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                        OF NOTE...
                        News to Use

Vol. IV, Issue 77                            January 15, 1995
Earl Appleby, Jr., Editor                    CURE, Ltd.

                         Addictions

"Dear Golden Girl, Got a letter from your mom the other day. Her
description did you proud: 'At seventeen she is on the high end of
meeting every parents' expectation, including mine,' she wrote. 'An A
student, captain of the tennis team, president of her high school
service organization.' But her tone was despondent, disappointed, and
angry. You've started to smoke, and she wants me to persuade you to
stop. That's not the way it works. Seventeen or 70, people quit smoking
when they've convinced themselves it's the right thing to do. But there
are a couple of things I can mention. There's the guy you may fall in
love with one day who thinks kissing a smoker is as seductive as licking
the bottom of a dirty ashtray. There are the babies you might want to
have and the damage you could do to them in utero if you are so addicted
to cigarettes that you can't quit when you're pregnant. There are the
yellow fingers and the yellow teeth. Your clothes smell. So does your
hair. It gets harder to stop every day...There's nothing confusing about
smoking for me. I remember the day of the rehearsal dinner for Jim and
Mary's wedding, when my father-in-law picked me up at the bus stop, his
voice whittled away to a faint rasp. A cold, he said. Laryngitis. A year
later he was dead of lung cancer, still smoking to the end." (17 Going
on 18, Anna Quindlen, op-ed, New York Times, 11/30/94)

"The proportion of American adults who smoke cigarettes dropped to 25%
in 1993, the lowest figure since the government began taking regular
surveys in 1965, the Department of Health and Human Services' Office on
Smoking and Health (OSH) reported yesterday. Moreover, 70% of adults who
did smoke said they would like to quit completely, 'the strongest
indication we've ever received that people want to quit smoking,' said
Michael P. Eriksen, director of OSH, which is part of the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention...The 1993 results found that 46 million
people (25% of the adult population) were 'current smokers,' which
includes people who smoke daily and people who smoke only on 'some
days.' Of the 46 million, 24 million were men and 22 million were
women...The highest proportion of adults ever recorded as smoking was in
1965, Eriksen said-- about 43%...Among 'current smokers' there was a
significant reduction in the overall rate among women...to
22.5%...College graduates and people above the poverty line also showed
a decline...A separate survey published earlier this year showed that
daily smoking among high school seniors increased from 17.2% in 1992 to
19% in 1993." (Study Says Adult Smokers Dropped to 25% in 1993, Spencer
Rich, Washington Post, 12/23/94)

                         Against the Odds

"As if it were not enough for Bill and Christine Flanagan to cope with
the birth of identical twin girls, they found out right after the May
18, 1992 delivery that one daughter would have special needs. Caitlin
Flanagan is a normal, healthy child. Her twin, Brittany, however, was
born with a facial disfigurement called a bilateral cleft lip and
palate. 'Cleft' means divided or split. Brittany was born with the
condition because parts of her face and mouth failed to come together in
the early months of fetal life. 'When Brittany was first born, it was a
real bad shock,' Bill said. 'We only saw her for about 15 seconds before
they rushed her to the neonatal ward because she was not breathing
well.' When the Flanagans did get to see Brittany again, she was hooked
up to several tubes. Doctors said that if she did not eat, they would
have to feed her intravenously. But Christine saw an early indication of
her daughter's spirit and will to fight. 'In just a few hours, she had
already sucked down eight ounces of fluid and surprised us all,' she
said." (Children's Eases Brittany's Path, Bob Levy, Washington Post,
12/5/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: For the rest of the story, see CH41205.*.

"'Good morning,' says Raymon Casso with a warm smile, opening the door
of the big downtown office building for a woman. They exchange
pleasantries as she breezes by. Then, as if remembering something, she
slows and turns to the doorman. 'How are you and your family?' she asks
in a tone that says she really wants to know. 'I've got a lot of people
praying for us,' Casso replies. His smile fades to gentle sadness,
'Thank you.' Casso, 44, and his wife, Maritza, 30, learned in September
that their 8-year-old son Juan has ALD, or adrenoleukodystrophy, the
rare and often fatal metabolic disease portrayed in the movie 'Lorenzo's
Oil.' Since then, the boy has gone blind and is beginning to loose his
hearing. If the disease, which is inherited, continues as doctors
expect, this will be followed by loss of his mental faculties,
paralysis, and an early death. There is no cure. In October, doctors
confirmed the couples' worst fears: Their 1-year-old, Jose, also has
ALD. He could begin developing symptoms when he's 4. 'When I called my
wife and told her,' Casso says, 'she just screamed, 'Why the baby, God?
Why the baby?''...Ramon Casso arrived in America from the Dominican
Republic during the blizzard of '66 in one of those great family sagas
of immigration upon which historical novels and Smithsonian exhibits are
based. He was 16, fleeing the upheavals in his homeland with his sisters
to join his parents in Washington...Ramon and Maritza live with their
sons in a rented apartment. They met in 1989 when he made an emergency
family visit to Santo Domingo. It was love at first sight and they began
a commuter marriage as Ramon, who'd become a US citizen, struggled to
bring his wife and her young son Juan to America. In October
1993,...Maritza arrived here very pregnant with the new son, Jose. It
took a year and a half to get young Juan cleared, and he arrived at
National on June 1. Casso remembers how Juan sprinted across the crowded
airport lobby and leapt into his arms. At last, all four members of the
little family were together...At night, Casso and his wife sit outside
Juan's bedroom door, listening to him pray: 'Please God, touch my eyes
and let me see just a little bit.' Juan's biggest disappointment about
losing his vision, his father says, is that he won't get to see snow.
When the boy arrived, he'd never experienced a Northern winter and was
thrilled at the prospect. So he prays to see snow. Just a little bit."
(The Doorman Who Opened a Building's Heart, Phil McCombs, WP, 12/22/94)

"Ashley Faye Casey has come a long way from her birth weight of 8
ounces, but her fight isn't over, her mother said. 'If she weren't so
tough, she wouldn't be doing what she is now,' said Susan Casey of
Vienna. 'But her brain wants to do more. It frustrates her.' Ashley was
born nearly four months early on March 30, weighing less than a can of
soda pop. Pediatric specialists at Charleston Area Medical Center said
Ashley was among the smallest babies in West Virginia to survive. She
didn't go home until late July. Now she's nine months and nearly nine
pounds, her first tooth is about to come in and she's finally into
newborn-sized clothing, Casey said. But Ashley stopped gaining weight in
September and became dehydrated. A colostomy she had since birth was
reversed in October at Columbus Children's Hospital, her mother said.
The surgery, serious for a baby of any size, enabled Ashley to gain
weight again. 'She just blossomed after surgery,' Casey said. 'She still
continues to fight.' Casey said she and her husband Larry have tried to
treat Ashley like any other baby. They take her everywhere, Casey said.
Ashley has done well and managed to avoid getting a flu that bugged her
parents and 5--year- old brother, L.J." (Tiny WV Baby Growing Stronger,
Morning Herald, 12/26/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: May you continue to
blossom, Ashley.

                         AIDS Addenda

"St. Petersburg, FL--A judge decided to reverse the adoption of a
3-year- old girl after discovering her adoptive parents are infected
with the AIDS virus. Circuit Judge Horace Andrews said Tuesday he didn't
know the couple were infected when he granted the adoption in March. He
said he would nullify the adoption next month on the grounds of 'fraud
or mistake' unless the couple gave up their parental rights first. The
ruling came at the request of the state Department of Health and
Rehabilitative Services. HRS Secretary Jim Towey, overruling employees
of his own agency, objected to placing the girl with terminally ill
parents. "It is not just about AIDS," he said. "If these people had
terminal cancer, it should be brought out. This is a case about finding
the best permanent home for a child." The girl has been with the couple
since June 1992. Neither the couple nor the girl was identified in court
papers. HRS employees had been aware of the couple's diagnosis but
recommended the adoption anyway, noting that the couple were loving
parents and were already the girl's foster mother and father. The judge
was not told the couple had AIDS because of a law protecting the
confidentiality of people with AIDS, Towey said. Papers presented to the
judge described the couple as "healthy nonsmokers." Because of the
parents' condition, the department required the couple to draw up wills
and appoint a guardian for the girl if they should die or become too ill
to care for her. Towey said the employees should have told the judge
what they knew in a closed session. He said a new department policy
requires employees to disclose whether prospective adoptive parents have
any terminal illness. Towey said he became aware that the couple had the
AIDS virus after their story was publicized this summer. 'The reason I
intervened is that I couldn't live with myself if I didn't,' he said
Wednesday. Referring to the girl, he said, 'We did not give her a fair
shake.'" (HIV-Infected Couple Losing Adoptive Child, Martinsburg
Journal, 12/22/94) ABLEnews' Editor's Note: For an account of a
different parental privacy conflict affecting children, see AIDS
Breakthrough and AIDS Politics below. For the story of another custody
conflict involving a "terminal" illness, see Bid to Reverse Adoption
Halted, WP, 9/28/94 (ON9411A.*).

