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                        OF NOTE...
                        News to Use

Vol. III, Issue 65                                July 15, 1994
Earl Appleby, Jr., Editor                         CURE, Ltd.

                         Addictions

"Recently Peggy spent an hour in therapy with me. She and her boyfriend
had been heavily addicted to drink and drugs. 'I got sick of myself, just
sick with disgust,' Peggy says, 'and I quit drink and drugs. Period.' She
actually did, just like that. Then, worried lest her boyfriend was
drinking himself to death, she planned an intervention and got him into
treatment. Now the real struggle begins. Peggy's current addiction is
compulsive overeating. She wages as intensive a war for control of food
as her friend does with alcohol. Over time, our physical self can get
programmed to addictions. Addictions, to paraphrase Isaiah, are like
'greedy dogs, never satisfied.' Whenever Peggy gets stressed out, for
instance, she wants to eat. Her boyfriend, on the other hand, wants to
drink. Frequent overeating, starving, hard boozing, drugs, gambling, or
spending money we don't have...regardless of how an addiction has begun,
the longer it lasts the more powerful it grows...To overcome our
addictions...we must pray. We must learn to slow down, get quiet, grow
calm. Yet, programming time for prayer amid all our rushing around can be
extremely difficult. It calls for us to relinquish control of our dash
for success...to ignore the brain's mandate to get up and chase about
rather than sit or kneel quietly and open ourselves to God's voice. It
can be painful to pray, to listen for the voice which, Isaiah tells us,
speaks in a whisper." (When Addictions Fracture Our Lives, Sister Vera
Gallagher, RGS, Catholic Digest, 6/94)

"Frankfort, KY--Thousands of defiant tobacco farmers hurled stalks of
tobacco into the river running through this state capital yesterday to
protest proposed cigarette tax hikes and mounting attacks on smoking. An
estimated 3,500 farmers and their supporters converged on Frankfort for
their own version of the Boston Tea Party, tossing some of the state's
most lucrative cash crop into the Kentucky River. Unlike the American
colonists in 1773 who dumped tea into Boston harbor to protest British
taxes, the tobacco farmers cleaned up after themselves, stationing boats
downstream to scoop up the ruined plants...Kentucky grows nearly one-
third of the nation's tobacco, and the state's crop this year is
projected to fetch more than $1 billion." (Tobacco Farmers Protest
Proposed Tax Increases, Washington Post, 6/10/94)

"When the surgeon general issued his 1964 report on smoking, 42% of
Americans smoked. Today the figure is 20%. The campaign against smoking
is the most successful exercise in mass behavioral change in our time.
There has been no public health success like it since Prohibition. Yes,
Prohibition: It was a law enforcement disaster but a public health
triumph. The decline it caused in cirrhosis and alcoholic psychosis was
dramatic. And alcohol consumption did not reach pre-Prohibition levels
again until 1971...With tobacco such a success, why do the reformers stop
there? Why not go after alcohol with similar vigor? Alcohol is an
addictive drug, and its consequences are as devastating as tobacco. In
fact, it has short-term consequences--traffic deaths, domestic violence--
that tobacco is entirely free of. Addiction to alcohol, unlike tobacco,
causes psychological derangement and pathological behavior that
devastates not just individuals but whole families. And while we are at
it, why not go after other vices?...One has to be a little distrustful of
a mentality that goes after tobacco--which is morally neutral, harmless
to cognition, and does not cause half the familial and communal damage
that alcoholism, drug abuse, and illegitimacy do." (Why Stop With
Smoking? Charles Krauthammer, op-ed, Washington Post, 6/10/94)

While smoking in the movies may not be as glamorous as Bogie and Bacall
once made it, a University of California study finds there is still more
lighting up on the silver screen than in the real world. The researchers,
who reviewed three decades of Hollywood films, report that although
smoking has declined dramatically since the 1960s, movie heroes are three
times more likely to smoke. "The impression kids get from watching these
movies is that people smoke and smoking is something that is done by
desirable figures. It's not the bad guys who are smoking, it's the good
guys." --Stan Glantz, UC researcher. (Study Says Young Fans Getting a
Large Dose of Smoking at the Movies, Martinsburg Journal, 6/20/94)

"Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation secretly grew tobacco genetically
engineered to have twice the normal nicotine and used the leaves in
cigarettes, FDA chief David Kessler told Congress Tuesday. He says
farming of the 'Y-1" plants in Brazil--and other FDA findings--'lay to
rest any notion that there is no manipulation and control of nicotine' in
the tobacco industry. 'I don't know how you design a plant...and say you
are not interested' in manipulating nicotine, Kessler says. If companies
sell cigarettes in a way to deliver nicotine--a drug--that could affect
whether FDA has the authority to regulate tobacco." (FDA: 'Y-1' Boosts
Nicotine, Doug Levy, USA Today, 6/22/94) Stay 'Tooned: Bald-headed
businessman with Pinocchio-length nose and suit labeled Tobacco Industry.
His gun barrel is a burning cigarette with the legend Nicotine Spiked. "I
didn't know it was loaded." (Duffy, Des Moines Register, 1994) ABLEnews
Editor's Note: See also, Firm Secretly Created Potent Tobacco, Baltimore
Sun, 6/22/94.

"The commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration wants to regulate
tobacco because the nicotine it contains is a drug--a dangerous, mood-
changing, and addictive drug. There's a good deal of logic to David A.
Kessler's notion--particularly since the recent disclosure that at least
one tobacco company has come up with a new strain of tobacco with a
greatly increased nicotine content. I wish him luck. Then maybe he'll
turn his attention to regulating rap music. And why not? Rap seems to
share many of the dangerous qualities of nicotine. It is addictive (or at
least habituating); it is available in some particularly deleterious
strains, and it is mood-altering." (Does Rap Music Need a Warning Label?
William Raspberry, op-ed, Washington Post, 6/24/94)

"Three years ago, Tom Turner's daily routine involved getting up. going
to work, coming home, drinking beer, and falling asleep. Rarely did the
32-year-old do anything with his wife and three kids. Times have changed
in his household. Turner recently took his kids to the circus. He built a
jungle gym for them in the back yard of their home off Leitersburg Pike.
He smiles when he talks about his wife. And the guys at work know he's
been sober for two years. Across town James Russ is getting used to
punching a clock, going to the bank, and spending time with his
girlfriend and two daughters. The seemingly common experiences are new
for 29-year-old Russ, who says he's a recovering crack addict. He
recently got out of prison and now is holding down a full-time job at
Gold Bond Ice Cream in Hagerstown [MD}. Turner and Russ have come face to
face with their addictions through Washington County Health Department's
Intensive Substance Abuse Program. Both men had been through other
programs, but their old habits came back. What's different about this
program, they say, is the amount of time it requires." (Program Helps to
Curb Substance Abuse, Lisa Tedrick Prejean, Morning Herald, 6/24/94)
ABLEnews Editor's Note: For further information, call ISAP director
Barbara Koelle at [phone].

Attorney General Janet Reno announced Thursday that the US Department of
Justice is investigating whether tobacco companies lied to regulators and
Congress regarding their cigarettes. Thomas Sandefur, chairman of Brown &
Williamson Tobacco Company charged the Food and Drug Administration with
conduct "that in effect set B&W up." Sandefur told the House Energy and
Commerce health subcommittee, "I certainly believe I am entitled to
express that view [that nicotine is not addictive and its levels aren't
manipulated in cigarettes] even though it may differ from the opinion of
others." (Tobacco Companies May Be Investigated, Morning Herald, 6/24/94)
ABLEnews Editor's Note: I like to think of it this way: Everyone is
entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. See also, B&W Denies
Nicotine Plot, USA Today, 6/24/94, and Tobacco Executive Defends
Testimony, Washington Post, 6/24/94.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Nevada has
the highest rate of smoking-related deaths in the nation and its neighbor
Utah the lowest. Tobacco use accounted for 2,234 deaths in Nevada in
1990, 24% of all deaths that year. In Utah, where the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-Day Saints--to which 70% of Utah's residents belong--
forbids smoking, 1,228 people died from smoking in 1990 (3.4% of the
state's total). Nationwide smoking-related death are declining, the CDC
reports. (Nevada Leads in Death Rate From Smoking, New York Times,
6/27/94) For the 10 highest and lowest ranked states, see Smoked to Death
in the upcoming July ABLEnews Review.

