Seventh-graders in Hastings, Nebraska spent time with a local high school football team. The document also discusses a man from West Palm Beach, Florida whose Halloween costume materials triggered an explosives detector at the airport. A deputy state treasurer in Nebraska sent an anonymous letter to the governor urging him to curtail an investigation into the state treasurer.

1. Teaming up
Seventh-graders, football
players spend time
together.
Page
B10
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Playmaker
Fluellen
adds
punch
to Husker
offense.
Page B1
Thursday, Oct. 30, 2003
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VOL. 99, NO. 26 ©2003,
THE SEATON PUBLISHING CO., INC. HASTINGS, NEBRASKA
Agri/Business A8
Bridge B5
Classified B7
Comics B4
Entertainment B5
Nation A9
Opinion A4
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Inside
EXPLOSIVE ATTENTION
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. —
Eric Velleca didn’t even have to
don his Halloween costume to gar-
ner some explosive attention.
His getup stashed in a trunk
tripped an explosives detector dur-
ing a baggage screening at Palm
Beach International Airport.
Velleca, 28, was pulled off his
United Airlines flight to Chicago
and questioned by investigators on
Wednesday while a bomb squad
inspected the trunk carrying three
costumes patterned after the outfits
worn in the film “Ghostbusters.”
The trunk contained PVC pipes,
radios, cell phones, batteries with
wires attached and car distributor
caps to be used to assemble the
“proton packs” for costumes he
and two friends were planning to
wear for a Friday party.
The Associated Press
Nation
Art by Karly Hockensmith, 7,
Doniphan-Trumbull
Cloudy
and cold
tonight,
Friday.
Chance
of rain
late
Friday.
Breaking
Silencethe
HAUNTED
ILLINOIS VET DRIVEN BY DEATH OF
ILLINOIS GIRL, NEBRASKA FARMER;
FAMILY SAYS THEY WERE ‘SHUNNED’
BY FDA, DRUG COMPANY
TODD NEELEY
Hastings Tribune
S
AVANNA, Ill. — She had to
get back at him.
Fewer than 24 hours before
Laura Dauphin was to give her
salutatorian address at her
high school graduation, her boyfriend
seemingly shattered
her life with a breakup.
On the morning of
May 31, 1998, Dauphin
decided to act.
She reportedly took the
cattle antibiotic Micotil
300 from the back of a
veterinarian truck while a
local vet treated an animal
on the family farm in
Savanna, Ill.
That night, Dauphin
drank the cattle antibiotic
from a cup and became
sick within minutes.
Her family believes she
may have taken the drug
thinking she would
become ill and perhaps
win back her boyfriend.
In her final moments of life, the 18-year-
old Mt. Carroll High School honor student
knew something was wrong.
“We know Laura took Micotil,” said
Dauphin’s mother, Kay Dawson. “She was
dead within a half hour. When we were
waiting for the ambulance, she started
turning blue. Just before she died, she said
she was sorry and that she had made a
mistake.”
ASKING QUESTIONS
The family asked questions, but even-
tually stopped when offi-
cials from the Food and
Drug Administration and
Micotil producer Elanco
Animal Health quit return-
ing telephone calls.
“They kind of pushed it
off,” Dawson said. “Elanco
and the FDA beat around
the bush, saying she was doing drugs.”
An autopsy later found that tilmicosin
(Micotil) was the only substance found in Laura
Dauphin’s body — the lone cause of death.
“We deal with vets all the time,” said
Dauphin’s father, Robert Dauphin. “Even
vets don’t like to handle the drug. The com-
pany has lied to us when they said there was
no known data to show it would cause harm
in human beings — that’s a lie. If this stuff is
that deadly, we don’t want it out there for
anyone.”
Micotil: The series
TODAY:
◆ An Illinois veterinarian talks about deaths
of Illinois girl, Nebraska farmer; says veterinar-
ians not taking risks of Micotil 300 seriously.
Plus, information on other
deaths.
DAY 3:
◆ Looking at the drug itself,
its labeling and its uses. Plus,
a graphic illustrates how the
product’s maker, Elanco, sug-
gests producers administer
the product.
Laura Dauphin
Please see BREAKING THE SILENCE/page A6
DEPUTY TREASURER
URGED GOVERNOR
TO CURTAIL PROBE
KEVIN O’HANLON
The Associated Press
LINCOLN — Deputy State
Treasurer Mary Brock sent an
anonymous letter to Gov. Mike
Johanns suggesting he curtail
the investigation of her boss or
risk his political career.