"Elizabeth Glaser died on December 4 of AIDS, as a result of an infected
blood transfusion 13 years ago. In recent years, she had made a
fundamental difference in the treatment of HIV infection and AIDS.
Previously, no funds had been spent on pediatric AIDS research. But
because of her extraordinary energy and persuasiveness, millions of
dollars are now allocated to such research, and her own Pediatric AIDS
Foundation...has raised more than $30 million for pediatric research and
education. Writing about her the day after she died, Jim Dwyer of
Newsday...noted that 'earlier this year, the research money she
championed led to the most stunning success of all the AIDS study
programs. A treatment was able to reduce by two-thirds the chance that a
pregnant woman with HIV will give the disease to their children.' On the
'CBS Evening News,' Dr. Anthony Fauci, an AIDS expert at the National
Institutes of Health, said of that new breakthrough: 'It was a trial in
which women who are HIV infected were given AZT during the pregnancy and
at the time of delivery, then [it was given] to the child for a couple
of weeks after. And the transmissability from the infected mother to the
child decreased dramatically--from 28.5% in the mothers who were not
treated to 8.3% of the treated mothers.' On the same day as Dr. Fauci's
CBS news report on the AZT study, Patricia Kean of Newsday interviewed
Patricia Fleming, the new White House director of AIDS policy. Kean: 'A
recent study found that HIV-positive women who took AZT dramatically
reduced the chances of passing along the virus to newborns. In light of
that, would you be in favor of mandatory prenatal testing?' Fleming:
'No, I am in favor of having providers offer tests to pregnant women and
to all women. I think it's a violation of a person's rights to impose a
test they have not consented to.' If there were a comparable
breakthrough in preventing the transmission of an ultimately fatal
infection to a child, testing the mother to find out if she has the
virus would take place as an essential public health measure. But where
HIV is concerned, treatment and prevention become a political issue.
Patricia Fleming says she would have providers 'offer' the test. That
means voluntary counseling which does not offend the AIDS establishment.
But counseling is far from being totally effective." (AIDS Breakthrough
and AIDS Politics, Nat Hentoff, op-ed, Washington Post, 12/22/94)
ABLEnews Editor's Note: For the rest of the story, see HIV41222.*.)

"Women infected with the AIDS virus die faster than men with the
infection, a large study found. No medical reason for the difference was
apparent, said the study's authors, led by Sandra L. Melnick, an
epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.
Instead, the researchers said, women may wait until they are sicker
before seeking care or may be treated differently. The study...found
that women were 33% more likely to die than men who were comparably ill
when they enrolled in the survey. Women are still a small minority of US
AIDS cases--about 15%--but they and children are the fastest growing
group of people with AIDS, said one co-author of the study in
Wednesday's issue of the Journal of the American Medical
Association...In women twice as often as men, death was the first sign
that HIV was progressing, the researchers found. In men, the first signs
of the infection's progress were more likely to be bouts of pneumonia or
fungal infection...The study, conducted at primary health care centers
in 13 US cities, is the largest and longest to explore differences in
HIV disease between men and women." (Study: Women Succumb Faster to
AIDS, Martinsburg Journal, 12/28/94)

                         Body Language

"If you want to help your grandmother avoid a broken hip, buy her some
dumbbells and get her pumping iron a couple of times a week, a study
suggests. Post-menopausal women who trained intensively on exercise
machines twice weekly for a year built up their bones, increased the
size and power of their muscles, and improved their balance, researchers
said. "The study shows for the first time that a single treatment can
improve several risk factors for spine and hip fractures in older
women,' said study leader Miriam E. Nelson, a physiologist at the Jean
Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University
in Boston...Fractures caused by osteoporosis--the thinning of bones that
accompanies aging--strike 1.5 million Americans annually, mostly women.
The fractures often lead to long-term disability or death, and they cost
more than $10 billion in direct medical expenses annually. The
researchers studied the effects of strength training on bone thinning in
39 post-menopausal women ages 50 to 70. The findings were published in
Wednesday's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. A
related story accompanying the study said 'Americans need to consume
more calcium then they do now in order to build and maintain healthy
bones." (Lifting Weights, Martinsburg Journal, 12/28/94)

                    Cancer Chronicles

"Billy Best knows other cancer patients are pulling for him. He just
isn't ready to deal with the grueling treatments. The 16-year-old,
facing four more months of chemotherapy to fight Hodgkin's disease, took
off from his suburban [Boston] home on October 26. He packed a duffle
bag, grabbed his skateboard, and headed for the bus station with a wad
of money collected from selling off his possessions, such as his guitar
amplifier. His mother said today that her son called home Monday night
from 'somewhere in Texas.' 'We did have a calm conversation, but he said
he's still not ready to come home yet,' Susan Best said, adding that she
told Billy about the hundreds of people who have called offering
support...'I just wish I could talk to him and tell him it's all right
to feel the pain,' said Aaron Fastman, a 20-year-old from Woodstock, NY,
who was diagnosed last summer with Hodgkin's disease and has just
completed his fourth round of chemotherapy. Billy's thinking surprised
some doctors, who say up to 80% of people who undergo full chemotherapy
and radiation emerge cancer-free. Hodgkin's disease is a cancer of the
body's lymphatic system and is fatal if untreated. Billy's first five
treatments had eradicated the cancer except in the area around his
windpipe but had caused his hair to fall out and made him tired and sick
to his stomach. Doctors said he needs four more months of treatment."
(Parents Try to Talk Teen Home for Chemotherapy, WP, 11/9/94)

"An injection that makes breast cancers 'light up' in photos taken with
a high-tech camera could save thousands of US women from biopsies every
year, a scientist says. An estimated 700,000 biopsies are done annually
to evaluate breast lumps, but only 1 in 4 finds cancer, Iraj Khalkhali
of UCLA Medical School said Monday. These surgeries could be sharply
reduced by using a nuclear medicine technique that identifies cancer in
90% of cases otherwise requiring biopsies, he told the Radiological
Society of North America. How it works: Women are injected in the arm
with a radioactive tracer. Then a nuclear 'detector' camera takes images
of the breast. The radiation dose is about equal to that received on a
cross-country plane flight, Khalkhali says...Biopsies cost
$1,500-$5,000; the new test runs $600." (Test Finds Breast Cancer
Without Biopsy, Marilyn Elias, USA Today, 11/29/94) CURE Comment: We
support bonafide advances in diagnostic procedures--as in all of
medicine. But we do not believe that cost should be the DETERMINATIVE
factor and oppose its use to deny patients access to more costly tools
such as biopsies. It should be noted that 4 of the 147 women who
received standard biopsies had cancerous legions that were NOT
identified by the tracers as malignant.