Pharmacy owners in Ontario have banded together in a legal bid to prevent
a provincial ban on tobacco sales in drugstores from going into effect as
scheduled in the fall. The ban--which does not apply to any other retail
outlets--is the first such prohibition in North America. Enacted as a
provision of one of the most ambitious antismoking bill in the world, the
prohibition would eliminate 15% of the drugstores' gross sales. "It is an
ethical dilemma" for pharmacies to sell tobacco," confesses Larry Rosen,
the owner of five Toronto drugstores, who is leading the challenge.
Indeed, the group "supports the intention of the bill, to restrict
tobacco use, but cannot stand by while their businesses are hurt for the
sake of empty symbolism." (Ontario Drugstores Seek to Block Ban on
Tobacco Sales, Larry Greenberg, Wall Street Journal, 6/27/94)

"San Juan, Puerto Rico--Residents of 50 high-crime housing projects have
awakened to the blasting of chopper blades and the crush of combat boots,
as pre-dawn raiding parties of police and National Guardsmen have turned
their neighborhoods into occupied territories. Local officials say the
takeovers, the centerpiece of first-term Gov. Pedro Rossello's anti-crime
plan, were designed to rescue the projects from warring drug gangs and
return them to the residents. Crime is down 85% in those projects where
troops and police are deployed and 40% in a four-block radius surrounding
them, according to police statistics.   'Our war is far from over, but it
is being won,' declared Rossello, who won election in 1992 as head of
Puerto Rico's New Progressive Party on a get-tough-with-crime platform."
(In Puerto Rico's War on Drugs, Combat Troops Reinforce Police,
Washington Post, 6/30/94)

                         Against the Odds

"Dear Mackenzie, It begins to look as though you'll make it. I wouldn't
have dared think so, let alone say it, a few days ago. But I do now,
cautiously, realizing a single setback could cancel a dozen incremental
gains. I want to believe that God doesn't play cat and mouse with us, at
least not interminably. All who love you have been on a psychic roller
coaster since your birth. Joy and fear have been tangled together and
difficult to unravel. I want to try a bit of unravelling even so, and
record a few things you have already done for those who love you and who
will continue to love you, whether your life span is to be a few weeks,
or many years. First, you have widened our circle of love." (A Message to
My Granddaughter, Robert McAfee Brown, Catholic Digest, 6/94)

                         AIDS Addenda

After two years, federal investigators from the Inspector General's
Office of the Department of Health and Human Services have found no
evidence supporting Dr. Robert Gallo's claim that he invented the widely
used HIV blood test. Millions of dollars in royalties are at stake in the
conflict between HHS and the Pasteur Institute of Paris. Dr. Gallo, who
heads a research laboratory at the National Cancer Institute, failed to
tell the US Patent Office that the Pasteur Institute, already at work on
its own test, had sent him the AIDS virus they had discovered. The patent
officer who granted HHS the patent on Dr. Gallo's test in 1985 said she
would not have granted it had she known. Dr. Gallo received more than
$700,000 from the sale of the AIDS test. (HHS Finds No Evidence that
Gallo Invented AIDS Test, Baltimore Sun, 6/19/94)

"While serving a Republican administration, I often remembered the words
of Robert Kennedy: 'Some men see things as they are. and say why; I dream
things that never were, and say why not.' With more than 1 million
Americans infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, with more than
200,000 AIDS-related deaths in the United States alone, and with more
than 85% of adult Americans as yet untested for HIV, we have options to
expand HIV testing but have failed to do so. Americans should ask 'why
not?' Why not allow people to test their HIV status at home?" --C.
Everett Koop, MD, former surgeon general. (A Do-It-Yourself AIDS Test,
Koop, op-ed, USA Today, 6/22/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: See also, HIV
Home Kits Get Another Shot at Approval, USA Today, 6/22/94)

"'The point was made that this technology is inevitable. I don't think
inevitable means that we should say yes to it now.' said Karen Porter, a
panel member and bioethicist at Montefiore Medical Center. The FDA is
considering whether to allow Americans to buy such kits from their corner
drugstore. Buyers would prick a finger in the privacy of their own home,
sen dried blood spots to a lab, and get the results by telephone. But the
FDA pane; had three major questions...Will the people most in need of
testing for HIV...buy a $30 kit instead of getting a free test from a
public clinic? Will average people send in adequate blood samples when
trained workers currently have difficulty testing newborns using this
method? Will people who get counseling by telephone be adequately served
by the test and seek adequate health care?" (New In-Home AIDS Blood Test
Needs Further Study, Says Majority on FDA Panel, Baltimore Sun, 6/23/94)

                         Body Language

"There's the dream. There's the cream. Alas, there's no dream cream.
That's what a group of USA Today thigh-cream testers discovered after
spending three weeks slathering on creams laced with the 'miracle'
ingredient aminophylline...Politicians would kill for the kind of
publicity showered on the aminophylline-laced creams. In test tubes,
aminophylline, a common ingredient in asthma medications, breaks up fat
cells by blocking the enzyme adenosine, which normally inhibits fat
breakup. Theoretically, it works, says Dr. William Dietz, president of
the North American Association for the Study of Obesity. But can it cure
thunder thighs? Dietz is not convinced. Drs. George Bray and Frank
Greenway are. Last fall, the endocrinologists reported that a thigh cream
they developed with 2% of the fat-busting ingredient shrank 12 women's
thighs by as much as 2 inches. A test on 12 women is hardly scientific
proof. But women hungry for thin thighs gobbled up the news. There was
the promise. But what's the reality? To find out, each member of our
nine-woman Cream Team tested one of three products...The products are all
based on the Bray/Greenway formula but have been modified for sale as
cosmetics by a colleague, Dr. Bruce Frome of Los Angeles. Full-strength
and claiming thigh-reducing effects, the cream would have to pass
rigorous Food and Drug Administration tests. But as adapted with only a
quarter of the aminophylline in the original formula, it can be sold as a
cosmetic with only a fraction of the promises...Of the nine, only
Elizabeth Kenyon, 27, of Chantilly, VA,...reported 'a visible
difference.'" (Leg Creams Aren't a Cure, Say Thigh-Witnesses, Barbara
Nachman, USA Today, 6/27/94)

                         Cancer Chronicles

A study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute
concludes that green tea--the beverage of choice of millions of Asians--
may help protect its regular drinkers against cancer of the esophagus.
Tea is one of the  world's most widely consumed beverages, with 20% of
the total comprised of green tea. (Study: Green Tea Consumption Lowers
Esophageal Cancer Risk, Martinsburg Journal, 6/1/94)

A quest of over three decades' duration ended with the discovery of a key
blood protein that helps people stop bleeding. The discovery holds
promise for doctors treating cancer. The platelet-stimulating protein
should allow higher doses of cancer medicine, says Dr. Janice Gabrilove,
an associate member of the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. The
protein should also lower risks of serious bleeding in bone marrow
transplant recipients. (Protein Controls Bleeding, Martinsburg Journal,
6/16/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: See also, Protein Drug May Ease Risk of
Chemotherapy, USA Today, 6/16/94)

                         Family Affair

"My sister Ann and I were at the hospital bedside of my father, who was
dying of cancer...Despite her 31 years, Ann seems much younger. She has
Down syndrome...At Mom's sudden death eleven months earlier, Ann lost not
only her mother, but her friend, teacher, nurse, and confidante. Now, all
too soon, we were facing death again. Ann, quivering with emotion, stood
some distance from my father. Her last acquaintance with the hospital did
not signal good things: All too clearly she remembered Mother's
hospitalization and death. 'I don't want my daddy to die,' Ann told me
several times...I invited her to a chair which I moved closer to Dad's
bed. 'I don't want my daddy to die...Mom died. I cry sometimes. I miss my
mom.'...'Daddy will know you're here,' I said, 'if you put your hand in
his.' So Ann placed her right hand soothingly on Dad's left hand. And at
the moment of contact, she opened her heart. Gently, she formed the
words, 'I don't want you to die, Daddy...I need you.' When Dad stirred a
little, Ann became a compassionate nurse: 'You're all right, Daddy,' she
told him. Each time he moved, he was reassured again. It must have been
so consoling for Dad as Ann's voice touched his fatherly heart--and
innocent daughter speaking her love, overcoming her own sadness and fear
to comfort him." (In Grief, Does "Life Go On"? Sister M. Barbara
Ostheimer, SND, Catholic Digest, 6/94)

After months of indecision over what and how to finance, the White House
will submit its welfare reform package to Congress next week. While some
administration officials urged delaying the plan as a distraction from
enacting health care reform, others feared competing Republican and
Democrat proposals would steal the spotlight unless President Clinton
acted now to fulfill his State of the Union pledge to introduce welfare
reform this year. Still a senior administration official cautioned: "The
president's most important priority is health care and the Congress
understands that...As long as the sequencing is understood by the Hill, I
don't think there will be the kind of confusion one would be worried
about." (Clinton to send $9.3 Billion Welfare Bill to Congress, Eric
Pianin and Ruth Marcus, Washington Post, 6/10/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note:
For a different perspective on health-vs-welfare priorities, see Suzanne
Field's To Reform Health Care, Start with Welfare, below under Health
Care Plans and Pans.

