Monster Media 1994 #1/monster.zip/monster/TEXT/ON9401A.ZIP/ON9401A.ON

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                        OF NOTE...
                        News to Use

Vol. III, Issue 52                               January 1, 1994
Earl Appleby, Jr., Editor                        CURE, Ltd.

                                  Addictions

"It gives some hope in the sense that it might be possible to restore
at least some function" of the brain. --Dr. Bente Pakkenberg,
director. Neurological Research Laboratory, Bartholin Institute,
Copenhagen, Denmark. (Alcohol Won't Kill Your Brain Cells, But It Will
Disconnect Them: Study, Martinsburg Journal, 11/14/93)

"Maybe our goal shouldn't be to get them to quit. Maybe our goal
should be to get them to quit for at least a week or to get them under
15 cigarettes a day." --John Pierce, University of California, San
Diego. (Quitting Smoking Easier If It's Gradual, Researchers Report,
Martinsburg Journal, 11/14/93)

"Many times they're robbing, stealing, and all of these things to get
money to buy drugs. I do feel that we would markedly reduce our crime
rate if drugs were legalized." --Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders. "The
president is against legalizing drugs and is not even interested in
studying the issue." --Dee Dee Myers, White House spokeswoman. "It's
outrageous for the nation's top health official to talk about
legalizing drugs." --Sen. Don Nickles (R-OK). (Elders Draws Fire, Even
From Boss, for Linking Legal Drugs to Less Crime, Joyce Price,
Washington Times, 12/8/93)

The Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Disease
Prevention reports that--while heart disease and cancer are listed as
the largest killers in the United States--tobacco is the largest cause
of postnatal death in America, contributing to the deaths of 400,000
Americans in 1990. (Tobacco--#1 Killer, Donna Thompson, CTC, 12/12/93)

"Secondhand tobacco smoke causes 30 times as many lung cancer deaths
as all other cancer-causing air pollutants that are regulated by the
EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)." (Dangers of Secondhand Smoke,
Jay Siwek, MD, Washington Post Health, 12/14/93)

                                 AIDS Addenda

"Despite widespread publicity about two cases of household
transmission of the AIDS virus, neither the general public nor
families with infected members seem to be panicking...One of the cases
involve hemophiliac brothers who recalled sharing a razor and cutting
themselves. They said they never shared needles used in their
hemophiliac treatment. The other involved two children in a New Jersey
foster home. The initially infected child had frequent nosebleeds and
mouth bleeding and yet shared toothbrushes with the other child--who
also had dermatitis, a condition that might have opened the skin to
infection." (Little Stir Over HIV Contracted at Home, Kim Painter, USA
Today, 12/7/93)

By the middle of 1993, 13 million adults and a million children
worldwide have become infected with the human immunodeficiency virus
(HIV). Two-thirds of the developing world's cases are in sub-Saharan
Africa, according to the World Health Organization, where heterosexual
transmission is the primary mode. In this part of Africa, six women
are infected for every five men, and more than 4 million women of
child-bearing age and 500,000 children carry the AIDS virus. (An AIDS
Clue in Kenya? Susan Oakie, Washington Post Health, 12/14/93)

                               Against the Odds

"Today, one of eight Americans have disabilities, and by the year
2000, it will be one out of five...It means that someone we care about
and love will be living a lot longer with a substantial impairment,
and that's good news for all of us." --Rick Douglas, executive
director, President's Committee on Employment of People with
Disabilities. Douglas, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1974,
described his motivation in dragging himself aboard an airplane last
August when airline personnel refused to assist him. "There are two
reasons why I had the courage to crawl on that plane. Because my wife,
Nancy, was there watching me, and because I knew the American people
would be as angry as I was." (No One Immune to Disability Impairment,
Michelle McCaskill, Pentagram, 11/5/93)

                                 Blood Lines

"Karen and John Settlemeyer have a debt of gratitude about the size of
Centerville (VA), where they make their home with their three
children. The Settlemeyers don't even know the names of everyone they
want to thank, just that they do. Last month, after giving birth to
daughter Eileen, Karen Settlemeyer began bleeding so much that blood
was draining from her as fast as doctors could pump it in. 'She was
hemorrhaging everywhere,' said her obstetrician John F. Maddox. 'None
of her blood would clot.' A call went out for blood donors. From 200
to 300 people showed up at the county's three blood-donor sites. Many
were police officers or members of their families--not surprising,
since John Settlemeyer is a lieutenant with 19-plus years of service
with the Fairfax County Police Department. Firefighters who saw a
notice about Karen Settlemeyer's condition on a countywide Teletype
also responded, as did employees at Fair Oaks Hospital, where she was
fighting for her life in the critical-care unit." (Precious Gift from
Many Givers, Marylou Tousignant, Washington Post, 12/23/93)