"A surgical technique used for years to remove warts is now being used
for a more serious malady--cancer. A 72-year-old Baltimore man became
the first in Maryland to have his liver cancer treated by cryosurgery,
in which a cancerous tumor is frozen off as if it were a blemish or a
blotch of skin cancer. Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical
Center performed the operation December 9. The treatment has only been
tried at about 20 hospitals nationwide over the past decade, university
officials said...Improved ultrasound technology has made it possible to
freeze cancer cells deep within the abdomen. Doctors can hook up a metal
probe that looks like an ice pick directly to an ultrasound machine,
which bounces sound waves off internal organs and translates them into a
kind of video of what's going on inside. Then, liquid nitrogen in the
device cooled at 300 degrees below zero freezes the cancer cells. The
treatment adds another option for patients with difficult cancer
growths...About 13,200 people will die of liver cancer this year, the
American Cancer Society estimated. For many patients, cryosurgery can
help them live longer, said T.S. Ravikumar, chief of surgery at the
Cancer Institute of New Jersey...who has performed some 70 cryosurgery
operations since 1985...Dr. Robert Kane, a radiologist at Boston's
Deaconess Hospital who has performed cancer cryosurgery 88 times, said
many cancer patients treated with cryosurgery have survived more than
five years." (Doctors Freeze Off Cancer Cells, Morning Herald, 12/20/94)

"New DNA research may be able to predict cancer long before any tumors
form in the body, scientists in Seattle announced yesterday. The new
method involves detecting microscopic changes in DNA, the basic genetic
material in organisms, according to a study to be published in today's
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Donald Malins of the
Pacific Northwest Research Foundation, lead author of the study, said
his group's research already has led to what he called a 'very solid
method for prediction of breast cancer,' which will be published next
month." (New DNA Research Could Predict Cancer, WT, 12/20/94)

"The pain and peeling of sunburn aren't the epidermal disaster they
appear to be. In fact, they are nature's way of preventing skin cancer
by ordering mass suicide of cells maimed by ultraviolet light, according
to a provocative new study of how sun damage affects the human hide. But
as repeated burns cause more and more mutations in the skin's genetic
material, researchers report in today's issue of the science journal
Nature, cells eventually lose their normal supply of a key gene called
p53 that triggers the suicide response by generating a specific protein.
Unable to kill themselves, those cells thus become more susceptible to
the kinds of skin cancer with which 1 million Americans will be
diagnosed this year. By understanding the 'great protective mechanism'
whereby healthy skin destroys cancer-prone cells, said researchers from
Yale University School of Medicine, doctors ultimately may be able to
treat threatening conditions without surgery...Specifically, the group
will consider methods of putting the missing p53 protein back into
damaged tissue. 'It is possible,' said David J. Leffell, chief of
dermatologic surgery at the medical school, 'that such an agent could be
applied topically after the fact--in effect, a morning-after cream.'"
(Post-Sunburn Peeling May Prevent Skin Cancer, Study Says, Curt Suplee,
Washington Post, 12/22/94)

"His 3 1/2-year-old daughter's leukemia led E. Loren Buhle Jr. to look
up the disease at the library. The material he found offered bleak
prospects but was out of touch with current treatments and research. So
Buhle, an assistant professor of medical physics in radiation oncology,
sought out colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School,
combed computer databases, and, ultimately, envisioned a way to give
others up- to-date information, advice, and solace about cancer. Amanda
is 8 and has been out of chemotherapy for two years. But her father now
finds himself in trouble, embroiled in a struggle with the Penn Cancer
Center over what information should be made available to the public
through computers. At stake is more than the future of OncoLink, an
electronic library that Buhle helped launch. OncoLink debuted in March
on the Internet and receives some 10,000 calls a day. The case pit
Buhle's belief that controversial subjects should be aired quickly and
allowed to thrive or die in the light of public scrutiny against Penn's
view that as one of 27 federally designated comprehensive cancer centers
in the nation, it must ensure postings are responsible.' (Cancer Network
Battles for Information, Morning Herald, 12/23/94) ABLEnews Editor's
Note: For the rest of the story, see CAN41223.*.

                         Care Less

"If George Allen gave Caroline Anstey $33, she'd pick up some extra
groceries or maybe put the money away in a college fund for her sons
Oliver, 3, and Calder, 2. But she'd rather see the money stay where it
is--paying for prescription drugs for poor people and transportation for
the elderly. Anstey said Virginia's governor has her all wrong. She
doesn't like taxes any more than anyone else in her McLean neighborhood,
but she and some of her neighbors in Northern Virginia don't want the
tax cut Allen is offering. 'The governor assumes that everybody is
motivated by self-interest,' said Anstey, 40. 'I just don't think that's
true. I don't want to get my money at the expense of people in need.'
Many of the more than 30 middle-class and upper-middle-class residents
of Northern Virginia interviewed this week, including those who favor
some spending cuts, said they are uneasy about pocketing the savings if
it means deep cuts in essential health care for the poor." (Tax Money
Should Stay With Poor, Some in Northern VA Say, Steve Bates, WP, 1/11/95)

                         COMPUTations

"Michael Wolff, a prolific writer already penning his fifth book about
the Internet, has been silenced on the global computer network by the
deft hand of someone known only as the 'Cancelmoose.' The New York
author recently posted 150 electronic messages--which many view as
advertisements--about his newest book to Usenet, a system of 10,000
electronic bulletin boards that range in topic from abortion to back
rubs. To the abortion 'newsgroup,' for example, Mr. Wolff included his
book's blurb about the abortion chatterers, notified users it was in
stores, and solicited comments about the book, aptly entitled Netchat.
Last week, an Internet user calling himself the 'Cancelmoose' wiped all
of Mr. Wolff's messages from the face of the computer network, using a
program commonly known as 'cancelbot.'...'What I am doing is pure,
unilateral vigilantism,' the Cancelmoose wrote in a public bulletin
board message...The Cancelmoose and other Internet faithful viewed Mr.
Wolff's message as forbidden broadcast advertising and, worse yet, as
'spam,' the techno-term for electronic messages that are broadcast
widely on the electronic bulletin boards without relevance to the topics
discussed...Mr. Wolff's post 'was an attempt to find a veiled way to
promote the book,' snipes Brad Templeton, president of the online news
service, ClariNet Communications Corp. He concedes that simply
cancelling someone's form of expression is 'a bad thing to do,' but
likens the Internet to the Wild West: under some conditions, 'you may
have to shoot someone.' To the author, that smacks of censorship.
'Someone has made the decision to cancel this because they didn't like
the message,' Mr. Wolff says. Others could just as easily cancel
anyone's messages,' he said. One user noted on-line, 'I'm beginning to
think the cure will become worse than the disease.'" (Author Who Used
the Internet to Plug Newest Book Is 'Silenced' by a Critic, Jared
Sandberg, Wall Street Journal, 12/20/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: Not
having seen Mr. Wolff's messages, I must reserve judgment on their
characterization, but if they contained concrete information about what
persons with disabilities, for example, were saying on cyberspace--and
not just a self-serving plug, they would not be deemed off-topic on
ABLEnews. While I reject the cry of "censorship" as justification for
abdication of the moderator's responsibility in moderated echoes, I
deplore self-professed "vigilantism" as a cure worse than the disease,
as that perceptive user noted.

"It started with a few messages a week on the Internet. She hooked up a
modem. They communicated at least 20 times a day. Nine months later, he
popped the question--on her screen. They hadn't even met. It didn't
matter. On December 16, four days after her Internet partner arrived
from his native Australia, Charlene Mirabella said 'I do.' Next month,
the reference librarian from D'Youville College in Buffalo plans to go
back with him to start a new life. 'We're having some difficulty in
getting people to understand that we know all about one another,'
husband Robert Boot told the Buffalo News. 'But e-mail is the resurgence
of correspondence--which has essentially died out. It was the way many
people used to get to know one another.' Ms. Mirabella was on line last
March when she became aware of Mr. Boot, a 50-year-old health science
librarian at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. The two quickly
found they shared many of the same interests, 'We'd read a lot of the
same things,' Ms. Mirabella says. 'We both loved science fiction. We
both read poetry.' Their original correspondence led to four or five
messages within the week, and Ms. Mirabella hooked up a modem in her
home. 'I realized this was slipping away from the professional,' she
says, 'After that, 20 messages a day was not unusual. By the end of
March, we were talking about picture exchanges.' Mr. Boot didn't wait
for Ms. Mirabella's picture to arrive by old-fashioned mail before
popping the question--via the Internet, of course. 'I responded 'yes'
immediately,' she says." (Internet Marriage, Jennifer Pinkerton,
Washington Times, 1/4/95) ABLEnews Editor's Note: See also, Love Notes
Over Internet Lead to 'I Do,' MJ, 1/3/95.