Conservatives and liberals alike are lining up to attack another Clinton
compromise.  This time it is not health care reform but welfare reform
that is drawing the critics' crossfire. "Overall, his plan would expand
entitlements, create new government welfare programs, and pour more money
into a failed system that fosters a pernicious dependency," charges
William Krystol, a conservative Republican strategist. Cecilia Munoz,
senior immigration policy analyst for the National Council of La Raza,
declares, "The administration is opening a door to immigrant bashing and
scapegoating which threatens to overshadow the entire welfare reform
debate." (Midwest Backdrop Sets Stage for Launch of Welfare Reform
Proposal, Martinsburg Journal, 6/14/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: See also,
Clinton Welfare Plan Hit Before Getting Out of Gate, Washington Times,
6/14, and Clinton Welfare Plan, Requiring Work After Two Years, to Be
Unveiled Today, Wall Street Journal, 6/14/94.

"What welfare recipients need is a little tough love, not more benefits.
Unfortunately, President Clinton's new welfare reform proposal only talks
tough--and delivers more benefits. The most popular feature of the
president's plan is a two-year, lifetime limit on welfare. But the two-
year limit isn't quite what it's cracked up to be. The government can
force welfare recipients from the rolls after two years only if it can
provide them a job--at taxpayer expense if need be. Meanwhile, all
welfare recipients will be eligible for an expensive $9.3 billion new
job-training program and extended child-care benefits...No other group of
working mothers receive such benefits, even though 60% of all mothers of
children under age 6 now work. These benefits may actually induce some
welfare recipients to remain on the rolls longer than they might
otherwise--and others to go on welfare in the first place." --Linda
Chavez, director, Manhattan Institute's Center for the New American
Community. (Best Reform for Welfare: End It, Chavez, op-ed, USA Today,
6/22/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: As a former state Work Incentive Program
coordinator, I would say that the incentive Mrs. Chavez derides does not
arise from overly generous to welfare recipients in their transition from
tax recipients to taxpayers, but the lack of adequate assistance to the
working poor.

"No sooner had the outlines of the Clinton plan been announced last week
then we got the party line. 'Hopelessly weak' said Rep. Bob Michel.
'Limp' said Sen. Phil Gramm. 'Marginal tinkering' said former drug czar
Bill Bennett. The Soundbite Meister himself, Rep, Newt Gingrich said,
'The president is brilliant at describing a Ferrari, but his staff
continues to produce a Yugo.' What was absent from this user-group was
the admission that none of these conservatives would have supported any
Ferrari program. Indeed most of those on the right talk about taking the
wheels off welfare altogether." (Is Compromise a Flaw? Ellen Goodman, op-
ed, Morning Herald, 6/22/94)

A four-year study, underwritten by the National Institute of Mental
Health, found that--conventional wisdom not withstanding--"most adoptive
families are thriving, and most adoptive adolescents show no signs that
adoption has a negative effect on their identity development, mental
health, or well-being." The survey, conducted by the Minneapolis-based
Search Institute, may encourage congressional efforts to loosen
restrictions on interracial adoptions, as it found that adolescents
adopted by parents of a different race were as well adjusted as those
adopted by parents of the same race. (Adoption and Well-Being, Laura
Sessions Stepp, Washington Post, 6/24/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: We
found  the caring quotient particularly telling. Places high personal
value on helping other people. Non-Adopted Siblings: 48%; Adopted Youth:
71%.

"Conservative proposals to eliminate welfare benefits to unmarried
mothers drew sharp criticism yesterday, first from an unusual alliance of
academic researchers and later from Health and Human Services Secretary
Donna E. Shalala. Shalala called a Republican bill that would cut off
welfare benefits to unmarried mothers under age 21 'un-American' and
'wrong.' Shalala's remarks were aimed in part at countering radio ads
critical of the Clinton welfare proposal. The ads are being aired by
Empower America, a group founded by conservative William J. Bennett and
Jack Kemp, which has endorsed and promoted the GOP bill...Rep. James M.
Talent (R-MO)...rejected Shalala's criticism, saying that the bill 'is
much fairer to welfare kids and poor kids than the existing system, which
is subjecting them to neighborhoods of crime and drug use, where they are
trapped in a cycle of dependency.'" (Conservative Welfare Idea
Criticized, Barbara Vobejda, Washington Post, 6/24/94) ABLEnews Editor's
Note: See also, Welfare Limits Would Hurt Children, Alliance Says, USA
Today, 6/22)

                         Food for Thought

According to spokesman Carl Stern, the Department of Justice is
investigating allegations that Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy
accepted free travel, lodging, and tickets to sporting events from Tyson
Foods Inc., a major poultry company with close ties to President Clinton.
Several reports have suggested that Tyson's influence has led the
Department of Agriculture to forgo stricter regulations for poultry,
while imposing them on beef. (Inquiry Looks into Espy Gifts from Poultry
Giant, Martinsburg Journal, 6/10/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: See also,
Espy's Ties to Food Firm Under Study, Washington Post, 6/10/94)

"A sack full of corn can make the medicine go down for cattle, chickens,
and pigs. Often, it's the farmer or feed mill employees--not a
veterinarian--who decides what drug an ailing beast gets. But there are
growing worries about 'super bugs,'--disease-causing animal bacteria like
salmonella that withstand ordinary drugs--showing up in human food. As a
result, it may become harder for producers to use new drugs as freely.
The Food and Drug Administration will propose giving veterinarians the
final word on who gets to use any new antimicrobials that come on the
market...'The whole thrust behind this policy is a human safety issue,'
said Stephen Sundlof, director-designate of the agency's Center for
Veterinary Medicine. 'Our position is to encourage more responsible use
of these drugs so that they have a longer lifespan in the market.' By
'lifespan in the market,' Sundlof means that the drugs are as useful to
humans and animals for as long as possible. Humans and animals often
share the same type of drugs, like tetracyclines." (Keeping Antibiotics
Out of Feed and the Food Chain, Robert Greene, MJ, 6/11/94)

"Theater owners are happy to see audiences yuk it up with Fred and Barney
and scream at the bomb-on-the-bus thriller 'Speed,' but they've also got
a problem. The popcorn has been piling up. It's been a few months since a
widely publicized report showed a medium bucket of popcorn made with
coconut oil has the same amount of fat as six Big Macs. Since then the
demand for popcorn at theater concessions has fallen...The Center for
Science in the Public Interest report released in April said a 16-cup
medium bucket made with coconut oil had 901 calories and 43 grams of
saturated fat--more than double the fat recommended daily. It also said
70% of theater popcorn is made with coconut oil. Other studies have found
high levels of saturated fat can cause heart disease." (Movie Theaters
Pushing Healthier Popcorn, Morning Herald, 6/18/94)

                         Forget the Vet?

"Preeeesent paws! A life-size, black-and-gold bronze sculpture of a
Doberman was unveiled Monday at the Pentagon in honor of the hundreds of
dogs who gave their lives to save US troops during World War II. The
monument, the nation's first to honor the heroic canines, will be
transported to the Pacific island of Guam, where it will stand guard over
the official war dog cemetery in the US Naval Base in Orote Point... The
dogs, whose duties included leading scouting parties, exploring caves,
and serving as sentries, 'saved hundreds of lives on the island and
thousands in the Pacific,' said retired Lt. Gen. Claude M. Kicklighter,
the executive director of the Pentagon's 50th Anniversary of World War II
Commemoration Committee. Ray Carlisle, the president of the United
Doberman Club..., said the Doberman was chosen by the Marine Corps as its
favorite war duty dug because it had been breed to be 'man's companion,
guardian, and protector.' Many families during the war had donated their
pets so that they might be trained to aid soldiers in the war
effort...'May this symbol of our admiration always stand sentry over our
faithful heroes,' Carlisle said..Twenty-five war dogs were killed in
action on the island." (Sculpture Honors WWII Dogs, MH, 6/2/94)

"The federal Office of Special Counsel has called for disciplinary action
against the former director of a Tennessee veterans hospital who is
accused of sexual harassment. The OSC said Jonathan Fitts engaged in
'infamous, immoral, or notoriously disgraceful conduct' from 1986 to
1992, when he was head of the Mountain Home Veteran Affairs Medical
Center...Penalties could include losing his job and being prohibited from
employment with the executive branch. 'There are some individuals in the
federal work force who seem to think that one of the perks of authority
is being able to take advantage of their subordinates for their own
gratification,' Special Counsel Kathleen Day Koch said in a statement. 'I
truly feel for all the people who are subjected to this type of
behavior.'...At least six women have complained about Mr. Fitts' actions.
The complaint charges that from 1986 to 1992 he engaged in conduct that
created a hostile working environment for female VA employees by
demeaning them and treating them as sexual objects." (Special Counsel
Accuses VA Official of Sex Harassment, Ruth Larson, WT, 6/2/94)