                              Cancer Chronicles

"For four years Donna Brannon was speechless. A cigarette smoker, the
slightly built mother and grandmother was diagnosed with cancer and
had her larynx removed five years ago...Brannon had already proven
herself a survivor. She had overcome a hysterectomy eleven years ago,
a 1984 quadruple bypass, and the death of her son Larry the same year.
She would survive a stroke during radiation treatments following the
laryngectomy. So, surviving was not the problem, speaking was. After
her voice box was removed, Brannon was unable to use the traditional
method used by laryngectomy patients, esophageal speech, a method by
which air is forced into the esophagus and released to form sounds...
She began doing research into alternatives...What Brannon discovered
was a fairly new procedure in which a permanent hole is put in the
throat, through the trachea into the food tube, where a valve (known
as the Blom/Singer) is placed to aid speech...By placing her thumb
over the hole in her throat, Brannon is able to manipulate the flow of
air. Developed 10 years ago, this is the latest, most modern process
for throat cancer patients, according to (Dr. John) Carter (Brannon's
speech pathologist), to make prolonged speech easier." (Cancer Patient
Overcomes Handicap With New Technique, Trish Reid, MJ, 11/14/93)

"Women's health issues--and in particular options for breast cancer
treatment--have been widely ignored. It's time to shed some light on
these issues." --Swoosie Kurtz, whose character on NBC's Sisters,
Alexis, was diagnosed with breast cancer last season. (Kurtz's Cancer
Crusade, Donna Gable, USA Today, 12/6/93)

                                Child's Play

"Parents should not assume that the toys they find on the shelves are
safe." --US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG)'s Trouble in Toyland
report. FYI: For a free List of Dangerous Toys, call PIRG at 202-546-
9707. (Shopping for Safer Toys, Sandra Evans, WP Health, 12/14/93)

                              Courting Disaster

Despite the pleas of Darlene Kincer, 32, Detroit, MI Recorder's Court
Judge Daphne Curtis would not drop charges of assault with intent to
commit murder against her boyfriend, William Powell, 35, who
reportedly dragged her with his van, slammed he into a utility pole,
and, according to Kincer's 16-year-old daughter, then backed the van
over her legs. "Frankly, we sometimes have to protect people against
themselves," Curtis said, denying her other request to lift an
injunction forbidding contact between the couple--other than phone
calls initiated by Kincer. "Eighty percent of it was my fault," Kincer
said from her wheelchair of the "accident"--as Powell describes it--in
which she lost her unborn baby, an arm, and a leg. (Paralyzed Woman
Wants Beau Freed, Martinsburg Journal, 11/13/93)

                               Dateline World

When the patient returns to the doctor months after he had  prescribed
a blood pressure-lowering drug, the patient's condition is unchanged.
Later the physician learns that his patient, who is Vietnamese, took
only half the prescribed dose because, like many of his countrymen, he
believes Western medicines are too strong given the smaller size and
weight of Asians. Writing in the Western Journal of Medicine, Dr. J.
Dennis Mull, a family practice physician and public health specialist
at the University of California at Irvine Medical Center, observes: "I
assume I have just a couple of days to make foreign-born patients
better. This is not surprising if one considers that in some
developing countries it is the custom to prescribe medications only a
day or two." (Prescribing Treatment Across a Cultural Gap, Sandra
Boodman, Washington Post Health, 12/14/93)

"In the United States and Europe it can be fashionable to seek herbal
and spiritual cures for one's aches and anxieties, but in Nigeria it's
becoming essential as economic hardship forces people out of Western
clinics and into the hands of traditional healers. 'Given the present
economic situation, we are going back to the roots,' said Tunde Oloni,
and administrative officer with the International Committee of the Red
Cross. 'Western medicine is very expensive.'...Health experts say more
of Nigeria's poor are seeking help from spiritual healers, known
locally as babalawos, who often don't have the money or education to
provide safe or sanitary medical care. 'People take the risk because
that is what they can afford,' Oloni said. (Pushing the Medical Clock
Back--and Costs Down, Cindy Shiner, Washington Post, 12/27/93)

