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                        OF NOTE...
                        News to Use

Vol. III, Issue 61                                May 15, 1994
Earl Appleby, Jr., Editor                         CURE, Ltd.

                         ACCESSories

"A contract to make city-owned property accessible to people with
handicaps was delayed by the Hagerstown (MD) City Council on
Tuesday. One council member suggested the contract be given to a
local construction company, which bid ($217,500) $7,000 more than
the low bidder...to build ramps and lifts at nine city sites,
including the Market House, the Muncipal Golf Course Clubhouse,
City Police Headquarters, and the Mansion House...The council
also questioned about a ramp at the City Park Bandshell. The only
way to make the stage accessible to people with handicaps is a
ramp in front that changes the look of the historic structure. 'I
have a serious problem with that one,' said Councilman William M.
Breichner. 'I just feel that destroys   the bandshell." (Ramp,
Lifts Contract Delayed, Morning Herald, 3/23/94)

                         Addictions

"David Kessler stunned even supporters when he announced the was
considering regulating, perhaps, banning cigarettes. It was
merely the latest controversy for the fiery Food and Drug
Administration commissioner. Now the public is waiting to see if
the pediatrician who cracked down on everything from orange juice
to powerful drug makers will really rein in the $60 billion
tobacco industry. 'There is no greater public health issue,'
Kessler insists. But critics say this time Kessler has gone too
far. 'It's another example of Kessler seizing an issue to advance
his agenda, which is to make the public think Doc Kessler is Mr.
Enforcement,' said Kim Pearson, a Washington lawyer who publishes
an FDA-watchdog newsletter. Kessler doesn't think that's bad;
it's an image he's cultivated in his three years as head of the
agency charged with protecting Americans from bad food or
medicine...But Kessler says a lack of authority sometimes hinders
him. The FDA can't force the recall of contaminated products,
can't even look at company records to see if food is properly
chilled...And that question of authority may halt his quest to
regulate nicotine. To do so, Kessler must prove tobacco companies
intentionally control nicotine levels to cause or sustain
addiction...'The public may think of cigarettes as no more than
blended tobacco rolled in paper, but they are more than that,' he
[told Congress Friday]. 'Some of today's cigarettes may in fact
qualify as high-technology nicotine delivery systems.'" (FDA
Commissioner Considering Cigarette Ban, MJ, 3/28/94)

"We were deeply disappointed by Robert Bonner's assessment of
drug abuse treatment ('The limitations of drug abuse treatment,
op-ed, March 10). Many people still remain uninformed about the
many advances in drug abuse research and the fact that treatment
can and does work...Even with the future promise of more
effective and efficient treatments based on fundamental research,
there is a wealth of good evidence that drug treatment programs
already reduce the health and societal costs of addiction...The
problem is not that effective treatment or prevention does not
exist, or it too expensive, but that effective treatment and
prevention programs are not readily available or adequately
funded." --Alan Leshner, director, National Institute on Drug
Abuse, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD. (Drug Abuse
Treatment Does Indeed Work--and It's Cost-Effective, Leshner,
letter-editor, Washington Times, 3/31/94)

"All columnists appreciate suggestions on subjects we might write
about. Some ideas are predictable: 'My electrical bill is to
high--why don't you blast the greedy utilities.' Others are
strange: 'Write about the messages. I hear messages from outer
space. They come from a filling in my tooth.'...But some are just
too dangerous, volatile, and controversial for any sane,
tranquility-loving columnist to mess around with. Which is what I
tried to explain to the female reader who cornered me the other
day...'Let me give you an idea for a column,' she said. 'It has
to do with smoking.' Good. I'm ready and able to join the mob
beating up on smokers. 'O.K., here is my idea. If the government
is going to put a big tax on cigarettes to discourage smoking,
then why don't they out a big tax on abortions?' A tax on
abortions? Any politician who proposed something like that would
soon be out in the cold looking for honest work. 'Well, think
about,' she said. 'If secondhand smoke is so dangerous to some
defenseless nonsmokers..., isn't abortion dangerous to
defenseless unborn babies?...This would be one heck of a column.'
If I were foolhardy, yes, it might be. But I have no desire to
see my phone bouncing up and down with phone calls from angry,
liberated female persons...'Then what about the secondhand
fathers?' she said. 'Everybody talks about secondhand smoke. But
don't the secondhand fathers of aborted children have any rights?
Why isn't there approval required before an abortion is
performed?' I tried to explain to her that this is why I am a
columnist and she isn't. I know better than to run in the streets
and play in traffic...'Coward,' was her final word. 'Prudent,'
was mine." (Bashing Smokers Safer Than Criticizing Abortion, Mike
Royko, op-ed, Martinsburg Journal, 4/7/94)

Spurred by an increase in heroin cases, emergency hospital
admissions for drug treatment jumped 9% in the first six months
of 1993 compared with same period the previous year. The federal
government's DAWN (Drug Abuse Warning Network) reported 232,800
drug-related emergency room admissions from January to June of
1993. The study--like an earlier one on teenage drug abuse--will
provoke critics of President Clinton's reduction of drug
interdiction funding by $95 million. The administration also
slashed $600,000 form drug trafficking intelligence operations.
(Emergency Rooms Nationwide Report 9% Rise in Drug Cases, Pierre
Thomas, Washington Post, 4/12/94)

"For 400 years, tobacco has been a pillar of American enterprise.
But now it faces the most sustained assault since the surgeon
general in 1964 first declared smoking a health hazard. THe
dangers attributed to cigarettes moved to a menacing new plane
recently when the Environmental Protection Agency declared
secondhand smoke reponsible for as many as 9,000 deaths annually.
Efforts to ban smoking have expanded exponentially: The Labor
Department has proposed a broad ban on smoking that would effect
70 million workers; sweeping new anti-smoking edicts are being
enforced at military installations and in giant fast-food chains
like McDonald's, and many more cities and states are thinking
about piling on additioanl restrictions to those that already
apply to neclosed public spaces in 46 states...A House
subcommittee has voted to finance its health care plan with a
$1.25-per-pack excise tax on cigarettes...Dr. David Keesler,
commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration,...has warned
that he may use his power to ban cigarettes." (Should Cigarettes
Be Outlawed? Shannon Brownlee and Steven Roberts, US News & World
Report, 4/18/94)

"In the past decade it has become increasingly clear that drug
interdiction, stiff jail sentences for drug traffickers, and
massive police crackdowns have failed to reduce the number of
hard-core addicts in America. As a result, many people have
turned a hopeful eye toward drug treatment. 'Treatment on Demand'
has become the new battle cry in the war on drugs. The Clinton
administration is prepared to spend an additional $335 million to
create 140,000 new treatment slots. But like prior approaches,
'Treatment on Demand' is fated to fail for it is based on three
unproven and highly doubtful assumptions: Assumption 1: The heavy
drug users want to be treated...Assumption 2: Drug treatment is
not currently available...Assumption 3: Treatment is effective in
eliminating long-term drug use." --Richard Moran, professor of
sociology and criminology, Mount Holyoke College. (Treatment on
Demand: The Mythology, Moran, op-ed, Washington Post, 4/19/94)

"The misshapen face of a child with fetal alcohol syndrome stares
down form a projection screen at a roomful of medical students.
Their lecturer, Thomas Pinckert, opens the course at Georgetown
University's School of Medicine with a message as sobering as the
image behind him. 'More than spina bifida. More than Down's
syndrome. More than anything you are going to learn about...This
is a preventable cause,' he said. 'But look! It is the most
common known cause of mental retardation.' For most of these
students, Pinckert's lecture last week was the first detailed
exposure to the set of devastating birth defects caused by
drinking during pregnancy. Georgetown is only the second medical
school in the country to offer such a course...But for those who
have fought for years to draw attention to fetal alcohol syndrome
(FAS), the course is the long-awaited signal that the nation's
medical establishment has begun to take the issue seriously."
(Sobering Look at Alcohol and Pregnancy, Barbara Vobejda,
Washington Post, 4/20/94)