The letter, obtained Wednesday
by The Associated Press, suggested
that Johanns fire a state agency
director to deflect attention away
from an investigation into State
Treasurer Lorelee Byrd’s alleged
financial irregularities.
“A statement clearing her
would probably go a long way,”
the letter said. “Who knows,
maybe she would even help you
in your Senate race, or at least
not help anyone else.
“What is the saying, ‘Keep
your friends close, your enemies
closer?”’ said the letter, which
was dated Sept. 16.
Brock admitted sending the
letter, according to an affidavit
filed by the Nebraska State
Patrol seeking a search warrant
to examine e-mails sent on
Brock’s home computer.
The investigation into Brock
was first reported Tuesday by
Omaha television station KETV.
Brock did not return a mes-
sage left by the AP at her office
Wednesday. An employee who
answered the phone at the trea-
surer’s office said Brock’s calls
were being referred to her
lawyer, Sean Brennan.
Brennan said that Brock “has
not attempted to or intimidated
or tampered with any witness to
any investigation.”
Treasurer Lorelee Byrd is being
investigated for writing
$300,000 in checks Feb. 21 and
keeping them in her vault before
canceling them June 27, shortly
after the Legislature ended its
budget-cutting session.
Byrd denied writing the
checks to make it appear as if
the money were spent — thus
protecting her office from leg-
islative budget cuts.
It is against state law to
knowingly write checks with-
out having a purchase order,
contract or bill to be paid.
Violating the official miscon-
duct law is a misdemeanor pun-
ishable by up to six months in
jail and $1,000 fine.
‘Keep…your enemies closer’
Tribune illustration
DAVE CAREW/
Tribune
Kay
Staubach of
Cincinnati,
Ohio, looks
over histori-
cal informa-
tion on the
Fairmont
Army Air
Field and
the 451st
Bomb
Group at
the Fillmore
County
Museum in
Fairmont
with her
daughter,
Karen
Williams
Edelmann
of
Tarrytown,
N.Y.,
Sunday.
AFTER SIX DECADES,
OHIO WOMAN VISITS
SITE OF FIRST
HUSBAND’S DEATH
DAVE CAREW
Hastings Tribune
F
AIRMONT — Eight
hundred miles separate
Cincinnati, Ohio, and
Fairmont, Neb. By mod-
ern jetliner, you could
travel from point A to point B
in about two hours.
For Kay Staubach, the jour-
ney took 60 years.
Staubach set out from her
home in Cincinnati in October
1943, along with her infant
daughter, Karen, bound by train
for the Fairmont Army Air Field
and a reunion with her pilot
husband, 2nd Lt. James
Williams.
It was Staubach’s chance to
say goodbye to her husband
before he was sent overseas for
World War II combat duty.
But the visit was not to be.
ERIC OLSON
The Associated Press
The Bowl Championship Series is
the fairest way to determine the
national champion in NCAA
Division I-A football, University of
Nebraska-Lincoln chancellor Harvey
Perlman told the U.S. Senate
JudiciaryCommitteeWednesday.
The committee is studying the
legality of the BCS based on argu-
ments that it is not inclusive of
all major-college conferences.
“It has enhanced college foot-
ball while preserving the great
traditions of the bowl system
and providing the maximum
number of postseason opportu-
nities for student-athletes,”
Perlman said of the BCS.
Created in 1998 by the six
most powerful college confer-
ences, the BCS guarantees that
the champions of those confer-
ences will play in one of the
four most lucrative postseason
bowl games. There are openings
for two at-large berths.
Perlman said a playoff system
is not an adequate replacement,
because a playoff would
adversely affect student-athletes
academically, take an excessive
physical toll on players and ruin
the tradition of college bowls.
Perlman says
BCS good
Please see BCS/page A6
Sentimental
journey
Please see SENTIMENTAL
JOURNEY/page A8
Please see TREASURER/page A7

2. “A Division I-A playoff is
almost always portrayed as a
panacea for college football and
itsfans,”Perlmansaid.“Itisnoth-
ing of the sort, whether from the
perspective of the institutions
that would most likely play in the
games, student-athletes, the bowl
games that have supported and
helped nurture college football
for more than a century, and the
fans of the game.”
Perlman said an NFL-style play-
off system would “intrude” on
student-athletes’ academic
responsibilities. To avoid having
the season extend beyond the
holidays into January, Perlman
said, playoffs would have to be
played in December. That would
conflict with final exams at
Nebraska and most other schools.
“Our student-athletes would
face enormous pressure to per-
form at their highest level at
precisely the time when we
expect them to be devoting
their full attention to their aca-
demic pursuits,” Perlman said.
