The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 20

A-20 Sunday, October 27, 1985 San Francisco Examiner S.F. Sunday Examiner Chronicle Rob Morse Humphrey heads homeward WHALE From A-1 Sacramento Sacramento Wffyer Deeo Water iA Shag Slough Ship Channel IB Steamboat "1 Ill I Sloughj-JL Liberty Island Bridge WalnutJ 9Xm 1 ttt ii furovet Cache Slough 11 Drawbridge Ij Rio Vistairy onJRiver) Horseshoe Bend TV idle J'l 1. Rescuers chase whale from Shag Slough Friday afternoon. 2. After balking and getting stuck, whale swims through channel cleared under Liberty Island bridge.

3. Rescuers follow whale down Cache Slough to Sacramento River, then lose sight of him. 4. Saturday morning, farmer turns back whale trying to reenter slough. 5.

At Rio Vista drawbridge, whale swims back upstream and temporarily beaches himself. 6. After hours of hesitation, whale dives under drawbridge and swims downstream. 7. Following attempts to herd him into Horseshoe Bend, scientists lose sight of whale for the night.

crackers. Twice the whale swam south of the span and in the direction of the Bay, the Golden Gate and the Pacific Ocean 55 miles away only to reverse course. On the last pass, the whale partially beached himself on a sandbar about three-fourths of a mile north of the bridge. While the scientists watched helplessly, the whale strained furiously to free himself from the muck, flailing with its tail and flippers and spouting repeatedly. After about 30 minutes, he succeeded and began swimming north again.

Perhaps an hour after that, Humphrey reversed course once more, and this time swam beneath the span. The nail-biting incident at the bridge was only the latest for the team of biologists and whale-watchers interested in driving Humphrey back where he be-, longs. Some of them worked from a flotilla of about a dozen small boats. Whales need salt water to live, and biologists say the extended stay in fresh water has already hurt Humphrey's health, irritating his eyes, skin and respiratory system. If the whale remains for too long in the Delta, officials fear he will die.

If Humphrey stays downstream of the Highway 12 bridge here, there will be five bridges Antioch, Benicia-Mar-tinez, Carquinez Strait, Richmond-San Rafael and finally the Golden Gate between him and the open sea. In all, 150 workers from half a dozen local, state and federal agencies including the Coast Guard, the California Conservation Corps, the National Marine Fisheries Service and state Department of Fish and Game are aiding in the effort to speed Humphrey on his way. So far, according to Garamendi, about $50,000 half of it federal, half of it state money has been spent in the effort. The workers have been helped by hundreds of official and unofficial volunteers, one of whom turned out to be yesterday's big hero. He is rancher Bcv Brownell, who encountered Humphrey in the turbid waters of Shag Slough yesterday morning and, by banging a pipe in the water, managed to route the whale in the right direction at least for a time.

Mitchell Ryan, an aide to Garamendi, said Brownell, a foreman of the Anderson Farms near Rio Vista, spotted Humphrey at about 9:20 a.m. in shallow waters near the farm, and tried to herd him south by clanking on a piece of lead pipe. Eventually, the whale swam out into the main channel of the river. He then ExaminerCraig Lee THIRSTY FOR A WHALE SIGHTING Michael Ostlund, 1 1, of Rio Vista HIE WILLIE DONAHUE SHOW: When. "1 1 Willie Brown's "For Women Only" con-I sciousness-raising event came to a close yesterday, women's problems were not solved, but one thing was entirely clear.

Willie Brown is not running for mayor or senator, he's running for talk-show host. He denied it, saying, "After this experience, hell no." In fact it was a pretty good experience, but Willie reveled in the role of henpecked host to Jane Fonda, Sherry Lansing, Christine Craft, Maxine Waters and 1,250 other liberated guests in his "living room" at the Hyatt Regency. At the end of the session Willie asked the big one himself: "A woman said to me, 'How can you wear a $1,500 suit and sit up on the stage with Jane Fonda and Sherry Lansing? What do you do for the poor people? What do I do for the poor people?" said Willie. "Not get in their way at mart." All in all, it was a landmark day for sisterhood and Williehood, mainly the latter. Another joyous get-together.