"Though apathetic about the drug war, the Clinton administration
is now frantic over a recent study showing a two-percent rise on
smoking among high school seniors. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders
...is joined by the FDA, OSHA, Defense Department, and the White
House in declaring an all-out war on smoking and the tobacco
industry. Yet despite the growing evidence that illicit drug use
--and its accessibility--among adolescents is on the rise after
more than a decade of steady decline, the Clinton administration
has seen no similar need for cabinet-wide action. Consider that
from 1992 to 1993, illicit drug use among high school seniors
grew from 27.1 to 31%." --Rep. Robert Dornan (R-CA). (Losing Our
Freedom to the Drug War, Dornan, letter-editor, WSJ, 4/25/94)

"On March 13 [Outlook] and again on April 14 [letters],
Prosecutor General Gustavo de Greiff of Columbia has used the
pages of the Post to articulate his views on narcotics strategy.
Lest The Post's readers suspect that his views are widely shared
in the US counter-narcotics community, let me assure them of the
contrary. Mr. de Greiff advocates nothing less than a surrender
to the powerful Colombian cocaine syndicates: to bargain light
sentences for their leaders and eventually to legalize the
production, sale, and consumption of their poison." --Timothy
With, Counselor, Department of State. (No Surrender in Narcotics
Strategy, Wirth, letter-editor, Washington Post, 4/25/94)

"Two former scientists for Philip Morris Companies told a House
panel yesterday that their studies on rats more than a decade ago
raised serious questions about the potential addictive nature of
nicotine. They said the tobacco company suppressed their research
and abruptly closed their lab. 'You cannot prove addiction from a
rate, but you can say that further work is needed,' Victor
DeNoble told the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health
and the environment. 'It is a real strong indicator.' Steven
Parrish, a senior vice president of Philip Morris, said that
DeNoble had changed his opinions over time, making his findings
more dramatic over time. 'That Dr. DeNoble has now conveniently
changed his opinions does not change the facts of what his Philip
Morris research showed.' From 1980 to 1984, DeNoble worked as
project leader for the behavioral pharmacology laboratory at the
Philip Morris Research Center in Richmond. Working with fellow
scientist Paul Mele, DeNoble conducted studies on rats to see
whether they would self-administer nicotine intravenously by
pressing levers in their cages. They found that the rats
frequently did so, much more often than when a saline solution
was made available in the same manner, and that the nicotine had
a positive reinforcing effect, DeNoble testified." (Scientists
Testify Tobacco Company Suppressed Addiction Studies, WP,
4/29/94)

                         AIDS Addenda

"Americans over 50 may want to pay more attention to the AIDS
problem. Of the 339,000 Americans afflicted with the AIDS virus,
more than 10% are over 50 years old. Yet in the column of grim
statistics defining the AIDS crisis, those figures are often
overlooked. 'It's the last secret of the AIDS game,' says
epidemiologist Ron Stall of the University of California at San
Francisco." (AIDS Crisis Reaches Those 50 Plus, Beth Baker and
Susan Crowley, AARP Bulletin, 2/94)

"During Vietnam's long isolation from the non-Communist world,
AIDs remained a rare 'foreigners' disease.' Its few victims
received the same harsh treatment the communist government
reserved for such other 'negative social phenomena' as drug
addiction and prostitution: police roundups, forced blood tests,
and confinement to grim 'rehabilitation' camps. Now, more open
policies toward trade and tourism have opened Vietnam to the
global AIDS epidemic...Dramatically reversing course, the
authorities are supporting a program that includes voluntary
testing, sympathetic treatment, counseling, and promotion of
condom use. The new effort has cheered international health
experts." AIDS Epidemic Reaches Vietnam, Morning Herald, 3/14/94)

"A 24-year-old woman on parole for prostitution while knowing she
had the virus that causes AIDS has been charged again with
working the streets of Harrisburg (PA), police said...She was
charged with prostitution and recklessly endangering another
person, the same charges to which she pled guilty and no contest
respectively in 1992. She had told police then she was having sex
with 50 men a week despite being HIV-positive...[having] tested
positive...in February 1990." (Woman Convicted of Prostitution
While HIV Positive Faces New Charges, Morning Herald, 3/14/94)

A study of 838 Baltimore AIDS clinic patients published in
today's New England Journal of Medicine finds that blacks seeking
treatment for AIDS and AIDS-related illnesses are less likely to
receive the drug therapy they require. The study, conducted
Richard Moore and colleagues at the John Hopkins University
School of Medicine, found no differences in drug therapy with
respect to age, sex, type of insurance, income, or education.
(Disparity in AIDS Treatment, Washington Post, 3/17/94)

"An AIDS protestor shouting from the balcony disrupted Easter
Sunday church services attended by President Clinton, his wife,
and daughter. Two Secret Service agents sitting in a pew directly
behind the Clintons jumped to their feet and shielded the couple
after a man yelled, "Save your prayers for Bill Clinton!' The
disruption occurred about midway through the service at the
Foundry United Methodist Church, breaking the silence immediately
following a reading from the New Testament. Clinton later said he
was not bothered by the disruption. The same protestor
interrupted a Clinton speech in December, prompting the president
to say, 'I'd rather that man be in here screaming at me than
having given up altogether.'" (AIDS Activist Disrupts Clinton
Church Service, Martinsburg Journal, 4/4/94)

"Carlos da Costa Biazo, 30, [is] a convict serving 30 years for
murder [in Sao Paulo's Casa de Detencao]...But Biazo will
probably never get out. He, like many of his fellow inmates, has
AIDS...Built for eight, Biazo's cell houses 18. Meals largely
consist...of potatoes, beans, squash, and rice...AIDS drugs
prescribed for him are frequently stolen. 'I wouldn't be
surprised if guards sold the drugs on the black market,' said
Oswaldo Rodriguez, the prison hospital's general director...
Cocaine use by injection is reportedly widespread and a major
source of AIDS transmission. Biazo's arms are scarred with
syringe marks. Prison officials say 20% of men and 33% of women
entering Sao Paulo's prisons system carry the HIV virus...An
average of 1.5 prisoners die of AIDS each day." (Brazilian
Prisoners, Many Ill With AIDS, Pack 'Hell's Waiting Room,' Jeb
Blount, Washington Post, 4/8/94)

"This is for the 72-year-old grandmother in Miami who..had tested
HIV-positive. You reeled off statistics on the incidence of
transfusion-related infections. But you neglected to tell the
woman the most important thing--get tested again. False-positives
occur more often than you think...I remember reading about a
woman who committed suicide after having been diagnosed HIV-
positive. Soon after her death, the family learned there was a
mix-up in the paperwork and she was not HIV-positive after
all...She should be tested twice more--ar different laboratories,
And may God go with her." --Concerned in Okeechobee, FL. "This
letter is for the stunned grandma, age 72, whose doctor told her
she is HIV-positive... Please ask the poor dear if she had a
recent flu shot. Sometimes a flu shot will produce a false-
positive. The woman should ask to be re-tested."  (Initial
Medical Tests Not Always Positive, Ann Landers, MJ, 4/21/94)

