retardation (MH-MR) program. ■ Farr, who has worked as a consultant without pay ever since her MH-MR contract ran out June 30, spent all day Friday in Harrisburg seeking legal advice from Thomas Schmid 11, a volunteer attorney for the ACLU. According to Farr, Schmid will file several lawsuits in her behalf within the next 30 days, but Farr said she is unable to reveal who the suits will involve until that time. Farr’s lawsuits are, however, con nected with her non-renewal of contract N by the Mifflin, Juniata and Huntingdon )- County Commissioners. The com missioners made this decision in May, allegedly because she refused to promise not to use the word “fuck” in her human sexuality workshops. At the time, Farr said she would continue to work at the center as a volunteer as long ~ as her patients and other staff members needed her. Although Farr, had support from her fellow workers and patients, the county commissioners decided they couldn’t afford to have Farr continue as, a volunteer. Dallie DeArment, chairman of the' Mifflin County Commissioners said one reason was because the program’s liability insurance wouldn’t cover Farr in her volunteer status. Therefore, the Mifflin County Com missioners drafted a resolution to bar Farr from the MH-MR program. The resolution went from the Mifflin Commissioners to the Juniata Com missioners so that they would review it dead, but it has pointed to no single factor. . Although two men died yesterday, no new cases of the ailment were reported for the sixth straight day. Nor was there any evidence.the illness is contagious. The latest victims were Dennis Boyle, 60, of Hazleton and Harold Davis, 66, of Philadelphia. Bachman said it was his opinion that the investigation can probably be restricted to a certain day. The reason is that most people got sick in a three-day period. That means the source incubated three days at the most. Nine of the sick were at the four-day convention for ionly one day, July 23. However, some of the conventioneers came in a day early and some had met in another city just prior to the convention, vention. Bachman would not say which day the investigation might center on. Asked to discuss any of the working theories, Bachman said: “So many trails are being followed, so many are blind alleys, and so many are still leads that I feel it would be premature to go into any of them.” However, he did .repeat, as he has every day since the investigation began last Monday, that he had no reason to believe the illness was sabotage. He indicated the investigation, which involved more than a hundred state'and federal specialists around the clock for the first few days, was slowing down. “We’re getting to the stage where this is going to be a long, drawn-out in vestigation and we’ve got t 0... carry out our normal programs,” he said. “As long as we see no new onsets and no secondary infections, the time pressure is not on us as much as it was in the early days when we didn’t know the impact on the rest of the population." the Nease Chemical Co. empties its wastes into Spring Creek near the Houserville Bridge on the Benner Pike, according to Edward Miller, a director for the Bureau of Fisheries and Engin eering. Results from the soil sample prompted analysis of the creek’s fish which were just obtained, Miller said. Tests of fish from the' area show a ratio of .l part per million'to 1.7 parts per million in adult trout and 1.8 parts per million in suckers. The Food 'and Drug Administration guideline is .1 part per million' the AP reported. Clista .said the samples. were .taken because of Kepone discoveries in the But no one expected the Republicans to duplicate the show of unity and love that marked the Democratic National Convention last month in New York City. The convention is scheduled to open at 11:30 a.m., EDT, Aug. 16. But theweek leading up to that opening session could provide several key tests of the strengths and intentions of the Ford and Reagan camps. The latest Associated Press delegate survey gave Ford 1,103 votes, Reagan, 1,035, with 121 uncommitted. The totals and decide what action they would take at next week’s joint commission meeting. “But,” Farr said, “the Juniata County Commissioners made a faux pas. They read it aloud at the public meeting before it had been approved by the tri county board.” The resolution had ordered Charles Creamer, acting director of the MH-MR, to deny Farr access to program files and had instructed him to seek a replacement for her. Creamer was also told that he should inform the staff and patients that Farr is no longer connected with the program. 'However,' Farr, who says she still hasn’t received any official notice of her termination,. believes that the com missioners made a grave mistake by reading the resolution aloud. “I guess they just felt very chagrined that they hadn’t gotten rid of me yet,” Farr said, “Their first act (her temination) wasn’t appropriate, now they are just strengthening their inappropriate position.” Commissioners from Juniata, Mifflin and Huntingdon Counties have looked at the resolution but no action is expected until the joint meeting. Huntingdon County, however, has stood behind Farr in her fight and is now waiting for state department funds so that it can officially withdraw from the fri-county MH-MR program to set up its own services. Weather “Belle” will not mean “beautiful” in State College for the next couple days. Hurricane Belle probably won’t give us high winds but we could be in for a lot of rain. Rain will develop this afternoon, continuing into tomorrow. Some of it could be heavyi especially-tonight, possi bly causing some flooding. Tempera tures will remain in the low 60’s. Disease defies a solution By CATHY CIPOLLA Special to the Collegian PHILADELPHIA Most natives of the Cradle of Liberty would have preferred to remember 1976 as’ the year of Bicentennial fireworks, Queen Elizabeth, the Phillies and the Eucharistic