                                Doctor, Doctor

"Female doctors are treated primarily as women, not as physicians, by
their male patients. The vulnerability inherent in their sex seems in
many cases to override their power ad doctors,leaving female
physicians open to sexual harassment." --Susan Phillips, Queen's
University, Kingston, Ontario, and Margaret Schneider, Ontario
Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto, Ontario. Their study
reports that three of four female physicians in Canada say they have
been sexually harassed by their patients. (Female Doctors Cite Sexual
Harassment, Washington Post, 12/23/93)

                                Family Affair

"At first it sounds like a scene out of the Old South or Old South
Africa. People are assigned at birth to one racial community or
another. Those called black are doomed to wait endlessly until an
opening comes up in their separate world while places among whites go
wanting. But this time we are not talking about schools or jobs or
seats on a bus. We are talking about another valuable resource:
families. We are talking about black or mixed-race children who need
parents and white adults who want to adopt them. What keeps many
children and parents apart is not the old-fangled segregation created
by whites who oppose racial mixing. It's the new-fangled segregation
supported by a small, but powerful group of black Americans who
support 'racial matching.'" (Who Has the Rights to Black Children,
Ellen Goodman, op-ed, Baltimore Sun, 12/7/93)

1993 Family Research Council survey finds: 93% of Americans believe
that children suffer when their parents divorce, 89% of dual-earner
couples believe mother care is better for children than day care, and
82% of Americans say children fare best in two-parent families.
(Family Tradition Reigns in Survey, Joyce Price, WT, 12/8/93)

"At least eight (Denver) shopping malls have sent Santa Claus packing
because of anonymous death treats by mail and fax from someone who
called him a 'fatso' and an 'impostor.' The threats...cited a shooting
rampage that left four people dead at a suburban pizza restaurant.
(Santa Banned in Malls Because of Threats, Washington Post, 12/23/93)

                               Food for Thought

Researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia report that
improper prenatal nutrition may be implicated in brain tumors involved
in one of five childhood cancers. The diets of mothers whose children
developed primitive neuroectodermal tumors--one of the two most common
brain tumors in children--contained less folate, Vitamin C, and beta-
carotene, and fewer fruits and vegetables. The cancer patient mothers
were less likely to have taken multivitamins during the first six
weeks of their unborn child's life. "The protective effects of folate
and multivitamins in early pregnancy are the most intriguing because
folate reduces the risk of spina bifida and other neural tube
defects." --Gretta Bunin, researcher. (Tumors and Prenatal Nutrition,
Donna Thompson, Catholic Twin Circle, 12/12/93)

In 1992, the average American drank nearly 10 gallons of bottled
water, three times more than a decade ago, according to the
International Bottled Water Association (IBWA). Consumption of bottled
water now surpasses such favorites as tea, wine, liquor, powdered
drinks, and juices. IBWA members adhere to model regulations setting
standards for artesian, bottled, carbonated, sparkling, distilled,
mineral, purified, and spring waters. FYI: To discover if a certain
product is bottled by an IBWA member call the Association toll-free at
1-800-WATER11 (928-3711) weekdays, 9AM to 5PM Eastern Standard Time.
(On the (Water) Bottle, Sally Squires, WP Health, 12/14/93)

                               Forget the Vet?

"Caressing the shapeless brim of the boonie hat she wore in Vietnam,
Colonel A. Jane Carson's voice falters as she recalls the year, 1969-
1970, she spent as a nurse at the 312th EVAC Hospital in Chu Lai.
Twenty-three years later, the former Army nurse still has not opened
the trunk filled with her personal belongings and memories of that
war. But, in August, Carson vowed to open the trunk before the
(Vietnam women's) memorial dedication." (Women Recall Their Vietnam,
Nicole DeVito, Pentagram, 11/5/93)

                                 Front Lines

"All it took was the smile and natural wonderment of a 4-year-old
child to dazzle employees of the US Army Personnel Command...The
command, in...Alexandria, VA, had its first-ever bone-marrow drive for
young Crystal Slough, who suffers from leukemia. Military and civilian
employees arrived in droves...to give blood samples for the local
campaign on Crystal's behalf. Crystal had no difficulty making friends
as she rode through the corridors of the Hoffman complex on a
motorized wheelchair. As people arrived at the health department...
Crystal greeted them with opened arms and big hugs, and she even
assisted medical staff in putting bandages on donors' arms." (Bone
Marrow Drive, Tami Terella, Pentagram, 11/5/93)