Twenty-six Desert Storm veterans are suing 11 US firms for more than a
billion dollars. Their class-action suit, filed in Angleton, TX Monday,
charges they suffered disabilities from biological and chemical weapons
used by the Iraqis. According to the plaintiffs' attorney, David Bickham,
the defendants are accused of manufacturing biological compounds they
knew were dangerous and could be acquired by "an outlaw country like
Iraq." (Gulf War Vets Sue Firms, Citing Illness, USA Today, 6/8/94)
ABLEnews Editor's Note: See also, Lawsuit Seeks $1 Billion for Gulf War
Syndrome, Washington Times, 6/9/94)

"One puzzle for military alumni has been why the national media have not
examined the Clinton administration's record in appoint veterans to top
slots. Because charges of draft dodging were an issue in the 1992
campaign, and because prominent vets, including former Beirut hostage
Terry Anderson and Lewis Puller Jr. supported candidate Clinton, veterans
expected they would be included in an administration that 'looks like
America.' Last September Lew Puller and I asked the White House for its
data on vet appointees, since the Office of Presidential Personnel was
giving information on its appointments of women, African-Americans,
Hispanics, and gays to some members of the press. When we were refused
the information, we began our own survey...48% of all American men over
age 35 [are vets]. For men age 39-59 in Senate-confirmed slots. 18% are
military alumni, and the figure is 8% for men in that age group in the
White House staff...In the Bush White House as of January 1993...53% of
men age 39-59 were vets...In 1992, 6.97 million vets voted for Clinton...
Mr. Clinton beat Mr. Bush by 5.5 million votes...How can the president
make speeches honoring vets when there is a big gap between the portion
of vets he appoint and their [numbers] in the US population?...Unless the
president acts, vets can be forgiven for viewing the administration that
'looks like America' as one that looks more like the Students for a
Democratic Society, the 1960s radical protest group." --John Wheeler,
founder, Valor Alliance. (Veterans Don't Seem to 'Look Like American,
Wheeler, op-ed, Washington Times, 6/9/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: Valor
Alliance is a network of academic and business leaders dedicated to
combating discrimination against American veterans. Mr. Wheeler, chairman
of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund from 1979-1989, campaigned for
Clinton in the 1992 election.

In collaboration with the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Health and
Human Services, the Department of Defense is launching a three-point
program to investigate the illnesses reported by veterans of the Persian
Gulf War. According to Dr. Stephen Joseph, assistant secretary of defense
for health affairs, the first phase involves a "coordinated,
comprehensive, and aggressive" effort to determine the causes of the
symptoms cited by Gulf vets. In the second phase. Dr. Harrison Spencer,
dean of Tulane University's School of Public Health, reviews plans to
study the syndrome. The third phase creates a forum of national medical
and public health experts to advise the three agencies in their research
efforts and to channel public comment. (DoD Launches a New Medical
Program for Gulf Vets, Pentagram, 6/10/94)

"Prodded by veterans who say they have been forsaken by the nation they
served, the Clinton administration endorsed a bill Thursday that would
compensate victims of mysterious 'Persian Gulf Syndrome' ailments. 'This
legislation is revolutionary. We have never before provided payment for
something we're not even certain exists,' Veteran Affairs Secretary Jesse
Brown said in testimony to a House Veteran Affairs panel...'We're headed
in the right direction although we still have a long ways to go,' said
Phil Budahn, spokesman for the American Legion. 'We would have wished it
would have been faster.' He added that it took 15 years for the
government to take similar action for Agent Orange victims after the
Vietnam War...'We cannot always wait on research,' (Rep. G.V. 'Sunny')
Montgomery (D-MS, chairman of the full committee) told the subcommittee
on compensation, pension, and insurance. 'While we wait, severe medical
problems are preventing some Persian Gulf veterans from working and
supporting their families. They need our help now.'" (Syndrome Pay,
Martinsburg Journal, 6/10/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: See also Illness
Pay for Gulf Vets Is Endorsed, Washington Post, 6/10/94. CURE Comment: We
salute the vets who are fighting the good fight for Persian Gulf vets
like my brother SFC Dwight David Appleby. One for all and all for one!

According to a report in the Santa Crud Sentinel, the Gulf War Syndrome
may have been caused by a combination of insect repellent and anti-nerve-
gas pills. The California paper reported that US Department of
Agriculture researcher James Goss, in Gainesville, Fl, accidentally
discovered that the military-issued insect repellant became 10 times more
potent when combined with the pills. 20,00 Persian Gulf veterans have
suffered from fatigue, rashes, memory loss, stomach problems, damaged
nervous systems, muscle and joint pain, and other health problems since
the 1991 conflict. US military uniforms were treated with permethrin, a
powerful agricultural insecticide. ('Gulf War Syndrome' Linked to
Repellent, Pills, Washington Times, 6/14/94)

"Spokane, WA--Six weeks after Dean A. Mellberg was discharged from the
military for emotional problems, he stuffed an assault rifle into a gym
bag, took a cab to Fairchild Air Force Base, and killed four people,
including two therapists who had recommended his discharge...A military
policeman killed him in the parking lot...Mellberg, 20,...had had
problems with a roommate in a dormitory when he was stationed at
Fairchild, said the base commander. The Seattle Times reported the
dispute started last year when the roommate started rumors that Mellberg
was homosexual. 'They put out rumors he was gay...They stole chairs from
inside his room..They flattened the tires on his bike,' said Mellberg's
mother, Lois Mellberg of Lansing, MI...The gunman targeted Maj. Thomas
Brigham, 31, a psychiatrist, and his office mate, Alan London, 40, a
psychologist. Both had recommended Mellberg for a discharge based on
psychiatric problems. 'He knew where he was going. He went directly to
that office,' Sheriff Goldman said." (2 Shooting Victims Were Therapists,
Baltimore Sun, 6/22/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: See also, Spokane Killer
Planned Attack, Washington Times, 6/22/94.

"Gulf war syndrome--the illnesses plaguing thousands of veterans cannot
be traced to a single cause, the Pentagon said Thursday. The findings of
a task force headed by Nobel Laureate Joshua Lederberg parallel those of
a National Institutes of Health panel and are sure to anger vets who say
they can't get treatment. "There's a long history of well-founded
skepticism about similar Pentagon reports," says American Legion
spokesman Phil Budahn, recalling the Vietnam veterans' struggle to win
confirmation of Agent Orange's health effects. The report found no
evidence Iraqis used chemical or biological weapons. But veterans and
members of Congress say those agents, as well as oil fumes, environmental
pollutants or medication to protect troops, may cause the fatigue, joint
pain, memory loss, and rashes many vets report. Deputy Defense Secretary
John Deutsch says the hunt will go on because the Pentagon 'firmly
believes there are service men and women who are ill as a result of the
Gulf experience.'" (Gulf Ills: No Single Cause, John Ritter, USA Today,
6/24/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: See also, No Cause Found for Gulf Ills,
Washington Post, 6/24/94)

                    Health Care Plans and Pans

"Here comes health care revision, Virginia-style: report cards to prod
hospitals into better service and efficiency, financial incentives for
medical schools to graduate more general practitioners, scholarships to
encourage doctors to set up shop in rural areas. If that doesn't seem
like much progress given the overhaul being contemplated in Washington,
that's just fine with officials here. As far as Virginia's political
establishment is concerned, there's nothing wrong with the state's $15.4
billion health care system that the private sector couldn't fix best if
given the chance. Indeed, Virginia sees itself as something of a model
for free-market health care revision, a laboratory for what the federal
government should be trying. 'Virginia has been a leader in health care
reform,' said Kay Cole James, the state's secretary of health and human
resources  'The best thing the federal government can do is get out of
our way.' Independent specialists, though, say Virginia's reluctance to
intervene more directly and aggressively has left it in a poor position
for the transition to the universal coverage system envisaged by
President Clinton...Officials say they need only look one state away for
proof that their more deliberate, targeted strategy is better. The furor
still has not subsided in Tennessee, which, in trying to remake health
care for low-income residents, essentially replaced the Medicaid program
with a dozen privately run networks. Some rebellious doctors began
informal boycotts. 'That's been the absolute nightmare,' said state Sen.
Jane H. Wood (R-Fairfax), a member of Virginia's Joint Commission on
Health Care." (Virginia's Free-Market Remedy for Health Care Has
Detractors, Peter Baker, Washington Post, 6/1/94)

The Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee defeated an amendment to
exclude most abortions from Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA)'s  health care
reform bill. The amendment offered by Sen. Dan Coats (R-IN) went down on
a vote of 11 to 6 Tuesday. "The American people should not be compelled
to pay for a procedure profoundly offensive to their moral convictions,"
Coats urged his colleagues unsuccessfully. An amendment sponsored by Sen.
Judd Gregg (R-NH) stating that nothing in the bill "should be construed
to conflict with any constitutionally permissible regulation of abortion
by a state" was rejected by a 10 to 7 vote. (Key Senate Panel Keeps
Abortion Coverage in Health Reform, Martinsburg Journal, 6/8/94)

Rudolph Penner, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office
charged yesterday that government-imposed price controls on health care
would prove both ineffective and harmful. Penner, national director of
economic studies at KPMG Peat Marwick, observed, "The evidence that
controls are inefficient, inequitable, and in the long run ineffective is
overwhelming." He warned that to the extent such controls do work they
reduce quality and lead to rationing. (Warning Sounded on Health Cost
Controls, Karen Riley, Washington Times, 6/9/94)

With three weeks to go to the unofficial July 4 deadline for reporting a
bill to the floor, major congressional committees continue to stumble
over intraparty politics and funding shortfalls as they race to the
finish line. Scheduled to begin serious work today, the House Ways and
Means Committee postponed taking any vote on its version of the Clinton
health plan, with acting chairman, Rep. Sam Gibbons (D-FL), citing a
delay in receipt of Congressional Budget Office estimates. Last night
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA)'s Labor and Human Resources Committee passed
his version on a virtual party line vote. Critics from both parties
charge the Kennedy bill is too bureaucratic and imposes too have a burden
on employers. Finally, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), chairman
of the Senate Finance Committee, has angered fellow Democrats by
introducing a Clinton-style bill they say will only reveal how divided
Democrats are on health care reform. (Health Reform Clears Its First Full
Committee, Dana Priest, Washington Post, 6/10/94)

"The health care debate is difficult in part because there are so many
different proposals in the field. But the rival plans also share many
features, and the differences among them are sometimes not as great as
the armies of proponents and detractors make them sound. The financing
side of the debate is an example...Broader coverage means higher costs;
you have to decide how to pay. The president would raise money mainly by
an employer mandate...Business groups have resisted as if employers would
end up having to eat the cost. But economists (including most business
economists) will tell you that the cost is much likelier to be borne over
time by employees, to whom employers will shift it by taking it out of
what would otherwise be wages...Congress has been have the wrong argument
over the mandate. The right one would be whether to impose...on low-wage
workers another large and inherently regressive payroll tax. If you want
broader coverage, but don't want employer mandates, where do you turn?...
Cost containment is another possible source of funds...Managed
competition is one of the broad approaches to cost containment; to make
it work, proponents say that consumers of health care have to be more
fully exposed to the cost, which means reducing the share of that cost
paid obliquely by government through the tax-favored status of employer-
paid health insurance premiums. That is to say, it requires a tax
increase on...those who currently have insurance. That's what all of this
is about, really--a shift of resources from the haves, somehow defined,
to have-nots. And that's why it's hard." (The Health Care Debate,
editorial, Washington Post, 6/10/94) CURE Comment: "Somehow defined"
...ah, therein lies the rub.

"E.J. Dionne mischaracterized the health care reform debate in his May 24
op-ed column. According to Mr. Dionne, business lobbies have made the
employer mandate 'the main sticking point in the discussion.' He
suggested that other reform issues could be resolved once Congress
accepts the need for an employer mandate. Mr. Dionne has it backwards.
Much of the business community could accept a mandate as part of a
sensible health reform package, but legislation would have to pass four
tests before it could win significant business support. First, employers
must be allowed to purchase health benefits, not simply be forced to pay
for insurance...Nearly all employers will oppose a mandate if their
purchasing role is turned over to 'alliances' or their purchasing
strategies are severely constrained by health reform rules. Either course
would undo the progress we have made in building a more efficient health
care system. Second, managed care plans must be allowed to operate
without unreasonable restrictions. For instance, nearly all business
organizations would oppose any bill that undermines managed care plans'
effectiveness by forcing plans to contract with 'any willing provider.'
Third, legislation must set national rules, rather than allow each state
to follow its own course...Fourth, the mandate must be affordable.
Requiring employers to pay 80% of premiums for a rich benefit package
will not fly. President Clinton's proposal and similar proposals before
Congress fail all four tests...Few businesses will support a mandate
until they are convinced that other health reform rules will not inhibit
cost control... Therefore the, the employer mandate should be the last
issue resolved, not the first." --Richard Smith, director, Health Care
Policy Association of Private Pension and Welfare Plans, Washington, DC.
(Getting Business Support for Health Care Reform, Smith, letter-editor,
Washington Post, 6/13/94)

"E.J. Dionne Jr. claims the health reform debate need not be complicated.
Of course, it can be simplified. All it takes is a willingness to accept
false premises and ignore facts. Mr. Dionne assumes an employer mandate
'would actually guarantee universal coverage.' This presumption is
patently wrong. After 20 years of operation, Hawaii's employer mandate
has produced coverage levels (92%-93%) no higher than in Connecticut. No
country--not even France, has achieved 100% coverage--with or without
mandates. Rather than 'sharply reduce...the chances' of massive layoffs
among low-wage workers. Sen. Edward Kennedy's proposal would kill off
twice as many jobs as the Clinton plan (1.7 million vs. 'only' 850,000
jobs, according to a new study by CONSAD Research Corp.)...Mr. Dionne
closed with a stirring quotation from Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
No, not the senator's on-target assessment of the Clinton plan as an
exercise in 'fantasy financing.' Mr. Dionne cited Sen. Moynihan's
observation that 'government can embrace causes and do great things.' But
in debating proposals to revolutionize health care in America, it would
be foolish to ignore the corollary: Government can embrace grandiose
scheme and do tremendous harm." --Jack Farris, president, National
Federation of Independent Business, Washington, DC. (Getting Business
Support for Health Care Reform, Farris, letter-editor, WP, 6/13/94)

"On his increasingly frequent trips home to Massachusetts, Sen. Edward M.
Kennedy likes to tell the story about three men who apply for a job as a
geography teacher in rural Louisiana. The first is rejected for refusing
to teach children that the earth is flat. The second loses out because he
won't teach that the earth is round. The third emerges smiling after
promising, 'I can teach it round, I can teach it flat.' That, the 62-
year-old Democrat tells his constituents is his position on health care
reform. President Clinton's market-oriented approach may not be his first
choice for retooling America's health system, but these days Mr. Kennedy
simply wants it done. And as chairman of the Senate Labor and Human
Resources Committee, he is doing everything in his power to make that
happen." (Health Reform May Be Key to Kennedy's Future, Ceci Connolly,
Washington Times, 6/14/94)

In a blow to White House efforts in the Senate Finance Committee, Sen.
David Boren (D-OK) said he will not support a health care reform bill
that lacks significant Republican support. "I'm not going to have one of
my last acts to be voting for a partisan bill," said Boren, who is
retiring after this session. "We would be better off doing nothing for a
year than to do something that doesn't have a sustainable consensus."  On
the left and right growing numbers are urging that the health care reform
issue should be left to the voters in the fall. (Key Democrats's Stance
Is Cool on Health Plan, David Rogers, Wall Street Journal, 6/14/94)

After five days of hot-and-heavy internal debate, the 294,000-member
American Medical Association emerged Thursday from its annual meeting in
Chicago a free agent, offering its bat to the highest health care reform
bidder. Heeding its leaders and not its conservative members, the lobby
thwarted efforts to distance organized medicine from the controversial
Clinton plan. The only conservative stripes shown among the changed spots
of the AMA leopard involved the Canadian-style single-payer, which it
refused to even study. While Illinois family physician Arvin Goyal warned
the administration's plan would "destroy the practice of medicine as we
know it," Ohio trauma surgeon Donavin Baumgarten cautioned that the AMA's
portrayal as "opposed to everything...does us no good." (AMA Leaves 'All
Doors Open,' Richard Wolf, USA Today, 6/17/94)