"In her column, 'A 'Scoop' Implausible on Its Face' [op-ed, April
15], Sister Mary Ann Walsh criticizes CNN's coverage of the now-
withdrawn sexual molestation charges leveled against Cardinal
Bernardin, and asks: 'Did some bizarre interpretation of
political correctness lead CNN to presume that a church leader
was a liar and a man with AIDS was speaking the absolute truth?'
Implicit in her rhetorical question is the suggestion that
someone with AIDS is not worthy of belief. I would have hoped
that by this point in the AIDS epidemic, the public would have
learned that AIDS is not a basis to judge someone; it provides no
clue to a person's integrity. AIDS sadly afflicts truth-tellers
and liars alike. There were reasons to doubt the credibility of
Cardinal Bernardin's accuser; his health status was not one of
them." --Christopher Wolf, Washington, DC. (No Basis to Judge
Someone, Wolf, letter-editor, Washington Post, 4/29/94)

                         Cancer Chronicles

According to a study to be published in Saturday's issue of the
medical journal The Lancet, the genetic mutation that increases
the risk of breast and ovarian cancer raises the chances of
getting prostrate and colon cancer. The findings by Dr. Douglas
Eaton and colleagues at the Insitute of Cancer Research in London
are the latest in the global race to isolate BRCA1, the gene
responsible for inherited breast cancer. (Breast Cancer Gene
Linked to Other Cancers, Morning Herald, 3/18/94)

A study published in Wednesday's issue of the Journal of the
American Medical Association offers the best evidence to date
that a potent anti-cancer drug may cure some people with
spreading tumors of the kidney and skin who otherwise may die
within months. Some 5% of the 283 patients receiving high doses
of Interleukin-2, a genetically engineered drug, became and
stayed cancer-free for up to eight years, the longest any patient
participating in the study was followed. (Cancer Drug May Cure
Tumors in Some, Morning Herald, 3/23/94)

"Cancer patients may be suffering needless pain because of their
misconceptions about pain and its relief, a researcher said
Tuesday. Those ideas may keep many patients from telling nurses
and doctors about their pain and using potent painkillers, said
researcher Sandra Ward. She suggests many patients have a
groundless fear of addiction to painkillers and their
unwillingness to acknowledge pain because it may mean the cancer
has progressed. Ward, of the University of Wisconsin
Comprehensive Cancer Center and School of Nursing in Madison,
described her work at a seminar sponsored by the American Cancer
Society." (Study Says Patients' Misunderstanding Hinders Pain
Relief, Martinsburg Journal, 3/23/94)

"Scientists have discovered what they say may be the single most
critical event that makes all cancer cells effectively immortal
and allows them to multiply indefinitely. They say this knowledge
could lead fairly quickly to an entirely new form of cancer
treatment that could be effective against many or perhaps all
forms of the disease...The researchers, who are publishing their
findings in today's issue of the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, said yesterday, they might be just two years
away from starting tests on a drug that they hope will block the
enzyme in human cancer patients...'We're quite optimistic that
this is a unique opportunity for inhibiting the growth of cancer
cells,' said Huber Warner, an official of the National Institute
on Aging, one of the National Institutes of Health, which
sponsored the research, along with the Cancer Research Society of
Quebec." (Cancer's 'Immortality' May Depend on Enzyme, Boyce
Rensberger, Washington Post, 4/12/94)

Using diseased cells of melanoma patients, researchers have
developed a vaccine they say dramatically decreases reoccurrence
of the deadliest form of skin cancer. The method could be used to
develop other vaccines for other cancers. Dr. David Berd and his
team at the Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia have used
the vaccine with high-risk patients with advanced melanoma. Three
years after vaccination, 70% of those vaccinated remained cancer-
free compared to 20% of the patients treated with surgery alone.
"There is no reason why it's not applicable to other cancers,"
Berd said. (Melanoma Vaccine May Affect Other Cancers,
Martinsburg Journal, 4/12/94)

Zoric Djuric and colleagues at Wayne State University in Detroit
have discovered a potential marker for breast cancer that offers
the hope of an inexpensive blood test to detect the disease far
earlier than a mammogram. The researchers have found a way to
measure DNA damage in white blood cells caused by chemicals known
as oxygen-free radicals. The discovery of DNA damage may be
linked to other cancers, notes Pelayo Correa, a professor of
pathology at Louisiana State University Medical Center.
(Researchers Find a Potential New Test for Breast Cancer,
Washington Post, 4/13/94)

"Elena Kobzeva, the 14-year-old Russian girl with leukemia whose
bone marrow transplant last December was financed by an
outpouring of gifts from the Washington community, has died in
Children's Hospital after a painful up-and-down struggle. 'My
daughter has fought the battle of her life,' said her mother,
Luba, only hours before Elena's death Wednesday. 'She has given
it everything she had.' Elena received the last rites of the
Russian Orthodox Church and passed away...'She had an extremely
strong will to live...,' said Eugenia Surmack, a Baltimore woman
who helped Elena's family. 'She tried to give everyone an
optimistic outlook, but in private she did tell her sister, 'I'm
afraid I'll never make it out of here.'...Funeral services for
Elena will be held at 6 PM Monday at the Russian Orthodox Church
of St. John the Baptist in Washington. This is holy week in the
Orthodox church, and Sunday is Easter. 'It's called 'Bright
Monday' in Orthodoxy, and Elena's will be a special funeral,'
said Kosara Gavrilovic, a church member who has helped the
family. 'When God calls some during holy week, that soul goes
directly to God. Elena was such a pure soul, and during her
sickness she became a very spiritual person. Father [Victor]
Patapov said talking with her was like watching a miracle: This
child came from the Urals, where religious tradition was lacking,
she became a very devout Christian, and she shone with a
wonderful light.'" ('A Wonderful Light' Is Lost to Leukemia, Phil
McCombs, Washington Post, 4/29/94)

"Federal investigators have ordered a formal inquiry into
possible misconduct by Bernard Fisher of the University of
Pittsburgh, former coordinator of key international breast cancer
studies, and his chief statistician, Carol Redmond. In addition,
new questions have surfaced about their handling of discrepancies
in cancer study data three years ago. A pioneer in the management
of large clinical trials, Fisher was fired from his post last
month for inattention to real and potential cases of fraudulent
data submitted by Canadian surgeon Roger Poisson and other
doctors to trials under Fisher's direction. But this is the first
time the possibility of misconduct charges against him has been
raised. In a letter dated April 26 and obtained by The Washington
Post, the federal Office of Research Integrity (ORI) directed the
University of Pittsburgh to open a formal inquiry...The specific
allegation is that data from St. Luc Hospital in Montreal 'known
to be false and fabricated were included in publications of the
[breast cancer study results],' according to the letter signed by
ORI investigator Dorothy Macfarlane...Jerome L. Rosenberg, the
university's research integrity officer, said the inquiry will be
conducted by a committee of doctors not involved in the
matter...At the same time, the National Cancer Institute (NCI)
has turned up new documents indicating Fisher and Redmond may
have had stronger evidence of Poisson's fraud at an earlier date
than previously acknowledged." (Breast Cancer Studies Face New
Questions, Kathy Sawyer, Washington Post, 4/29/94)