Perlman also warned of the
physical toll taken on players who
could be required to play as many
as 18 games in a season — two
morethantheNFLregularseason.
“The bowl system provides
rewarding postseason experi-
ences for far more student-ath-
letes than will ever play in a
playoff,” Perlman said.
A6 HASTINGS TRIBUNE
Thursday, Oct. 30, 2003
IRS PROBLEMS?
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Bring in your Trick or Treat bag--full of candy--to Mary
Lanning Memorial Hospital’s Main Entrance Lobby on
Halloween night and we’ll give it a charge for FREE!
One trip through our x-ray machine will assure you there are no
ghoulish objects mixed in with your candy.* So, after you’ve
collected all your treats from the homes you are familiar with,
come in and see us--then the only thing you’ll have to fear from
your candy are the cavities!
© 2003 MLMH
*Remember, the x-ray machine can
only detect metal objects. It will not
identify glass and chemical substances.
Come in for a
FREE CANDY X-RAY
on Halloween night
6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Main Entrance Lobby
The family requested meetings with Elanco
officials, who declined.
“We weren’t threatening with a lawsuit,”
Dauphin said. “We just wanted answers and
no one will give any. You want simple
answers, just closure.”
ILLINOIS VETERINARIAN HAUNTED
Veterinarian David Dykstra keeps a manila
folder labeled “Micotil” sitting on his desk in
Pectonica, Ill.
He occasionally thumbs through the pages
inside, stopping at a 1998 newspaper clip,
“Girl dies hours after graduation.”
Dykstra is haunted by Dauphin’s face — a
face of innocence and promise.
He angers quickly, thinking he could have
somehow prevented Dauphin’s death. Micotil
is the same drug that claimed the life of
Saronville farmer Rourk Erickson in March.
Dykstra said he’s bitter about the silence —
how the powers that be seem to be looking
the other way in the face of danger.
“I think if the knowledge of this drug was
truly out there,” he said, “supply and demand
has a way of governing the marketplace. You
can’t get the FDA to admit it made a mistake;
that would make them culpable. The only
thing that makes any sense is to let everyone
on God’s green earth know what they should
know about it. It’s only a matter of time
before this is used as a mass-murder weapon.”
Dykstra said he saw potential danger on the
horizon when Elanco representatives intro-
duced the drug to him in 1992.
“I simply looked at the brochures and
informed the company that this drug could
kill three out of every four primates,” Dykstra
said. “I didn’t want to use it, and I did not try
to stock it. Whenever I prescribed it to my
customers, it went out with explicit direc-
tions. But I rarely used it myself and wouldn’t
widely dispense it. I’m very adamant that
most vets are remiss in not passing along the
information to clients.”
FDA/AUTOPSY REPORTS
The original report filed with the FDA in
June 1998 listed Dauphin’s death as suicide
by injection.
An updated report filed three months later,
however, says “not known if accidental or
intentional.”
A needle and syringe were found in her room
and later disposed of at the hospital where she
died. Carroll County (Ill.) Sheriff’s Department
investigative reports were inconclusive as to
whether she had injected or drank the drug.
Laboratory reports show she had tilmicosin in
her blood and stomach, and Dauphin tested
negative for 38 other substances, including alco-
hol and several legal and illegal drugs. A drug
screening found Micotil in her gastric contents.
Aside from needle marks made by emer-
gency personnel during their attempts to save
her, reports state there were no other possible
injection sites found on Dauphin’s body.
LABEL CHANGES
UPCOMING
The FDA classifies the Erickson case as the
only death in the world attributed to acciden-
tal exposure to Micotil.
The federal government collects drug expo-
sure information through adverse drug expe-
rience (ADE) reports filed by drug companies,
veterinarians, drug distributors and others, as
well as local coroner reports and conclusions.
However, Stephen Sundlof, director of the
Center for Veterinary Medicine with the FDA,
said the reporting system isn’t perfect.
Because reports often come from the drug
companies themselves as well as various other
sources, Sundlof said it is possible that other acci-
dental Micotil injections have not been reported.
“There’s always a question, always some
subjectivity,” Sundlof said. “There is always
some interpretation involved, that they
should have reported more or less.”
He said the Erickson accidental death has
created a greater focus on the need to make
sure information on how to handle the drug
is available to consumers.
“We have come to the conclusion that label
changes, at a minimum, are necessary (for
Micotil),” Sundlof said. “Elanco will be filing
with us to change the label.”
Based on toxico-
logical tests per-
formed on animals
with a biology simi-
lar to humans,
Sundlof said, the
FDA was aware that
Micotil “could be
fatal” to humans.
“There are good
animal models
used,” Sundlof said.