Appearing on NBC's Meet the Press, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY)
said he didn't think it had "quite sunken in in the White House, and
maybe in the public at large, just how generous and expansive the bills
we have in the Finance Committee are." Noting proposals now on the table,
subsidize the health insurance of 100 million Americans, enable a person
to take his insurance from one job to another, and ensure no one can be
denied coverage for a pre-existing condition, the Senate Finance
Committee chairman added that there is no chance that Congress will enact
a health care reform bill that would provide immediate coverage to all
Americans. Also appearing on NBC, Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA), reacted to
House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO)'s claim that Democrats
would have to pass health care reform alone in the face of Republican
intransigence. The House Minority Whip charged it would be "very bad
government" to push though Congress on a party-line vote legislation that
would affect 14% of the nation's economy. (Moynihan: Clinton Should OK
Health Care Compromise, Martinsburg Journal, 6/20/94)

"Health, Education, and Welfare had a nice ring to it. Then education
became independent, dropped out, and puffed up on its own. Then the
government wordsmiths gave us Health and Human Services. (They didn't
want any ambiguity to confuse someone looking for Health and Animal
Services or Health and Inhuman Services.) But we ought to let language do
its job and cut out the bureaucratese. Health and Welfare is much more to
the point, focusing exactly on the reforms Bill Clinton wants to make and
where these changes will take place. It's a cliche, but true: If you like
the way the post office is run, you'll thrill to the Clinton health care
plan. It's also true that welfare as we know it out to get fixed before
we tamper radically with the health care system and fix it in a way that
destroys good medicine as we know it. Sen. Daniel Moynihan, the New York
Democrat who chairs the Finance Committee, got it right when he warned
that we can't let welfare be held hostage to health care. That's the
point of his cat-and-mouse game with the president, holding Hillary's
health care scheme hostage. Question: Why else would the slyest, wryest,
craftiest senator on the committee offer a health care plan that gives
the president nearly everything he wants, and the public (and a lot of
powerful senators) nearly everything they don't want? Answer: So the
president will hear loud, clear, even clangorously that the health care
approach developed by the Clintons has big-time problems. In fact,
authentic welfare reform could eventually do more to actually improve the
nation's health than government-mandated health care coverage." (To
Reform Health Care, Start with Welfare, Suzanne Fields, op-ed, Morning
Herald, 6/22/94)

New hope for enacting health care reform legislation comes from a
bipartisan group of Senate moderates led by Sen. John Chafee (R-RI) that
plans to unveil its compromise before the Senate Finance Committee
tomorrow. "We are reaching some conclusions," Chafee said yesterday. "It
is tough."  Their proposal with a goal of 95% coverage by 2002 (up from
85% today) falls short of the Clinton goal of universal coverage.
(Centrist Senators Back Compromise on Buying Health Insurance, Karen
Hosler, Baltimore Sun, 6/23/94)

By a 23 to 15 vote, the House Ways and Means Committee rejected an
amendment offered by Rep. Jim Bunning (R-KY) to remove abortion from a
national health care plan. Four Democrats crossed party lines yesterday
to vote for the amendment, while three Republican switched sides to
oppose it. A compromise offered by Rep. Gerald Kleczka (D-WI) that would
have allowed participating health plans to determine their own abortion
coverage drew only five votes. By a 22 to 16 vote, the committee rejected
an amendment sponsored by Rep. Rick Santorum (R-PA) that would have
protected the rights of states to regulate abortions. (Santorum is the
Republican candidate for Senate in the fall election.) Yet another
amendment that would have shifted abortion from mandatory coverage to an
optional benefit was withdrawn without a vote. (Ways and Means Stands
Behind Abortion Services in Health Care Bill, David Broder and Dana
Priest, Washington Post, 6/23/94)

"Somewhere toward the misty-murky middle of the health care debate stands
--or, more aptly, sits--the Rump Group. It is a coalition of moderate
senators, all members of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, and their
work on health care reform compromise may offer the best hope for
meaningful action on health reform this year...The compromise is useful
but risky. For the first eight years, it won't provide universal coverage
...Moreover, there's no guarantee Congress will obey its own 2002
deadline. Congress could choose to ignore the mandate, or it could simply
fail to fund the subsidies. It has done that before. If so, the reform
would fail to attain the goals that have put it at the top of the
nation's political agenda...Time is running out for this year, and the
next Congress may be even more ambivalent. So even if the latest
compromise plan is incomplete, its bipartisan character promises to drive
the debate forward." (Keep Up the Push for Real Health Care Reform,
editorial, USA Today, 6/24/94) CURE Comment: Why would the next Congress
be more "ambivalent"? Could it be because the American people are having
second thoughts about the affects of the politicians' proposals? Who
should decide this debate any way: the pols or the people?

"Health care is showing some vital signs as Congress rushes to pass
legislation before the fall elections. Before inflicting widespread
damage for political gains, Congress should remember the principle axiom
of medicine: first, do no harm. Passage of a rushed package this summer
out of the current chaos on Capitol Hill would be an unmitigated disaster
for our economy and our medicine. Think you're confused about health
care? Members of Congress and their staffs don't know more than you do.
There is no plan. The federal Office of Technological Assessment has
determined that it is impossible to even make a 'reasonable guess' about
the cost of the various loose concepts floating around...Though the
people seeking to foist a massive federal intrusion into the US economy
clearly have no idea of what they're about, it is at least as clear that
any rushed overhaul of this magnitude could be a catastrophe that we can
never unmake. It would institute a national health board that would make
medical decisions for individual Americans and their doctors, and it
would devastate a struggling economy...Wage earners and small businesses
will be the hardest hit. The rest of the costs will be borne by consumers
who will no longer be assured of a choice of doctor or even treatment.
The medical system does not need a hasty and radical overhaul. Public
support for the 'Hillary plan' has dwindled to 33%. Let the monstrous
plans percolating in the legislative committees die there, for the health
of all Americans." (No Need for This Reform, Armstrong Williams, op-ed,
USA Today, 6/24/94)

The House Education and Labor Committee Thursday became the second
congressional committee to ratify a key Clinton goal: universal coverage.
Noting the Senate Labor Committee had passed similar bill earlier, the
president proclaimed, "They have broken the chokehold of special
interests, and by choosing to cover everyone, have stood up instead for
the millions of hard-working middle-class Americans." They also stood up
for another option by narrowly approving a Canadian-style bill that
replaces private insurer premiums with payroll taxes to pay medical
bills. (2nd Victory for Clinton Health Plan, Jessica Lee and Judi Hasson,
USA Today, 6/24/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: See also Health Bill Cleared
for Floor Votes, Washington Post, 6/24/94)

A bipartisan coalition of members of the Senate Finance Committee have
presented its chairman with a compromise health care reform package that
does not attain universal coverage by a date certain nor mandate either
employers or individuals to buy health insurance. Clinton supporters said
they'd back the bill in order to get something to the floor. "I will vote
for it in committee with the expectation that we will have opportunities
to strengthen it on the floor," said Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD). The
moderate melange was led by Sen. John Chafee (R-RI), who declared, 'This
compromise sends a clear message to the American people that we will not
allow health care reform to be jeopardized by extremists from either
party.'" (Mixed Group Develops Health Plan,Morning Herald, 6/25/94) CURE
Comment: If the two "extremes" are as bad as Chafee portrays what makes
him think that splitting their differences is good? Sometimes what is
found in the middle of the road is a dead skunk.

In recent weeks physicians have won some congressional battles in the
multi-front health reform campaign. As the American Medical Association
sees it, the aim is to prevent health maintenance organizations and other
insurers from shackling the doctor's freedom to practice good medicine
and to protect the patient's right to choose his own physician. Recently,
AMA President Lonnie Bristow, MD charged that insurers are removing
control over treatment decisions from physicians and their patients in
order to cut costs. Their care-cutting rules make it difficult--if not
impossible--for doctors to exercise their medical judgment on behalf of
their patients. As one House staffer noted, "The freedom-of-choice
argument has gone over big and people are worried about it." (Doctors
Score Victories in Battle on Health Bill, Spencer Rich, Washington Post,
6/26/94) CURE Comment: They should.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY)'s health
care reform bill relies on economic incentives, insurance regulation
revisions, and government subsidies for the poor to provide insurance
coverage to 95% of Americans by the turn of the century. Neither
employers or individuals are forced to purchase health insurance but if
the target is not reached by the year 2000, a national commission will
recommend mandatory measures to Congress that the bill renders difficult
for Congress to reject. (No Mandate in Plan by Moynihan, Dana Priest,
Washington Post, 6/26/94)

"When it comes to health care reform, the credo of the cautious on
Capitol Hill is: First, do no harm. What some overlook is that doing
nothing can cause harm, too. Maneuvering in Congress may yet produce a
compromise that President Clinton accepts. But the persistence of the
partisan bickering, the hard line the White House is taking, and genuine
disagreement over fundamental issues raise the odds that no major health
care reform will be enacted this year. One enemy of far-reaching reform
is the growing level of comfort with doing nothing, or nearly nothing.
"The reasons negotiations are so impossible in health care is that
everyone's second choice is the status quo,' says Deborah Steelman, a
health lobbyist and former Reagan budget official. In some quarters, the
prospect of nothing much coming out of Congress this year is met with
little more than a shrug. 'Competitive forces are reducing the increases
in health care costs dramatically,' says Edgar Wollard, DuPont's chief
executive. 'It's already happening.' If more big companies get health
care cost-control religion and state experiments proliferate, perhaps the
health care system will begin to heal itself." (Health Care Inaction Can
Carry a Big Cost, David Wessell, Wall Street Journal, 6/27/94) CURE
Comment: While the issues involved in the health care reform debate are
critical, the adverse impact of managed care and its cost/care-cutting
clones will threaten the lives and health of a growing number of
Americans whether or not Clinton-style "reforms" favorable to its
cancerous spread are enacted.