"Look out, Al Gore: Newt Gingrich is after your job as chief visionary
of the information highway. In his first week as speaker of the House,
the Georgia Republican has sounded off time and time again on the
subject. Yesterday Gingrich was the star attraction at an all-day
conference on technology and the future hosted by his favorite think
tank, the Progress and Freedom Foundation. In a speech titled, 'From
Virtuality to Reality,' he echoed such familiar Gore themes as using
information technology to break down bureaucracy and empower the needy.
'We are beginning to invent the American information age,' he said. Gore
spent years in Congress studying the communications and computer
industry. He brought the phrase 'information superhighway' into the
common language. And he has traveled the globe as vice president touting
the benefits of the 'Global Information Infrastructure.' In fact,
Gingrich and Gore see eye to eye on most communications issues...But
Gingrich is more futurist than technocrat, a devotee and constant
promoter of Alvin and Heidi Toffler and George Gilder. All legislation
passed by the new Republican- controlled Congress, Gingrich said at a
recent Ways and Means Committee hearing, should have to pass this test:
Does it further the goal of propelling America into the Tofflers' vision
of a 'third wave,' as industrial society makes its inevitable
transformation into an information age society?" (Convergence on the
Data Highway, Mike Mills, Washington Post, 1/11/95)

                         Doctor, Doctor

"For more than an hour, the teacher listened to her students trade
stories of their first days working in the hospitals. She sat silently
as they vowed passionately to be sensitive to their patients. And then
Dr. Lesley Heafitz, her gravelly voice immediately drawing the class'
attention, including the student who had been nodding off in the corner.
'I have a story to tell you,' she began. She was sick, they knew that.
But now she wanted to tell them what a doctor had told her a few days
earlier. And the WAY he had told her. He said is she was not dead by
springtime, 'I'd be too sick to enjoy it.' 'I'd consider that an example
of how not to handle that situation.' the 54-year-old cancer patient
told her Harvard Medical School students. In a course designed to
encourage compassion in future doctors, Dr. Heafitz and her fight for
life provide testimony that charts and statistics never could. 'There
are some things you just can't read in a book,' said Paul Herriott, a
former student of Dr. Heafitz. 'She showed me that even if physicians
think they can't do much, they can talk about never losing hope, and
there is significant merit to that.'"  (Keys to Bedside Manner, Michelle
Boorstein, Washington Times, 1/3/95) CURE Comment: There is indeed,
Paul. Regrettably, "Dr. Heafitz's conviction that spiritual strength
influences physical health does not jibe with most approaches emphasized
in medical school, leaving some students to snidely refer to her class
as 'sensitivity training.' Of course, these are precisely the kind of
future doctors that need it.

                         Family Affair

"Margaret and Steven St. Jean already had one child, but they were
nervous when Margaret's contractions began for her second. Peter, now 9,
had been born by Caesarean section after a long, exhaustive labor and
they were trying for a VBAC (vaginal birth after Caesarean). Her
contractions still were 10 minutes apart when she called Marion
McCartney, her certified nurse-midwife so McCartney told Jean to rest
and eat or drink what she wanted. 'I remember Steven and Peter fed me
peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches while I relaxed in a warm tub,' says
St. Jean. A few hours later, with the contractions five minutes apart,
McCartney told the family to come to The Maternity Center, a free-
standing birth center in Bethesda [MD] where St. Jean received her
prenatal care. McCartney met the couple in the parking lot and led them
in, carefully assessing St. Jean's mood and noting that her husband was
calm and supportive. With no forms to fill out and no gown to change
into, St. Jean was immediately examined on the cherry wood bed in a room
with a private bath. Behind the attractive cupboards and drawers,
however, McCartney had everything she could need for a safe labor and
delivery, including IVs, a drug to control bleeding after birth, suture
and local anesthesia for repairs, and oxygen and resuscitation equipment
for the baby." (Special Delivery, Sarah Peasley, WP, 10/11/94)

                         FDA Forum

"Food and Drug Administration chief David Kessler magnanimously
announced early this month that his agency will loosen its restrictions
on the use of approved drugs for children's diseases and cancer. While
the press coverage of the announcement has been generally laudatory, the
truth is, rather than solving a deadly problem, the FDA could actually
increase its repression of American drug companies and the threat it
poses to American families...The FDA imposes severe burdens on companies
that want to offer better drugs to the American people. According to a
Tufts University study, it takes a total of almost nine years for the
FDA to grant approval to a new drug. The FDA requires extensive tests
and trials for new drugs, running the average cost of drug approval to
$230 million. Dr. Kessler's announcement last week was the culmination
of a policy change he first announced in October 1992 before the
American Academy of Pediatrics. At the time, Dr. Kessler whined, 'The
FDA cannot require firms to submit applications. We cannot require
companies to conduct trials on products they no longer want to pursue.'
Dr. Kessler did note: 'We do have powers of moral suasion...' The FDA
has far more than simply a power of 'moral suasion'--the FDA can
bankrupt a company merely by slowing its application for a new drug
approval or by demanding ever more clinical tests on the drugs. FDA
employees have vast discretionary power, and drug companies are
notorious for kowtowing and groveling to the FDA's wishes. With the new
policy, the FDA will give drug companies two years to submit data
justifying the use of their drugs to treat pediatric illnesses. If the
FDA does not get as much information as it hopes, Dr. Kessler indicated
the agency could force companies to do clinical tests for their drugs on
children. As always, Dr. Kessler assumes the solution to every problem
is to give more power to  government bureaucrats." (Medical Follies at
the FDA, James Bovard, op-ed, Washington Times, 12/20/94) ABLEnews
Editor's Note: Mr. Bovard is the author of Last Rights: The Destruction
of American Liberty. For his complete commentary, see FDA41220.*.

                         Food for Thought

"Unwrapping a five-pound block of cheese to underscore pleas for federal
food aid, advocates for the poor told Congress on Wednesday that
thousands of elderly Americans are malnourished. Food pantries are
turning away hungry families, they say. One in five Americans is now
served by a federal nutrition program, such as food stamps or school
lunches. But many Americans still don't get enough to eat, and hundreds
of thousands of elderly people are malnourished, advocates and federal
officials told Rep. Ron Wyden (D-OR). 'As we speak millions of our fellow
Americans are going hungry,' said Wyden, chairman of the House Small
Business subcommittee on regulation, which held the hearing Wednesday.
'In our rich nation with its extraordinary resources, we witness the
tragedy of older people scrounging in dumpsters for their next meal. This
is a picture that shames all of us as a nation.' The cheese, a symbol of
the federal government's commodity give-away's of the 1980s, is no longer
included in the truckloads of food distributed to anti-hunger programs
around the country even as the demand for nutrition assistance has grown.
Eleanor M. Josaitis, associate director of Focus: HOPE, a civil and human
rights organization in Detroit, said low-income elderly are not getting
enough protein in their diets and want the processed American cheese back
in the sacks of groceries her organization distributes...Christine
Vladimiroff, president and chief executive officer of Second Harvest, a
nertwork of 188 regional food banks based in Chicago, said local agencies
are turning away hungry families because of lack of food and funds. The
more than 42,000 community agencies served by her network include food
pantries, soup kitchens, elderly feeding sites, and homeless shelters."
(Advocates for Elderly Say Thousands in Peril of Hunger, Malnutrition,
Martinsburg Journal, 12/22/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: See also, Many Go
Hungry, Congress Told, FP, 12/22/94.

                         Forget the Vet?

