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Jones says Cowboys might train at Fiesta Texas next year / 1C

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S.A.-based NewTek changing the way movies are made
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JULY 14, 2002 METRO EDITION

SUNDAY

Taking off
Reserve pilots work hard for their wings
S.A. Life/1J

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SERVING SOUTH TEXAS SINCE 1865

COMING MONDAY

Advice can become bad medicine

Reversal of medical practices long has been the professions bitter pill.
D BY STEPHEN SMITH
BOSTON GLOBE

A 24-page section recaps the drought-busting rains of early July, which forced lakes to overflow and chased thousands from their homes.

When researchers last week dropped bombshells debunking long-held beliefs about hormones and knee surgery it , was stunning but hardly surprising. The history of medicine is pocked

with reversals, yesterdays panacea branded as todays poison. Witness this swatch of advice, resounding with the august authority that Americans had come to expect from the white-jacketed high priests of medicine. The notion that a baby should not have direct sunlight is a major mistake, Dr. Herman Bundesen, president of the Chicago Board of Health, wrote in 1938 on the pages of the Ladies Home Journal. When the baby is a month old, put him directly in the sunlight. The best time of the day is between 10 and 2 oclock.

Doctors changed their minds about that just as they did last week when two medical studies challenged the value of hormone replacement therapy for women and knee surgery for arthritis-hobbled patients. Hormones, researchers found, actually increase a womans risk of some of the very ills they were intended to conquer, including heart disease. And, scientists reported, patients who underwent arthroscopic knee operations fared no better than those who got a sham procedure. Patients who had undergone these

treatments and critics of big medicine expressed annoyance and outrage. Yet medical historians and leading physicians view the twin reversals not as troubling setbacks for American medicine but as proof that the system is doing its job. Science constantly is reaching new conclusions about once-widely accepted treatments, a tradition that validates the need for rigorous research and the willingness to abandon medical orthodoxy . See BIG/15A

FLOOD OF 2002: MEDINA DAM UNDER MICROSCOPE

Its safe, but how sound?

Juan Diego is depicted many ways in art. Water continues to flow over the spillway of Medina Dam, though with a measurable reduction in volume.

Experts analyze the 90-year-old structures integrity with another flood in mind.
D BY W. GARDNER SELBY
EXPRESS-NEWS AUSTIN BUREAU

Even with canonization looming, little is known about Mexicos Juan Diego.
D BY DANE SCHILLER
EXPRESS-NEWS STAFF WRITER

Saint who?

MICO Medina Dam is a gigantic concrete girdle designed by a visionary who later drowned off the coast of Ireland. But last weekend, the 90-year-old structure, its lake filled to overflowing by record-setting rainfall, seemed imperiled, leading Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff to tell downriver residents to evacuate because it might fail. For his alarm, Wolff was raspberried by local officials familiar with the 164-foot-tall, 1,580-foot-long dam. They say the dam worked with its spillway to handle the overflow just as intended when it was built in 1912. We know in our hearts this is built solid, said Guy Cooper, a farmer on the board of the BexarMedina-Atascosa Water Control and Improvement District No. 1, which owns the dam west of San Antonio. The Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission is reviewing the dams safety against a backdrop of conflicting inspection reports, some of which question its stability in a huge flood. We dont feel like the structure is going to fail imminently said Elston Johnson, who oversees , TNRCCs dam safety program. We need to look at it more. State law requires dams and spillways to be evaluated for engineering soundness without any set timetable. Federal recommendations urge a state inspection at least every five years. Medina Dams last inspection, completed April 8, questions calculations of the dams stability and suggests a reduction in estimates of its factor of safety . The inspection by the engineering firm URS, which was hired by the water district, found the
PHOTOS BY KIN MAN HUI/STAFF

See EXPERTS/11A

Medina Dam personnel survey the 90-year-old structure. Engineers are debating its durability.

Inside
Leaders want entity to oversee flood control/10A New Braunfels considers buyouts as FEMA hands out aid/10A Robert Rivard: Some questions still need to be answered about flooding/3B

Hill Country gets socked again by thunderstorms

BY ELAINE ARADILLAS
EXPRESS-NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thunderstorms and isolated showers dumped up to 8 inches of rain Saturday in parts of the Hill Country causing anxious residents to , wince at the possibilities of more flooding. In San Antonio, the Northwest Side received less than an inch of rain from the storm, which hovered north and west of the city much of the day . The National Weather Service forecast a 50 percent chance of thundershowers for Bexar
From the San Antonio Express-News and KENS 5. Get personalized news and information.

County today followed by a 60 percent chance Monday . The ground is so saturated around here, the smallest amount of rain causes our creeks to rise up, said Helotes Volunteer Fire Department Chief Jack Quipp, who dispatched crews Saturday to monitor water crossings. I hope it quits raining altogether right now until the ground dries up. Almost two weeks after torrential rainfall flooded areas of Central and South Texas, weather experts are predicting more rain through the beginning of the week.
Business Classifieds Culturas 1K 1E 1H Deaths Drive Editorials 10B 1F 2G

Another disturbance could be moving in, said Ken Widelski, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in New Braunfels. Thats going to be the case for the next couple of days. Bandera, Kerr and Real counties received the most rainfall Saturday with 2 to 4 inches falling , along the Frio River, the weather service said. Campers in the area were contacted by the Frio County Sheriffs Department to seek higher ground away from creeks and rivers. See BANDERA/11A
Metro/State Movies Puzzles 1B 5H 4J S.A. Life Sports Travel 1J 1C 1L

MEXICO CITY What taxi drivers, grandmothers and even priests will tell you about Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzn is that he was a humble Indian who saw an image of the Virgin Mary about 470 years ago. They even can point to the spot, a hill in the north of town, about five blocks from a subway stop. But thats about all that most people know about Juan Diego, as hes commonly known, even though he is to be canonized as the first Indian saint at the end of the month by Pope John Paul II. He was married? a puzzled Rosario Guitars Monares, 36, asked after she inspected her raw knees, bloodied from walking on them for the final leg of a pilgrimage to a church near the holy hill known as Tepayac. Shes not alone in her ignorance about a man who is forever linked to Mexicos queen, La Virgen de Guadalupe. While some historians contend Diego never existed and perhaps was a ploy by the church to bring Indians into Catholicism, even believers cant agree on the facts of his life, including his age, appearance, and what he did for a living. His uncle was more religious than anyone in the family said a priest leading anoth, er pilgrimage up the hill. I thought (Juan Diego) was a monk, chimed in another man who overhead the priest. Shopkeepers and street vendors sell T-shirts, candles and pendants depicting Juan Diegos encounter on a hilltop during a walk in 1531, but the image varies. Some present him with the See LIFE/12A
137th year, No. 284, 674 pages. Entire contents copyright 2002, San Antonio Express-News. This newspaper is recyclable.

Todays Weather
Showers, storms High 91, Low 73 Full weather report, Page 16C

INDEX

DAILY NZ

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P U B D A T E 07-14-02 O P E R A T O R CCI

D A T E 07/14/02

T I M E 00:11