The Associated Press convention of newspaper managing editors is in town this week. I've been trying to think of something to say about it, but for the life of me, I can't think of anything funny about managing editors. Ah well, yet another -week we can't get into the Washington Square Bra and Girdle. MAGNUM FORCE: Hal Holbrook is in town visiting with his beautiful wife, Dixie Carter, who has been singing in the Plush Room for the last month (through tonight). Dixie, a nominee for the Mabel Mercer award, hasn't been drawing the good crowds she deserves, and she and Hal are puzzled and hurl.

It just goes to prove the old adage: If you make it in New York, you can't necessarily make it here. Incidentally, Holbrook's best conversational subject is not Mark Twain, but sailing. Two good lines: He tells of the German dockmaster at the Bora Bora Yacht Club (so-called) who noticed that the home port of Holbrook's yacht was Marina Del Rey. He scowled and said: "Ach, so you are from Marina Del Plastic?" In talking about the first time he went sailing, Holbrook summed all of nautical experience in one sentence: "I went out, and I got back." Call him Ishmael. BAD BUSINESS: You want to know what low is? Warren Hinckle wrote a controversial column on Dan White's funeral last week, and what should happen? Someone called in a death threat spent much of the day gingerly approaching the Rio Vista Bridge, which for a time was closed to auto traffic and raised in hopes of enticing the whale to pass it.

Yesterday morning, as the whale swam southward, a small motorboat edged next to the mammal and biologist James Lccky leaned out to stick a suction-cup radio transmitter on the whale's skin so scientists can keep track of it. Similar beacons have been used to track whales in the wild. But the transmitter didn't work. A better one is being trucked down from Corvallis, and is expected to arrive today. Meanwhile, it was a day for whale-watching with a difference.

For much of the day, more than a dozen boats formed an advance line that marked the whale's progress downstream. Helicopters and small planes flew overhead. Peace officers Highway Patrol, Solano County Sheriff's Department and Rio Vista police moni-" torcd matters from the banks with the aid of walkie-talkies. "I'd like to see the whale get back to. ExaminerDavid Lemon Waters, who had her daughter, Jo-sette, with her yesterday, said she's made all sorts of new friends while Humphrey-watching.

"There are at least 20 of us who keep coming back," she said. "So many people are so concerned." While she talked, Humphrey surfaced nearby, and another woman hollered, "Oh, there he is! He made my day." Waters looked at the woman, smiled and said, "She's one of us now. She'll be back." Waters will too, as long as Humphrey is around. "1 hope he makes it to the ocean, because 1 think lime is running out," she said. "But when he goes, you bet I'll miss him." Lance Williams of The Examiner staff and Examiner news services contributed to this report.

sea, but he is a distinct tourist attraction," said one of the spectators, Solano County Supervisor Dick Brann. Many of the sightseers, with kids of all ages in low, were on Saturday outings, snapping up T-shirts with messages like "Humphrey Vacationed at Rio Vista, California," and "Have a whale of a time" on them, and oohhing and ahhing every time Humphrey stuck up his hump which resembles nothing so much as a water-soaked log. Others have turned Humphrey into a cult figure. Diane Waters of Antioch has been tracking him ever since he swam into these strange fresh waters. "He's opened a whole new world to me," she said.

"1 go to Maui a lot and I've seen whales there, but they didn't really bring out anything in me. "Humphrey is different. 1 went to sec him once and that was it. I've grown to care what happens to him." AIDS From A-1 on his dog. The call was from someone who knew the habits of Hinckle and Bentley, too.

The threat was phoned in to the Tavern. Threaten a basset hound? That's low. Strange coincidence. The night before Dan White's suicide last week, nearly all former cast members of Steve Dobbin's "The Dan White Incident" were assembled to audition for another Dobbins play. Nearly all, because several had since died of AIDS.

Dan White was buried with full Catholic rites last week, even though he committed suicide. The Church assumes that if a person commits suicide, he'eannot be completely sane. Said a friend: "Diminished capacity saves him again." But the problem of providing medical coverage for AIDS patients goes beyond the current issues, said Chase of the American Council of Life Insurance. "If AIDS becomes widespread in the population, at some point the government is going to have to step in it's going to affect everybody." One insurance company, Santa Monica-based Coastal Life Insurance has taken a different approach to the AIDS issue. It is offering health insurance specifically for AIDS victims.