"Bastogne, Belgium--Besieged by German forces encircling this southern
Belgian town in December 1944, Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe received a call
from the German commander urging him to surrender. 'NUTS!' he replied.
Gen. McAuliffe's defiant response, scrawled on the back of the courier's
note, remains one of the most celebrated moments of the Battle of the
Bulge, when German troops brought a temporary halt to the Allied advance
across continental Europe...On December 16, tanks will again rumble
through the streets of Bastogne as hundreds of US and Belgian veterans
return to re-enact the siege by the Nazi army. The battle, named after
the dent German forces made in US-defended lines, was the biggest in
western Europe in World War II and caused the most casualties among US
forces...Bastogne Mayor Guy Lutgen was a boy in the nearby village of
Noville, scene of some of the worst fighting around Bastogne, when the
Germans killed his father. 'All the men in the village were rounded up,'
Mr. Lutgen recalled. 'Then my father, the village priest, and five other
men were taken away and shot dead, 100 meters from my home.' About 2,500
civilians were killed as the battle, fought in ice and snow, swept back
and forth over 2,000 square miles. Some towns and villages changed hands
four times...Nearly 90,000 Americans were killed, wounded, or missing in
action...About 150 US veterans, several hundred Belgian veterans, and
30,000 spectators are expected in Bastogne for the commemorations."
(Germans Help Celebrate Allies' 'Bulge' Victory, Jane Morrison,
Washington Times, 12/13/94)

"About 2,000 Americans who fought in the Persian Gulf war are suing
prominent German companies that they say helped Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein build up an arsenal of poison gas, a German magazine reported
yesterday. They have filed a civil suit claiming $1 billion in damages
for exposure to chemical weapons that they say left them with 'Gulf war
syndrome,' characterized by chronic fatigue, painful limbs, headaches,
loss of balance, rashes and diarrhea, Stern magazine said...The suit
claims that 20 defendants, including the German companies Thyssen AG,
Sigma GmbH, and Heberger Bau, sold Iraq 'substances and equipment' that
it used to create chemical weapons...No German company has acknowledged
selling Iraq such material or technology. The Pentagon has repeatedly
said it has no evidence that chemical weapons were used or accidentally
released during the 1991 Gulf war, in which the United States and its
allies drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. But Sen. Donald Riegle,
Michigan Democrat, has released a staff study concluding that the
illness might have been caused by an accidental release of Iraqi
chemical war agents. The US Department of Veterans Affairs has said
around 17,000 Gulf war veterans have been diagnosed as suffering from
medical problems similar to those mentioned in the lawsuit." (German
Firms Sued Over Gulf Vets' Ills, Washington Times, 1/4/95)

"The Department of Veterans Affairs, which last month promised to move
swiftly to carry out a Supreme Court decision favoring veterans injured
by treatment in V.A. hospitals, now appears to want to limit the amount
of compensation it must pay. On December 20, eight days after the
Court's unanimous ruling, VA Secretary Jesse Brown asked Attorney
General Janet Reno to advise him if the V.A. must compensate veterans
who signed certain medical consent forms. A footnote in the Court's
eight-page ruling said the government would not have to pay benefits for
the 'necessary consequences' of treatment to which a veteran had
consented. Although Justice David H. Souter, who wrote the opinion, used
as an example a veteran who agrees to the amputation of a gangrenous
limb, then seeks compensation for the loss of the limb, the V.A.'s
proposed interpretation would cover situations far less absurd. V.A.
officials contend the footnote clouds the question of who among the
8,000 veterans with claims should be compensated...Veterans criticized
Brown for what they said was a new effort to elude paying
benefits...Lawrence B. Hagel, a lawyer for the Paralyzed Veterans of
America, said, 'They've taken the narrowest possible reading of the
case.' Ronald L. Smith, a lawyer for the Disabled American Veterans,
expressed fears that the V.A. is attempting to draft new regulations
which would limit the number of veterans who can qualify for
compensation under the court decision. The new regulations will lead to
another protracted court fight, Smith predicted. 'Very few [claimants]
are going to receive benefits under the [V.A.'s] interpretation of the
ruling,' said J. Michael Hannon, a lawyer who represented Korean War
veteran Fred P. Gardner in the court case against the V.A. Back surgery
in 1986 at a V.A. hospital in Texas left Gardner with a leg deformity."
(VA Investigating Footnote to Compensation Ruling, Joan Buskupic and
Bill McAllister, Washington Post, 1/4/95) CURE Comment: What would be
"absurd" would be to believe the "promises" of the V.A., which has
broken its word more times than Boris Yeltsin. For previous coverage of
the Supreme Court ruling, see Veterans Win Battle with V.A. Hospitals,
WP, 12/31/94 (ON9501A.*).

"Pressure to address unexplained illnesses in Persian Gulf war veterans
has caused a hodge-podge of poorly designed research that won't help
doctors or patients find out what's wrong, the Institute of Medicine
said yesterday. The Institute asked the government to promptly end what
it called wasteful research and turn resources toward more
scientifically sound looks at so-called Gulf war syndrome--including a
large-scale epidemiological study that veterans have demanded. 'Based on
what we now know from these efforts, all of us--veterans, the public,
Congress, and the scientific community--must adjust our expectations on
what we will, and will not, find,' said Dr. John Bailar II of McGill
University. He led the review by the institute, an arm of the
prestigious National Academy of Sciences that provides health policy
advice. 'If this is going to refocus the scientific community, it's good
news,' responded Phil Buhdan of the American Legion. Of the 697,000
troops that have served in 1990-91 war, about 6%--43,000--have reported
ailments that in some cases even afflict their families. Claims range
from muscle pain, memory loss, and birth defects to respiratory and
heart problems and certain cancers." (Gulf War Illness Research Slammed,
Washington Times, 1/5/95)

                         Foundation Facts

"With Christmas only two weeks away, charitable groups from Virginia to
California are seeing an increase in need but a reluctance among working
Americans to open their wallets. 'We have gone into the holidays in the
worst shape we've been in for years,' said Stephen Burger, executive
director of the International Union of Gospel Missions, the umbrella
organization of inner-city rescue missions. 'Most of the missions we've
heard from are going into the holidays with donations down 15 to 20%...'
Col. Leon Ferraez, the Salvation Army's national communications
secretary, believes the reason is economic uncertainty among
middle-class Americans. 'Yes, the economy is good,' he said, 'but many
people, average working people, are not keeping up. There's a lot of new
jobs, but they're all at minimum wage.'...The period between
Thanksgiving and New Year's is when many charities traditionally receive
most of their donations. But officials from large and small
agencies--ranging from the Salvation Army to local family shelters--are
reporting concern about the pace of charitable giving." (Charities Say
Need Is Up but Giving Is Down, David Anderson, Washington Post, 12/10/94)

                         Front Lines

"Tooele, UT--At a sprawling Army depot in this isolated hamlet sits a
stockpile of nerve gas and other chemical agents powerful enough to wipe
out the Earth's population. In spite of a plan to incinerate the
stockpile, which rests uneasily in rows of 'igloos,' its fate has become
a matter of dispute involving investigators from four different bodies,
including a congressional subcommittee. The Army is prepared to proceed
with a plan to destroy the 14,000 tons of chemicals, including deadly
mustard gases and nerve agents, stored here since the 1960s. The
process, which would involve burning the materials at temperatures of
2,700 degrees, is set to start next September, according to Timothy
Thomas, the senior Army official at the plant. But the Department of the
Army, the House Armed Services Committee, and two agencies have launched
separate investigations into recent charges by the plant's former chief
safety inspector that deficiencies at the plant may cause havoc unless
major changes are made. Steve Jones, the inspector, identified more than
1,000 problems with the plant, including structural defects...The
outcome of the investigation could determine how one of the darkest
chapters of the Cold War is concluded...Since the largest share of the
US stockpile of chemical agents--42%--is based at Tooele, it was chosen
as the site where destruction of the material should start. The
incineration is scheduled to proceed later at seven other locations,
including Aberdeen, MD; Anniston, AL;  Pine Bluff, AR; Pueblo, CO;
Umatilla, OR; Newport, IN: and Blue Grass, KY. Jones' accusations have
reopened a debate about the potential danger of burning the nerve gases
and other deadly materials." (Dispute Delays Burning of Nerve Gas, Gary
Lee, Washington Post, 10/12/94)

