The Michigan Daily.
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Vol LXXXVI,. No. 15-S
Ann Arbor, Michigan-Tuesday, May 24, 1977
Ten Cents
Sixteen Pages
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Mysterious 'man in green
haunts VAmurder trial
r
By KEITH H. RICHBURG
special To The Dairy
DETROIT--Defense attorneys in the Veterans Administraroln
murder trial were twice victorious yesterday in their effort to
implicate other possible suspects in the rash of mysterious breath-
ing failures during 1975.
One victory came in court, when a witness-the mother of a
29-year-old Vietnam veteran--testified that she saw a man in a
green scrub suit enter her son's room minutes before the patient
stopped breathing.
THE OTHER VICTORY came out of court, when presiding
Judge Philip Pratt ruled to allow the defense attorneys to inter-
view the psychiatrists of a former VA nursing supervisor who
"confessed" to the VA murders before committing suicide.
Testifying about the unidentified "man in green," Christine
Loesch said that the man was entering her son's room as she
herself was leaving to make a telephone call. Minutes later,
Loesch learned that her son,
William Loesch, had stopped
breathing. TO i 01n
t oesch alsa said that Ihe Op N ix o
dmiglht have seen the same man
just four lays later in a hos-
pi al foyer, and that he tried to
get her attention by whisperinge
"Pssst. Pssst." Loesch said she
ignored the man.
"IF YOU PUT green on hitrm appeals
Loesch said of the man she saw
in the foyer, "he might be the W A S III N G T O N -
same manidettified "in a n i The Supreme Court virtually
cleared the way yesterday for
green" has surfaced in previous former Atty. Gen. John Mit-
testimony, lurking the halls of chell and ex-White Ilouse aide
the VA hospital before several H. R. Haldeman to go to prison
of the breathing failures. A for- for their part in the Watergate
mer VA nursing assistant, Bon-cover-up
nie Bates Weston, testified that The justices, without explana-
she saw the man in the green tion and with no recorded dis-
scrub suit "disappearing through agreements, refused to hear
the door" off the cardiac care the appeal of Mitchell, Halde-
unit just before one patient man and John Ehrlichman, an-
there stopped breathing. "I saw other top aide to former Presi-
him many, many times during dent Richard Nixon.
the course of that night," Wes-
ton said. EHRLICHMAN has
Five patients stopped breath- been an inmate at a federal
See TWO, Page 13 - See NIXON, Page 11
DR. HOWARD GOODMAN of the University of California-San Francisco tells a news conference
yesterday about a major drive to put genes to work "ordering" production of insulin. Goodman
explains a diagram of a rat insulin molecule and the DNA sequence that codies for it, as deter-
mined by the research team in San Francisco.
DNA discovery could aid diabetics
SAN FRANCISCO P) - Con-
troversial experiments in alter-
ing genes have resulted in a
major breakthrough - scien-
tists turning ordinary bacteria
into factories vapable of pro-
into factories capable of pro-
Scientists at the University
of California - San Francisco
(UCSF) reported yesterday
that within six months they
may be able to utilize bacteria
colonies to produce the drug
essential to the survival of 1.5
million diabetics.
A RESEARCH team headed
by Drs. Howard Goodman and
William Rutter said it had suc-
cessfully taken the special
genes that produce insulin out
of rats and spliced them into
ordinary bacteria that cannot
on their own produce insulin.
The next step is to splice hu-
man insulin genes into the bac-
teria.
The feat opens the door po-
tentially to further genetic en-
gineering of splicing, or trans-
fering genes from one species
to another. Bacteria might be-
come factories to make anti-
biotics or other drugs. Plants
might be given the ability to
make nitrogen out of the ,air
rather than needing expensive
and scarce fertilizers.
Some scientists think this
ability to put genes together in
different ways - called recom-
binant DNA research - would
be a scientific landmark com-
parable to the atomic age.
THE GENE is the basic unit
of heredity and contains a
chemical, D)NA, that tells a
cell, for example, whether to
develop into the cell of an eye
or the cell of a fingernail. A
specific set of genes in the
pancreas orders the production
of insulin, a hormone that helps
the body change blood sugar
into energy.
By implanting the right genes
into the bacteria colonies, Good-
than said that in 'six months
the scientists may be able to
order them to manufacture a
primitive form of the insulin
normally produced in the pan-
creas of a rat. This substance
then can be transformed into
insulin by adding enzymes in
a test tube,
The American Diabetic Asso-
ciation estimates that 1.5 mil-
lion of the nation's 10 million
diabetics must take insulin
drugs to control the disease.
The drugs, drawn from pigs
and cattle, are scarce and ex-
pensive.
GOODMAN said he could not
estimate when bacteria produc-
ed insulin would be generally
available, but said, "in princi-
ple it's all possible and probab-
ly could go quite rapidly."
The UCSF researchers used
rat genes because the rat genes
are easily available. But Good-
man said it would be a relative-
ly simple matter for scientists
to accomplish the same results
using genes from other mam-
mals.
Because of federal regula-
tions governing the use of re-
combinant DNA technology,
however, Goodman said re-
search leading to the production
of human insulin by these meth-
ods was more complicated.
REGULATIONS imposed by
the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) on researchers using fed-
See DNA, Page 2t
New UW S. Africa investments llegal
By PAUL SHAPIRO pany, corporation subsidiary or affiliate which
practices or condones through its actions dis-
Wisconsin Attorney General Bronson La Follette crimination on the basis of race, religion, color,
announced Friday new investments by the Uni- creed or sex."
versity of Wisconsin in corporations doing sig- BIENENFELD DID say, however, there are a
nificant business with South Africa would be a number of similar Michigan laws which are open
violation of state law. to interpretation and the attorney general would
Yesterday Solomen Bienenfeld, first assistant offer an official opinion on the legality of Univer-
to the Michigan attorney general, said 'there is sity investments in South Africa if requested by
no law in Michigan as specific as the Wisconsin a University official.
statute which prohibits "investments in any com- See NEW, Page 13