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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 14, 1996)
EDITOR DougKouma OPINION EDITOR Anne Hjersman EDITORIAL BOARD Doug Peters Matt Waite Paula Lavigne Jtfitch Sherman •m Anthony Nguyei ! NA damages Genetic research could be misused From The Indianapolis Star. One of the most pervasive fears about genetic research and testing is being con firmed. People found to have a flaw in their family genes are subject to discrimination. A survey of332 people in families at risk for a genetic disease, such as cystic fibrosis or sickle cell anemia, found that 43 percent believe they have been treated unfairly by employers or insurance companies or both. A full 25 percent of those surveyed said they or a family member had been refused life insurance, 22 percent had been turned down for health insurance, and 13 percent had been denied employment or fired — all because of a genetic disposition to some dis ease or disability. Some claimed to have ex perienced bias in more than one category. Though not a scientific sample, the sur vey raises disturbing questions, said Virginia Lapham of Georgetown University, princi pal author of a study published recently in Science magazine. r or many peupie wiui lmicmcu uisui ders, health insurance may mean the differ ence between life or death,” Lapham said. The Kassebaum-Kennedy health reform bill signed by President Clinton in August forbids health insurance companies to charge higher premiums or deny coverage to healthy people on the basis of genetic tests. The law, however, covers only employees who belong to group health insurance plans. Eleven states have laws making it a crime for insurers or employers to discriminate on the basis of genetic makeup. But proving bias can be difficult. , According to a 1990 report by the con gressional Office of Technology Assessment, 13 percent of Fortune 500 companies use some form of genetic screening or monitor ing of workers. The figure is now thought to exceed 20 percent. uenenc mionnanon can oe usea 10 ae tennine if employees have inherited charac teristics that might impair their productivity or make them susceptible to work-related disease or injury. It also can be used to de termine whether they climb the corporate ladder or get stuck at the bottom. Then there is the knotty question of con fidentiality. The Pentagon has been collect ing DNA samples from members of the mili tary for three years and has more than a mil lion specimens stored away. Samples are kept for 50 years before being destroyed. Pentagon officials insist that individual data are carefully safeguarded and released only under special circumstances. Such as surances don’t carry much weight in an era of instantaneous mass communication. Hack ers have already demonstrated that they can break Defense Department computer codes and visually paw through all kinds of hush hush information. Intended or not, genetic testing gives any number of interested parties access to what ever information is developed. Medical sci ence is unraveling more and more secrets of the human body but not enough attention is paid to how those secrets will be used. Editorial Policy Unsigned editorials are the opinions of the Fall 19% Daily Nebraskan. They do not nec essarily reflect the views of the University, of Nebraska-Lincoln, its employees, its stu dent body or the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. A column is soley the opinion of its author. The Board of Regents serves as publisher of the Daily Nebraskan; policy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Edito rial Board. The UNL Publications Board, es tablished by the regents, supervises the pro duction of the newspaper. According to policy set by the regents, responsibility for the editorial content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of its student employees. Letter Policy The Daily Nebraskan welcomes brief let ters to the editor and guest columns, but does not guarantee their publication. The Daily Nebraskan retains the right to edit or reject any material submitted. Submit ted material becomes the property of the Daily Nebraskan and cannot be returned. Anonymous submissions will not be published. Those who submit letters must identify themselves by name, year in school, major and/or group affilia tion, if any. Submit material to: Daily Ne braskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St. Lincoln, Neb. 68588-0448. E-mail: letters @ unlinfo. uni .edu. THESE,OF COURSE, \ NRE THE MEW mb UNIFORMS FOR WOMEN. \ SO ^ MtNou m Uy?m. Responsibility I respect the DN’s stance in defending its opinion, but I fail to understand the correlation between your definition of “responsible journalism” and a professional responsibility to the reader’s inter pretation of “news that is fit to print.” I watched Doug Peters on Channel 8 News cm Tuesday night explaining that the DN also publishes liquor ads and readers are expected to act responsibly. There is no similarity. You can read a liquor ad and still realize that you are not old enough to drink or purchase alcohol, but anybody who is of “legal reading age” and can go to a supermarket with a shopping list can build a bomb at home. A more fitting analogy: If I saw a recipe in the cooking section of the newspaper, I would be more tempted to try it out in my own home if I saw how easy it was to prepare. Considering your precedent of an objective to provide accurate and informative journalism, if a student was to die after drinking a beverage spike with GHB, would you publish the recipe or reveal the place of purchase? I doubt it. You should also be aware that there are no specific measures to prevent terrorism in any form. A bomb can be disguised as anything. Terrorism relies on its unpredictability to achieve its desired effects. Even though right now we are only dealing with pop-bottle bombs, who is going to accept responsibility when these random acts of violence escalate to a higher level of destruction? My only regret is that we might not hear any apology until it’s too - late. I applaud Lincoln Police Chief Tom Casady in his efforts to inform you of your mistake. Cory Hinrichs junior English • ' *_ I Natilie Linstkom/DN Copyrights Boy, did Martha Hoppe and the Nebraska Bookstore play you and your paper for the fools! Did Ms. Hoppe call you, personally with the “news tip”? You probably won’t care about this information because allegations and innuendo make much more exciting reading, but... Did your reporter happen to either read or get any information on the “Kinkos case” and what their copyright infringements were? Apparently not, judging from what was in the article. Kinkos was neither requesting, receiving nor paying for permission to print copied material from books, magazines, newspapers, etc. and then selling it—at a profit, of course—to university students across the nation. What’s more, according to a Kinkos employee of the time when all this was going on, they were then charging students for these same royalties that they were not paying out themselves. It is ludicrous to compare that to the University Bookstore’s terribly “illegal and unethical” crime of printing an article when the permis sion had been requested twice for this printing and requested and granted for all past printings. It is legal to print copyrighted material with permission granted verbally over the phone. Unlike many copiers of copy righted material, the University Bookstore was already only printing that material for which it had requested and received or that didn’t Require permission—even before the Kinkos case ever came up. The University Bookstore was doing that which was both legal and ethical — even before it became an issue. Most other began doing so only when the pressure came on. Also, how could the University Bookstore and its Campus Time Publishing “take business away from the Nebraska Bookstore” that the Nebraska Bookstore never had? The University Bookstore built up its strong instructor-packet business based on their service-oriented, high quality, honest standards and their hard work and fair pricing. If Martha Hoppe and the Nebraska Bookstore are having trouble competing with that, maybe they should try some of the same practices, rather than underhandedly trying to muddy the University Bookstore’s reputation. The article made it sound as though the Nebraska Bookstore was in competition on the same packet as the University Bookstore—that the University Bookstore edged them out on getting a packet printed for which they were waiting on permission. That is not the case. Packets are generally printed at only one location. Instructors take their packets to their choice of printers— that could be the University Bookstore’s Campus Time Publish ing, the Nebraska Bookstore, Astros, or wherever they think they’ll receive a quality product, good service, fan pricing and convenience for the students in their class. Gwen Behrends former textbook manager University Bookstore !PS. Write 'Back j ~ Send letters to: Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 "R" St , Lincoln, NE 68588, or fax to<402) 472-1761, or e-mail <letters@unlinfo.unl.edu. Letters must be signed and include a phone number for-venfieation