                         Head Lines

"For those who study the brain, perhaps the toughest question has always
been: Who's minding the store? From Plato to the late 19th century, the
answer was simple: There must be one central control mechanism
(Descartes imagined it as homunculus or little man) that oversees all
the separate mental functions. But lately--and especially in the past
few years--many scientists have come to believe that the brain is more
like a committee without a chairman, in which rogue members may
sometimes act alone or fail to show up for meetings. Such discoveries,
Washington neurologist Richard M. Restak explains in his new book, 'The
Modular Brain,' are part of a 'truly revolutionary theory of the brain's
operation, modular therapy.' This view 'holds that our experience is not
a matter of combining at one master site...all the separate components
into one central perception. As strange as it may sound, there is no
master site, no center of convergence.' Instead, many different
sections--although massively interconnected--do their work
simultaneously in parallel. It now seems probable, he writes, that
'knowledge within the brain is not stored as a unity (a tiger) but
according to separate components or modules (the sight of the tiger, its
roar, its smell, etc.). Further, some of these modular components may
malfunction without affecting any of the others.' Take the strange case
of S.M. reported by a team from the University of Iowa College of
Medicine in last week's issue of the journal Nature. This 30-year-old
woman with a normal IQ but a 'remarkable' history of 'defective personal
and social decision-making' suffers from a rare form of brain damage
that destroyed an almond-sized structure called the amygdala. As a
result, she is almost completely deficient in recognizing fear in
pictures of faces. She also does not perceive much similarity between
even closely related facial expressions such as happiness and surprise.
Yet she can immediately recognize pictures of familiar individual faces
(including some she has not seen in years), and can easily learn to
recognize new ones...To two California researchers, writing in a
companion editorial in Nature, it also suggests that amygdalar defects
might play in autism, because 'autistic children are inattentive to
facial expression and it seems they fail to interpret gaze direction
normally.' They add that similarly 'distorted perception of social
signals' could contribute to cases of paranoid delusion. The amygdala
has already been implicated in at least one common form of depression
that seems to run in families." (Committee Without a Chairman: The
Modular Theory of the Mind, Curt Suplee, Washington Post, 12/19/94)

                    Health Care Plans and Pans

"A federal judge yesterday asked the US attorney to investigate whether
Ira Magaziner, President Clinton's health care adviser, lied in an
attempt to defeat a lawsuit filed by groups seeking access to the now-
defunct Health Care Task Force's deliberations. US District Judge Royce
C. Lamberth said he cannot determine from the record in the lawsuit
whether Magaziner committed a crime--criminal contempt of court,
perjury, or making a false statement. He said an investigation by law
enforcement authorities is necessary to determine 'what Mr. Magaziner
knew and when he knew it.' The judge's referral subjects yet another
administration official to an investigation...Lorrie McHugh, a
spokeswoman for the White House, said, 'The White House believes a full
and fair review of the facts will completely vindicate Mr. Magaziner.'
Lamberth referred the issue to US Attorney Eric H. Holder Jr. because he
ruled yesterday that the lawsuit was now moot but he was concerned
enough about Magaziner's statement to seek an investigation...At issue
is a March 3, 1993 statement by Magaziner that 'only federal government
employees serve as members' of the task force's interdepartmental
working group, which he headed. Magaziner's statement was made in
response to the lawsuit filed more than a year ago by the American
Association of Physicians and Surgeons Inc. and two other groups against
him, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, and other administration
officials, seeking access to the task force...'Our position all along
has been that we simply want the facts to come out,' said Kathryn
Serkes, a spokeswoman for the physicians' group. The group's layer,
Thomas Spencer, predicted that once a thorough investigation of the task
force is completed, 'it's going to make Whitewater look like a traffic
violation.'" (Judge Asks US Attorney to Probe Magaziner Statement, Toni
Locy, Washington Post, 12/22/94)

                         Heart Stoppers

"A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday preventing
Oregon from putting into effect its voter-approved assisted suicide law
until a court can decide if it is constitutional. Measure 16, narrowly
approved by Oregon voters in November allows a patient to request a
lethal dose of drugs if at least two doctors determine the person has
less than six months to live. The ruling by US District Judge Michael
Hogan of Eugene is expected to keep the issue from being resolved for at
least a year. The measure was supposed to take effect December 8, but
Hogan issued a temporary restraining order the day before so he could
hear arguments for and against a permanent injunction." (OR Judge Delays
Assisted Suicide Law, Martinsburg Journal, 12/28/94) CURE Comment:
Doctors do not have crystal balls and are prone to UNDERestimate the
lifetimes of their patients. Moreover, we do not believe physicians
should cross the line from healer to killer. They do that too much
already. (Background articles regarding this case are available from
CURE on request.)

"President Clinton told Whitewater prosecutors that he called Vincent
Foster out of concern the night before the White House aide's 1993
suicide, but a busy schedule forced him to set up a meeting two days
away...Clinton's final conversation with Foster was disclosed Tuesday as
the Senate Banking Committee, concluding its work from the first
Whitewater hearings, released a portion of the president's disposition
last summer to prosecutors...'He didn't seem unduly distressed,' the
president said...Foster, a former law partner of Hillary Rodham Clinton,
was serving as deputy White House counsel when he was found dead July
20, 1993 at a suburban Washington park...Other disclosures in the Senate
material included: Clinton equivocated when asked by [then Whitewater
prosecutor Robert] Fiske whether he knew Foster had been handling tax
returns for the White House real estate venture at the time of his
death. Those documents were subsequently removed from Foster's office
and taken to the Clinton personal residence at the White House. 'I don't
recall that I was aware of that, no,' replied Clinton. 'I am just not
sure I knew Vince had anything to do with that.' But later Clinton
added: 'I could have known...I'm just not sure.'" (Records Show Clinton,
Foster Talked the Night Before Suicide, Martinsburg Journal, 1/4/95)

                         Mal-Practice

"Thousands of Americans were subjected to secret chemical and germ
warfare tests during the Cold War era, but their names and fates remain
largely unknown, a congressional panel was told Wednesday. 'Today
individuals who were injured in these experiments, and their families,
are still trying to find out the truth of what happened,' said Rep. John
Conyers, chairman of the House Government Operations Committee. Some
people died as the result of secret tests that 'sound like something out
of a science fiction novel,' Mr. Conyers (D-MI) said at a hearing by the
Government Operations subcommittee on legislation and national security.
The victims of these experiments deserve the same attention now being
given to the victims of radiation tests, Mr. Conyers said. Secret
experiments continue today, some of it at locations such as Fort Detrick
in Frederick [MD], Frank C. Conahan, assistant comptroller general of
the GAO, told the subcommittee. 'It's clear that this research
continues. Hopefully it continues under the ground rules of the 1974, as
amended, regulations.' He said the scope of his investigation did not
allow him to review current practices at Fort Detrick, however. 'We have
not reviewed that. It is my hope, of course, that they are complying
with the current ground rules which requires them to provide accurate
information as to what the subjects are involved in and to gain their
consent.'...Earlier this year, President Clinton created an advisory
committee to uncover information about secret radiation tests, notify
people who were exposed, and help them seek compensation. Mr. Conyers
urged the president to extend the committee's power to cover other types
of Cold War tests as well. Between 1940 and 1974, experiments were
performed on at least a half-million individuals, including 210,000
people exposed to radiation, according to research by the General
Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress. The tests were
conducted on prison inmates, hospital patients, mental patients, members
of the military, and others. Some had no idea they were subjects of
experiments; others volunteered but weren't told of the risks involved.
In addition, Army researchers sprayed zinc cadmium sulfide--a chemical
now associated with cancer--over more than 200 cities, GAO investigators
found...Mr. Conyers called on the Army to release a list of all the
cities, which includes Minneapolis, St. Louis, Detroit, and Springfield,
IL." (Detrick Tests Continue, GAO Says, Frederick Post, 9/29/94)

"The longest-running and most visible scientific misconduct case in
recent memory, involving a researcher on the team of Nobel Prize-winning
scientist David Baltimore, finally ground to a close last week with the
levying of a heavy penalty--10 years' ineligibility for federal research
grants--against the researcher, Thereza Imanishi-Kari. In an irony of
political timing, the conclusion of the case that permanently besmirched
Mr. Baltimore's reputation came just when the man who made the case a
career-breaker was losing his own empire. We speak, of course, of
Michigan Rep. John Dingell, longtime chairman of the powerful oversight
and investigations subcommittee that investigated Ms. Imanishi-Kari and
Mr. Baltimore in 1988 and that sought--with considerable success--to
turn them into symbols of a scientific establishment adverse to
oversight and impervious to criticism from outside...Scientific
misconduct became such an issue in the 1980s...because oversight of the
large sums of federal research money going to scientists was ineffective
and scientists themselves too dismissive of complaints from outside.
That was the burden of the charge against Dr. Baltimore,...who ran a lab
in which accusations against Dr. Imanishi-Kari had not only been ignored
but had led to what the accuser, researcher Margot O'Toole, claimed was
retaliation." (Last Act in the Baltimore Case, editorial, WP, 12/12/94)