                         COMPUTations

"Dear Ann Landers: I am in my late teens and very much concerned
about my 12-year-old sister. I was looking for something in her
desk and found a bunch of pornographic letters written to
'Margie' form some man across the country on the on-line computer
interactive network that my parents subscribe to. These letters
are not merely suggestive. They are sexually explicit. This man
is in college, and I'm sure he has no idea my sister is only 12
years old. It makes me sick to think that Margie's mind is being
polluted by this scumbag. Should I tell my parents?...They know
Margie communicates with several pen pals on this computer
network through electronic mail, but I'm sure they have no idea
this sort of trash is being sent to her. My sister and I are not
close and I wouldn't be comfortable confronting her..Worried and
Waiting for Guidance. Dear Worried: You don't need to be 'close'
to your sister to tell her that you became aware of her
'correspondence' with an adult male and are worried about her.
Explain that it is unhealthy. According to Chicago attorney Joan
Hall, there is no federal statute that prohibits sending
pornography by computer. It's too bad the law hasn't caught up
with the technology." (12-Year-Old Sister Gets Sexual Filth On-
Line, Landers, Martinsburg Journal, 3/16/94)

"Despite one of the biggest hype jobs in history, client/server
computing isn't going to transform the corporation overnight--or
any time soon. For those not up to speed on high-tech
developments, client/server computing is an attempt to reach
beyond the host-based systems that are fast becoming old-
fashioned. In these older systems, a central machine, usually a
mainframe or a minicomputer, performed all complicated tasks and
sent the finished results to a user making a request via a
terminal with little or no ability to perform the task itself.
But with client/server computing, complex computer tasks or
applications--such as searches through payroll records--are
subdivided into parts that can be handled by Pcs, the 'clients.'
The information the clients need to perform their tasks--
information stored in complex databases--is controlled and
parceled out by the 'server.'" (Pull the Plug on Computer Hype,
Wall Street Journal, 4/25/94)

                         Dateline World

"Galina Monasheva has brought thousands of babies into the world
in her 20 years at Birth House Number 32, in one of Moscow's
oldest neighborhoods. But the newborns she's delivering these
days are the weakest and sickest ever. So are the mothers. 'The
level of general health is noticeably worse,' says Monasheva, who
patrols the chilly ward in a white coat and cap. Bored young
women in bathrobes lean against the walls, waiting. Cats wander
the hallways in search of mice. 'The women come in with various
diseases and with bad diets,; says Monasheva. 'We have more
babies born anemic and underweight, and more birth defects.'
Statistics nationwide back her up, showing a rise in the number
of infant illnesses and birth defects, such as cleft palates and
cerebral palsy. Infant mortality rose 10% in the first two-thirds
of 1993 compared to all of 1992. The birth rate fell 14% for the
year. 'Russia stands on the edge of an abyss,' Deputy Minister of
Public Health Nikolai Vaganov said recently. 'For the first time
in its centuries-old history, there is a danger of the nation's
physical degeneration, of irreparable damage to its genetic
fund.'" ('On the Edge of an Abyss,' Martinsburg Journal, 3/17/94)
ABLEnews Editor's Note: Vaganov sounds like a eugenicist to me.

                         Family Affair

"It is my sad duty to report to you today that many of our young
people are at great risk in places where they in all expectation
should feel the safest--at home and at school." --George Gallup,
Jr. The terrorism of violence reaches beyond our streets into our
homes where 26% of American children have been hit or physically
harmed by an adult and our schools where 10% have been struck by
a principal or teacher. (When Violence Begins at Home, Don
Colburn, Washington Post Health, 3/15/94)

"It is difficult to hear it above the din of the Clinton
administration--Whitewater, Jocelyn Elders endorsing homosexual
adoption, the health care fight--but a truly significant sound is
issuing from the liberal side of the family values debate: It is
the sound of cement breaking. Thoughtful people in the Democratic
Party are beginning to acknowledge that the breakdown of the
American family is the most serious social problem we face. The
Atlantic magazine put the acknowledgement on its front cover last
year in an article by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead titled 'Dan Quayle
Was Right.'...Today, Mr. Clinton is willing to devote
considerable passion to the subject of family decline. But if Dan
Quayle was a poor advocate because he lacked a certain gravitas,
Bill Clinton is worse because there wafts from his personal
conduct the distinct odor of hypocrisy. It is unfortunate for the
country that this is so, because the kind of reforms that are
necessary in the realm of government policy toward families could
be more easily achieved by a Democrat than by a Republican." (Lip
Service Or Solid Welfare Reform? Mona Charen, op-ed, WT, 3/29/94)

"Our nation's children under the age of three and their families
are in trouble and their plight worsens every day." --report by a
Carnegie Corporation task force of leading business executives,
medical experts and childhood specialists. The panel warned that
as many as half the 12 million American children under age 3 face
risks that could jeopardize their futures, including poverty,
single-parent homes, physical abuse, and low-quality child care.
(6 Million of Nation's Youngest Children, Barbara Vobejda,
Washington Post, 4/13/94)

                         Fat Chance

"The recent death of actor John Candy, known for his comedic
talent and large frame, has once again brought to light the issue
of obesity and the effects it has on overall health. Candy, 43,
suffered a fatal heart attack in his sleep. He was in Mexico
filming a movie. How much his weight contributed to his heart
attack is unknown, but a local cardiologist said the death
illustrates how important it is...to eat sensibly, exercise
regularly, and not to smoke. 'It should underscore concern in
overweight people because obesity carries with it risk markers of
coronary disease,' said Dr. Thomas Haywood of Hagerstown
(MD)...The risk markers...are cigarette smoking, high blood
pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol. The latter three can be
caused or aggravated by obesity." (Candy's Death Helps Profile
Problems of Obesity, Kelli Shores, Morning Herald, 3/14/94)

                         FDA Forum

The FDA has approved the use of an immunizing agent made from
blood plasma in the treatment of children. According to data
provided the FDA, HIV-infect children receiving Gamimmune N
(immune globulin intravenous) developed 41% fewer serious
bacterial infections and 37% fewer hospitalizations. The drug has
also been approved for treating bone marrow transplant patients
over 20, who have shown lowered risk of septicemia and other
infections, interstitial pneumonia, and acute graft-vs-host
disease in the first 100 post-transplant days. (FDA Approves Drug
for Kids With HIV, Sandra Evans, Washington Post Health, 3/15/94)

                         Forget the Vet?

"In 1911, Edmund DeTreville Ellis made a pledge to 'duty,'
'honor,' and 'country' while joining the ranks of West Point
cadets. Now at 104 years old, he is a living legend--the last
member of the Class of 1915, and the oldest member of West
Point's 'Long Gray Line.' 'A man of endurance. A man who outs
duty before pleasure and a man who is without vice,' is how
friends described Ellis in the 1915 class yearbook. Endurance is
one-way to depict a life that has extended through the horse-and-
buggy age, to the dawning of the automobile and the airplane, to
the first steps of men in space. 'I live right, eat right, sleep
right, and I do not take Geritol,'...Ellis said." (West Point
Grad a Living Legend, Tami Terella, Pentagram, 4/8/94)

                    Health Care Plans and Pans

"Health care reform--this year's main domestic issue--is now
beginning a perilous run through Congress. Backers' goal: to pass
fundamental reform before the fall elections...Enacting
fundamental change won't be easy...Members of Congress differ on
what reform should look like. For instance, some members want to
cover everyone...but others want to reduce the number of
uninsured gradually...Some members...want to include coverage for
prescription drugs, long-term care, retiree, and mental health
benefits; others don't, or hold that the costs are too high. As
these and many other issues are fought out in Congress over the
coming months, several special risks exist for older Americans."
(Health Reform: Tough Sledding Likely in Congress, Robert Hey,
AARP Bulletin, 2/94)

"In a contest that mirrors political battles nationwide, Maryland
physicians used their muscle today to advance a measure that
would give patients the right to visit doctors outside their own
health plans, a concept that opponents say will raise costs.
Opponents such as [Senate Finance Chairman Thomas P. O'Reilly (D-
Prince George's)] said the legislation is a giant step backward
for health reform in Maryland because it allows people in health
maintenance organizations to ignore guidelines and pick their own
physicians. Maryland is one of several states promoting plans to
limit which doctors a patient can choose from, a system known as
'managed care.' Proponents say it will preserve the patient's
cherished right to select a doctor. 'It is something I personally
believe very strongly in,' said state Sen. Patricia R. Sher (D-
Montgomery), who championed the legislation. 'I don't want
somebody telling me what physician I can use.' The committee's 9
to 2 vote approving the measure sets the stage for a heated
battle on the Senate floor, a fight that will pit the
considerable clout of physicians against health maintenance
organizations backed by an array of insurance, business, and
labor groups." (Controversial Medical Bill Advances in Maryland
Senate, Thomas Heath and Charles Babington, Washington Post,
3/31/94) CURE Comment: As a patient advocate network, CURE
strongly supports the right to choose one's own physician.