"In a calculated effort to attract conservative support for his health
care proposal, President Clinton today announced new provisions including
a tough stance on heart treatment he referred to as 'three strokes and
you're out-patient.' The policy would actually broadly apply to any
serious ailment requiring intensive care. Citing the need to cut medical
costs, Clinton explained that the government could no longer afford to
pay for those who need continuing medical care. 'We simply don't have the
money for the hangers-on,' the president stated in the White House press
room...Clinton also proposed a five-day waiting period for all surgery to
allow a background check by a team of government bureaucrats to ascertain
whether cheaper alternative procedures would be appropriate, such as
blood-letting...The reaction on Capitol Hill was swift...Senate Minority
Leader Bob Dole said it was not enough to head off a stalemate in
Congress. 'We have to face the fact that health care assistance
perpetuates illness. We have allowed whole generations of Americans to
develop a dependency on government for this. It has caused people to lose
their incentive to work towards staying healthy,' Dole explained to a
group of reporters...One influential senator, who asked not to be
identified...was even more critical. 'We have got to stop pussy-footing
around with reform. Health care should only be for the healthy.'...Adding
to the grim outlook for action on reform, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
appearing on 'Beat the Press,' said that even with the new provisions,
the president's plan is so lavish and overly generous... Moynihan thought
a scaled-back version consisting of bandages and aspirin had a better
chance of passage. Opposition to the Clinton Plan is also being fueled by
the...'Harry and Louise' TV campaign. In the latest ad, the couple who
spend their leisure time reading the Clinton proposal are shown
sterilizing a Ginzu knife set with a do-it-yourself surgery book in
supposed preparation for enactment of the plan." (Harry and Louise Get
Queasy, Robert Hirschfeld, Washington Post, 6/28/94)

                         Heart Stoppers

"Angela Lakeberg was beginning to behave more like a 1-year-old. Her
weight passed 20 pounds. She cut a tooth, knew her name, liked to watch
videos, and delighted in pulling out her monitoring wires--causing
beepers to beep and nurses to come running. The process stopped suddenly
early this morning. Angela, the Siamese twin born sharing a deformed
heart and separated in pioneering surgery that required the sacrifice of
her sister [Amy], died at Children's Hospital, died at Children's
Hospital of Philadelphia of a disorder affecting her heart and lungs. She
was 20 days away from her first birthday...'Angela Lakeberg was a sweet
little girl,' said Russell C. Raphaely, director of critical care at the
hospital. 'The staff was quite fond of her and we were all pulling for
her. We are all saddened by the loss.'" (Siamese Twin Dies Before 1st
Birthday, Dale Russakoff, Washington Post, 6/10/94) CURE Comment:
Requiescat in Pace, Angela.

"We are properly reticent. understandably reluctant to put a price tag on
a life. If Angela had lived, would she be worth it? Is it only because
she died that the money was 'wasted'? But along the treacherous path to
health care reform we're going to have to factor in costs with caring/
When the second of the Lakeberg twins was buried, Congress was in the
middle of grappling with health care, trying to figure out the minimum to
which every American is entitled. But we also have to ask: What is the
maximum?" (The Lakeberg Twins: Should We Try to Save All the Hopeless
Cases? Ellen Goodman, op-ed, Morning Herald, 6/18/94) CURE Comment:
Angela WAS worth it. The ugly implication of Goodman's question is clear:
Had Angela lived longer would her "quality of life" passed the quality
control test? Like all checkbook euthanasia advocates, Goodman knows the
cost of everything and the value of nothing. The gap between minimum and
maximum will grow tighter: a noose round the necks of persons with
disability--if TABs of her ilk have their way with health reform.

                         Lights, Cameras, Action

"Last July, Ricardo Montalban had an operation to deal with a hemorrhage
in his spine. He couldn't get out of bed for a month. Now with a walker,
he can move around the room. He can stand, if he has something to lean
on, but he can't drive. Still, his old Fantasy Island boss, Aaron
Spelling, is putting him back to work...[in] Heaven Help Us, with
Montalban as an angel who works with John Schneider and Melinda Clarke to
help them earn their wings...Montalban, 71, says it will be at least
another two years until he is back to 100%. But after the operation.
Spelling called and suggested he get back to work--if only to lend his
voice to an angel, like John Forsythe did as the voice of Charlie on
Charlie's Angels. Spelling had Montalban and his wife over to his house
for a party and saw how well the actor could walk. He asked Montalban if
he would ming appearing on the show as well, even if most of the time he
was sitting down. Montalban checked with his doctor, who thought it was a
good idea...'I had hoped that somebody would give me a role like Raymond
Burr on Ironside,; he says. 'You know, a guy in a wheelchair, or a guy
who has to use a walker. This is amazing.' Spelling says it would have
been a 'cheat' on the audience to just hear Montalban. 'He's such a
presence on the screen, we had to see him.'" (After Spine Surgery, Work
Is 'Heaven' for Montalban, Jefferson Graham, USA Today, 6/22/94)

                         Lyme Light

In the July issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Dr. Steven
Schutzer, a New Jersey immunologist, reports a new test that targets an
antibody the body produces in response to a protein unique to the
bacteria that causes Lyme disease could lead to earlier diagnosis and
treatment of the hard-to-detect infection. (Lyme Disease Test Is in the
Works, Morning Herald, 6/28/94)

                         Oh, Oh, HMO

Of 118 health maintenance organizations that volunteered to be reviewed
by the National Committee for Quality Assurance, more than two-thirds did
not merit full accreditation. In the Washington area, George Washington
University Health Plan Inc. received only "provisional" accreditation,
while Columbia Medical Plan Inc., a subsidiary of Blue Cross/Blue Shield
of Maryland, received only a one-year accreditation in lieu of the
standard three-year approval. Other area plans have yet to be rated. In
southern California, two plans operated by Aetna Health Plans were denied
accreditation outright. (HMOs Get Quality Checkups, David Hilzenrath,
Washington Post, 6/2/94) CURE Comment: What makes this report even more
revealing than the self-selection (i.e., the worst HMOs were least likely
to volunteer) is the fact that its limited scope does not even assess the
quality of patient care provided but merely the HMO's quality control and
management systems.

                         Old Story

"'I don't believe in age,' Phyllis O'Connor says, 'and I never think of
my own.' Indeed, at age 79, this get-up-and-go Rapid City woman was voted
Woman Athlete of 1991 by the board of the South Dakota Senior Games.
O'Connor has competed in the Senior Games for nine years now and has won
more than her share of firsts in swimming, bike racing, and tennis.
Phyllis is also admired...for her extensive volunteer work in promoting
athletics and fitness, for her amazing recovery from hip replacement
surgery when she was 74, for having two mastectomies within one year, for
coping successfully with cancer, and for just being herself--friendly,
dynamic, Phyllis." (Phyllis O'Connor Doesn't Believe in Age, Helen
Rezatto, Catholic Digest, 6/94)

"People have an unduly negative attitude about what can be done with
those at the end of their lives," concludes Dr. Maria Fiatrone, of the US
Department of Agriculture's Human Nutrition Research Center at Tufts
University in Boston. Her research found that frail people in their 80s
and 90s get around more quickly, climb stairs better, and, on occasion,
even throw away their walkers after a few weeks of lifting weights to
strengthen their legs. Dr. Evan Hadley, associate director for geriatrics
at the National Institute on Aging, recommends that nursing homes
establish exercise programs based on the Tufts routine. (Study: Lifting
Weights Improves Elderly Folks' Walking Ability, Martinsburg Journal,
6/23/94) ABLEnews Editor's Note: See also, Study Finds Weight Training
Aids Mobility of the Very Old, Washington Post, 6/23/94, and People in
Their 80s and 90s Found to Benefit From Exercise, Baltimore Sun, 6/23/94)