                         Medicine Chest

"Quick, what was that prescription your father takes for his ulcer?
Zantac? Xanax? Zenate? Or that heart drug your uncle takes. Cardizem?
Procardia? Cardura? Or that new breast cancer drug, Taxol--or was it
Paxil? Pharmaceutical makers seem intent on tying the American tongue
with brand names that defy linguistic logic and often look and sound
like one another. While other new product names are designed to be
memorable, drug companies seem to live in a nether world of
pharmo-jargon founded by ancient Greeks and populated only by doctors
and druggists. It's not just confusing--it's also dangerous.
Misunderstandings over names have led to fatal mistakes in
prescriptions. Drugmakers say they want names that are easy to remember,
pronounce, and spell, but that it's a difficult goal to reach. 'There's
only 26 letters in the Roman alphabet and there's a glut of trademarks,'
said Marty Mazurek, a naming executive with Merck & Company, the world's
largest drugmaker. Companies also face a complex naming process, watched
over by the US Food and Drug Administration and trademark offices in
every country where they want to sell drugs. So sometimes, even when
they think they've found that perfect five-letter moniker, it can end up
translating to something like 'death' in Chinese. As a result, finding
new drug names can cost up to $200,00 and take up to four years,
companies say." (Drug Names From A to Z, Steve Sakson, Martinsburg
Journal, 11/10/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: For the top-ten best-selling
drugs in the United States, see MED41110.*.

"Prolonged or frequent use of two common over-the-counter pain medicines
increases a person's chance of developing irreversible kidney failure,
results of a new study show. Adults who take the equivalent of more than
two tablets of ibuprofen a day for seven years have roughly nine times
the risk of kidney failure seen in people who take about two tablets a
week, according to the report. Similar consumption of acetaminophen, the
most popular painkiller in the United States, increases the risk of
kidney failure about twofold. In contrast, frequent aspirin uses seem to
be at no increased risk, wrote the authors of a study appearing in
today's New England Journal of Medicine. Overall, up to 10% of the new
cases of kidney failure...might be avoided annually with more moderate
use of the drugs...There are about 190,000 people with irreversible
kidney failure in the United States, with about 50,000 new cases a
year...Hypertension or diabetes cause more than half the cases...The
toxic effects of some painkillers--and in particular one called
phenacetin, which was pulled from the market two decades ago--have been
known for some time. The new study, done by epidemiologists at the John
Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, is one of the
few to estimate the magnitude of the risk to the general
population...Acetaminophen became available without prescription in
1955. It is sold under the trade name Tylenol, but is available
generically. Ibuprofen, sold as Motrin, Advil, and other brands, as well
as generically, became available over the counter in 1984...Statistics
on national consumption of the drugs are hard to obtain. But David Saks,
a pharmaceutical industry analyst at Gruntal & Company, in New York,
said acetaminophen clearly outsells aspirin." (Regular Use of
Painkillers Raises Risk of Kidney Failure, David Brown, Washington Post,
12/22/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: See also, Research Warns Against
Acetaminophen Use, FP, 12/22/94.

                         Poor Excuse

"The US Conference of Mayors, wary of government proposals to revamp
federal anti-poverty programs, warned yesterday that hunger and
homelessness in the nation continue to rise despite increases in
assistance. 'We're the ones on the front lines in this,' Detroit Mayor
Dennis W. Archer (D) told a news conference. 'When people start talking
about reforming, [make sure] they are not talking about
cutting.'...[His] remarks coincided with the release of the conference's
10th annual survey on 'Hunger and Homelessness in America's Cities.' The
report found that requests for food assistance rose an average of 12%
this year and requests for emergency shelter rose 13%. At the same time,
the survey found that shelters in 72% of the cities turned away requests
for assistance because of lack of resources...Cities' shortcomings were
outlined last week in a separate study by the National Law Center on
Homelessness and Poverty, which found that 42 of 49 cities surveyed had
either passed punitive ordinances or selectively enforced laws aimed at
criminalizing homelessness." (Hunger and Homelessness on the Rise,
Mayors Warn, Guy Gugliotta, Washington Post, 12/20/94) ABLEnews Editor's
Note: See also, Emergency Food Requests Rise 12% in a Year, Mayors
Report, MH, 12/20/94. Interestingly, one of the cities cited by the
National Law Center for "punitive ordinances" is Alexandria, VA, whose
mayor, Patricia Ticer (D), chaired the Mayors report cited above.

"If death rates for children nationwide were as low as in the nation's
richest counties, there would be 23,000 fewer childhood deaths from all
causes in the United States annually, according to Citizens Fund, the
research arm of the health advocacy group Citizen Action. 'A child who
lives in a county where the poverty rate is low and where there is any
easy access to health care resources and other social services has a
much greater chance of survival than does a child who lives in a county
where access to health care resources and social services is limited,'
said study author Tom Pollak. 'There is a critical link between child
poverty and child mortality,' said Eve Brooks, president of the National
Association of Child Advocates. Brooks said proposals under
consideration in Congress to cut back food stamps and various child
welfare programs would only make things worse." (Poverty Linked to
Children's Rate of Death, Spencer Rich, Washington Post, 12/22/94)

                         Public Health

"More than half of the nation's babies fail to get all the shots they
need during the critical first seven months of life, and much of the
blame may lie with their doctors, researchers say. 82% of white infants
and 75% of black infants had an adequate number of doctor visits during
their first seven months, but only 46% of the whites and 34% of the
blacks were up to date on their immunizations, according to a study in
Wednesday's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Overall 59% of the nation's babies did not have adequate immunization by
7 months, the study said. Even infants whose parents are insured, well-
educated, and well-to-do frequently are behind on their shots...Children
catch up on their shots by the time they are 5 or 6 years old because
they have to be immunized before attending school. But specialists say
it is important to immunize earlier to protect against meningitis,
whooping cough, and other illnesses that pose the greatest risk during a
child's first year." (Most Infants Fall Behind on Immunizations,
Washington Post, 10/12/94)

"A group A streptococcus germ can't actually eat flesh. But given what
it can do, that news may not be very reassuring. Billions of the
bacteria can spread just below the surface of the skin like an
underground fire. They can travel in the bloodstream, infecting a half
dozen organs in a day. Their trickle of toxins can rev up the immune
system to a state of fatal acceleration. The speed with which the
bacterium causes infection, organ failure, and death 'cannot be matched
by any other infectious organism,' Dennis L. Stevens, an expert in group
A streptococcus, wrote a few years ago. After six cases of 'invasive'
streptococcal disease--three of them fatal--occurred in Gloucestershire,
England, last spring, newspaper headlines declared the arrival of a
'flesh-eating bug.' The disease was in the news again this month, as
Lucien Bouchard, the leader of the Bloc Quebecois in Canada, survived a
streptococcal infection only after physicians amputated his left leg and
flayed open much of the surface of his abdomen. Group A streptococcus,
however, is not new." (The 'Flesh-Eating Bacteria That Really Has
Existed for Years, David Brown, Washington Post, 12/12/94) ABLEnews
Editor's Note: For earlier coverage, see Deadly Bacteria May Be
Returning, WP, 6/8/94, and Killer Strep Is Making a Comeback, MJ, 6/8/94
(ON9407B.*); The Germ of a Biotech Boom? WP, 8/9/94 (ON9409B.*).

                         Rescue 9-1-1

"Two paramedics responding to a maternity call were attacked by a knife-
wielding man they had stopped to help early Christmas morning, police
said. Both sustained minor injuries. Luke Hayes, 23, and Scott Bahner,
25, of Philadelphia Fire Department Medic Unit 14, were driving through
the Tasker Homes housing project about 1:15 AM, on their way to help a
pregnant woman, when a man flagged them down on the street. The man told
the paramedics that another man lying on the road needed aid, police
said. When the paramedics approached, 'the man got up. pulled out a
knife and began swinging [at them], saying, 'Give me the drugs,'' Det.
James Arentzen of the south detectives said. Hayes was cut on the right
forearm, Bahner on the left hand, Arentzen said. The paramedics treated
their own minor stab wounds and returned to service, he said. Both men
fled the scene, police said. 'We don't really think they were set up,'
Arentzen said. An investigation is continuing. As for the pregnant
woman, fire department supervisor Harry Johnson said another rescue unit
was dispatched to the scene but the expectant mother told paramedics she
would go to the hospital in a private car." (Paramedics Ambushed,
Morning Herald, 12/26/94)

                         TB or Not To Be

"A 35-year-old Berkeley Springs man who died Sunday at Winchester
Medical Center was Morgan County's first tuberculosis fatality in more
than five years, according to the county health officer. Dr. Rick Graves
said the disease that claimed the life of Kenneth L. Weller was one of
only three or four cases the county has had in the five years he has
been with the health department. 'We have been noticing, nationwide, a
comeback of tuberculosis,' Graves said. 'Over the past 10 years or so,
strains of the disease have been emerging that are more difficult to
treat in the standard way.'...Tuberculosis, Graves said, is a bacterium
that usually invades the lungs, but which can invade other organs as
well. It is usually treated with a heavy dosage of antibiotics and
constant monitoring. Death results when the infection simply overwhelms
the body, raging out of control. People with tuberculosis that proves
resistant and nonresponsive to treatment are usually urged to enter a
sanitarium for treatment to keep them isolated from others, said Graves.
Most go voluntarily for such treatment, but on occasion it is necessary
for the courts to order a person to commit themselves, he said. Although
there are sanitariums in West Virginia, none is located near the Easter
Panhandle." (Berkeley Springs Man's Death May Indicate TB Revival, TJ
Ducellier, Martinsburg Journal, 12/28/94)

                         World Desk

"Constanta, Romania--In the shabby maternity ward of the county hospital
here, Dr. Veronica Niculescu threw a greasy slab of brown soap onto a
table. Crudely made from cheap fat, the soap smelled like a barnyard.
'This is the only soap we have and it has no disinfectant properties,'
she said with disgust. 'We are told by the Government: hospitals and
medicine are not productive so you get no money from us.' The hospital
had run out of rubber gloves and there was no money in the budget to pay
for heat this winter, she said. Romania's health system is probably the
poorest in Eastern Europe and has suffered one of the sharpest declines
since Communism collapsed in 1989. But all over the formerly Communist
region, financially strapped governments have neglected health care and
now face what experts are calling an unprecedented crisis. 'The
mortality and health crisis burdening most Eastern European countries
since 1989 is without precedent in the European peacetime history of
this century,' UNICEF said in a report issued in August. A surge in
deaths, particularly among adult men, could be attributed to the erosion
of medical services, widespread poverty and stress, the United Nations
report said...A World Bank assessment this fall concluded that the
health situation was so bad in Eastern Europe that it was beginning to
affect the ability of some countries to compete effectively in the world
market...Many patients say that health care during the Communist era was
far from perfect, and indeed, often a scary procedure. But at least,
they say, it was basically free with additional bribes usually being not
much more than a box of chocolates or flowers for the doctor.
Technically, health care in the former East bloc countries remains free.
But in many cases, patients complain that payments to doctors are now
expected in cash and in substantial amounts...The gap in health care
systems between the former Communist countries and Western Europe is
'wide and growing,' said Alexander S. Preker, author of the World Bank
report." (Eastern Europe Health Care, Out of Cash, Has Relapse, Jane
Perlez, New York Times, 11/23/94)

"Clydebank, Scotland--The new hospital, standing on the site of an old
shipyard in this gritty Glasgow suburb, is a monument to medical
technology. It has a biplane peripheral angiography laboratory, linear
accelerators for radiation therapy, and ambulatory surgical rooms with
portable fluoroscopy. It has everything, in fact, that a doctor could
want. Except patients. Opened six months ago, the $280 million hospital
and an adjoining 168-room four-star hotel are virtually empty, their
corridors eerily quiet. Nursing stations sit darkened, whole floors
shuttered. 'Would you like a cup of coffee?' Christopher White, a heart
surgeon, asks a visitor. 'I just made a pot...' He will operate on just
one patient this day, compared with the eight to 10 operations he
performed daily in New Orleans. Conceived by two former associate
professors at Harvard Medical School as a showcase for American-style
medicine, the Health Care International Ltd. Hospital was supposed to
draw thousands of patients a year from the Mideast, North Africa, and
southern Europe. Instead, it has become an expensive and embarrassing
financial debacle, a victim of the hubris of its founders and investors.
Hemorrhaging cash because the 260-bed hospital was averaging only 20
patients a day, the venture was forced last month by its bankers into
receivership...And while the receivers plan to sell the complex,
investors--including Harvard University's endowment fund--will see their
stakes wiped out...Moreover, HCI has become a political liability for
the UK government, which gave the equivalent of $45 million in aid to
help create jobs in this long-depressed area of Scotland...HCI's
problems illustrate that the business of health care is changing around
the world. Once the domain of US and Western Europe, high-tech health
care now is available in many developing countries, so fewer people need
to travel abroad. For those who do, Glasgow hardly tops the list of
places to go. HCI is 'the wrong place, wrong time, wrong model,' says
[Niels Vernegaard, an American who is chief executive at Wellington
Hospital, a rival private hospital in London owned by Columbia/HCA
Healthcare Corp. of Louisville, KY]." (US Overconfidence Leaves This
Hospital in Critical Condition, Lawrence Ingrassia, WSJ, 12/20/94)

"East London, South Africa--A man who wanted to 'die in style' climbed
into a tiger cage at the local zoo and tried to provoke the fierce cats
into attacking him, officials said Wednesday. Fumanekile Ngqase climbed
into a cage at the Queen's Park Zoo in this Indian Ocean port city
Tuesday morning and began stabbing at the tigers with a knife, according
to police. The 27-year-old man received only a few scratches from the
tigers. When zoo keepers arrived, Ngqase [was] pleading for them to
shoot him...Zoo officials scared the tigers off by firing shots into the
air while police overpowered Ngqase. After treatment, he locked himself
in a toilet, threatening to kill himself and others." (South African Man
Tries Suicide in Tiger Cage, Martinsburg Journal, 12/22/94)

                         Telling Headlines

Bolt Beranek Agrees to Buy SURAnet, an Internet Concern, WSJ, 12/20
Bomb Scare at Lawyer's Office Was a Joke, Frederick Post, 12/22
Canada Puts Up Barriers to American Culture, Washington Post, 12/23
EPA Backs Auto-Emissions Plan Despite Industry Protests, WSJ, 12/20
$4 Million Book Deal for Gingrich, Washington Post, 12/22
Gifts Help Arc Clients Find Own Way, Frederick Post, 12/23
High Court Rejects 'Baby Richard' Custody Appeals, MJ, 11/28
Intel to Replace Chips, Washington Post, 12/21
Japan Is Ripe for US Veggies, Frederick Post, 12/22
Naked Patti Davis Nixed From Newspaper, Martinsburg Journal, 1/5
New Pollution Measures Get Go-Ahead From EPA, Washington Post, 9/15
Protesters Say Cuts Will Bleed Them, Washington Post, 12/22
Pentium Chip Fuels Debate Over Technology, Herald-Mail, 12/23
Quayle Returns to Hospital for Second Time, Martinsburg Journal, 1/4
Quayle to Have Appendix Removed, Frederick Post, 1/4
Sale of PCs With Pentium Chip Hold Up Despite Flaw, WSJ, 12/20
Satellite Confirms Man Caused Ozone Depletion, Washington Times, 12/20
'Superwoman' Loses Hero Status, Washington Post, 1/3
VA Bans Import of Oysters From Gulf of Mexico, Frederick Post, 12/22

                    Wish We'd Said That...

     I have to buy a small tube of pills which cost 600,000 zloty
     [about $30] and I have to take them all the time. I worked for
     36 years, all the time paying an insurance premium, and now
     when I need health care I get nothing from it. (Helena
     Gasiorowska, Warsaw)

                    ...Glad We Didn't

     From a purely academic point of view we want to be sure we do
     the right thing. (Mary Lou Keener, general counsel, Department
     of Veterans Affairs, on the V.A. effort to deny claims to
     injured vets in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling to the
     contrary)

  Of Note is published biweekly by ABLEnews, a Fidonet-backbone echo
  featuring disability/medical news and information. ABLEnews is
  carried by more than 450 BBS's in the US, Canada, Australia, Great
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...For further information, contact CURE, 812 Stephen Street, Berkeley
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