"When President Bill Clinton embraced the health care bill that
cleared a House subcommittee, he conveniently avoided any mention
of the death sentence a powerful Democrat lawmaker imposed on the
core of his plan...What he did not mention at last week's news
conference was the surprising announcement by House Ways and
Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski that his panel would
write and pass 'a much more conservative' bill than the one
authored by Bill and Hillary Clinton...Mr. Rostenkowski issued
this warning to the White House which still clings to its belief
that Congress will enact major new taxes this year to pay for
universal health care: Democrats 'will not fall on their swords'
to finance universal coverage--the one provision Mr. Clinton says
he must have--especially in an election year." (Shell of the
Initial Health Plan, Donald Lambro, op-ed, WT, 3/31/94)

"When it comes to health care reform, it's Clinton-this and
Cooper-that and Chaffee-the-other. There is the McDermott plan,
the Stark plan, the Stearns/Nickles plan. Coming soon: the
Dingell Alternative. Most Americans can't keep this straight, and
why should they? None of these plans will be adopted in anything
like current form. That includes the Clinton plan being boosted
this week. When reform comes, it will be some unnamed, so far
unseen hybrid. A few near-certain components can be identified
now. These include laws to prevent insurers from selecting only
the healthiest individuals and to prevent them from excluding
pre-existing conditions when issuing new policies. These reforms
are the least Congress can do, which makes them the one thing
Congress certainly WILL do." (Overdosing on Health Care,
editorial, UDA Today, 4/6/94)

"In a provocative move, a Republican strategist urged party
leaders Wednesday to unabashedly reject the idea of universal
health insurance for all Americans. It is a 'bad idea' that would
lead inevitably to government domination of health care and
degrade the quality of American medicine, William Kristol charged
in a memo to party leaders. 'We should be proud to oppose it.'...
Kristol, who created a stir with an earlier memo disputing the
notion that the US health system was in crisis, said the GOP
should reject all the proposals that would mandate health
coverage, including the Republican bills...A White House
spokeswoman, Lorrie McHugh, dismissed Kristol's suggestions.
'This is from the same person who tried to tell the American
people that there was not a health care crisis. He was out of
touch then and obviously still remains greatly put of touch,' she
said." (Republicans: Universal Health Insurance a Bad Idea,
Martinsburg Journal, 4/7/94)

"Dear Mr. President, As a physician and a concerned American, I
write you to express my alarm about your proposed health care
reform measure and to advise you of an alternative. I represent
no group. I have no political affiliations. I have received no
outside funding. My goal is simply to present an alternative
model for American health care delivery--one based on science not
politics...This model is described in my book, Healthcare Reform
D.O.A., a complimentary copy of which you will receive today...It
can accomplish your stated goal of universal health care but
without bankrupting the country, penalizing enterprise and
employment, or sacrificing the high quality of health care most
Americans now receive. Sincerely, Gene Richard Moss, MD" (Moss,
advertisement, Washington Post, 4/12/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note:
Further information about Healthcare Reform D.O.A. may be
obtained by calling BookMasters at 1-800-247-6553.)

"Columnist Bob Novak notes that the 'vanguard' opposition to a
government takeover of the health sector of our economy is coming
not from the business community, where one might expect it, but
from the pro-family groups...It is no surprise to me that
advocates of the family are leading the charge against government
aggrandizement...Increasingly, government today in the
industrialized world means the 'therapeutic state'--the sort of
government that aims at improving people rather than keeping
order among them, administering treatment, rather than justice.
To find the family arrayed against the growth of this kind of
government is no more surprising than finding mice arrayed
against cats, or turkeys lobbying for reform of Thanksgiving. The
only surprise should be that such constituencies have become
organized. We are indeed in danger of becoming 'two nations' as
social reformers of old used to put it. But the 'two nations' in
question are not the haves and the have-nots: they are the people
who exercise power in the therapeutic state vs. those who must
suffer their ministrations. The studiers vs. the studied. The
engineers vs. the engineered." --Gary Bauer, president, Family
Research Council. (Family Fears Over Health Care, Bauer, op-ed,
Washington Times, 5/3/94) CURE Comment: If you research a little
deeper, Gary, you'll find that the divisions you describe are
largely coterminous with the haves and have-nots. After all, when
was the last time have-nots studied haves at taxpayer expense?
(In the interest of full disclosure, CURE is a network primarily
comprised of have-nots that studies--inter alia--the predatory
practices of TAB haves. Our nominal funds--entirely
nongovernmental--are the proverbial widow's mite.)

"In his recent testimony before the House Subcommittee on Health
and the Environment, Tennessee Rep. Jim Cooper fielded a series
of questions about his 'Clinton Lite' alternative health care
plan. Mr. Cooper, under pressure from the subcommittee Chairman
Henry Waxman, California Democrat, calmly suggested he was a 'New
Democrat' who believed in letting the free enterprise system find
a solution to spiraling health care costs without invoking the
heavy hand of big government and adding massive amounts of new
controls and regulations to America's health care. Mr. Waxman,
author of some of the government's biggest and most irresponsible
spending programs and a key congressional player in any health
care reform, tartly reminded Mr. Cooper that he was also a 'young
Democrat.' The response of the 20-year congressional veteran is
more significant than most people realize." --Grover Norquist,
president, Americans for Tax Reform. (Henry Waxman, Trillion
Dollar Man, Norquist, op-ed, Washington Times, 5/3/94)

                         Heart Beats

"The widely held belief that women are treated less aggressively
than men for heart problems is challenged by [Dr. Daniel B. Mark]
a Duke University researcher in today's New England Journal of
Medicine. Recent reports have raised the possibility that doctors
may take women's heart conditions less seriously than men's.
Among these are reviews finding that women are less likely to get
such high-tech tests as angiograms, which use x-ray movies to
look for blockages in heart arteries. However, the new study
suggests there is an explanation that has nothing to do with
gender bias: Women are typically 10 to 15 years older than men
when they develop heart disease. Differences in age and severity
of disease are the reason men and women are treated differently."
(Study Questions View on Doctors and Women, Baltimore Sun,
4/21/94) CURE Comment: OK, so it's age and TAB discrimination not
gender bias.