                          Health Care Plans and Pans

"Alice Rivlin ('Clinton's Conservative Health Plan, editorial page,
October 20)...says Clinton chose market solutions over government-set
health care prices. True, the government would set no prices--but
instead would give regional health care alliances broad authority to
do the same...The alliances would also set health insurance prices and
forbid competition...This limitation on competition is a radical
departure from current policy." --Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Assistant to
the President, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC.
(Clinton's Radical Health Plan, Furchtgott-Roth, let-ed, Wall Street
Journal, 11/17/93)

From California to Delaware, Republicans held 53 health care
conferences on Saturday, December 5, the first in a series of GOP
health-related events, according to Haley Barbour, chairman of the
Republican National Committee, who observes: "The differences between
the Republicans and the Clinton bill are not details. These are
fundamental differences, and these meetings will help the public
understand what we're for and why we can't be for some of the things
that Clinton is proposing." (GOP Fans Out, Leads Health Care Forums,
Judi Hasson, USA Today, 12/6/93)

"Bill and Hillary Clinton's national health plan is likely to destroy
more than our health care system. It may also drive out the remains of
congressional integrity, leaving only duplicity and deceit as the
mechanisms by which we are governed. President Clinton plans to turn
over our patient-controlled system of private medicine to the federal
government, but he doesn't want us to find out how much his radical
plan costs or the immense new taxes involved. He has been campaigning
behind the scenes to keep health care spending and the revenues
necessary to pay for it off the federal budget and out of public
view." (Government by Duplicity, Paul Roberts, op-ed, WT, 12/8/93)

"House Republican leaders met with the beleaguered director of the
Congressional Budget Office (CBO)...amid the growing fears of some
lawmakers that the Clinton administration is using Congress's
Christmas recess to rig the terms of the coming debate over health
care reform. Robert D. Reishchauer, a Democratic appointee, told House
Minority Leader Robert H. Michel, Minority Whip Newt Gingrich, and
four other GOP lawmakers that he understands their concerns that
'changes in the financing of the health care system won't be subject
to the same scrutiny that items that are part of the regular budget
are subject to.'" (Health Plan's Budget Spot Remains a CBO Question,
Ralph Hallow, Washington Times, 12/8/93)

"In the cafeteria of Children's hospital here (in San Diego, CA)
before a standing-room-only crowd that included doctors in surgical
garb...Republicans...found a highly receptive audience for their
alternatives to President Clinton's health care reform plan. Senator
Phil Gramm of Texas joined local US congressmen Randy Cunningham and
Duncan Hunter at the open forum in California's second-largest city.
'Under the president's plan, your health insurance will be canceled,'
Mr. Gramm said. 'It will be illegal for a private company to sell you
insurance in competition with the government.' The plan's $10,000 fine
for attempts to sell (competing policies) 'tells you something about
how happy you are going to be with the plan,' he said. The audience
gave the Texas senator an ovation when he said he wants people to have
the right to refuse a government plan and keep their own insurance of
they so desire." CURE Comment: We support the right of each American
to keep the insurance policies he or she prefers. (Republicans Join
Medical Minds to Blast Health Care, K.L. Billingsley, WT, 12/8/93)

"In the very old days, a doctor in private practice hung out a
shingle, and patients came. In the old days (1986 maybe), the doctor
took out an ad in the Yellow Pages and patients called up or got
referred. In the very old days, the doctor set fees and waived them if
the patient couldn't pay. In the old days, the 'fee-for-service' bill
for each visit or treatment went to the insurance company and
reimbursement came back. Today, those ways are becoming the exception
rather than the rule. Employees...in 'managed care' plans go where
their plan or gatekeeper tells them to go...And in the increasingly
competitive scramble for patients, some doctors accept discounted fees
to get on the network list--while others find they cannot get on the
list...Getting onto a plan's list of designated doctors is 'virtually
impossible now' for a specialist, said Merrill J. Cohen, a urologist
in Greenbelt (MD)." CURE Comment: This is just another illustration of
how managed care restricts your choice of physician and leads to
rationing of health care. (Is My Doctor on the List? Don Colburn,
Washington Post Health, 12/14/93)