“At the time we
wrote the label, there
were no human
deaths. We will be
changing the label to
require it to say ‘has
been fatal.’ ”
During the drug
testing and approval
process, Elanco offi-
cials were aware of
the drug’s potential
dangers.
Findings showed
that intravenous use in
cattle were fatal at
dosages as low as 5
milligrams (1/60th of a cc), 30 mg in monkeys, 30
mg in pigs. Other reports indicate that a 1,000-
pound horse died from a 600 mg (2cc) injection.
According to the Elanco publication,
Timeline, between 1992 and 2000 there were
2,392 Micotil-related accidental punctures,
scratches and injections of greater than 2 ccs
reported worldwide.
Because it would be unethical to perform toxi-
cological tests on humans, just how much Micotil
is a fatal dosage is unknown. Death has occurred
from as few as 3 ccs to as many as 25 ccs.
SUICIDE CLASSIFICATIONS
The number of human accidents and deaths
related to the drug are few in relation to how
widely used Micotil and other animal drugs are.
Based on reports obtained from the FDA
through the Freedom of Information Act, there
have been 13 confirmed Micotil-related deaths
worldwide, including the Erickson accident, the
Dauphin death and one other possible accident.
The FDA received an unconfirmed death
report from Lufkin, Texas, in June 2001.
An Elanco sales representative reported the
incident based on information from a “third-
or fourth-hand source.”
A veterinary clinic employee reportedly
heard a story of a man who died from an
accidental injection of between 9 and 10 ccs
and died 12 hours later.
“This report was investigated thoroughly
and no identifiable reporter or event could be
found,” according to the report.
DANGEROUS LEVELS
UNKNOWN
The Rocky Mountain Poison Control
Center in Colorado reports that about 3 ccs
would be fatal to humans. However, there
have been some who have survived acciden-
tal injections of up to 5 or 6 ccs of Micotil.
According to a study published in the 2003
Journal of Toxicology, a 28-year-old northeast
Nebraska man accidentally injected less than half
of a 12 cc syringe of Micotil into his right forearm
while trying to inoculate a steer at a feedlot.
The study reports that he suffered no side
effects from the drug until five hours later when
he developed chest pains. However, he was
released from the hospital just three days later.
Erickson died within 90 minutes after acci-
dentally injecting Micotil in his right groin.
Nebraska occupational fatality investigator
Art Davis said Erickson apparently died after
injecting 8 or 9 ccs, because about 1.5 ccs were
left in the syringe found at the accident scene.
A cumulative annual report compiled by
the FDA from 1987 through Sept. 30, 2003,
reports a wide variety of symptoms depend-
ing on how someone is exposed to Micotil.
Those range from taste abnormality to chest
pains, from nausea to cardiac arrest, and from
dizziness to heart arrhythmia.
According to information from the Ontario
Poison Control Center in Toronto, between
March 1991 and August 1993
the center reported 36 cases of human expo-
sure to Micotil in Canada. Twenty-six of those
were by injection, and all of the exposures
were described as accidental.
PROTECTION THROUGH
REGULATION
Although Micotil is fatal to humans, the FDA
maintains dangers can be minimized simply
through product labeling and educational out-
reach programs on the part of drug companies.
According to the FDA, the alternative is to cre-
ate stricter standards that could keep some bene-
ficial human and animal drugs off the market.
“ … If (the) FDA regulated drugs to
absolutely prevent misuse,” according to a
statement from the FDA, “it would be causing
a greater harm by keeping effective and typi-
cally safe products out of the hands of physi-
cians or veterinarians, which would lead to
increased illness, suffering, and death.”
Pulling a drug from the market is not
unprecedented.
In fact, between 1998 and 2001 the FDA
reports Elanco voluntarily withdrew 10 drugs
from circulation for various reasons.
According to a 1999 FDA survey, 70 percent of
all feedlots used Micotil as part of the initial treat-
ment to prevent “shipping fever,” or bovine respi-
ratory disease, as a result of transporting cattle.
While other drugs are available, Micotil is wide-
ly popular for preventing and treating an upper
respiratory illness that costs the cattle industry
about $700 million annually in the United States.
Although accidental needle pricks are com-
mon among veterinarians and others who
administer animal drugs, the FDA does not
require human antidotes for those drugs and
does not keep a list of those without antidotes.
Instead, the federal government relies on
veterinarians to properly inform clients about
the dangers of Micotil, on Occupational
Safety and Health Administration rules guid-
ing the proper handling of needles, and on
cattlemen to take measures to avoid exposure.
Dykstra has been an outspoken critic of drug
companies, some of which he says have
offered him as much as $100,000 to stay quiet.