                         Heart Stoppers

"It is a Rocky Mountain high for Hillary Clinton. She is relaxing
in her 22nd-floor suite in the Radisson Hotel after a day in
which she has encountered friendly audiences and only one nasty
sign: a couple of elderly looking students were carrying a banner
that has blood dripping from Vincent Foster's name. 'Remarkable,'
she muse, 'only one and they had time to organize.'...She is
appalled by the 'crazy, wild' rumors she reads about Vincent
Foster, her law partner and friend, lurid tales of his having
been murdered and his body transferred to the park. 'I don't
understand how responsible journalists can permit them to see the
light of day. There is no doubt it was a suicide. I wish I knew
the reason why, I wish we could turn the clock back...in many
cases you never know why. I think he was one of those high
achievers who don't want to let down in front of families and
friends to show depression. I wish people would let this poor man
rest in peace.'" (Hillary's Colorado Respite, Mary McGrory, op-
ed, Washington Post, 3/17/94)

Some 200 students at the University of Miami rallied to protest
the campus newspaper's publication of an advertisement
questioning the deaths of Jews in gas chambers during the
holocaust. The ad was placed in the Hurricane by Bradley Smith, a
California "revisionist historian" and writer. One student
threatened to withdraw from the school, while a donor is
withholding a $2 million contribution on account of the ad. The
$288 advertising fee was donated by the paper to the Holocaust
Memorial Museum. (Holocaust Ad Protested, WP, 4/13/94)

"Paul Touvier, a militia chief and intelligence officer for the
collaborationist Vichy regime of Nazi-occupied France, was judged
guilty of crimes against humanity early today and sentenced to
the maximum penalty of life in prison. The historic verdict,
reached by a nine-member jury after nearly six hours of
deliberation in a Versailles courtroom, affirmed that Touvier was
carrying out the genocidal policies of the Nazi regime when he
executed seven Jews in a Lyon suburb 50 years ago in retaliation
for the assassination of [Philippe Henriot, the chief propaganda
minister for the Vichy] by the French resistance...The Vichy
regime rounded up at least 75,000 French Jews and deported them
to Nazi-run death camps, where only 2,500 survived...Touvier's
lawyer cited remarks by President Francois Mitterand...that there
was little point in reopening old wounds by prosecuting old men
so long after the crimes they were accused of." (Militia Chief in
Vichy France Gets Life in Execution of Jews, William Drozdiak,
Washington Post, 4/20/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: I believe with
Disraeli that justice delayed is justice denied, but the
injustice of Touvier's escaping justice for so long should not
serve as an excuse for his escaping it altogether.

"France has been called a country in which lost causes never die.
And, in fact, the bitter public response of France's anti-
semitic, anti-democratic extreme right to the conviction of Paul
Touvier for 'crimes against humanity' demonstrates that there are
still apologists for Hitlerism and the Nazi occupation policies.
Not many but enough to keep alive the poisonous untruths that
constituted the official ideology of the pro-Nazi Vichy regime...
As sullen apologists for the Hitlerite Vichy regime imposed on
France by the Nazi occupation, they keep alive its crucial myths
and support its remaining fugitives. They are numerous enough and
well-connected enough to have hidden Touvier for more than four
decades, resourceful enough to provide him a first-class legal
defense team for the long trial, and influential enough to have
won him a pardon for war crimes from President Georges Pompidou
in 1971." (Murderer Most Foul, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, op-ed,
Washington Post, 4/25/94)

                         Mal-Practice

Another court hurdle was passed by the multi-billion dollar
settlement between silicon breast implant manufacturers and the
women suing them. US District Judge Sam Pointer Jr., in
Birmingham, AL, gave preliminary approval to potentially the
largest product-liability settlement in US history. Final
approval is anticipated in August. (Breast Implant Settlement
Enters Notification Period, John Schwartz, Washington Post,
4/5/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: To receive court-approved
information on the settlement, call 1-800-887-6828. Women who
wish to file a settlement claim do not need an attorney to do so.

"A congressional report, obtained by the Associated Press,
concluded that government regulations on when doctors can
experiment on patients without their consent are contradictory
and the oversight is negligible. 'It would seem investigators
often exceed the bounds of good judgment and ethical
consideration,' Rep. Ron Wyden (D-OR) wrote the chiefs of the
National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration.
'Uncertainty and confusion with regard to federal requirements...
could play havoc with patient's lives.'" (Panel Questions Ethics
of Experiments, Martinsburg Journal, 4/21/94) For examples of the
unauthorized experiments described in the report, see MEDEX404.*
wherever ABLETEXT files are found.

"US government researchers conducted radiation tests on stillborn
babies in Chicago during the 1950s, the Department of Energy
reported yesterday, in the latest revelation about the wide-scale
use of humans in Cold War experiments. In the Chicago tests,
scientists cremated 44 newly deceased infants and measured the
amount of strontium 90, a radioactive substance, that remains.
Parents were not notified or asked permission for the use of
their children in the experiments, according to DOE officials
familiar with the case. The tests were part of Project Sunshine,
a massive study conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC),
a forerunner of the DOE, to determine the long-term effects of
radioactive fallout on humans...Congress is conducting hearings
on the use of humans in radiation tests; the House Veteran
Affairs Committee will conduct a session on the subject
Wednesday...Researchers gathered data on the babies 'to determine
how much fallout humans could bear,' said Steve Gallson, a DOE
radiation specialist...Gallson acknowledged that some key aspects
of the study are not known, such as how the researchers obtained
the babies, how much the parents knew about the experiments, and
what happened to the remains...Don Peterson, a retired Los Alamos
researcher familiar with the tests, defended them in an
interview. ..."The use of rats or other animals would not obtain
the same results. This was a case of children who were no longer
beneficial to the population being able to provide information
that was enormously important.'" (Stillborn Babies Used in '50s
Radiation Test, Gary Lee, Washington Post, 5/3/94) ABLEnews
Editor's Note: The purpose of any human being, young or old, dead
or alive, is NOT to be "beneficial to the population." That is
the mentality of the Third Reich and it dishonors the government
that steals babies from their parents for such utilitarian ends.

                         Medicaid/care

"More and more hospitals are exploiting a loophole in the law
that lets them classify Medicare patients in hospital beds in a
way that would normally seem peculiar--as outpatients. But
according to government regulators and consumer advocates, this
classification makes a strange kind of sense for hospitals, if
not always for the patients involved. Quite simply, such
classification permits hospitals to raise the amount they can
bill patients. And, in turn, it may push up the amount patients
must pay." (Some Hospital Patients Left Hanging, Don McLeod, AARP
Bulletin, 2/94)

"When Robert Zirk's doctor left Richland, WA, it took Zirk's wife
nearly a year to find another physician willing to accept the
frail, diabetic retiree as a patient. 'When you turn 65, you
become a second-class citizen,' complained Bea Zirk. 'You're at
the mercy of doctors who won't accept you as a Medicare patient.
A new 149-page report to Congress says Medicare now pays
physicians just 59% as much as private insurers pay. Five years
ago, Medicare paid 68% as much. The widening gap has stirred
fears among health officials and advocates for the elderly that
more Medicare patients could find themselves in the same bed as
the Zirks. Poor people on Medicaid have long encountered
obstacles in finding private doctors to treat them; Medicaid pays
just 47% as much as private insurance." (Report: Medicare
Payments to Doctors Falling, Martinsburg Journal, 4/11/94)

"Three of the toughest, strongest groups involved in the national
health reform fight looked into their crystal balls yesterday and
produced a scary picture: deep Medicare cuts could strip services
from the elderly if Congress approves $118 billion in budget
reductions, they said. The American Hospital Association told the
Senate Finance Committee that the cuts proposed by President
Clinton and others over six years to pay for health care reform
would leave hospitals getting only 71 cents for every dollar they
spent caring for Medicare patients. The American Medical
Association said the cuts could push Medicare fees to doctors,
now 59% of private-sector levels, lower, threatening patients'
access to care. And the American Association of Retired Persons
said Medicare patients have already swallowed tens of billions in
cuts and can't swallow $118 billion more." (Medicare Cuts Seen as
Harming the Elderly, Washington Post, 4/13/94) CURE Comment: We
oppose the gutting of Medicare...and Medicaid.