The son of President Franklin Roosevelt's interior secretary of the
same name, New York labor lawyer Harold Ickes joins the administraion
as White House deputy chief of staff to coordinate the campaign for
President Clinton's health plan, despite his lack of health care
policy expertise. "I've been to the doctor a couple of times," Ickes
quipped. "My expertise is political in nature." (Ickes to Coordinate
Health Care Drive, Dana Priest and Ruth Marcus, WP, 12/23/93)

"In a trustees' report presented at its recent New Orleans convention
the AMA (American Medical Association) attacked proposals in the
Clinton health plan that would expand the role of APNs--advance
practice nurses...The Clinton plan would free...nurses from
restrictive state laws that forbid them to provide...services without
a physician's direct supervision--such services as prescribing
medications and admitting patients to hospitals--and to receive
reimbursement for their services from insurance companies and public
programs...To all this, the AMA report replies: 'The claim that APNs
can independently substitute for a high portion of physician services
is not supported by the evidence.' The report claims that...nurses do
not have the extensive training to provide...care independent of a
doctor's oversight...Stressing the extensive diagnostic training
medical students receive, the AMA report warns that...nurses won't
know when to refer patients to specialists." --Candice Owley,
chairwoman, Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals. (Broadside
Against Nurses, Owley, op-ed, Washington Post, 12/27/93)

According to a recent study by Citizen Action, health and insurance
political action committees contributed $8.3 million to members of
Congress in the first 10 months of 1993. This represents a 22%
increase over the same period two years ago. (Health Interests and
Lawmakers, Washington Post, 12/27/93)

                                 Heart Beat

Tiny wire coils that prop open arteries can reduce that rate of
restenosis by a third, recent studies reveal. Restenosis: the re-
shutting down of arteries occurs after 40% of America's 300,000 annual
balloon angioplasties. Dr. John Simpson, of Sequoia Hospital in
Redwood City, CA, describes the beneficial effects of stents as
"fantastic." (Studies Indicate a New Advance for Angioplasty, MJ,
11/14/93)

According to researchers from the Framingham Heart Study, in
Framingham, MA, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, 8
of 10 persons with borderline high blood pressure are likely to
develop isolated systolic hypertension over the next 20 years. The
condition, in which the systolic (pumping) pressure of the heart is
high--above 160--but the diastolic (resting) pressure is in the normal
range--140/90--affects 30% of people over 60 and can cause strokes,
coronary heart disease, and congestive heart failure. (Study Warns of
Dangers to Those with Borderline High Blood Pressure, WP, 12/23/93)

                                Heart Stoppers

"A family member is in the hospital with a serious, probably fatal
illness. Children and relatives gather; and after a heroic struggle
the sick person dies. The attending physician meets the family members
in the hallway and expresses his or her personal condolences. Everyone
is weeping, but after pulling themselves together the family members
ask themselves: Now what?" (The Practicalities of Death, Robert
Hutchinson, Catholic Twin Circle, 12/12/93)

"My husband and I lost our darling daughter to suicide a few months
ago. In the last three years, I have lost four loved ones. My mother
and a brother-in-law died in 1990, a sister in the spring of 1993, and
our daughter last August...I phoned the local grief counseling hotline
last week, was put on hold, waited for several minutes, and then heard
a recorded message telling me to call back in an hour." --Grieving
Mother in Royal Oak, MI. (Suicide Hotline Must Get Its Act Together,
Ann Landers, Martinsburg Journal, Martinsburg Journal, 12/20/93)

Chronically the worst in the nation, the infant death rate in
Washington, DC improved in 1992 to its lowest level in the decade:
18.3 deaths per thousand births. Despite the improvement, infants die
before their first birthday in the nation's capital twice as often as
in the United States as a whole. (DC Infant Death Rate Dropped in '92,
Amy Goldstein, Washington Post, 12/23/93)

According to David Phillips, a sociologist at the University of
California at San Diego, blacks and women may be committing more
suicides than records indicate--concealing the fact by using methods
that appear to be accidental causes of death: such as accidental
poisoning or drug overdose, single-car crashes, and pedestrian deaths.
(Suicidology: Blacks, Women and Symbolic Ages, Boyce Rensberger,
Washington Post, 12/27/93)

