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Volume XCII, Number 50	University of Southern California	__Tuesday, November 16, 1982
Food poisoning spoils Homecoming for some
Outdoor buffet sponsored by university athletics causes illness
By Jeannie Wong
Staff Writer
About 120 people became ill from food poisoning on Homecoming Day, three weeks ago, at a pre-game outdoor buffet sponsored by the university athletic department, said a spokeswoman for the County Health Department
“I really didn’t see why this incident should have been made public earlier,” Richard Perry, athletic director said on Monday. “Everyone involved was notified. It was a hot day, and the food item involved lends itself to that type of thing,” Perry said.
The department began receiving complaints the Monday following the Oct 23 event The people who called complained of symptoms that varied from mild nausea to extreme illness. Perry added.
Called an “unfortunate incident” by Perry, the picnic was given in honor of members of Cardinal and Gold, Women of Troy and the Scholarship Club. It was attended by about 400 people.
The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services was subsequently notified of the incident, Perry said. Workers from that department investigated the local catering firm. Four All Seasons, and also tried to contact everyone who attended the picnic.
Of 175 people who were contacted, four said that they saw a doctor. One person was hospitalized for diarrhea, fever, nausea and chills, said Laurie Ha-bel, an epidemiology analyst for the department of health services.
Habel said that the reported symptoms are similar to those that result from salmonella, a bacteria often asso-
ciated with food poisoning.
“At this point, it looks like the chicken salad was the cause,” Habel said. “The attack rates were higher in those that ate the salad than in those that did not”
David Manor, owner of Four All Seasons, said that the chicken salad probably spoiled because his firm was not provided with a canopy to shield the food from the sun.
Four All Seasons, located on Figueroa Street in Los Angeles, has worked with the athletic department and the university many times. Perry said.
“They have done an excellent job for us in the past,” he added. “The health department checked them out, and found them to be a reputable establishment They didn’t find any reason to bring any action against them.”
Cancer hotline gives toll-free information
By Carmen Chandler
Staff Writer
Across the street from the university’s new cancer center in East Los Angeles is a small office where workers have been dealing with cancer on a personal level for seven years.
Volunteers for the Cancer Hotline, sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, answer questions and provide information over the phone to concerned individuals about the nation’s number-one killer.
The 35 volunteers are trained by university doctors on the questions that may be asked of them. They are now receiving between 700 and 800 calls every month.
The cancer hotline began in 1976 on the East Coast as a way to provide people with information about cancer.
The hotline is one of 31 located throughout the country, including a national center that can be contacted through a toll-free number.
“Our goals are to reach more people, to make our service more widely known, and to keep people up to date with what is happening in cancer,” said Armida Duran, coordinator of communications for the cancer information service.
So far, she said, the hotline has been very successful.
Many of the hotline’s volunteers are retired nurses, doctors’ wives and people who have received help from the information service in the past
An advertisement in the Los Angeles Times yields the greatest number of volunteers, Duran said.
The volunteers go through an extensive, 32-hour orientation program before they are allowed to answer phones.
Conducted by doctors from the university’s cancer center, the orientation gives the volunteers an overview of the various aspects of cancer, the cancer sites, the cancer cell, the biology of cancer and the psycho-social aspects of having cancer.
After the orientation the volunteers are required to answer phones for six to nine months, although many stay longer, Duran said.
She said there is a stigma associated with having cancer and the volunteers are trained to listen if someone needs to talk.
When a volunteer feels that a person needs more counseling than the service is capable of providing, he will refer the caller to a hotline at UCLA designed to deal with the psycho-social aspects of having cancer.
“The calls are basically from the general public,” she said. "Seventy-five to 85 percent of the calls are from women and most of the calls are from people over the age of 40.”
The hotline also gets calls from health professionals and students who want information about cancer.
Duran said the most common calls are about breast, lung and colon-rectum cancer.
If a caller thinks he has cancer, the hotline will refer him to one of several screening centers, one of the 138 hospitals approved by the American College of Surgeons for its cancer program, or to the cancer centers at this university and at UCLA.
The caller's location determines which cancer center he will be advised to contact
If a person has been diagnosed as having cancer but wants a second opinion, the hotline has a referral list of oncologists, cancer specialists.
“When a volunteer does not know the information at the top
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The athletic department has changed caterers now because it was seen to be necessary from a public relations standpoint, Perry added.
Perry said that the athletic department has received two or three claims from victims for compensation. He said that the claims were generally for out-of-pocket expenses, such as loss of work or medical costs, that the victims had to pay.
All properly documented claims will be sent to Alex Ratka, the university director of risk management and insurance, who will work with the company that insures the caterer to determine possible settlements, Perry added.
“The victims understand that this incident was unfortunate, but it happened. We are doing everything we can to accommodate the people who were unpleasantly affected.”
Dodd says university has Republican image; £ encourages a change
By Michael Motinski
Staff Writer
“Politics is war,” announced Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) at a speech on campus Monday, but he encouraged students to get involved and to change the image of the university from one of a “bastion of Republican stronghold.”
Dodd gave two speeches on campus, one in Taper Hall of Humanities and the other in a classroom. The combined length of both speeches was about 10 minutes. The remainder of the time, roughly two hours, was used for question-and-answer sessions.
Dodd is a freshman member of Congress and is on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The emphasis of his speech was the “implications of the 1982 election results.” On this topic, Dodd appeared disillusioned about his party’s failure to capture more congressional seats.
“Given the issues that dominated, we (the Democrats) should have doubled what we gained in the House and regained the Senate,” Dodd said. “We ought to be honest with ourselves. We blew it We had an opportunity to make tremendous gains, but we didn’t”
He spoke of Mayor Tom Bradley’s defeat as one of the most substantial Democratic losses in the country. He also called it a major setback for minorities in politics. “But,” he said, “I talked to the mayor this morning and there is every indication that he will take another crack at it in four years,” Dodd said.
On the inevitable question — what were his feelings about the recent appointment of Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Soviet Union and the impact of Leonid
Staff photo by Randy Johnson
SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD
Brezhnev’s death — Dodd replied, ‘‘I would be a little uneasy about Andropov. It would be like J. Edgar Hoover being elected President
“This guy is no slouch. We ought to be careful. Within 24 hours after Brezhnev’s death, he had grabbed all three hats and consolidated all Soviet power. They call him a closet liberal, but I don't know what that means. Just because he reads Mark Twain doesn’t mean he's a liberal.
“Reagan made a stupid mistake in not going on that plane and attending Brezhnev’s funeral.” Dodd continued. ’’It was a classic Reagan kind of move, thinking too much about the politics involved instead of realizing immediately that it was something that had to be done.”
Dodd then went on to give his predictions for the 1984
elections. "I don’t believe Reagan will run for re-election, and if that is the case, I believe Bush will receive the Republican nomination,” he said. “If Ronald Reagan does run. there is a stronger possibility that (Sen. Edward) Kennedy or (Walter) Mondale will be his Democratic opposition. If not, it could be one of the others."
Dodd cited Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) and Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio) as possible presidential	nominees.
"Cranston could surprise everybody. He’s not in a strong position now but he's working like hell,” he said.
Dodd was disappointed in the small margin of victory that the nuclear freeze initiative carried in California.
"The freeze initiative here was a loss,” he said. “Only 52 to 48 percent, and the opposi-(Continued on page 7)