                         Medicine Chest

"In 1993, prescription drug price increases were cut by more than
half--to 3.1 percent from 6.4 percent in 1992. This is the fourth
consecutive annual decline, and reflects new market forces and
voluntary price restraints by drug research companies." (1993
Prescription Drug Price Increases Lowest in 20 Years,
Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, advertisement,
Washington Post, 3/4/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: For further
information, call the PMA toll free at 1-800-538-2692.

Coronary angioplasty is performed on 400,000 Americans each year.
In angioplasty, doctors temporarily inflate balloons inside heart
arteries to push back blockages. However, blood clots frequently
clog the arteries again, necessitating another angioplasty or a
bypass operation for one in four of these patients. Researchers
writing in today's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine
report that the use of CentoRx, a clot-blocking drug, could
eliminate a quarter of the 100,000 repeat procedures. (Novel
Clot-Blocking Drug Seen Improving Angioplasty, WP, 4/7/94)

                         Mental Health Memo

"College students who listen to rock'n'roll music are more likely
to be living on the edge than they are to be shiny happy people.
A pair of Penn State University researchers say they have linked
rock music to depression and anxiety, but they can't explain why
the guitars gently weep. 'It could be that students who are more
negative-feeling seek out rock'n'roll to listen to, or it could
be that they listen to rock'n'roll and become depressed,' said
Dr. Valerie N. Stratton, an associate professor of psychology at
Penn State's Altoona campus...'Students who report the highest
levels of rock listening have also the highest scores on measures
of depression, anxiety, and sensation seeking,' Stratton said."
(Rock Music Linked to Depression, Morning Herald, 3/14/94)

"Dear Ann Landers: I am saddened and angry about your response to
the recent letters regarding 'false memories.' Your response was
that 'while some memories of early childhood abuse are real, many
accusations are false.' Of course, there are some incidents of
false memories, but most therapists will tell you that they are
few in number...I am a survivor of abuse who repressed the memory
for many years...I went through 18 months of nightmares and
terror as the memories surfaced. During this time,, my mother
began attending 'false memory syndrome' support group meetings in
order to discredit me...Your response gave the impression that
the majority of abuse memories are false. If you would consult
some mental health professionals, you'd find the vast majority
disagree with you. --A Survivor (Wexford, PA). Dear Survivor:
This is a subject about which I do not need to consult any mental
health professionals. I have been receiving letters from both the
abused and abusers as long as I have been writing this column. I
chose recently to focus on those who were falsely accused because
their side is rarely represented. It is indeed true that most of
the memories of early childhood abuse are rooted in fact and not
fiction. The majority of those who repressed memories, however,
were abused when they were very young--not teenagers." (Landers,
Martinsburg Journal, 3/16/94)

"Soul. A single syllable word, suggesting something very primary,
like sun, moon, earth...Many call and know the soul as their
heart...Nearly all want to believe that when the body dies and
decays, the soul lives on. In his 17 years as a psychotherapist
Thomas Moore heard over and over again complaints of emptiness,
depression, disillusionment about relationships, loss of values,
and a yearning for fulfillment--all signs of loss of soul, he
says. Inspired by these dilemma, Moore wrote 'Care of the Soul'
(HarperPerennial, $12), now a bestseller and a book that has
stirred considerable discussion in spiritual, psychological, and
academic circles. To Moore, soul lives in love, attachment, and
community. It is 'a genuineness and depth,' says Moore, and can
be found, in part, in 'good food, satisfying conversation,
genuine friends, and experiences that stay in the memory and
touch the heart.' That part of the soul is pleasurable and
comforting to grasp. What is harder to understand is that soul is
also found in pain. Moore proposes that care of the soul does not
mean making your problems and cares go away. Rather, the goal is
to accept and appreciate the paradoxes of life: The peace and the
suffering, the love and jealousy, the attachment and loss." (The
Many Faces of Soul, Barbara Mathias, Washington Post, 4/4/94)
ABLEnews Editor's Note: "Wherefore is light given to him who is
in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul." (Job 3:20)

"With regard to Daniel Mark Epstein's March 27 review of the
newly-published letters between Ezra Pound and his publisher/
friend James Laughlin of New Directions, I beg to take exception
to his statement at the opening of the review (and pursued by
inference) that Pound 'descended into madness' during World War
II. Certainly Pound was afflicted with a psycho-pathological
disorder, regardless of the fact that the 'insanity plea' was
used to avoid a treason trial...As for his anti-Semitism and
political stance against Roosevelt and Churchill, they were
certainly not the singular province of Ezra Pound. It was not a
politically correct era." --Thomas Cole, Baltimore, MD. (Pound's
Madness, Cole, letter-editor, Baltimore Sun, 4/19/94) ABLEnews
Editor's Note: Anyone reading Of Note (or other ABLEnews or CURE
writings) knows we are anything but "politically correct."
However, Mr. Cole notwithstanding, sloganeering--of whatever
camp--cannot justify the virulent anti-Semitism and fascism
embraced by Pound and his ilk. Moreover, the exploitation of a
pseudo-disability to avoid the demands justice imposes on
treason--as purported by Cole--IS dishonorable and despicable.
Mental illness, on the other hand, as every disability, is NOT.

"A woman whose claims of childhood sexual abuse are at the center
of a lawsuit testing the validity of recovered memories swore
yesterday that her recollections of being raped by her father
were true. Holly Ramona's father, Gary, is seeking $8 million
from a counselor and a psychiatrist whom he accuses of destroying
his family and his career as a wine company executive by planting
false memories during his daughter's therapy. But his 23-year-old
daughter took the stand as the first defense witness and flatly
declared that the abuse had occurred." (Woman Testifies That
Memories of Abuse Are Fact, Baltimore Sun, 4/21/94) ABLEnews
Editor's Note: For the complete story of this latest episode in
the continuing controversy over recovered/false memories, see
MH40421.* wherever ABLEtext files are found.

                         Old Story

While calculating bone mass is critical to assuring the extent of
osteoporosis in the elderly, finding an inexpensive, rapid,
accurate, and low-risk means of measuring bone mass has proven a
difficult challenge. In a study presented at the Third
International Symposium on Osteoporosis, Daniel Baran, of the
University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester, reports
that ultrasound may prove "useful not only in assessing women at
risk for osteoporosis but also in following these women after
treatment." Most of the 25 million Americans with osteoporosis
are women. (Ultrasound Effective in Gauging Bone Mass, Sally
Squires, Washington Post Health, 3/15/94)

                         Public Health

"Common bacteria that cause pneumonia, children's ear infections,
and many other diseases are evolving into forms untreatable by
all known medicines, threatening a chilling post-antibiotic era
that will be 'nothing short of a medical disaster,' a researcher
said Saturday. In the post-antibiotic world, the simplest
infections could quickly escalate into fatal illnesses, said
Alexander Tomasz of Rockefeller University in NEw York City.
'Most people think it will happen,' he said. 'It's unpredictable
when.' And the consequences? 'No one knows. The mortality is
quite high.'" (Some Bacteria Becoming Untreatable, MJ, 2/20/94)