Since January, the company has sold about 1,200 supplemental health-care policies that pay cash benefits up to $64,000 in the first year to AIDS victims. But because of the rapid increase in the incidence of the disease, the annual premium on the policy was increased recently to $290 from $194, said James Hotin-ger, a spokesman for Coastal. Coastal developed the AIDS coverage at the urging of a general insurance agent in Camarillo, Ventura County. The agent, Marshall Podell, said several of his gay clients came to him looking for extra health-care coverage. He said Coastal was the only insurance company he approached that was willing to develop an AIDS policy.

"1 imagine they're afraid of future claims," Podell said. "When cancer insurance first came out, it started the same way." Some groups are also expressing concern about possible discrimination in underwriting practices, particularly for men between ages 20 and 55 who live in the high-risk areas. A Los Angeles-based group, Concerned Insurance Professionals for Human Rights, has planned a daylong conference Nov. 9 to discuss the AIDS insurance issue and other insurance-related problems of gays and lesbians. "AIDS will be our top agenda item," said Brent Nance, a Los Angeles insurance agent who said he organized the group as a sounding board for the industry because gay insurance professionals can see both sides of the AIDS issue.

"We can't subject the insurance industry to catastrophic claims, and at the same time the industry has a moral obligation to do what it can to help solve the AIDS issue," he said. In the last 10 years, have you: Had or been told that you had AIDS, AIDS-related complex or AIDS-related condition? Received advice or treatment in connection with any of the categories mentioned in one above? "California state law prohibits a third part," Davis said: "Have you tested positive for antibodies to the AIDS virus?" But the insurance industry has mounted campaigns to get the California and Wisconsin laws amended to permit such testing, said Peter Groom, a legal spokesman for the state Department of Insurance. Transamerica Occidental Life Insurance a Los Angeles-based insurer, recently said it will not only ask applicants questions about AIDS but also will administer blood tests for the disease in states designated as "high-risk" by the Centers for Disease Control. The tests will be conducted only in cases in which applicants seek large amounts of insurance. In the United States, the top 10 high-risk areas, in order of incidence of AIDS, are New York, California, Florida, New Jersey, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., and Georgia.

The top five cities in the CDC ranking are New York, San Francisco, l)s Angeles, Miami and Newark, N.J. In California, where insurers may not test for the AIDS antibody, Transamerica, a subsidiary of San Francisco-based Transamerica says it will use another type of test that evaluates the effectiveness of the body's immune system which the AIDS virus attacks. During the first three quarters of 1985, Transamerica said it paid $2.5 million in AIDS-related claims, about 3 percent of its total claims payments. Medical costs per AIDS patient average $140,000, based on the first 9,000 AIDS cases plus current projections that 300,000 people will likely contract the disease over the next five years. That is making health insurers uneasy.

Simon Baitlcr, executive vice president at Transamerica, said handling the AIDS issue is relatively simple for the medical insurance the company writes. Baitlcr said Transamerica sets the amount of premiums for its group medical insurance on the basis of each individual group's experience with claims in the previous year and on other factors such as inflation. "Bad results in one year would immediately be reflected in the next year's premiums," he said. Another health insurer, Blue Cross of California, is seeking other ways to handle the AIDS problem. For example, the Oakland-based company, which provides some medical coverage for about 6 million Califor-nians, tried without success to get permission from the state Department of Insurance recently to exclude AIDS coverage from the benefits it provides one employer group.

The employer, which a spokesman for Blue Cross would not identify, requested the exclusion, according to the spokesman. Still, the carriers' concerns are not stopping them from paying claims on AIDS-related cases. Bay Area hospitals arc having little difficulty getting reimbursed for the medical care they arc giving AIDS patients, according to Robert Duncan, president of Marshall Hale Memorial Hospital in San Francisco. "The majority of AIDS patients are young working adults. Most have insurance, and because of that, hospitals arc welcoming AIDS patients with open arms," Duncan said.