Congress. But last week Philadelphia also acquired a touch of notoriety —.when a- mysterious disease that struck a statewide’ American Legion con vention at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel began to claim victims all over Pennsylvania. All week long, investigators dispatched from the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Ga, have been working frantically to identify the grim reaper temporarily dubbed “Legionnaire’s Disease.” At this writing, the disease has claimed 27 lives and has hospitalized about 100. The victims have experienced pneumonia-like symptoms, beginning like a common cold and progressing to high fever and chills. Leonard Bachman, Pennsylvania health secretary, said the disease was caused by a “one-shot source that had. a symptom delay of three or four days.” CDC has also said the malady was probably caused by a toxin. Nothing else has been found after the week of investigations. fish of James Creek near Hopewell, Va. Health officials closed a plant manufac turing Kepone in July 1975 after many of its employes were found to be suffering from Kepone poisoning. A federal grand jury earlier this year indicted the manufacturer and the com pany that ordered the chemical on charges of violating federal antipollu tion laws. That alleged pollution resulted in closing the James River to fishing. Depending on the Kepone levels of the Spring Creek fish, Virginia’s fish may be considered contaminated for at least the next. 13 years, the duration that the Spring Creek contamination has lasted. Any legal action taken against Nease include only delegates legally bound or who have publicly stated their preference. It will take 1,130 votes to get the nomination, and the outcome probably still will be uncertain'when balloting begins on the third day. Platform committee hearings begin today, and for three days the panel will hear testimony on a number of subjects including abortion, school busing and the Panama Canal. Although convention managers had hoped to avoid any fights over seating of David K. Brown, the Huntingdon County Commissioner who supported Farr’s contract renewal, said the' county’s stab at independent MH-MR service was made to assure better service in Huntingdon. Huntingdon is now using Carl Saylor, who resigned as the tri-county program administrator over the Farr incident, as a consultant. According to Farr, funds for this separation are expected near the first of the year. Rizzo recall may pass PHILADELPHIA (AP) The movement to recall Mayor Frank Rizzo could have 7,000 more signa tures than it needs to force Rizzo to resign or face a special election, ac cording to figures released by the city board of elections. At a court hearing Saturday in which the city commissioners asked for a second extension to finish vali dating signatures, they announced that 72 per cent of signatures already checked are from registered city voters. If the percentage holds true, that would give the Committee to Re call Rizzo 152,000 signatures. Some 145,000 are needed. , The city commissioners say /they need an extra time extension, beyond the 40 days already granted past the first June 30 deadline, because the city nonuniformed workers’ slowdown meant no overtime work on validating signatures. So the frantic search for a “com mon denominator,” such.as a dinner, water fountain, hotel room or anything else experienced by all of the victims, continued. But in the meantime, many people aren’t taking any chances. Several groups, in cluding an American Legion group of 600 boys and girls, have canceled their planned trip to the Bicentennial city. Philadelphians who happen to be in the same area as the legionnaires during the convention felt more than a little apprehension,' and hospitals and doctor's offices were besieged by phone calls from people who thought they had contacted the disease. And for everyone who lives and works in the Philadelphia area, speculating on the identity andtause of this strange malady has become a morbid new parlor game. Each blearing newspaper headline, each new report on the radio provides a new clue, a new source of discussion for dinner table or bridge party. “If the scientists can’t figure it out, I sure can’t,” said Bill Bell of the Philadelphia Bulletin’s composing room. “There are a lot of radicals in this city. Maybe someone spiked the air conditioning or something.” Indeed, investigators haven’t ruled out the possibility of sabotage. But Paul Hart of the Philadelphia Police Creek Chemical Co. will be based on laws made at the time of the contamination, Miller said. Representatives from the Environ mental Protection Agency and the De partment of Environmental Resources met last Thursday to make sure there was no immediate danger from the Ke pone poisoning. “The only action at-the moment,” Miller said, “is a more thorough investi gation into the matter. ” “At this time we don’t consider it an alarming situation,” Clista said, “It’s nothing near the Hopewell situation.” Spokesmen from the Nease Chemical Co. could not be reached for comment. climax delegates, ■ challenges appeared likely involving delegates from North Carolina, Arkansas and New Jersey. A key test may occur at the end of the week when the convention rules com mittee meets to take up a proposal that would bar delegates from abstaining from voting if state laws or party rules commit' them to vote for Ford or Reagan on the first ballot. That conflict was touched off by reports that the Reagan forces were considering .trying to persuade some Ford delegates to abstain on the first ballot in an effort to block the President, from obtaining a majority. The plan was based on the theory that many delegates committed to Ford by primary election results actually prefer Reagan. Not since 1952, when Dwight D. Eisenhower and Robert A. Taft battled for the nomination, have the Republicans approached their con vention with candidates still scrambling and