                                 HOSPITALity

"Red lights flashed through the double glass doors at the end of the
hallway. The ambulance had arrived. So had the child. The night staff
at Children's Hospital emergency room had been expecting her. The
patient, 13 months old, had been found face down in a bathtub. There
had been enough water in it to cover her nose and mouth, according to
initial reports. The risks were obvious: brain damage, lung damage,
and maybe death." (A Life on the Edge in Children's ER, Bob Levey, op-
ed, Washington Post, 12/23/93)

                            Hypothermia, No Hype

Hypothermia occurs when the body's temperature falls about 4 degrees
or more below the norm of 98.6 degrees, generally as a result of
prolonged physical activity in cold, windy weather. "After 30 to 40
minutes, you're in deep trouble." --Racquel Shears, MD, emergency room
physician, John Hopkins Hospital. Severe cases may lead to cardiac
arrest, unconsciousness, and death. (In Little Time, Hypothermia Is
Serious Trouble, Doctors Say, Thomas Waldron, Baltimore Sun, 12/6/93)

                                  Lyme Light

"Lyme disease has been a controversial, almost faddish [sic] ailment
since the tick-transmitted infection achieved widespread notoriety in
the East in the 1980s. The symptoms such as arthritis, irritation, and
malaise are associated with numerous other causes, physical and
psychosomatic. Yet the bacterium carried by the black-legged tick is
real, and human treatment with antibiotics seems effective. A vaccine
was developed for dogs, who can't avoid ticks, and scientists are
working towards a preventive inoculation for horses. There is none, so
far, in sight for humans." (Lyme Disease in Hartford County (MD),
editorial, Baltimore Sun, 12/6/93)

                                 Mal-Practice

"Yes. Compassionate application of common law, developed over 200
years, has deterred unsafe medical practices, disclosed dangerous
practitioners to the public, and compensated victims of medical
negligence and incompetence...Medical liability costs are a minuscule
portion--less than 1%--of national health costs. Restricting access to
courts, diminishing compensation, an limiting guilty parties liability
could be considered a boon for consumers only in Alice in Wonderland."
--Mern Horan, staff attorney, Congress Watch.  "No. About 1% of
patients experience some form of medical negligence. About half of
these may need access to the criminal justice system. Many don't gain
access because the system is riddled with the wrong incentives. First,
lawyers take a third to half of the awards...In addition, it takes an
average of 2 1/2 years to settle claims--and up to five years for
more-complicated cases." --Robert McAffee, MD, president-elect,
American Medical Association. CURE Comment: If Dr. McAffee is so
concerned about injured patients why does he advocate "limiting pain
and suffering awards to $250,000" regardless of how negligent the
perpetrator was? (Are Injured Patients Aided by the US Liability
System, Horan and McAffee, op-ed, Washington Post Health, 12/14/93)

                              Mental Health Memo

An author diagnosed as "paranoid schizophrenic" whose article on hand-
held nuclear weapons was published in the May 1993 issue of the
government's Military Review says being in an institution doesn't keep
him from being a good writer. In a telephone interview from the Middle
Tennessee Mental Health Institute, to which he was committed in 1984,
Charles Harrison, 47, says he stands behind his research and his
article. "I make no apologies for writing it. There's a lot in [the
article] worth reporting."  Colonel John Reitz, the editor of the Ft.
Leavenworth, KS-based magazine, says he spoke with Harrison on several
occasions but had no idea he was institutionalized. Harrison says he
never mentioned his mental hospital residence since it had nothing to
do with his research and writing. "I can't see why anyone is
interested in my mental condition. I can't think of anything less
interest," concludes the member of Mensa, whose IQs are in the top 2%
of the populace. (Military Journal Finds One of Its Articles Written
by Man in Mental Hospital, Baltimore Sun, 12/7/93)

"Remember est? In the 1970s, Werner Erhard won fame and notoriety as
the founder of Erhard Seminars Training Inc. (est), which promised a
new life for $250. (Eventually the ante rose to $475.) Thousands
responded as est leaders offered 'seminars' across America.
'Outrageous Betrayal' (by Steven Pressman) tells the story of 'Erhard'
--in reality a Philadelphia used-car salesman named Jack Rosenberg,
who abandoned a wife and four children in 1960 and moved to St. Louis
with one June Bryde (her real name apparently, although with Erhard
one can never be sure.)...After another stint selling used cars,
Erhard pushed on West in a Buick stolen from his employer. In San
Francisco...sensing the commercial possibilities of the 'human
potential' movement pioneered by Michael Murphy of Esalen Institute
and others, Erhard fist peddled a program called Mind Dynamics and
then in 1971 launched est." (From Est to Worst: The Collapse of a
Myth, book review, Paul Boyer, Washington Post, 12/9/93)