"Providing care for AIDS patients has gone very well, because AIDS itself isn't being treated it's the conditions that go with AIDS that have to be treated." Disease Control in Atlanta, insurance companies say people who get acquired immune deficiency syndrome have a 100 percent chance of dying within 18 to 24 months. Officials say the certain mortality of AIDS patients plus the rate at which the disease is spreading the number of cases doubles every 10 to 12 months create a problem for insurers that renders underwriting guidelines almost useless. Without the AIDS factor, they say, the mortality rate for 30-year-old white men in the United States is one in 1,000. "Add AIDS and you suddenly see 20 deaths per 1,000. That's a 2,000 percent increase, and it's pretty clearly an unacceptable risk for an insurance company," said Gerald Davis, a spokesman for Lincoln National Life Insurance Co.

in Fort Wayne, Ind. Lincoln National has paid $3.5 million in death benefits for about 60 AIDS-related claims since December, according to Davis, including two in a single week that totaled $1.5 million. Without changes in its underwriting guidelines, the company estimates it could pay $500 million in AIDS-related claims over the next five years. Lincoln National, the nation's largest reinsurer a company that shares risk with other life insurance companies is among a handful of carriers nationwide that have taken steps to reduce their chances of insuring people who already have AIDS or have been exposed to the AIDS virus. But the small number of carriers that have taken definite action shouldn't mislead anyone about the seriousness of the issue, officials say.

"Insurance companies may not be saying anything, but they are definitely concerned," said Benno Issacs, a spokesman for the Hospital Insurance Association of America, a Washington-based trade association of 330 health insurers. Under current conditions, insurers will require all policyholders holders to make up the difference, Isaacs said. "I'm not saying AIDS will destroy the insurance industry, but if insurers are not allowed to conduct their business the way they want, the very least that will happen is premiums will go up." One sign of the industry's behind-the-scenes efforts to counter the potential impact of AIDS is the scheduling of a congressional hearing on AIDS and insurance coverage in Washington Friday. The hearing, initiated by U.S. Rep.

Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, will address the eligibility of people with AIDS for health insurance and the cancellations of currently held health insurance policies, an aide to Waxman said. Insurance companies are regulated by the states in which they operate. In three states, California, Wisconsin and Florida, laws prohibiting insurers from administering blood tests for AIDS. Lincoln National recently received permission from 39 states to include three questions about AIDS and AIDS-related diseases on all its insurance applications. It also notified reinsurance clients that it had started screening applicants for AIDS.

Under California law, Davis said, only two of the questions can be asked of insurance applicants: TRULY NEEDY JOKES: This is a marriage made in San Francisco: Sister Boom Boom and Joe Fizzle Fizzle. To be honest, it's not a marriage, but close: an exorcism. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence will be appearing at the Oasis Tuesday night to try to expel the demons from the 49ers. "Heaven knows, they need all the help they can get," says Sister Vicious. Sure, but go light on the Linda Blair pea soup, OK? On Thursday, the IrishScottish group Relativity played the Great American Music Hall and they got into a bout of Celtic jokes.

The Scots won with this one: How many Irishmen does it take to screw in a light bulb? A hundred. One to hold the bulb and 99 to drink until the room spins. VERBIAGE COLLECTOR: The Office of. Strategic Resources sends us a report that contains the following: "The OSR has taken the lead in attempting to definitize the new realities." Definitize, what a concept. There is a curious new business in the Mission.

It's called Perfect Image, and it's a combination dry cleaner and photo-finishing shop. Satin finish, no starch On Friday a caller to Ron Owens' show on KGO defined "Miami Vice" in the following capital way: MTV PD. NOSTALGIA NEURALGIA: The folks at Pac Bell are putting out the new phone book for Contra Costa County, and have come up with some telling facts. The first Contra Costa phone book, in 1909, had 30 pages, weighed 2.5 ounces and was 116-inch thick. The new book has 2,014 pages, weighs 5Vz pounds and is inches thick.

But the two books have one thing in common. The Duncan family of Clayton is listed in both, and at the same address. Pac Bell executives will personally deliver the new book to 80-year-old Harold T. Duncan. Reac out Mark Gordon of the S.F.

Trivia Line (34f 9137) calls to say that last Thursday was the 67th anniversary of the first jailing for smoking in San Francisco. It seems that public smoking was outlawed during the post-World War 1 flu epidemics, and violators were dealt with harshly. To borrow from Karl Marx: History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as Wendy Nel-der. Says triviologist Gordon: "I'm trying to dig up something about toilets now." VrmlrrltlUJ fall back Suili an hour to Standard time? Corrections and clarifications It is The Examiner's policy to correct errors. Readers are urged to call mistakes to our attention by writing to us at 110 Fifth San Fiyicisco 94103.

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