"Belching silver smelters spewed lead into European skies more
than 2,000 years before the Industrial Revolution, leaving toxic
fallout that remains a threat to modern humans, a study says.
Researchers examined layers of sediment from 19 lakes in Sweden.
They found that lead, a byproduct of silver refining, began
settling on Europe's lakes and soils 2,600 years ago, when the
ancient Greeks began refining silver for coins. Lead emissions
rose to a pre-industrial peak 600 years later, under the
Romans...Lead pollution soared with the arrival of the Industrial
Revolution in the 19th century. But the total amount of lead
released before then is at least as large as what has since been
released. The study by biologist Ingemar Renberg and colleagues
at the University of Umea in Sweden was being published Thursday
in Nature magazine, a British scientific journal." (Harmful
Effects Linger from Ancient Pollution, MJ, 3/24/94)

                         Research Review

A study published in the March 31 New England Journal of Medicine
finds that people with certain forms of kidney disease
accompanied by protein in the urine (proteinuria) may stave off
kidney failure for twice as long by lowering their blood pressure
substantially. "For the first time, we are looking at the
possibility of interfering with the progression of the disease."
--Gary Striker, NIH Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and
Kidney Diseases. The National Institutes of Health deemed the
results so convincing that such patients should strive for a
blood pressure of 125 over 75--well below the high normal range:
140 over 90. (Aid for Kidney Patients, Washington Post, 4/7/94)

Using the cancer drug taxol, scientists have halted polycystic
kidney disease for the first time. A half million Americans have
the inherited disease which can progressively disable the kidney
with hundreds of cysts. Ordinarily the disease kills mice by the
time they are a month old, but some mice treated with taxol by
Dr. David Woo and colleagues at the University of California, Los
Angeles, lived more than 200 days and still appear healthy. Taxol
may delay or prevent the need for dialysis or kidney transplant,
the researchers report in today's issue of the journal Nature.
(Cancer Drug Halts Inherited Kidney Disease in Mice, BS, 4/21/94)

                         Short Subjects

"With the income tax deadline a few weeks off, it's time for you
to start thinking about ways to itemize deductions and save a few
dollars. And I might be able to help...Think underwear. Yes, that
simple, humble piece of clothing most of us wear beneath our
outer garments could represent a tidy savings on our tax bill. I
first discovered this eight months ago, when it was disclosed
that while governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton would donate his
used shorts to the Salvation Army or Goodwill resale shops and
take a $4 deduction for each pair. And it has since been revealed
that he gave away long underwear and valued them for tax purposes
at $12 per long john. (I don't know whether they were with or
without back-flaps, or whether it matters.) This filled me with
admiration for Clinton's financial acumen, and regret that my
father didn't have the means to send me to Yale Law School so I
could become that smart." (You Don't Have to Be a Lawyer to Know
the Value of a Good Brief, Mike Royko, op-ed, MJ, 3/28/94)

                         The Whole Tooth

"When Laura Ralston was a young girl, she used to stick paper
clips over her teeth and pretend they were braces. 'I'd look at
my babysitters and think, 'Wow! Braces!' said Laura, now 12. So
two years ago, she got the real thing, just like most of her
babysitters and some of her classmates in Fairfax (VA). Even her
mother had braces. One the face of adolescence, braces have
become as common as acne. They are, say the dentist who apply
them and the parents who pay for them, necessary tools to mold a
Hollywood smile. As dental insurance has become more common--
nearly half the population has some coverage, compared with about
3% in 1970--visits to dentists and orthodontists have increased.
...Nearly a quarter of North America's 4 million orthodontics
patients are adults, and in the United States, the number of
adults in braces has doubled in the last 10 years." (Brace
Yourself--Dental Hardware Is Growing Trend for Grownups, Marylou
Tousignant, Washington Post, 4/16/94)


                         Word of Life

"Health care reform should not stop at the church door. 'Every
church should be doing something in health ministry,' the Rev.
Mark Gornik said at a recent conference of doctors and clergy
organized by former President Carter. 'We're talking about a
life-and-death situation.' Gornik helped set up a clinic, staffed
by volunteer doctors, at New Song Presbyterian Church in the
Sandtown neighborhood of Baltimore, where the median household
income is $8,500 a year. Nearly 1,000 patients have been treated
at the church clinic in the past two years." (Baltimore Church
Heals More Than Sins, Martinsburg Journal, 2/6/94)

"The University of Alabama at Birmingham's first full-time AIDS
chaplain has a message for religious congregations: Learn to
comfort victims of the disease. 'The church or the synagogue is
the perfect place to have a real impact on this epidemic,' the
Rev. Malcolm Marler said...'Look at the way Jesus responded to
the lepers--that's my model. The society rejected them; Jesus
touched them, he healed them, he cared for them.' With a master
of divinity and doctor of ministry degrees from Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary, Marler, 38, hopes to be able to convey his
message to the state's largest denomination--Southern Baptists."
(Religion Briefs, Martinsburg Journal, 3/20/94)

                    Telling Headlines

Australia Seeks Ban on Genital Mutilation, MJ, 3/4
Baby Immunizations Lag, Washington Post, 3/17
Black Mayors at Meeting Back Clinton Health Plan, 4/29
Breast Implants Suit Settled for Billions, MH, 3/18
Complaining of Vandalism, Ex-Policeman Kills 2, Self, WP, 5/16
Congress to Consider Smoking Ban in Public Buildings, MJ, 3/23
Don't Blame Farmers for Nitrogen Overload, BS, 3/21
EPA Advises Users of Private Wells Test Water for Lead, BS, 4/19
Ex-Congressman: Vietnam Not Helping in MIA Search, MJ, 4/5
Ex-Panther Cleaver Recovering After Brain Hemorrhage, MJ, 3/4
Girl from Swap Seems at Home with New Family, MH, 3/14
Goldwater Grandson Discusses HIV Status, MJ, 3/14
Justice Blackmun Announces Retirement, Washington Post, 4/7
Lawmakers Approve $1.25-a-Pack Hike in Cigarette Tax, MJ, 3/23
Medical Schools: We Can't Fund Raises, Martinsburg Journal, 2/21
NJ Court Affirms Limits on Abortion Clinic Picketing, WP, 4/7
New Study Supports Lumpectomy Surgery, Washington Post, 4/20
Politicians Spread AIDS; Lack Courage to Control It, USAT, 3/16
Politics of Abortion in Virginia, Washington Post, 4/20
Poll Discovers Minorities Hatge Whites, Each Other, MJ, 3/4
Recognizing Klinefelter Syndrome, Washington Post, 3/15
Side Effects of AZT Cast Doubt on Value, Washington Post, 3/17
Smoking Out Tobacco, Morning Herald, 3/18
South African Neo-Nazis Stand by Suspects, Washington Post, 4/29
Stalinist-Era Art's Intention Was to Lift Mood of Masses, WT, 5/3
Study: Primary Care Doctors Needed, Morning Herald, 3/23
Teacher's Sex Abuse Trial Set, Martinsburg Journal, 3/23
The Case for a Pol on the Supreme Court, op-ed, WP, 4/12
Those with AIDS Get Visas for Games, Martinsburg Journal, 3/23
Toxic Releases Decline, Washington Post, 4/20
War Memorial Will Reopen 24-Hour Emergency Room, MJ, 3/16
Wise: Clinton Must Compromise on Health Plan, MJ, 3/24
Young Adults Gaining Weight, Morning Herald, 3/18

                    Wish We'd Said That...

     There is always an easy solution to every human
     problem--neat, plausible, and wrong.  (H.L. Mencken)

                    ...Glad We Didn't

     Too bad Jackie McLean isn't a Republican living in
     Virginia. She could be running for the US Senate. Mrs.
     McLean, the city comptroller, was recently revealed to
     have been undergoing psychiatric treatment and
     hospitalization for depression. That's practically a
     requirement to be a Republican senatorial candidate in
     Virginia these days. (Theo Lippman, Jr.)

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