                                   MS MS

According to a study sponsored by the National Eye Institute,
intravenous doses of the steroid drug methylprednisone apperas to
delay the onset

                             No Place Like Home

"Yetta Adams, a homeless woman in Washington, DC, was found dead in a
bus shelter last week. Her death would have gone unnoticed, sad to
say, except that she died in an awkward place: right across from the
Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD has federal
responsibility for the homeless crisis. Just weeks ago, in fact, HUD
Secretary Henry Cisneros said homelessness was 'HUD's top priority.'
Yetta Adams' death put a special edge on that bureaucratic promise."
(Elusive Solution, editorial, USA Today, 12/6/93)

"In plain English what we're trying to do is take people who are
battered and bruised and broken, but who still have a lot of God's
grace left in them, and find a way to bring all that back to the
surface and put their own lives back more in their control." --
President Clinton. The president's brief remarks at the White House
capped three weeks of public debate following the death of Yetta
Adams. (Clinton Backs US Programs to Address Rots of Homelessness, Guy
Gugliotta, Washington Post, 12/23/93)

"I have been unable to uncover a single neighborhood complaint against
the undertaking. The records show three police runs to the building so
far this year--all three the result of calls from Lazarus House
residents who have been mugged or otherwise victimized by outsiders."
(Charity Worth Duplicating, William Raspberry, op-ed, WP, 12/27/93)

                                Public Health

Scarlet fever once decimated young children but today the bacterial
infection is a relatively mild but increasingly common illness.
According to Edward Kaplan, who directs the World Health
Organization's streptococcus laboratory at the University of
Minnesota, infections of severe streptococcus have been rising
worldwide since the 1980s. With the increase has come a rise in the
number of cases of scarlet fever--caused by an infection within group
A streptococcus--in Australia and New Zealand, the former East
Germany, Italy, and Scandinavia. No one knows how many cases exist in
the United States since the disease is no longer reported to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (A Less Fearsome Scarlet
Fever, Sally Squires, Washington Post Health, 12/24/93)

                             Telling Headlines

Anatomy of a Pig-Out, Washington Post Health, 12/14
Bad Moods Linked to Smoking, Drinking, Washington Post Health, 12/14
Computer Eases Pharmacy Refills, Pentagram, 11/5
Did Churchill Know of Camps, Pearl Harbor? Martinsburg Journal, 11/27
How the Patricks Learned About Polio, Catholic Digest, 10/93
Integration Effort for Disabled Kids Criticized, MJ, 8/27
Mom Fights Adoption of Her 3-Year-Old Son, Martinsburg Journal, 9/20
Potato Pancake Lovers Can Create Light Latkes, WP Health, 12/14
Russia Gets Extra Medical Gear from US Stockpiles, Pentagram, 10/8
Shalala Pushes Family Planning Worldwide, Washington Times, 12/8
The Clinton Health Plan and You, Q-&-A, Washington Post Health, 12/14
Vietnam Sees HIV Rise on Ignorance, Poverty, Washington Times, 12/8

                            Wish We'd Said That...

        I never dreamed when I took the Hippocratic Oath that I'd be
        denied my right to practice medicine by an insurance
        company. The bottom line is the insurance companies rule
        medicine. It's not the doctors, it's not the hospitals, it's
        not Hillary Clinton, or anyone else. It's the insurance
        companies, because they have the deep pockets." (Mary Ann
        Duke, MD, legislative representative, Montgomery County (MD)
        Medical Society)

                              ...Glad We Didn't

        Being against managed care is like being against gravity.
        It's here to stay. (Mark SMith, MD, vice-president, Kaiser
        Family Foundation)

Of Note--published biweekly by CURE--is featured on the Fidonet-
backbone conference ABLEnews. Text files are available via the
ABLEfiles Distribution Network (AFDN) on the Fidonet filebone and from
Planet Connect. For further information, contact CURE, 812 Stephen
Street, Berkeley Springs, WV 25411 (304-258-LIFE/ 258-5433).