clawing for advantage. Pakistan risks U.S. aid, arms in purchase of plutonium plant LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) Pakistan could lose all American economic aid and its bid to buy U.S. weapons if it goes ahead with the purchase of a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant, a senior American official said yesterday. The official, who arrived on Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger’s plane, said that if Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto doesn’t yet understand American ob jections to the plant, he will by the time Kissinger leaves today. Bhutto has nearly completed the purchase of equipment from France to reprocess plutonium produced by nuclear reactors although Pakistan has no nuclear reactors itself. The United States maintains all plutonium should be reprocessed in multinationally controlled plants Under an amendment attached to the foreign aid authorization bill by Sen. Stuart Symington, D-Mo., no economic aid may be given to a country that receives a nuclear processing plant without agreeing to place the equipment under international control. At stake is a sizable amount of aid. Pakistan is scheduled to get more than $144 million in development and food aid during fiscal 1976. During the talks last night, the senior official said, Bhutto Was expected to raise his desire to buy new American weapons, particularly Navy A 7 attack planes. However, the official indicated that the United States would hold up the plane sales until Bhutto agreed to American conditions on the nuclear deal. The A 7 carries heavy armament, including Sidewinder W 202 PATTEE Department theorized that the disease probably arose from love, not warfare. That is: it was spread “mouth to mouth” by prostitutes who swarmed the Bellevue to offer Legionnaires a good time. “That’s the way life is,” Hart said, shrugging his shoulders. “All those Legionnaires far away frorii home, running around those hotels they’re bound to catch something.” Hart, like many Philadelphians, is skeptical about the investigation. “I think the investigators aren’t leaking everything out,” he said. “They want more money and the longer they hold out, the more they’ll take.” Parking lot attendant Joseph Scull agreed that the health officials might be stalling, but added that he doesn’t know the answer either. “I’ve been listening to these talk shows about it on the radio and I believe none of it,” he said. “Some people are even saying the Martians did it because we landed on Mars.”. And some people are scared. One girl panicked whe_n she heard about the disease, because she and a friend had used the lobby of the Bellevue as a meeting place during the con vention. Carl Summers, a cook at the Gateway Restaurant (about 15 blocks from the Bellevue-Stratford) said he was scared to go into Center City. But according to housewife Sunny side up An afternoon sun, something we haven’t seen around here for several day&, casts an interesting pattern of shadows on the south side of Penn Tower. University Park, Pennsylvania Published by Students ot the Pennsylvania State University * Ten cents per copy missiles. A squadron of 24 A7s costs about $lOO million. In a toast at a dinner last night in honor of Kissinger, Bhutto made it clear he is unhappy about the American objections. He said a prospective agreement with Iran on nuclear reac tors should serve as a model of an American Pakistani program. “What is good for the goose is good for the gander,” Bhutto said. Kissinger responded that definitions of security are open to interpretation and the current talks will examine the issue. The senior official said earlier he had some sympathy for Bhutto’s problems. He noted that India already has nuclear explosives and is far ahead in conventional arms. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s government helped in.the East Pakistani secession in 1971, when it became Bangladesh. India also gets at least $1 billion in new military equipment every year, either from its own factories or from the-Soviet Union. Pakistan was cut off from all American arms from 1973 to early 1975 and still must pay cash for any U.S. weapons. Since the arms embargo was lifted in March 1975, Pakistan has bought patrol boats and armored personhel carriers. The Ford administration also is seeking congressional approval for the sale of a destroyer. Kissinger, halfway through a six-nation trip, flew to Pakistan after a five-hour stop in Afghanistan. Kissinger leaves Pakistan today for France, where he will take a two-day vacation on the Normandy coast before going on to The Netherlands and then home. 3 COPIES \ Veronica DeCarlo, the problem didn’t start in Philadelphia. “I think it was brought down by themselves (the Legionnaires),” she said. “If you take the area of deaths, you’ll find many of the people who died are from the same area,” DeCarlo said. She added that some of the Legionnaires may have been carriers who were not affected themselves but spread the disease to others by using the same water glass or lighting each other’s cigarettes. But regardless of where the in vestigation leads, chances are the cause of the Legionnaire’s disease won’t be found in the near future. But other epidemics have been solved, usually after painstaking detective work. In one case years ago in France, sacks of flour being transported by train were ac cidentally poisoned by chemicals that were lodged above them on the train. The flour was delivered to a baker who used it to make loaves of bread. A rash of illnesses, characterized by fevers, chills, then madness and death, ravaged the city. But whether the Legionnaires disease was caused by food poisoning, sabotage or Martians, chances are it will be a hot topic in Philadelphia for a long time. “I’ve got one word for it,’‘Hart said. “Strange.” Monday, August 9,1976 Vol. 77, No. 26 6 pages
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers