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                        OF NOTE...
                        News to Use

Vol. IV, Issue 79                            February 15, 1995
Earl Appleby, Jr., Editor                    CURE, Ltd.

                         ADAmantly

Business people and vacationers with disabilities will have full access
to the facilities in the Dallas Hyatt Regency Hotel under an agreement
reached with the Justice Department. The agreement, signed today by
Judge Jorge Solis in U.S. District Court in Dallas, resolves a complaint
filed with the Justice Department by several children and adults who
attended a conference of the Spina Bifida Association of America at the
landmark hotel in June 1992. The complainants claimed that the hotel's
owners, the Woodbine Development Corporation, and its operators, the
Hyatt Corporation, failed to make their facility accessible to
individuals with disabilities in violation of the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA). "We hope other hotels understand the
significance of the ADA in the lives of real people," said Assistant
Attorney General for Civil Rights Deval L. Patrick. "We are committed to
enforcing the law and hope that hotels and other businesses will
voluntarily take steps to make their facilities accessible." (Dallas
Hotel Agrees with the Justice Department to Become Accessible to People
with Disabilities, DOJ, 12/6/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: For the rest of
the story, see ACC41206.*)

In the first Justice Department suit alleging employment discrimination
against an individual with a disability, the Justice Department today
sued a Michigan fire department for refusing to hire a seasoned
firefighter with 15 years experience who has been blind in one eye since
childhood. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit, alleges
the city of Pontiac violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
when it refused to hire Dennis Henderson because of his unrelated
disability. The complaint asserted that Henderson, who has over 15 years
of firefighting experience, has been able to perform the essential
functions of the position despite his disability. "This nation does not
have a single person to waste," said Assistant Attorney General for
Civil Rights Deval L. Patrick. "When we deny jobs to qualified persons
because of unrelated disabilities, we deny opportunity to
everyone."...Title I of the ADA prohibits discrimination against persons
with disabilities by state or local governments, as well as private
entities...In December 1993, the Justice Department brought its first
case alleging a pattern of discrimination by a government when it sued
Aurora, Illinois, for denying benefits to police officers with
pre-existing disabilities. (Justice Department Sues Michigan Fire
Department for Refusing to Hire Seasoned Firefighter with a Disability,
DOJ, 12/14/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: For the rest of the story, see
ADA41214.*.

With a free shuttle bus at their service, residents near Chestnut Hill,
Massachusetts have had an easier time getting to the local mall.  That
is, all the residents except those with disabilities. When Rosemary
Larking tried to board the bus she found she could not. The vehicle was
inaccessible to her and other individuals who use wheelchairs.  In fact,
it has been inaccessible since December 1993, when the mall began the
service in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). But
this holiday season, that has changed under an agreement reached
yesterday between the Justice Department and the Chestnut Hill Atrium
Mall. With the holiday season in full swing, the upscale mall now leases
a 21-seat shuttle bus with a rear-entry hydraulic lift that is
accessible to Larking and all other persons with mobility
impairments...Larking notified the Justice Department after her 12-year
old daughter, Lorelei, who constantly looks out for access problems,
recognized the shuttle was inaccessible. "My daughter said, 'uh, oh. An
ADA problem'," said Larking, who filed a complaint with the Department
alleging that the mall was violating the ADA. "I hope this will serve as
an example for other businesses," added Larking.  "Disabled people are
consumers too." In addition to making the bus accessible, the mall also
will pay Larking $500 in cash or in the form of a gift certificate
redeemable in any of the Atrium Mall stores. (Holiday Shoppers with
Disabilities to Get Equal Chance to Get to Massachusetts Mall, DOJ,
12/23/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: For the rest of the story, see
ACC41223.*.

Persons with disabilities will be able to rent cars from Dollar Rent A
Car under an agreement reached today with the Justice Department.  The
agreement requires Dollar to modify a policy that prevented people with
disabilities from renting a car even if they intended that it be driven
by a licensed companion. Before today's agreement, Dollar required the
licensed driver to be the financially responsible party under the rental
agreement.  The policy made it impossible for people with disabilities
who cannot drive to rent cars, even when they had a licensed driver
accompanying them...The Justice Department began looking into Dollar's
policies after receiving complaints from two individuals who are blind.
The two wrote to the Department separately after each was refused the
opportunity to rent a car in his or her name, at different locations, on
separate occasions. Each presented his or her own credit card to pay for
a rental car, while a licensed driver accompanying each of them produced
a valid driver's license. Both were informed that company policy
required that the credit card used to pay for the car and the driver's
license for the driver of the car be in the same name.  The individuals
complained that such a policy was discriminatory against people with
disabilities. The agreement with Dollar is the second Justice Department
agreement reached with a major car rental company in the past four
months. In September, Avis, Inc. agreed to provide hand controls for
people with disabilities and make policy changes similar to those in the
Dollar agreement. (Dollar Rent a Car to Allow Persons with Disabilities
to Rent Cars Under Justice Department Agreement, DOJ, 1/4/95) ABLEnews
Editor's Note: For the rest of the story, see ACC50104.*.

                         Addictions

Former Kanawha County Judge John Hey apologized the other day for being
drunk on the bench and harassing female employees. Hey has been in
rehabilitation and is coming clean with the public about his behavior.
As far as could be determined from press accounts of his mea culpa. Hey
is not drinking any more and is feeling better about himself and the
world. One reason must be that his future is secure financially because
Gov. Gaston Caperton [D-WV] granted him a disability pension as he
stepped down from the position of trust he violated so willingly while
apparently disabled by booze. Ex-judge Hey is better, but he remains
disabled and apparently no matter how much better he gets, Hey will
always be disabled in the eyes of the state an eligible to take the
taxpayers' dole of $65,000. Lots of times when someone is habitually
drunk on the job and harassing fellow employees, his employer gets angry
and fires that person. The drunken person then hits the streets without
a job. In the Hey's case, however, the same conduct brings him an
enhanced pension and gives the voters just one more reason to be cynical
about government. (Luckily for Him, Drunken Ex-Judge 'Disabled' for
Life, editorial, Martinsburg Journal, 11/21/94)

It used to be that alcoholism was considered a character flaw. Later it
was accepted as a disease and counseling groups like Alcoholics
Anonymous flourished. Only very recently, though, has drug treatment of
alcoholism become accepted. The Food and Drug Administration approved
the drug naltrexone for alcoholism treatment only weeks ago. But one
Maryland doctor has been treating Frederick patients and others for
alcoholism with two drugs approved for weight loss for almost two years.
Dr. Pietr Hitzig claims the two drugs eliminate the craving for alcohol
almost immediately, and most of his patients agree. "I think Hitzig's on
to something," said James Brown of Frederick, an ex-Navy SEAL who served
in Vietnam and who developed a drinking problem after returning to the
states. Mr. Brown says the drugs prescribed by Dr. Hitzig are the only
thing that ever worked for him. The two drugs Dr. Hitzig prescribes,
phentermine and fenfluramine, regulate the brain's neurotransmitters,
chemicals that can drastically alter a person's mood. Dopamine, which is
produced when phentermine, an amphetamine is given, makes you feel
good..."Everything you enjoy...is rewarded with dopamine. When you get
dopamine, you need more," said Dr. Hitzig, a graduate of Harvard
University and Columbia Medical School. To regulate this, the body
produces another neurotransmitter, serotonin, which controls the desire
for dopamine. Dr. Hitzig prescribes another drug, fenfluramine, to help
produce serotonin. Dr. Hitzig says the two drugs, in tandem, stop the
addiction to cocaine and alcohol with very few side effects. (Diet Drugs
Used to Fight Alcoholism, Matthew Barakat, Frederick Post, 2/1/95)

For more than 14 years, America has waged a war against illegal drugs.
But by many accounts, the fight is a $250 billion quagmire. Drug use
rose in 1993 for the first time in 10 years, according to a new report
by Drug Strategies, a policy group. One in eight Americans--24.4
million--used illicit drugs in 1993. And half of those used drugs at
least once a month. As the White House unveiled its new $14.6 billion
drug strategy Tuesday, the largest request ever, the debate raged over
whether the best way to stop drug abuse and the crime that accompanies
it was treatment-- or punishment. The new strategy is similar to
previous plans, funneling most of the cash to law enforcement on the
theory that cops and courts are the front lines of the drug war. But for
all the money spent and people jailed over the years, drugs remain
cheap, potent, and easy to obtain...2.7 million [Americans] are now
addicted; 2.1 million are hooked on cocaine. (Punishment Or Prevention:
Opinion Split, Robert Davis and Sam Meddis, USA Today, 2/8/95) ABLEnews
Editor's Note: See also, $14.6 Billion Sought to Fight Drugs, WP, 2/8;
Little Agreement Even on Where to Draw Battle Lines, USAT, 2/8; Record
Funds Sought for Drug War, USAT, 2/8.

                         AIDS Addenda

A combination of a new AIDS drug, 3TC, and AZT helps fights the AIDS
virus better than AZT alone, according to two studies presented at an
AIDS meeting Sunday in Glasgow..."These results that we have seen today
show that people (taking 3TC with AZT) should be living longer," said
Dr. Francesco Bellini, president and CEO of Biochem Pharma, the
Montreal- based biotech company that designed the drug. AZT, also known
as Zidovudine, is the standard drug used to attempt to control
AIDS..."The results are fairly impressive. It's clearly a step forward,"
said Dr. Robert Schooley, head of the immunology committee of the AIDS
Clinical Trials Group at the National Institutes of Health...Schooley
said he is already treating some patients with both drugs, but after
hearing the results will offer the combination to more patients with
HIV. (Drug Combination Helps Fight AIDS, Martinsburg Journal, 11/21/94)

The federal AIDS program needs to rely more on the curiosity of
individual scientists, and less on the wisdom of committees, as it doles
out research money. At the same time, the government needs to spend more
of that money on laboratory research because better AIDS treatments are
not likely to be found without progress in the basic understanding of
human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Those are among the
conclusions reached by William E. Paul, head of the Office of AIDS
Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in an article in
today's issue of the journal Science. Both ideas mark a shift from the
recent AIDS policy, in which central planning was deemed essential for
research progress, and devising medical treatments for patients was the
main goal...Paul's analysis acknowledges that progress in AIDS is
lilkely to come through the traditional, often fortuitous, and largely
decentralized methods of virtually all other medical research. (NIH
Official Urges Shift in AIDS Policy to Scientist-Intiated Researchm
David Brown, Washington Post, 2/3/95) ABLEnews Editor's Note: See also,
CDC Report Shows Spread of Virus Is Leveling Off, WP, 2/3/95.

                         Body Politic

Newt Gingrich must wince when his friend and adviser, Heidi Toffler,
talks about abortion. "The fetus is a parasite in my body," she likes to
say. "Until it is viable, I have control over it...I would defend to the
death the right of a woman to have that parasite removed." Gingrich may
oppose abortion, but that hasn't stopped him from having a warm
professional and personal relationship with Toffler and her husband and
co-author Alvin. He likes to include them in free-wheeling bull sessions
about where the country should be going and how it will get there. The
mind of the speaker-to-be is a fecund place, and he fertilizes it
regularly through discussion and consultation with a broad array of
advisers and thinkers. Like Newt himself, they represent an eclectic
collection of ideas. It is a soup with a base of practical politics,
flavored with traditional "family values," spiced with a bold dash of
futuristic techno-babble...Some would certainly be placed on the fringes
of Idealand...Alvin and Heidi Toffler are the the perfect Gingrich
intellectual companions: futurists who talk about...the "Third Wave"
information revolution that will require organizations to become
leaner...to suvive. Heidi Toffler says things like..."The Democrats are
Second Wave and they don't have a clue of the changes that are occuring
in this country...They are an obsolete political party--which is not to
say that the Republicans are au courant. They too are an obsolete
political party."...[The Tofflers] were student radicals [when they
met.]...Later, they would mutate into Democrats. (Inside Newt's Brain,
Kim Masters, Washington Post, 12/12/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: "Bull"
is an apt metaphor for the source of Newt's fertilizer. As for
"parasites," they can be found--not in the womb--but in the fertile
breeding grounds of the World Future Society, the Progress and Freedom
Foundation, and other New-Age, old-bigotry think tanks. As Lawrence
Kudlow, economics editor of National Review, recently commented on the
McLaughlin group, "I think both Gingrich and Clinton are nuts to go down
this road. This is New Age relativism. There're no decent values
involved."

                         Cancer Chronicles

A study suggests that filters lauded for reducing tar inhaled from
cigarettes may themselves be dangerous--when tiny fibers are inhaled and
lodged in the lungs of smokers. The study, to be published in Sunday's
Journal of Cancer Research, doesn't prove a link between the tiny fibers
and lung cancer. But some experts call the finding significant, and it
promises to open new ground in the smoking wars. "In itself it is an
interesting line of research and it supplements other lines of evidence
that filters don't make cigarettes safe," said Dr. Michael Thun of the
American Cancer Society. The tobacco industry insisted that the fibers
were so large that they'd be caught in the lungs' twisting airways and
coughed up. "The data to me do not show he found a filter fiber," said
Christopher Coggins, an RJ Reynolds toxicologist. But Dr. John Pauly at
New York's Roswell Park Cancer Institute reported tracing fibers...to
pieces of surgically removed human lungs. He says the smallest lung
airway is half a millimeter, large enough to handle a 20-micron filter
fiber...A micron is one-thousandth of a millimeter...Filtered cigarettes
were developed in the 1950s to reduce inhalation of carcinogenic tar.
Today, they make up 95% of all cigarettes sold here...Pauly is an
immunologist who stumbled into cigarette research while hunting an
immune-based treatment for lung cancer. (Low-Tar Cigarette Filters May
Increase Cancer Risk, Martinsburg Journal, 1/14/95)

The December 24 front-page story on Samuel Broder's resignation as
director of the National Cancer Institute suggested that the Clinton
administration may want to reduce the funding for governmental cancer
research in the belief that private universities can do a better or more
efficient job. An important voice often ignored in the high politics of
those debates is that of the patient--the group of sick patients who
join the doctors and nurses in testing important protocols in various
stages of experimentation. I am a volunteer in Protocol NCI/NMOB 93-10,
currently being tested as a treatment for non-small cell (nonsmokers')
lung cancer by NCI. This type of cancer has notably resisted
chemotherapy. NCI developed, and is now testing, dosages of taxol and
cisplatin in a Phase 1 trial in a way that appears to show a
significantly better response rate than so-called standard treatment for
the disease...There is obviously an important place for continuing
research at large universities; these centers will eventually
participate in my protocol in the Phase 3 stage of randomized clinical
trials. But cutting back NCI's basic research in earlier phases would be
unjustified...Maybe portraying government as the villain in medical
research (and elsewhere) suits politics more than medicine. If so, a
special place in hell should be reserved for those who play research
politics with human lives. Those who do this would change their views
overnight if they, or members of their family, were stricken with
cancer. I hope the administration, politicians in Congress, and
private-sector lobbyists keep in mind the interests of patients
suffering a life- threatening illness before they shift independent
research away from NCI. --Richard Bacon, Potomac, MD. (A Cancer
Patient's Voice in the Debate, Bacon, letter-editor, Washington Post,
1/19/95) ABLEnews Editor's Note: See also, For the rest of Mr. Bacon's
letter, see CAN50119.*.

Better cancer screening tests are picking up more cancers at earlier,
more treatable stages, but lung cancer remains a top killer due to
smoking, says a new National Cancer Institute study on cancer trends.
Overall cancer rates went up 19% for men and 12% for women from the mid-
1970s to the early 1990s. But much of the increase reflects improved
detection, not a jump in the actual number of cases. Cancer deaths went
up 3% in men and 6% in women. Before sophisticated blood tests and X-
rays, doctors often couldn't find a cancer tumor until it was too late
to cure. "With earlier diagnosis, we hope the mortality rates will
decline" in years ahead, says epidemiologist Susan Devesa, who led the
study. Because average survival after breast cancer diagnosis is 17
years, Devesa notes that it may be a while before death rates reflect
improved survival. The same may be true of prostrate cancer...In an
editorial accompanying Devesa's report in the Journal of the National
Cancer Institute, Drs. Phil Cole and Warren Sateren of the University of
Alabama at Birmingham say the data show cancer will "recede into the
background" as a public health problem in the next 50 years. (Cancer
Rates Up Mainly Due to Early Detection, Doug Levy, USA Today, 2/1/95)

Men screened for prostate cancer had a 1-in-10 chance of having the
disease if a brother had been diagnosed with it, a study found. That was
more than twice the 1-in-25 risk found overall for men in the study. The
increased risk is probably due largely to genes, said Dr. Steven Narod,
an assistant professor of medical genetics at McGill University in
Montreal and an author of study. Earlier studies have also found that
men face an elevated risk of prostate cancer if someone in their family
had the disease..."It's a significant finding," said Dr. E. David
Crawford, chairman if urology at the University of Colorado Health
Sciences Center in Denver. It suggests that a man with a brother who has
had prostate cancer should probably start getting digital exams and
blood tests for prostate cancer at age 40. (Prostate Cancer Risk Linked
to Family Genes, Martinsburg Journal, 2/1/95)

                         COMPUTations

House Speaker Newt Gingrich is after Vice President Al Gore's reputation
as the capital's cyber-guru. In his first weeks as speaker, the Georgia
Republican--a devotee and promoter of futurists Alvin and Heidi
Toffler-- has sounded off time and again about the information
superhighway. Mr. Gingrich has asked the Tofflers to advise him on how
to recast the way Congress works so that Washington can move into a
"third-wave" society, that is, an information society. But though Mr.
Gore and Mr. Gingrich see eye to eye on some things, they are split in
their fundamental views of what Washington can and should do to help get
Americans tied into the Information Age. Mr. Gore, who spent years in
Congress studying the communications and computer industry , says
government should play a big role in ensuring access for all to the
superhighway. Mr. Gingrich, on the other hand, tends to believe
government should stay out of the way. Both sides have made the goal of
rewriting the nation's 60-year-old telecommunications law a top priority
this year. (Guru Status Sought, Washington Times, 1/26/95) ABLEnews
Editor's Note: For previous coverage, see Convergence on the Data
Highway, WP, 1/11/94 (ON9501b.*).

When Madeline Shea's infant son woke up in the middle of the night,
congested and cranky, she worried like any new parent. But she knew it
wasn't an emergency and, at 3 a.m., she didn't want to phone her family
doctor with what she knew was a case of parental jitters. So she sat at
her MacIntosh in Iowa City and wrote an e-mail to Dr. George Bergus
detailing young Michael's symptoms. Even though Shea knew he wouldn't
see it until the next day, she felt better, comforted her son, and went
to bed. When Bergus arrived at his office at 8 a.m., he turned on his
PC. He read Shea's message and sent her a reply reassuring her that
Michael's sniffles were normal. "I feel like I have a direct line to my
doctor at any time day or night, but without annoying him or
interrupting him," says Shea, a biochemist at the University of Iowa.
Despite all the noise about health care reform, a transformation in
delivery is under way. The instruments of change are computers and the
emergence of doctor-patient e-mail us a fundamental change in the
delivery of care. "I can sense the beginning and I see it as something
that will expand greatly in the very near future," says Jerome Kassirer
of the New England Journal of Medicine. He cites several trends: The
rapid growth of electronic communications and access to medical
databases from home. A new generation of comouter-savvy patients and
doctors. Patients taking more control over medical decisions. "These
trends are likely to induce cultural changes in the delivery of care
more revolutionary than any restructuring going on today," says
Kassirer. "On-line, computer-assisted communication between patients and
medical databases and between patients and physicians promises to
replace a substantuonal amount of the care now delivered in person."
(Patients Find 'Direct Line' to Doctors, Tim Friend, USA Today, 2/8/95)
CURE Comment: While ABLEnews strives to make its own modest contribution
to the field by providing medical and disability information through the
echo and the ABLEFiles Distribution Network, we caution that providing
information is not providing "care," i.e., treatment. Online
communication should supplement not supplant hands-on care.

                         Courting Disaster

The U.S. Justice Department today challenged a Charlotte, North Carolina
law which attempted to disperse group homes for disabled persons and
which required that they be shielded from adjacent residential
properties by trees and shrubs. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District
Court in Charlotte, the government charged that the city violated the
Fair Housing Act by using its zoning ordinances to discriminate against
persons with disabilities...Today's suit claims that the city's zoning
ordinance forbids all disabled persons living in group homes from
locating within one-quarter mile of each other and requires homes of
seven or more people to have buffers of trees and shrubs separating them
from other residential properties. Homes for non-disabled persons,
including group homes for unrelated persons, are not subject to these
restrictions. The suit also asserts that the city prevented a home for
people with autism from relocating to the lot next door...The suit also
alleges that the city blocked a home for people with AIDS...from
locating within a single-family district in Charlotte.  The city
insisted the residents are not persons "who need sheltered living
conditions for rehabilitation" as required by the zoning ordinance's
definition of group home because people with AIDS cannot be
rehabilitated. (Justice Department Sues Charlotte, NC for Discriminating
Against Disabled Persons Living Together, DOJ, 11/23/94) ABLEnews
Editor's Note: For the rest of the story, see FAC41123.*.

The U.S. Justice Department today challenged a Charlotte, North Carolina
law which attempted to disperse group homes for disabled persons and
which required that they be shielded from adjacent residential
properties by trees and shrubs. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District
Court in Charlotte, the government charged that the city violated the
Fair Housing Act by using its zoning ordinances to discriminate against
persons with disabilities...Today's suit claims that the city's zoning
ordinance forbids all disabled persons living in group homes from
locating within one-quarter mile of each other and requires homes of
seven or more people to have buffers of trees and shrubs separating them
from other residential properties. Homes for non-disabled persons,
including group homes for unrelated persons, are not subject to these
restrictions. The suit also asserts that the city prevented a home for
people with autism from relocating to the lot next door...The suit also
alleges that the city blocked a home for people with AIDS...from
locating within a single-family district in Charlotte.  The city
insisted the residents are not persons "who need sheltered living
conditions for rehabilitation" as required by the zoning ordinance's
definition of group home because people with AIDS cannot be
rehabilitated. (Justice Department Sues Charlotte, NC for Discriminating
Against Disabled Persons Living Together, DOJ, 11/23/94) ABLEnews
Editor's Note: For the rest of the story, see FAC41123.*.

Metropolis, IL--Connie Sievek says she remembers a lot about the woman
who came to her house on March 2, 1967, from her red nail polish and
gold-green eyes to the way she was slaughtered, disemboweled, and
burned. But Sievek, who was 3 at the time, says she remembered the
killing and all those details only after she began seeing a
psychotherapist two years ago. Now Sievek's father and another man are
accused of murdering Hattie Barnes because Sievek says her memory is
back...The murder case against Sievek's father, Larry Stegman of
Metropolis, and Joe Rickman of Selmer, TN, again raises the question of
the validity of so-called recovered memories...Recovered memories have
been central to several lawsuits and criminal cases in recent
years...Both the American Medical Association and the American
Psychiatric Association earlier this year said such recovered memories
are often unreliable and should not be assumed true. Sievek, 30, hasn't
seen her father for 15 years. She said many of her memories about the
slaying in Metropolis came when she began seeing [psychotherapist Sylvia
Dickey] Smith in El Paso, TX for depression. (Deadly Recollections,
Martinsburg Journal, 11/19/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: For an account of
how another court deal with the issue of "repressed memory," see Sex
Abuse Suit Dismissed in False-Memory Case, WP, 12/14/94.

Mineola, NY--Court TV introduced a new warm-up act for the morning hours
before the kickoff of the O.J. Simpson trial. It is the bizarre case of
Colin Ferguson, the accused gunman in the Long Island Rail Road killings
who is running his own defense and declared on opening day that he faces
93 counts because the massacre with which he is charged occurred in
1993. The legal profession couldn't ask for a happier juxtaposition. For
months, Americans have been fuming about lawyer overload from the
Simpson proceedings--that surfeit of big-ticket, egomaniacal legal lions
calling each other names, more intent on sewing doubt, than seeking
truth. Now, from the opposite coast, comes the lawyerless Ferguson, who
spurned at least three teams of lawyers who recommended an insanity
defense. (A defense psychiatrist found him paranoid and delusional.)
Ferguson now aggressively cross-examines victims day after day who say
they saw him methodically pump bullets into 25 commuters the night of
December 7, 1993, killing six of them..."Instead of a trial about mental
illness, we're having a trial that is an exercise in mental illness,"
said Ronald Kuby,...who was representing Ferguson for much of last year.
Kuby has been fired twice by Ferguson, first as his lawyer and then, on
Monday, as an adviser who had sat at the defense table..."Colin Ferguson
has now convinced almost all of the American viewing public that he's
insane." Kuby said. "Now if we could just convince him, we'd win the
case." (Raising the Image of Lawyers by Proceeding Without Them, Dale
Russakoff, Washington Post, 2/3/95)

                         Family Affair

Revised after an initial hospitalization lost most of their life savings
and many lost most of their income as well, as study of more than 2,000
adult patients released from five medical centers found. "Clearly,
serious illnesses are devastating not only to patients but to their
families as well," said Kenneth E. Covinsky of University Hospitals and
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, the
lead author of the study, which appears in today's Journal of the
American Medical Association. "Most notable is the fact that 96% of the
patients surveyed had some form of hospital insurance, yet nearly
one-third of them still lost their savings," he said. "Home care and
disability costs may now be more devastating to patients and their
families than costs incurred in the hospital." (Major Illnesses Found to
Deplete Families' Finances, Spencer Rich, Washington Post, 12/21/94)
CURE Comment: Patients may be even more "devastated" than the report
suggests as such economic pressures of often used to rationalize
checkbook euthanasia. For the rest of the story, see FAM41221.*.

Two Republican proposals to strengthen families by giving them tax
credits to defray the costs of adoption or caring for elderly parents
were welcomed yesterday by most witnesses at a House hearing. "We need
to make adoption more affordable," R. Dave Thomas, high-profile founder
of Wendy's fast-food restaurant chain, told the House Ways and Means
Committee. "I know first-hand how important it is for every child to
have a home and a loving family," said Mr. Thomas, explaining how he had
been born out of wedlock and adopted at 6 weeks of age, never knowing
his birth parents. "Life wasn't easy," he said. "My adoptive mother died
when I was 5, and my father remarried and moved from town to town
looking for work. But without a family, I would not be where I am
today." (Tax Help for Adoption, Elders' Care Wins Praise, Cheryl
Wetzstein, Washington Times, 1/19/95)

                         FDA Forum

A Food and Drug Administration plan to consolidate offices at Clarksburg
and Prince George's County [MD] came under fire yesterday by a member of
the House committee that will provide funds for the $889 million
project. Rep. John J. Duncan, Tennessee Republican, last night said that
Congress should reconsider the massive consolidation of FDA headquarters
and laboratories at a federally funded "Taj Mahal" in Clarksburg. "They
want to do something that should outrage every taxpayer in the nation,"
said Mr. Duncan, a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure
subcommittee on public buildings and economic development. The panel has
oversight over federal building projects...The project, expected to be
completed by the year 2003, would consolidate 40 buildings operated by
the FDA on 18 sites in the District and Maryland suburbs. The planned
new headquarters in Clarksburg would house 5,645 employees in 2.6
million square feet of building area, with the first workers in offices
by 1999. The project also calls for an additional 800,00 square feet of
office and lab space at existing FDA facility in Prince George's
County...Calling the FDA "one of the most wasteful, inefficient agencies
in the entire federal government," [Rep. Duncan] said it is time to cut
off funding for the project." (FDA Consolidation Plan Hit as 'Taj
Mahal,' Gretchen Lacharite, Washington Times, 2/1/95) ABLEnews Editor's
Note: See also, FDA Headquarters Almost Welcomed, WP, 2/3/95. For prior
coverage, see FDA Selects Clarksburg for $600 Million Campus, WP,
12/10/94 (ON9501A.*).

                         Forget the Vet?

During World War I, 4,734,991 US citizens served in the military.
According to the best records available,...19,747 are left. "I'm not
surprised so few people think about us," said Ray H. Fuller, 98, a World
War I infantry sergeant who now is commander of the Veterans of World
War I. "It's not so important that they remember us individually, but it
would be nice if they would at least remember what we fought for. If
once in a while they'd take the time to think about what our country
might be like if we hadn't won the war."...The World War I veterans
among us might as well be invisible--they range in age from 89 to 112,
with the average age being 97. It is believed that 85% of them live in
some sort of care- giving facility: nursing homes, retirement centers,
or with relatives who help them out. There was a time when the Veterans
of World War I organization had its own headquarters near Washington,
DC, with a full- time staff of 21. Now the group is administered by one
person--Muriel Sue Parkhurst, 48, of Alexandria, VA, who runs it from
her home, and who is no longer paid for her work. "I consider it a
privilege," she said. "My only regret is that we are having trouble
keeping the newspaper going."...The Torch...reports news and information
about those 19,747 World War I soldiers who are still alive. "For many
of the men, the Torch is the only lifeline they have to each other," she
said. "It lets them know that they are not alone...But the money that
comes in from membership dues isn't what it once was and the situation
is only going to get worse."...The surviving veterans of World War I
must contend with the same atmosphere of crime, the same unsafe streets,
as other Americans in 1994--and often are easy prey because of their
age. As their commander, Ray Fuller, chooses to remember the country
when it was somewhat different. "When we came home from Europe--what a
day," he said..."We marched across the bridge--in our uniforms we
marched across the bridge and over the river, back to our armory on the
other side. Right down Main Street, and all the streets were lined with
people. Cheering! They cheered us all the way to the armory. Oh, what a
day that was." worsen." (WWI Soldiers Have Become 'Invisible Veterans,'
Bob Greene, op- ed, Martinsburg Journal, 11/25/94) ABLEnews Editor's
Note: For the rest of this important story, see VET41125.*. A concrete
way to help would be to subscribe to the Torch, especially, if you share
our conviction that the vets themselves--not just their cause--should be
remembered. It's only $5 a year. Write: The Torch, Veterans of World War
I, PO Box 8027, Alexandria, VA 22306. Help keep the Torch burning for
freedom's defenders.

The Harry S. Truman Memorial Veterans Hospital is where old soldiers
often go to die in the university town of Columbia, MO. But in the
summer of 1992, hospital officials detected a sudden surge in the number
of veterans dying in Ward 4 East, a 28-bed acute care ward. Between
October 1991 and August 1992, resuscitation teams had to be summoned to
the ward 33 times to try to revive patients whose hearts had stopped,
according to a hospital review. During 23 deaths there, one particular
nurse was on duty, during 13 of those deaths he was the only registered
nurse on the ward. Many of the deaths occurred late at night when the
same nurse-- identified only as "Nurse H" in hospital reports--tended to
work. There Was "an unusually high number of deaths during the 11 PM to
7 AM shift [and] a striking peak on Ward 4 East between 1 AM and 3 AM."
For the small, 210-bed hospital, run by the Department of Veterans
Affairs and affiliated with the adjoining University of Missouri Medical
School, it was a puzzling medical mystery--or perhaps something much
worse...The nurse, Robert Williams, 28, who was identified by the
Columbia Daily Tribune when it broke the story on the deaths two years
ago...has not been charged with any crime or violation of V.A.
standards...Last week, Gordon Christensen, the hospital's assistant
chief of staff, who first raised suspicions about the deaths on Ward 4
East, charged that hospital officials had tried to cover up the problem.
These allegations, which V.A. Inspector General Stephen A. Trodden
called "serious," seem likely to revive concerns about how well the V.A.
runs the largest federal hospital system. (US Probes Deaths at Veterans
Hospital, Bill McAllister, Washington Post, 1/23/95) ABLEnews Editor's
Note: To conduct your own inquiry into the question raised in the last
sentence of the preceding item, see House Panel to Cite Problems at V.A.
Hospitals, WP, 11/20/91 (ON9112A.*); Veteran's Move May Have Hurt
Fragile Condition, MJ, 5/31/93 (ON9306B.*); V.A. Hospitals Provide
Inadequate Care to Women, WT, 6/22/93 (ON9307A.*); Study: Whites Get
More High-Tech Heart Care Than Blacks in V.A. Hospitals, MH, 8/26/93
(ON9309A.*); Inadequate Care, BS, 10/29/93 (ON9312A.*); GAO Report: V.A.
Centers Let 'High-Risk' Patients Out, MJ, 1/16/94 (ON9403A.*); Veteran,
V.A. at Odds Over Injuries, Benefits, MJ, 2/20/94 (VET9402.*); and
Special Counsel Accuses V.A. Official of Sexual Harassment, WT, 6/2/94
(ON9407B.*). N.B.--This partial list ONLY addresses articles citing
problems affecting V.A. hospitals and centers. Other problems plaguing
the DVA are not covered.

Hanoi--US veterans gave a former North Vietnamese general a briefcase
full of battlefield relics Monday, saying it could help Vietnam identify
up to 3,800 of its MIAs. The president of Vietnam Veterans of America
handed over maps, photographs, letters and uniform insignia donated by
U.S. veterans who had taken the items from dead and captured Vietnamese.
In turn, Maj. Gen. Nguyen Trong Vinh vowed to press his comrades to
speak with Americans they fought against in specific battles, in order
to provide more clues to the fate of U.S. servicemen missing since the
Vietnam War. The general's commitment marked a significant step forward
for the U.S. effort, said Vernon Valenzuela of the Vietnam Veterans of
America. Earlier Monday, 21 members of the group collected the newly
recovered remains of what are believed to be at least six U.S.
servicemen The remains are to be flown to the Army's Central
Identification Laboratory in Honolulu for possible
identification...American veterans made two similar contributions last
year, leading to the discovery of remains of 101 Vietnamese soldiers
buried in mass graves, Vinh said...More than 300,000 Vietnamese are
unaccounted for from the war. The United States lists 2,211 MIAs, 1,621
of them in Vietnam. (US Veterans Share Maps, Photos to Help Vietnam Find
Its Own MIAs, Bruce Stanley, AP, 2/13/95)

                         Front Lines

Vice President Al Gore, as a college student writing to his father, once
cited the US Army as an example of "fascist, totalitarian regimes." He
now dismisses the notion as "a college kid's silly language." The
previously unpublished letters were detailed in the November 28 edition
of the New Yorker magazine, which obtained the missives from Gore's
parents. After writing the letters, Gore served in the Vietnam War, an
experience he now says "allowed me to shed that nonsense about the Army.
"We do have inveterate antipathy for communism--or paranoia, as I like
to put it," young Gore wrote from Harvard to his father then-Sen. Albert
Gore Sr. "Obviously, that's a college kid's silly language in the midst
of a very intense period for the country," the vice president told the
magazine. "I went into the Army right after that. And I found out
better." (Gore Once Called Army 'Totalitarian," MJ, 11/21/94)

                    Health Care Plans and Pans

Nearly half the people in the United States who get their health
insurance through their employers have no choice of plans, according to
a study released yesterday. "They're very much at the mercy of whatever
their employer choses," said Derel Liston of the accounting and
consulting firm KPMG Peat Marwick, which prepared the study...The KPMG
study, which excluded federal employees, found that 45% of workers
covered through their jobs were offered only one health plan this year.
KPMG serves clients as diverse as big corporations and Group Health
Association of America, an HMO lobby. It compiled most of the data for
its own use and the rest of it for the Kaiser Family Foundation, a
health care research group. At the smallest businesses--those with fewer
than 10 employees--fewer than a fifth of workers with health benefits
were offered more than one plan, KPMG said. (Health Plan Choice Limited
at Most Firms, Study Finds, David Hilzenrath, Washington Post, 10/4/94)

The Department of Justice's Antitrust Division today approved a proposal
by the Chicagoland Radiological Network to form a network to offer
managed care contracts to third-party payers....The Department's
position was stated in a business review letter from Assistant Attorney
General Anne K. Bingaman, in charge of the Antitrust Division, to
counsel for CRN. Bingaman said the proposal would allow third-party
payers to enter into a single contract for radiologist services. In the
past, managed care payers often have had to contract separately for
inpatient and outpatient radiologist services and for professional and
facility fees...Under the Department's business review procedure, an
organization may submit a proposed action to the Antitrust Division and
receive a statement as to whether the Division will challenge the action
under the antitrust laws. (Justice Department Approves Proposal to Form
Radiologist Physician Joint Venture Network, DOJ, 12/8/94)

A subterranean struggle over health benefits is threatening to give the
shaft to hundreds of thousands of retired coal miners and their
dependents. A well-funded effort by a group of coal companies and its
Washington lobbyists could undermine a delicate deal struck by the Bush
administration. The deal was designed to replenish a health care trust
fund set aside for retired miners. The law--the Coal Industry Retiree
Health Act--passed...in the waning hours of the Bush administration.
More than two years later, the chief sponsor of the act, Sen. John D.
"Jay" Rockefeller IV (D-WV), fears that some of his colleagues are
preparing to backtrack on the deal. What was intended as a way to ensure
the health benefits that were guaranteed to coal miners has become a
high-stakes game of pass-the-buck for the companies affected by the law.
"It's a secret war," Rockefeller told us. "But a war it is, and I will
stay fully armed until I am gone from this place." (The Battle Over
Benefits for Miners, Jack Anderson and Michael Binstein, op ed,
Washington Post, 1/23/95)

House Speaker Newt Gingrich said yesterday that limited health care
reform could pass as early as this summer as long as President Clinton
and Congress' Democratic minority stand by a gradual approach...In his
State of the Union address Tuesday night, Mr. Clinton acknowledged that
"we bit off more than we could chew" with a massive health reform
package last year. He urged Congress to consider more modest reforms.
Mr. Gingrich, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, and other
Republican leaders in Congress said yesterday they support many of the
president's revised suggestions. "We are going to work on a health care
bill. We'll do the things the president suggested," Mr. Dole said in a
TV interview. "There are a number of things I think we can agree on in
both parties." Mr. Gingrich said Congress could pass three provisions
the president mentioned Tuesday: Accounts that would allow people to
save money tax- free for medical expenses. An extension of the tax
deduction for health insurance purchased by self-employed people.
Portability of health insurance, enabling people to change jobs without
losing coverage. Small businesses would have to offer insurance, and
insurance companies would be prohibited from denying coverage based on
existing health conditions. The latter provisions were included in a
bill introduced last year by Rep. Michael Bilirakis, Florida Republican
and now the chairman of the House Commerce subcommittee with
jurisdiction over health care reform. "It was frustrating--virtually
criminal--that these things were not allowed to be addressed in the last
Congress," he said yesterday. (Health Reform Bill Has Shot at Passage by
Summer, Nancy Roman, Washington Times, 1/26/95)

                         Heart Beats

When revised weight guidelines released in 1990 said it was OK to put on
a few pounds in middle-age, people cheered. But a report in the Journal
of the American Medical Association challenges those guidelines, saying
even modest weight gains in adulthood raise women's heart attack risk.
Researchers with Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical
School...found: Women who weighed at least 15% below the midpoint weight
on the weight chart, and those who gained fewer than 10 pounds in
adulthood, had the lowest risk of heart attack. Even modest weight gains
of 12 to 15 pounds during adult life increased the risk. "The current
weight guidelines are about 15% heavier than they should be," says
researcher Dr. JoAnn E. Manson...Dr. George Blackburn, Deaconess
Hospital, Boston, says this is more proof that heavy isn't healthy.
"There is no doubt that evidence giving women and men a license to gain
weight isn't there." (Middle-Age Spread Raises Heart Risk, Nanci
Hellmich, USA Today, 2/8/95)

                         Heart Stoppers

Even though the death rate from heart disease dropped 24.5% between 1982
and 1992, heart disease and stroke still caused 42.5% OF all US deaths,
the American Heart Association reported Sunday. In its annual
statistical report, the association noted with alarm that the number of
congestive heart failure doubled during roughly the same period.
Congestive heart failure occurs when the heart becomes weakened and can
no longer pump out all the blood that flows into it. In 1992, the
disease was responsible for 822,000 hospitalizations, up from 377,000 in
1979. It is the most frequent cause of hospitalization for people over
65...Congestive heart failure killed 39,000 Americans in 1991 and it
costs the health care system about $40 billion per year, the association
said. (Heart Disease, Strokes Still Major Killers Despite Recent Gains,
Martinsburg Journal, 1/16/95)

Nearly 2,000 infants placed on soft bedding items such as pillows,
comforters and sheepskins die each year from suffocation, a Consumer
Product Safety Commission study released Wednesday found. The federal
agency's two-year investigation was prompted by evidence that soft
bedding may play a role in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), which
kills nearly 6,000 babies a year in the  United States, according to the
study. It concluded that up to 30%, or 1,800 infants, of the SIDS deaths
may have occurred when babies were placed on top of such products. The
study reported that CPSC investigators discovered 30% of infants who
died of SIDS between 1992 and 1993 were found with their noses and
mouths covered by soft bedding. Most of the children had been placed on
their stomachs to sleep and were lying on top of either pillows,
sheepskin bedding or comforters. The study showed "an association
between infants placed on top of soft bedding and many deaths attributed
to SIDS," said CPSC chief Ann Brown. Soft bedding products should not be
used as a sleeping surface for infants, the study concluded. The agency
recommended that infants less than eight-months-old sleep in a crib with
a firm, flat mattress. It also said babies should be placed on their
backs or sides to sleep as advised by the American Academy of
Pediatrics. (Soft Bedding Kills 1,800 Infants a Year: Study, Reuters,
2/1/95) ABLEnews Editor's Note: See also, Soft Bedding Leads to Infants'
Deaths, WT, 2/8/95.

                    How Well Fares the Nation?

There is probably no solution to the welfare problem. It is the
inescapable product of an economic system with which the powers that be
are quite content. That is why politicians and social planners are
limited to tinkering with the going welfare system. Attacking the
problems at its roots would mean admitting it is rooted in the structure
of American capitalism...The health of the American economy obviously
depends on keeping a percentage of the work force unemployed. The
Federal Reserve Board sees to this by constantly raising interest rates
to keep the economy from "overheating." Among other things, "overhating"
means fewer out-of-work people looking for jobs. This is said to make
wages rise and promote inflation...The economy's need for unemployment
is gratified not just by the Fed's police work, but also by the
existence of a marginal class of people highly qualified to be out of
work. The chief qualification, of course, is lack of education...What a
pickle for the pol. Can he say, "The welfare mess exist because our
basic economic system demands that we have mess-making people living at
society's margins"? Can he say, "If sound economic reasons didn't
require us to maintain a force of marginal people, do you think we would
have educated so many for marginal citizenship"? Not likely...So, we
have this tinkering, which cannot do much about the welfare problem
except to buck it back to the states, or counties, or towns, which can't
cope with it except by courting bankruptcy or practicing cruelty."
(Those Vital Paupers, Russell Baker, op-ed, New York Times, 1/17/95)
ABLEnews Editor's Note: For other views and additional information on
welfare reform, see Welfare Reform a Priority, MJ, 11/14/94; Zeroing In
on the Poor, WP, 11/29/94; Gingrich Waffles on Welfare Benefits for
Legal Aliens, WT, 1/10/95; How Deep the GOP Divide on Welfare? WT,
1/17/95; and Scrutiny of Welfare Bill Begins Today in Committee, WT,
1/10/95.

                         Mal-Practice

A renowned cardiologist has been ordered to repay millions of dollars he
allegedly misappropriated from a medical practice that conducted
research into child heart disease. Bernardo Nadal-Ginard, 52, former
chairman of the [Boston] Children's Hospital cardiology department and a
former Harvard Medical School professor, was ordered by a federal judge
on March to repay nearly $6.6 million to the Boston Children's Heart
Foundation, a nonprofit group practice he founded in 1982. In October,
US District Judge Robert Keeton ruled in a bench trial that Nadal-Ginard
had abused his position and acted in bad faith. A civil lawsuit alleged
that Nadal- Ginard improperly took millions of dollars in benefits,
including more than $4 million in severance pay he received without
actually leaving his foundation post...Nadal-Ginard also faces criminal
charges of embezzling more than $400,000 from the practice and from a
start-up biotechnology company called Myogenics. He is awaiting trial on
those charges. (Cardiologist Ordered to Repay Millions to Fund,
Washington Post, 12/23/94)

                         Medicaid/care

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan today paid the United States $24
million to settle a lawsuit charging that it unlawfully billed the
government's Medicare program for thousands of medical insurance claims
that should have been paid from private insurance funds, the Department
of Justice announced. Assistant Attorney General Frank W. Hunger, head
of the Civil Division, said the settlement resolves a suit (United
States v. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan) the Department filed
against Blue Cross under the Medicare Secondary Payer (MSP) laws in U.S.
District Court in Detroit in 1989...MSP laws require private insurers
such as Blue Cross to pay primary benefits in certain circumstances
where a person has medical insurance under both Medicare and an employer
health plan...An audit by the Office of the Inspector General of the
Department of Health and Human Services found that Blue Cross paid
thousands of dual-coverage claims from the Medicare Trust Fund rather
than from its private insurance funds. Judge George E. Woods of U.S.
District Court in Detroit had ruled that Blue Cross must reimburse the
government for Medicare payments that Blue Cross should have paid
although the size of the reimbursement had not been determined...The
settlement resolves a longstanding dispute between HCFA and Blue Cross
over the extent of the company's liability for such Medicare payments.
(Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Pays U.S. $24 Million to Resolve
Medicare Claims Dispute, DOJ, 1/18/95) ABLEnews Editor's Note: For
additional details on this--and the following item describing Michigan
Blues' settlements in excess of $50 million, see MCR50118.*.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Inc. will pay the United States $27.6
million to settle civil claims it improperly billed and submitted false
documentation to the government as the fiscal intermediary of the
Medicare program in Michigan, the Department of Justice announced today.
Assistant Attorney General Frank W. Hunger, in charge of the Civil
Division, and U.S. Attorney Lynne A. Battaglia of Baltimore said the
settlement resolves a qui tam complaint, United States ex rel. Darcy
Flynn v. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, that was filed in U.S.
District Court in Baltimore on August 4, 1992. Blue Cross Blue Shield,
under a contract with the Health Care Financing Administration, managed
the Medicare Part A program and was required to audit the cost reports
of participating hospitals, determine which costs were authorized under
the Medicare regulations and make the appropriate payments...The
complaint alleged that Blue Cross Blue Shield, which is headquartered in
Detroit, defrauded the government by performing cursory and inadequate
audits. When HCFA asked to review specific audits, a federal
investigation revealed, Blue Cross Blue Shield "corrected" the audits
and backdated revised work papers to conceal the fact that the original
audits were inadequate and poorly done..."It is particularly
disappointing that one of the very fiscal intermediaries that HCFA
relied on to administer the Medicare program would defraud Medicare by
the way it carried out its contractual obligations," said
Hunger...Earlier today, Blue Cross Blue Shield paid the United States
$24 million to settle a federal lawsuit for illegally billing Medicare
for health insurance claims that should have been paid by Blue Cross.
(Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Pays U.S. $27.6 Million for
Submitting False Medicare Data, DOJ, 1/18/95)

Congressional leaders said yesterday they intend to revamp Medicare, the
government health plan for the elderly, this year. "We are going to
rethink Medicare from the ground up," House Speaker Newt Gingrich [R-GA]
told a hospital trade group yesterday. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole
[R-KS] echoed the same theme a few hours later in a speech before the
American Hospital Association. "Medicare is at a crossroads," Mr. Dole
said. "I want to know how to move Medicare into the 21st
century."...Neither Mr. Gingrich nor Mr. Dole gave details of the type
of reforms they envision...What's driving the talk about reforms is the
need to come up with deep cuts by the year 2002 to comply with the terms
of the balanced budget amendment. Since lawmakers in both parties have
agreed to keep Social Security off the table of budget cutters,...
Medicare...is a ready target...The 30-year-old program...was modeled
after the traditional fee-for-service system dominant when it was
founded. But today, the private sector is relying much more heavily on
managed care plans that typically lower the costs of medical services.
(Medicare Target of Congress' Checkup, Karen Riley, Washington Times,
1/31/95) CURE Comment: Managed care typically lowers costs by denying
access to medical services. On a recent news program, Rep. Henry Waxman
(D-CA) joined hands with former Sen. Warren Rudman (R-NH) to demand less
choice for Medicare patients by increasing the rate of managed care.

Charleston, WV--Lawmakers plan to focus their efforts to control the
$1.3 billion Medicaid budget on mental health services, which lobbyists,
lawmakers, and providers agree have bloomed. "The Legislature has to
balance the budget. Providers are totally removed from balancing the
budget. There needs to be some way to instill budgetary restraint into
the provider community," said delegate Bruce Petersen, D-Fayette.
Petersen, an osteopath, chairs a House Finance subcommittee responsible
for the Medicaid budget...Medicaid provides health care for 300,000 poor
people in the state. The federal government pays 75% of the cost and the
state pays 25%..."There's no reason the desire to provide service and
the desire to be fiscally responsible should be separate," Petersen
said. During a budget hearing for the Department of Health and Human
Resources, House Finance Chairman Bon Kiss, D-Raleigh, proposed giving
mental health services its own line in the state budget and extending
payments to providers from 30 days, to 60, 90, 120 days or longer...If
providers see the state has an attitude of "We'll get around to paying
you when we find the money," they may provide fewer services, Kiss said.
(Lawmakers Aim to Control Mental Health Costs, MJ, 1/23/95)

Anyone seeking reasons for the skyrocketing cost of West Virginia's
Medicaid system can find at least part of the reason in McDowell County.
Three ambulance services there have been transporting clients to drug
stores to fill prescriptions and billing the state for millions of
dollars for their services. The ambulance services also have been used
frequently for routine, non-emergency trips to doctor's offices.
McDowell County is home to only 3.7% of the state's Medicaid clients but
in the last three years has accounted for about 23%--or $8.6 million--of
the total Medicaid dollars spent for ambulance service in the state. The
state has suspended the three ambulance services from the Medicaid
program. That's good to learn. But taxpayers who read about things such
as this can't help but wonder: Why did it take the state three years to
figure out this was happening? And how many other similar abuses are
going on, undetected, in other sections of the state? (Medicaid Abuses
Close to Home, Huntington Herald-Dispatch, editorial, in Martinsburg
Journal, 1/23/95) CURE Comment: What if a Medicaid patient in McDowell
County needs an amulance in a critical care crisis? Are there readily
available alternatives?

President Clinton will propose no broad reductions in Medicare or
Medicaid in his 1996 budget next week, drawing a line in the sand for
Republicans who plan to overhaul both programs as they seek to balance
the budget..."There has to be some principle left in the Democratic
Party," says Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY). Clinton's budget will include
$140 billion in spending cuts over five years..."They've taken the big
ones off the table," says Ellen Nissenbaum of the Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities,..."Once you take Medicare,  Medicaid, and Social
Security off the table, you're talking about nickles and dimes." The
president's approach differs widely with congressional Republicans, who
are planning what House Speaker Newt Gingrich [R-GA] calls a
"transformation" of programs. Potential cuts in Medicare have gotten
more attention, but it's Medicaid, which aids the poor..., where the
broadest changes are planned. GOP leaders meeting Monday emerged with a
tentative plan to turn Medicaid into a block grant program run by the
states. The GOP attack on Medicaid would strip recipients of their
entitlement to benefits and cap the amount of federal dollars states
would receive..."We don't want to have it as an entitlement any longer,"
said House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich (R-OH)..."It is a giant
step backward," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA). Gingrich warned of big
changes in a speech Tuesday to the nation's governors. "We could wipe
out Medicaid any morning and say, 'Good luck,'" he joked. (Showdown on
Health Programs, Richard Wolff, USA Today, 2/1/95) CURE Comment: Why
aren't we laughing, Newt?

                         Medicine Chest

From Sports Illustrated to the subway, Americans are being bombarded
with ads for powerful prescription medicines-a commercial boom that has
drug companies smiling and doctors worried. "Pretty soon they will be on
milk cartons and hot-air balloons," said Dr. William Jacott, whose
patients have demanded prescriptions by name even before he diagnosed a
disease...The allergy reliever Claritan even advertises in New York
subway cars and the hair-grower Rogaine is all over TV. Drug companies
say their multimillion-dollar ads make Americans better advocates for
their own health. "The decision to prescribe a particular medication is
a shared decision between doctor and patient," said John Montgomery of
Parke Davis, which last week advertised its new epilepsy drug Neurotonin
in several major newspapers. And the ads do advise seeing a doctor,--
after all, the drugs are only available by prescription. (Boom in Drug
Ads Cause for Concern Among Physicians, Martinsburg Journal, 10/12/94)
CURE Comment: We advocate patients and families taking an interactive
interest in the drugs prescribed--and not prescribed--by physicians for
their treatment.

Drug makers improperly induce doctors and pharmacists to prescribe
certain medicines, using marketing incentives that range from direct
cash payments to multimillion-dollar research grants, regulators
contended yesterday. The result can be wrongful treatment, said Benjamin
Dobrin of Minneapolis. His doctor, under indictment for accepting
kickbacks from drug companies, prescribed a $30,000-a-year growth drug
that Mr. Dobrin said he didn't need--and that cost his family its health
insurance. "It seemed I was growing just fine," Mr. Dobrin, now a
5-foot-10 college student, told a House Small Business committee. The
manufacturer, Genentech Inc., and its drug distributor are charged with
paying $1.1 million in kickbacks to get Mr. Dobrin's doctor to prescribe
Protropin to about 350 children. Genentech also used private foundations
to pay for height  screenings in the nation's public schools, where the
shortest children were referred to doctors. Critics say such promotions
induced doctors to prescribe Protropin, a synthetic growth hormone, for
healthy but short children. (Doctors Accused of Taking Payoffs,
Washington Times, 10/23/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: For previous
coverage of the exploitation of children via human growth hormone, see
Growth Hormones for Healthy Teens, Treating Shortness with Shots, WP,
7/6/92 (ON9207B); Lawsuit Targets NIH Child Growth Research, WPH,
7/13/92 (ON9208A.*); FDA OKs Growth Drug to Help Kids, MH, 10/25/93
(ON9312A.*); Kickbacks Alleged in Sale of Children's Growth Drug, WP,
8/5/94 (ON9410A.*); and Genentech, Nonprofit Link Studied, WP, 8/16/94
(ON9411A.*).

The American system of drug regulation works better than several
European nations' programs at preventing dangerous drugs from reaching
consumers, a new study released yesterday concluded. The Public Citizen
Health Research Group compared the number of drugs that had been taken
off the market after approval in four countries because of dangerous
side effects. Of 56 drugs withdrawn from the market between 1970 and
1992, 31 were withdrawn in France, 30 in Germany, 23 in the United
Kingdom, and nine in the United States. (In several cases, the same drug
was withdrawn in more than one country.) Of the nine drugs withdrawn
from the US market, three of the manufacturers later pleaded guilty to
criminal charges of having withheld evidence of drug risks from
regulators. The report shows that America's drug regulatory system
"protects people from a large number of products that kill and injure
people in other countries," said Sidney M. Wolfe, executive director of
the Health Research Group. "It is really 'advantage-US' by far."..."By
having lower safety and efficacy standards, other countries are making
guinea pigs out of their population," Wolfe said...The FDA often has
been criticized by companies that make drugs and medical devices for its
slowness in approving new products, which they contend hurts American
competitiveness and ill serves patients...On Wednesday, Rep. Thomas J.
Bliley Jr. (R-VA), chairman of the Commerce Committee, which oversees
the agency, criticized the FDA in a speech to the National Committee for
Quality Health Care. "It just breaks my heart when I think of American
citizens having to go to Switzerland or Mexico to get the drugs and
devices they need to stay alive because the Washington bureaucracy won't
approve them," he said. "And I promise you this session there will
be--repeat, there will be-- changes in the way the Food and Drug
Administration does business." (Study Says US Has Better Barrier to Bad
Drugs Than Europe, John Schwartz, Washington Post, 2/3/95)

                         Mental Health Memo

The former president of the United Way of America, accused of taking
hundreds of thousands of dollars from the charity, revealed in court
yesterday that his doctors have found evidence of brain atrophy and
raised the possibility that a mental disease had seriously hampered his
judgment. The revelation about William Aramony, 67, who led the United
Way of America for 22 years, came as lawyers on both sides maneuver
towards Aramony's trial in February on charges he and two top aides
carried out am 11-year conspiracy to defraud the organization. Atrophy
is a shrinkage of the brain that can sometimes signal the presence of
Alzheimer's disease, vitamin deficiencies, or infections that affect
judgment, doctors said. Aramony's lawyer, William B. Moffitt,...said
only that he may introduce medical evidence during the trial that would
show that Aramony was incapable of having a criminal intent, a key
element contained in all 53 charges against him. (Aramony Defense May Be
Brain Atrophy, Bill Miller, Washington Post, 12/10/4) ABLEnews Editor's
Note: For prior coverage of the United Way scandal, see Competing
Charities See an Opportunity in Troubles at United Way, NYT, 3/2/92; Dam
Named Interim Head of United Way of American, WP, 3/6/92; Former United
Way Chief Continues to Get Paid, ST, 3/7/92; Local United Way Pens
Strong Letter of Rebuke, MJ, 3/9/92; United Way Committee Votes to
Suspend Aramony's Salary, WP, 3/10/92; US Probing the Operation of
United Way Under Aramony, WP, 5/28/92; United Way Urges Staff to Quit or
Take Leave Without Pay, WP, 6/3/92; Troubled United Way Expands Board by
50%, WP, 8/20/92; Head of Peace Corps Named United Way President, NYT,
8/27/92; Former United Way Chief Aramony Is Indicted, WP, 9/14/94
(ON9411A.*); and Former United Way Leaders Indicted, Local Chapters
Unaffected, MJ, 9/15/94.

The Justice Department today asked a federal court to hold the State of
Hawaii in contempt for failing to improve conditions at the state
hospital.  It called the current situation one of chaos and crisis in
which staff physically abuse patients and retaliate against colleagues
who have reported the abuse. Today's contempt motion accused the state
of failing to comply with a September 1991 agreement in which it
promised to upgrade conditions at the Hawaii State Hospital in Kaneohe.
In papers filed in U.S. District Court in Honolulu, the Justice
Department cited severe understaffing, physical abuse and neglect of
patients, and refusal to discipline abusive employees..."Three years ago
we turned to the court to help improve conditions and to provide
adequate psychiatric care at the hospital," said Assistant Attorney
General for Civil Rights Deval L. Patrick. "The state has failed to
carry out its responsibilities and we must now turn back to the court to
protect the rights of the patients."...Eighteen former and current staff
members signed sworn statements also filed today in court echoing the
Justice Department's concerns. Today's action asks the court to assign
an independent monitor to oversee the state's compliance efforts, force
the state to hire additional staff and reduce the hospital population to
a level where staff can adequately supervise patients, ensure their
safety, and provide treatment. (Justice Department Asks to Hold Hawaii
in Contempt for Failing to Improve Conditions at State Hospital, DOJ,
12/14/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: For the rest of the story, see
MH41214.*.

Scientists have recommended that the Food and Drug Administration
approve an epilepsy drug to treat manic depression, making it the first
new drug for the devastating mental illness in 25 years. After examining
the results from 21-day trials, an FDA advisory committee ruled Monday
that Depakote, made by Abbott Laboratories, proved safe and effective in
treating manic depression. More than 2 million Americans suffer from
manic depression, a chronic disease involving wide mood swings and
cycles of hyperactivity and depression. An estimated two-thirds receive
no treatment. Lithium, approved 25 years ago, is the only drug
specifically approved to treat manic depression. But as studies in
recent years began indicating the epilepsy drug Depakote might work,
some physicians began prescribing it. While the FDA is not obligated to
follow advisory committee rulings, it usually does. (New Drug for Manic
Depression, Washington Post, 2/8/95)

                         Public Health

President Clinton yesterday named Henry Foster Jr, a soft-spoken
gynecological from Tennessee, to replace fired surgeon general Jocelyn
Elders. "No comment," Foster quipped at the Oval Office when reporters
asked Clinton if he would let Foster be as outspoken as Elders, who was
shown the door in December..."I can't do better than that," Clinton
said, throwing his head back in laughter. The exchange was lighthearted,
but White House officials are dead earnest in the hope that Foster can
fashion a less contoversial reputation than Elders. He blunt
pronouncements on abortion, teenage sexuality, and...legalizing drugs
made her a ripe target for cultural conservatives. Many of the same
groups that denounced Elders said yesterday they are no more satisfied
with Foster. In his home town of Nashville, Foster was active in Planned
Parenthood, which provides abortion counseling." (Gynecologist Chosen
for Surgeon General, John Harris and John Schwartz, Washington Post,
2/3/95) ABLEnews Editor's Note: To describe Planned Parenthood,
America's leading provider of abortions as simply providing counseling
is somewhat disingenious, to say the least.

                         Research Review

Mice with and experimental version of Parkinson's disease improved after
a natural protein was injected into their brains, suggesting a possible
lead for human therapy. An estimated 500,000 to 1 million Americans have
Parkinson's disease, which robs people of control over their movements.
The disease results from the death of brain cells that produce a
substance called dopamine and use it to communicate. For the mouse
experiments, researchers injected a toxin that killed the same kind of
cells. That made the animals less mobile. After these mice were treated
with the natural protein, known as GDNF, their movements increased,
their brains partly regained its dopamine supply, and their surviving
brain cells sprouted new fibers to connect to neighboring cells,
researchers said. The result is the most promising yet for such a
protein in Parkinson research, neurobiologist Lars Olson of the
Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden said yesterday in a phone
interview. He and colleagues at several institutions report the results
in today's issue of the journal Nature. In a second study involving
Parkinson's disease, GDNF was found to largely prevent the degeneration
of injured brain cells in rats. The researchers were from Genentech Inc.
in South San Francisco and the University of Southern California in Los
Angeles. (Progress Against Disabling Disease, Washington Times, 1/26/95)

An experimental treatment largely succeeded in preventing mice from
forming a substance like one found in the brains of people with
Alzheimer's disease. The treatment still needs years of research before
studies in Alzheimer's patients can begin, said study co-author Dr.
Robert Kisilevsky of Queen's University in Kingston, Canada. One sign of
Alzheimer's is deposits of a substance called beta amyloid in the brain.
Fibers of beta amyloid can kill brain cells in the test tube and some
scientists suspect they also promote Alzheimer's. In the new study, mice
were given chemicals that make them form deposits of a different kind of
amyloid in their spleens. Mice that got an experimental drug treatment
soon after they were given the chemicals made virtually no amyloid,
researchers said. In mice that already had amyloid deposits, the drug
treatment prevented further growth, scientists report in the February
issue of the journal Nature Medicine. (Alzheimer's Study Enjoys Initial
Success, Martinsburg Journal, 2/1/95)

                         Scent of Danger

Like Thoreau, Peggy Magidson went to the woods because she wished to
live simply. But she was driven by chemistry, not philosophy. Even as
autumnal nights chill to the 20s, Magidson lives in a campsite at Frosty
Acres Campground, about 20 miles west of Albany [NY] in the agrarian
hills above the Mohawk Valley. Swaddled in 12 layers of cotton clothing,
she sleeps in a hammock strung under hemlocks and beeches. She crawls
into a small tent when nights are frigid. She has taken refuge here from
the ubiquitous chemicals of the civilized world. Like the tuberculosis
patients who fled to the pine-scented air of the Adirondacks a century
ago, Magidson says that the fresh air of her wind-swept ridge is letting
her slowly recover from a debilitating affliction called Multiple
Chemical Sensitivity. "One day I'm president of a company, the next I'm
a derelict on the street," says Magidson, 43, who ran a telemarketing
firm from her New York City apartment until the illness struck her three
months ago and left her unable to enter her home or any other building
without becoming violently ill. "It was a shock," she says. I spent
three nights wandering the streets. I felt like something between an
animal and a guerrilla warrior." Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, now
under study by the Environmental Protection Agency, is a controversial
ailment. Some doctors say it's psychological. And among those who
consider it a physical disorder, there is disagreement over what causes
it, how to define it, and how to treat it. (Retreat into Isolation Is
Self-Imposed Cure, Martinsburg Journal, 11/9/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note:
For further information regarding Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, see
MCS41109.*. Stay 'Tooned: Sally and her pajama-clad husband Ted are
having a conversation in their bathroom, where she, dressed wearing a
nightgown and bathrobe, is preparing to brush her teeth. Panel 1--Sally:
They're talking about declaring our office a fragrance-free zone. Ted:
That's the goofiest thing I ever heard. Panel 2--Sally: Apparently some
people are bothered by perfumes. Ted: So they're going to ban them? Just
like that? What about freedom of smell? Panel 3--Sally: I don't think
that's in the Bill of Rights, Ted. Ted: Well, it should be. (Sally
Forth, 2/1/95)

                         Social Insecurity

Witnesses testifying before a House Ways and Means subcommittee
yesterday said an earnings test for Social Security recipients punishes
older Americans who need to supplement their retirement checks with a
job.  The earnings test "is a discriminatory and punitive tax...a tax on
individuals who want to remain a productive part of society," said Jake
Hansen, spokesman for the Senior Coalition. "The seniors we hear from
are not millionaires trying to find a way to fleece the federal
government. They are people who have worked hard and want to continue to
work hard either because they have to or they want to," he said. The
Contract With America's "Senior Citizens' Equity Act" would raise the
ceiling on how much income a senior citizen can earn before his or her
Social Security benefits are reduced...Some 925,000 Social Security
recipients now lose some or all of their benefits as a result of the
earnings test...Eugene Lehrmann, president of the American Association
of Retired Persons, said the loosening of the earnings test is long
overdue, "given the increased longevity and generally improved health of
many retirees, the prospect of an aging society, and a slower-growing
work force." (Social Security Earnings Test Punishes Elderly, Witnesses
Say, Cheryl Wetzstein, Washington Times, 1/10/95) CURE Comment: While by
no means opposing easing the earnings test for Social Security
recipients, we find the proposed gutting of Medicare by many Contract
proponents inconsistent at best.

                         Surgical Survey

Toronto--Two Pakistani toddlers born joined at the head were being
closely monitored Tuesday after doctors successfully separated them.
After about 16 hours of surgery, massive infusions of blood, and
extensive reconstruction of their skulls Monday, 2-year-old Hira and
Nida Jamal were in stable condition at the Hospital for Sick Children.
"Considering the surgery they've gone through and the extent of the
procedure, they're doing as well as we can expect," Dr. John Edmonds
told a news conference Tuesday. But doctors were concerned because Nida
had a buildup of blood in her brain, said neurosurgeon Dr. Harold
Hoffman, who led the team of 20 doctors and nurses during the risky
operation. If she suffered brain damage, her speech, movement, and sense
of feel could be affected. The girls were under sedation and on
breathing support in the hospital's intensive care unit Tuesday. Hoffman
said Hira is expected to start moving within three to five days. But for
Nida, "a lot depends on what happens to her engorged brain." Procedures
to separate children joined at the head--known as cephalopagus
twins--have only been performed 30 times. In two-thirds of the
operations, one or both of the children died. In previous such
operations, uncontrolled bleeding was the biggest risk. This time, the
surgical team had prepared to use eight units of blood--but it ended up
needing 27 units. Their odds are "significantly better" now that surgery
is over, said Hoffman. "They're both surviving and may survive a good
long time." (Surgery Separates Twins, 2, Martinsburg Journal, 1/25/95)
ABLEnews Editor's Note: Let's add to Nida's and Hira's odds with our
prayers.

                         TB or Not To Be

Four more residents of the Martinsburg Rescue Mission have been
diagnosed with active tuberculosis. Some 600 people have been tested
since the outbreak there was detected on January 6...The new cases were
reported by a spokeswoman for the Berkeley County Health Department
Friday. The news comes on the heels of a fatality from TB and a second
active case in Morgan County, and discovery of the original case in
Berkeley County last Friday at the Mission. In the first TB fatality in
Morgan County in five years, Kenneth R. Weller dies on Christmas Day at
the Winchester [VA] Medical Center. In all there are now seven cases in
the outbreak in the Eastern Panhandle. The number is high but not
unexpected among people who are generally considered homeless, according
to Elaine Renner, director of nursing for the health department. "We
should be concerned about the homeless population," she said. "They are
human beings like you and I." (TB Count Reaches 7, Rodney White,
Martinsburg Journal, 1/14/95) ABLEnews Editor's Note: For previous
coverage, see Berkeley Springs Man's Death May Indicate TB Revival, MJ,
12/28/94 (ON9501B.*).

                         World Desk

Gresthofen, Germany--It took an open house, an open field, and some
strong Bavarian beer, but a group of local farmers recently came away
from a biotechnology farm here convinced that genetically engineered
crops are the wave of the future. "I'm for progress," said Josef
Kremeter, sipping a brew with his colleagues after completing a swing
around the flourishing--and hidden--field of transgenic, herbicide-
resistant corn. The farm's developer, Hoechst Schering AgrEvo GmbH,
could do with more such thinking. Two weeks after the exhibition, the
field was destroyed by vandals, setting back the test program at an
estimated cost of $6 million to the agrochemical joint venture between
Hoechst AG and Schering AG...In Europe, the number of tests has grown in
recent years, particularly in France, Britain, and Belgium. But public
opposition is adamant...To Isabelle Meister, a Swiss Greenpeace officer,
genetic engineering poses nothing less than an environmental disaster.
"This is ecological madness," she said. "We will do everything to stop
it."...Using political pressure and occasional guerrilla tactics, green
opponent of genetic engineering in Germany and Switzerland have chased
away companies such as Hoechst, Schering, and Ciba-Geigy AG from open-
field research in their own backyards. (Genetic Engineering Is Resisted
in Europe, Margaret Studer, Wall Street Journal, 10/3/94)

Creel, Mexico--As shadows gather, some babies cry. Others lie in their
cribs at St. Theresa's clinic too weakened by hunger to do much more
than blink so slowly it seems their eyes may not open again. The state
of Chihuahua, part desert, part inhospitable sierra, has always had less
than its share of rain and more than its share of poverty. But this year
northern Mexico is suffering through its worst year of drought in 40
years and the state has been particularly hard hit. State officials say
rainfall dropped to less than 40% of normal, the state's main dams are
only 16% full, and about 100,000 head of cattle have died. The human
toll of the draught has largely been limited to the Tarahumara Indians
who inhabit the steep wooded mountains of southwest Chihuahua, areas
that even in the best of times barely produce enough corn and beans to
keep the Indians alive. Doctors at St. Theresa's clinic and public
health officials in the area say that infant deaths from malnutrition
have risen threefold and that by the end of the year the meager harvests
will have run out. Since many Tarahumara...do not have the money to buy
food or live miles from any road or store, this year's stunted harvest
could mean more deaths next year. Chihuahua's Governor, Francisco
Barrios Terrazas, a member of the opposition party has asked that the
state be declared a disaster area, a designation that would make it
eligible for federal funds...When federal anti-poverty officials came to
Chihuahua this mont to investigate the Governor's appeal for disaster
relief, they concluded that while poverty and malnutrition existed, the
situation was not a crisis...However, the evidence that something is
wrong was evident in St. Theresa's pediatric ward. In one crib, Julia
Bautista Gutierez, 2 years old, could barely raise her head. Sister
Virginia Borineo said Julia had suffered intense diarrhea for a month
and had shrunk to less than 12 pounds before her parents overcame their
mistrust if outsiders and brought her to the clinic. Across the room,
Maria Juana Ramirez spoon-fed her 2-year-old son, Candelario, fortified
liquid to ease his dehydration and gastroenteritis...She had carried
Candelario for five hours as she walked from her remote village. (Dying
Babies Are Witness to Proud People's Crisis, Anthony De Palma, New York
Times, 10/31/94)

Oswiecim, Poland--In the desolate January snow, at the place the Germans
call Auschwitz, the barking of dogs from nearby homes echoes over the
remains of crematoria. "I can't believe people actually live here," says
a young French visitor, gazing at houses just outside the barbed-wire
perimeter of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Few
visitors notice the town in the shadow of the concentration camp
complex, a cemetery for 1.5 million...where human ashes still rise to
the surface of ponds with spring's thaw. The camp museum doesn't tell
visitors that the Final Solution, which aimed to wipe out European Jews,
was a success in Oswiecim, whose prewar population of 10,000 to 15,000
was more than half Jewish. Today, the town has grown to 50,000 but has
just one Jew, a paranoid recluse who survived three concentration camps.
Ceremonies January 26-27 marking the 50th anniversary of the Auschwitz
camp's liberation will take place in a city far from at peace with its
past, In much of Poland, hostility remains against "outsiders" who would
settle here. Gypsies who came here in the 1960s under orders by
Communist authorities were driven out in 1981 by a riotous mob that
torched some Gypsy cars and rolled others into the Sola river. "They
shouted, 'Gypsy on the pyre and burn!'" recalled Roman Kwiatowski, one
of just a handful of Gypsies who have come back. About 20,000 Gypsies
were killed at Birkenau...In 1941, the Nazis moved all Jews out of
Oswiecim, where Jews and Poles had coexisted for more than half a
millennium...During the Nazi occupation, the murder taking place across
the river was well known to Oswiecim's townsfolk, many of whom worked in
the German-built I.G. Farben chemical works that still operates today.
Townsfolk washed with soap the Germans made from the fat of humans
killed at the camp and stamped with RJF for "Reines Judisches
Fett"--pure Jewish fat...Some took noble risks, feeding emaciated
prisoners or joining underground resistance cells...Most of the
estimated 250,000 Polish Jews who survived the war emigrated to Israel
or the United States...Only Szymon Klinger came back to stay. "His
brother keeps trying to get him to move to America but he refuses. He
says, 'I was born here. I will die here,'" said 84-year-old Staniszlaw
Neuman, one of just four people Oswiecim's lone Jew speaks to. (Life
Among Shadows of Former Hell, Martinsburg Journal, 1/15/95)

                         Telling Headlines

Advice From a Chronic Sufferer, Washington Post, 12/22/94
Babies' Lack of Immunizations May Be Doctors' Fault, MJ, 10/12
Ciggie Makers Wonder: Will You Smoke 'Dave'? USA Today, 11/29
Deployment in Gulf Raises Health Concerns, Washington Times, 10/13
Doctors Review Hip Replacement Surgery, Frederick Post, 10/6
EPA May Enforce Ban on Pesticides, USA Today, 10/13
EPA Seeks Tougher Warning Labels for Flammable Bug Bombs, MJ, 11/14
EPA Tries Another Plan for Clean Car Emissions, Washington Times, 12/20
Female Veteran Praises Staff at Martibsurg VA, Martinsburg Journal, 11/21
Good News Found for Bad Knees, Frederick Post, 10/6
Graffiti Found on Synagogue in Annapolis, Washington Post, 12/12
High Court Clears Camel Suit, Washington Post, 11/29
Ibuprofen, Similar Drugs, Linked to Blood Pressure, Frederick Post, 10/6
Judge Orders Prison to Accommodate Inmate's Satanism, WT, 10/13
Mom's Smoking May Cause Habit in Daughters, Martinsburg Journal, 10/4
New Mood of Environmentalism Takes Aim at Personal Choices, MJ, 12/4
Nip Weight Gain in the Bud for Better Health, USA Today, 10/14
NY Holds Party for AIDS Victims, Martinsburg Journal, 12/12
Nurse Charged With Raping Unconscious Women, Washington Post, 10/9
Officials Support Experimental Medicare, Frederick Post, 10/6
Orphanages: A Head Start or Holding Pens? Washington Post, 12/21
Panetta: President Clinton Won't Touch Social Security, MJ, 12/12
Pneumonic Plague Does Not Respect International Borders, WSJ, 10/3
Quayle Hospitalized with Blood Clot in Lung, Martinsburg Journal, 11/30
Seniors Not Completely Happy with Medicare, Morning Herald, 10/13
Small Pump Helps Save Heart Patients, USA Today, 10/4
Sometimes, an Orphanage Can Be Better Than a Family, MJ, 11/30
State Sick Leave Policy Needs Study, ed, CDM in MJ, 11/25
Supreme Court Refuses to Act on Baby K Case, Washington Post, 10/4
The Orphanage Experience, As It Was, As It Is, Washington Post, 12/12
The President's Childhood Immunization Program, Washington Post, 10/31
Transplant Fraud Case Is Sent to Grand Jury, Morning Herald, 10/6
USDA Study Shows Half Food Stamp Recipients Needy Children, MJ, 11/25
Vegetable May Help Guard Heart, Washington Post, 11/19

                    Wish We'd Said That...

     This is the big fear that we've always had about genetic
     engineering--that it would be used for social purposes and not
     medical purposes. (Jeremy Rifkin, 1992)

                    ...Glad We Didn't

     We could wipe out Medicaid any morning and say, "Good luck."
     (House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA))

  Of Note is published biweekly by ABLEnews, a Fidonet-backbone echo
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