“I have no fear of anybody,” Dykstra said.
“There’s no reason for this product to be in the
hands of producers. I got by without using it.
“How absolutely absurd that this bottle
doesn’t have a big ‘X’ on it.”
The Dauphin family is trying to move past the
terrible events — but the pain may never go away.
“We’ve just been kind of taking care of
ourselves,” Dawson said. “The hard part is
seeing others who graduated with Laura now
graduating from college.”
Dawson said her daughter’s death may
encourage other families to come forward.
“Laura’s gone, and that’s the part I can’t do
anything about,” Dawson said. “This drug
needs to be looked at and maybe Laura just
brought this out even more.
“There are people out there who are fight-
ing a silent battle.”
Courtesy
David Dykstra
This article
from the
Carroll
County
(Iowa)
Review
appeared
June 3,
1998, after
18-year-old
Laura
Dauphin died
May 31,
1998, as the
result of
ingesting the
cattle antibi-
otic Micotil.
Breaking
Silencethe
Micotil deaths
TODD NEELEY
Hastings Tribune
Since Micotil 300 hit the market, the drug
has been linked to 13 deaths — including
that of Saronville farmer Rourk Erickson in
March — as reported to the Food and Drug
Administration.
Based on adverse drug experience reports
provided by the FDA through the Freedom
of Information Act, most of those deaths
have been reported as suicide.
While the vast majority have occurred in
the United States, there have been some
reported in England and Canada.
The following are reported deaths linked
to Micotil, according to FDA reports.
UNKNOWN STATE:
◆ June 1998: An 18-year-old female honor stu-
dent died after apparently drinking an unknown
amount of Micotil. While the FDA originally clas-
sified the case as an apparent suicide by injec-
tion, an updated report was inconclusive as to
whether the death was accidental or intentional.
TEXAS:
◆ June 2001: An Elanco Animal Health sales rep-
resentative reported that an employee of a veteri-
nary clinic heard of a story of a man who died from
accidental exposure to Micotil near Lufkin, Texas.
Using an automatic powered syringe, he acci-
dentally stuck himself in the thigh, injecting 9 to
10 ccs. He reportedly died 12 hours later.
The Center for Veterinary Medicine considers
the report to be hearsay, as it was “investigated
thoroughly” but could not be verified.
MINNESOTA:
◆ December 1995: A 25-year-old male cattle
rancher reportedly self-injected 5 ccs of Micotil.
A suicide note was found.
IDAHO:
◆ June 1997: A 17-year-old female was found
dead with a suicide note and a 3 cc syringe. She
died three hours after an unknown amount of
Micotil was injected.
◆ December 2002: A 47-year-old man reportedly
injected himself with 12 ccs of Micotil. He died
90 minutes later.
NEW MEXICO:
◆ July 2002: A 34-year-old male died after inject-
ing 3 to 6 ccs of Micotil in public.
According to the FDA’s report, a man entered a
veterinary drug supply store and threatened to
harm himself. Among the items he carried with
him were three, 3 cc syringes filled with liquid.
During his standoff, he was in telephone contact
with a veterinarian who asked him what the
syringes contained.
Reportedly, the man said the two syringes con-
tained tilmicosin (Micotil).
The man injected himself once in the calf mus-
cle, and an hour later injected himself again with
two more syringes and later died.
MISSOURI:
◆ June 2000: A 41-year-old female locked her-
self into a bathroom in an emergency room
where she was later found dead.
Several syringes and vials of Micotil and epi-
nephrine were found with her. An autopsy could
not determine the cause of death.
IOWA:
◆ July 2003: A 50-year-old male farmer commit-
ted suicide by injecting 25 ccs of Micotil. He died
within one minute.
He was found dead in his truck with an empty 30
cc syringe and bottle of Micotil and a suicide note.
ENGLAND
◆ May 1995: It was reported that a 50-year-old
woman committed suicide. She was found with
a 250-300 milligram IV containing Micotil.
◆ December 2001: A young man was found
dead in a milking parlor where he apparently had
broken into a drug cupboard. He injected himself
with an unknown amount of Micotil and died
immediately.
CANADA:
◆ January 2002: A 39-year-old female feedlot
employee was found dead in a chair with a note
and a syringe of tilmicosin (Micotil). She injected
an unknown amount of Micotil, and no other
drugs were found during normal screening.
UNKNOWN FOREIGN COUNTRY:
◆ January 1997: A 50-year-old female reportedly
committed suicide with the drug. No other
details were available.
Continued from page A1
BCS: Perlman says system good
Continued from page A1