                         Public Health

"The fatal infections that inspired hysterical headlines about 'flesh-
eating bacteria' could indicate the return of bacteria that caused a
severe form of scarlet fever a century ago, killing thousands before
mysteriously disappearing. 'It's come back or it's learned a new trick,'
said Vincent Fischetti of Rockefeller University in New York, who directs
one of the nation's leading laboratories for research in streptococcus
bacteria...Fortunately, the news coverage is more widespread than the
bacteria. Deadly strains of streptococcus remain rare, and the outbreaks
are isolated. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 500 to
1,500 such infections occur each year in the United States. 'I think
there was a definite increase beginning in the late 1980s in this country
and in Scandinavia,' said Edward Kaplan of the University of Minnesota...
The deadly strains produce a toxin that poisons skin and muscle tissue or
internal organs, causing the body's disease fighters to careen out of
control. 'Once that's begun you're in trouble. There's no way to reverse
it,' Fischetti said. 'And it's usually fatal.' The bacteria spread
primarily through wounds or cuts in the skin. If caught early, the
infection is treatable, usually with penicillin. But the toxic strains
kill so quickly that many patients are caught in an irreversible cascade
before they can get to a doctor. Doctors treat advanced infections not
only with antibiotics but also by cutting out the infected area
immediately, including amputating an infected arm or leg if necessary."
(Deadly Bacteria May Be Returning, Washington Post, 6/8/94) Stay 'Tooned:
Norway's famous painting The Silent Scream's distressed figure is crying,
"Flesh-eating bacteria!!!" (Brookins, Richmond Times Dispatch, 1994)

"One of the toxic strains killed Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets,
Fischetti said. In Henson's case, the infection began as a strep throat
then descended to the chest where it caused pneumonia and poisoned
Henson's lungs. The technical term for what happens is necrotizing
fasciitis: the death of tissue. According to the CDC, people infected
with the strain that causes necrotizing fasciitis have a 28% fatality
rate." (Killer Strep Is Making a Comeback, Martinsburg Journal, 6/8/94)

"For American men. the prognosis is pretty grim: 50% more men than women
doe of cancer every year. And since 1960, while women's cancer death
rates have stabilized, men's have increased by 21%. Twice as many men as
women die each year of heart disease, lung disease, and liver disease.
Today, the average woman will outlive her male contemporary by seven
years--up from only one year in 1920...The big questions are: 'Why do men
die so much younger than women?' and 'What, if anything, can you do about
it?'" (Tough Guys Die Sooner, Armin Brott, Washington Post, 6/10/94)

                         School Daze

A public school district created to meet the needs of Hasidic Jewish
children with disabilities violates the Constitution's Establishment
Clause, the US Supreme Court held in a 6 to 3 ruling yesterday. "Aiding
this single, small religious group causes no less a constitutional
problem than would follow from aiding a sect with more members or
religion as a whole," Justice David Souter wrote for the majority. In his
dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia, wrote that the group's founder Grand
Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum "would be astonished to learn that after escaping
brutal persecution and coming to America with the modest hope of
religious toleration for their ascetic form of Judaism, [they] had become
so powerful, so closely allied with Mammon, as to have become an
'establishment' of the Empire State. And the founding fathers would be
astonished to find that the Establishment Clause--which they designed 'to
ensure that no one powerful sect or combination of sects' could use
political or governmental power to punish dissenters--has been employed
to prohibit characteristically American accommodation of the religious
practices (or more precisely, cultural peculiarities) of a tiny minority
sect...I, however, am not surprised. Once this court has abandoned text
and history as guides, nothing prevents it from calling religious
toleration the establishment of religion.'...Under New York law, disabled
children--even those who attend private school--are entitled to publicly
funded special education classes. The families of Kiryas Joel initially
sent their disabled children to public schools for those classes, but
they were ridiculed because of their dress and customs. Parents
petitioned for a special school district and in 1989 the state
Legislature agreed. The school teaches secular subjects to about 60 full-
time and 140 part-time students." (Hasidic NY School District Ruled
Unconstitutional, Nancy Roman, Washington Times, 6/28/94) ABLEnews
Editor's Note: While this issue transcends CURE's purview, as a
disability rights advocate, I deplore the double cross of TAB and
religious bigotry to which this edict nails innocent children. As Gov.
Mario Cuomo aptly observed, "I believe that while the Constitution,
thankfully, bars government from forcing anyone to be religious, it does
not mandate that we punish people for being religious." For the reaction
of parents whose children will feel the sting of this ruling, see
EDKIRYAS.* wherever ABLETEXT files are found. See also, Reactions to
Ruling Mixed in Kiryas Joel, Washington Post, 6/28/94.

                         Sporting Chance

Charging boxing is "medically and morally wrong," the Journal of the
American Medical Association is urging the United States to end its
participation in Olympic boxing. "Boxing is the only sport in which a
person wins by damaging his opponent's brain," JAMA editor Dr. George
Lundberg, wrote Wednesday. Lundberg, a pathologist, aimed his punch
deliberately. "Professional boxing is a tough nut to crack. There is so
much money," he said. "Yet the people in amateur boxing do seem to care
about participants." Perhaps, that's why Emerson Smith, former head
boxing coach at the US Naval Academy accuses the doc of a low blow. "The
objectives of professional boxing and amateur boxing are completely
different," said Smith, chairman of United States Amateur Boxing's safety
commission. "In amateur boxing, the emphasis is on outpointing your
opponent with skill, not knocking your opponent with force...Amateur
boxing is less dangerous than football." (Medical Journal Recommends
United States Drop Olympic Boxing, Martinsburg Journal, 6/8/94)

                         TB or Not To Be

"That a substantial portion of cases are due to recent transmission is an
indictment of the current health care system. But it is also a message of
hope, because it implies that improved treatment could rapidly decrease
the number of active cases." --Dr. Peter Small, Stanford Medical School,
and colleagues. Two studies find a surprising portion of persons with
active TB suffer from new, not reactivated, infections. (TB Infection
Study Alarms Researchers, Martinsburg Journal, 6/16/94) ABLEnews Editor's
Note: See also, TB's Contagion Underestimated, USA Today, 6/16/94)

                         Telling Headlines

Abortion Protests Set for Little Rock, New York Times, 6/27
Agencies Probe Radiation Tests in Uneven Ways, Washington Post, 5/20
Agency Told to Change Medicaid Reimbursement, Martinsburg Journal, 6/23
Americans Can't Breathe Easy Until Clinton Health Care Expired, WT, 6/1
Baby Boomers to Swell Ranks of Arthritis Victims in US, MH, 6/24
Baltimore Begins Needle Exchange, Morning Herald, 6/21
Blood Donors Recognized at Pentagon, Pentagram, 6/24
Cancer Researchers Making Remarkable Progress, editorial, MJ, 6/1
Combination TB Pill Approved, Washington Post, 6/2
Court Says Nonviable Fetus Can Be Victim of Murder, Baltimore Sun, 5/18
Democrats Agree to Pare Tobacco Tax, USA Today, 6/17
Diet Drug May Be Dangerous, Martinsburg Journal, 5/11
Don't Go Skating Without a Helmet, New York Times, 5/18
Drug Maker's Clinical Trials Show Panorex's Effectiveness, WSJ, 5/16
Ending Welfare Dependency, Washington Post, 6/23
Experts: Don't Put Baby on Stomach, Martinsburg Journal, 5/11
FDA OKs Genetically Altered Tomato, Martinsburg Journal, 5/19
Federal Employees' Health Benefits Seen as Good Plan for All, WT, 5/11
Florida Refuses to Repeal Tobacco Liability Statute, WP, 6/10
Gaps in Geriatric Medicine Alarm Health Professionals, NYT, 5/16
GOP Members Petition Surgeon General to Resign, Morning Herald, 6/25
Health Ads' Public Impact Questioned, Baltimore Sun, 6/23
Health Reform Debate Changing Conference Rooms to Battlegrounds, MJ, 5/21
Health Reformers in Senate Split into 3 Factions, USA Today, 6/23
Health Strategy Holds Firm at the Top, Washington Times, 6/14
Heroin, Marijuana Abuse Rising Nationwide, White House Told, MJ, 5/12
High School Researchers Aid in Genome Project, Martinsburg Journal, 6/1
HIV's Tricks: Hide and Deactivate, Washington Post, 6/2
Implant Settlement Stirs Debate Over Tactics, Washington Post, 5/11
Insurers Make Coverage Easier, USA Today, 6/17
Keep the Information Superhighway a Freeway (op-ed), WSJ, 5/16
Kennedy, GOP Versions of Health Reform Miles Apart, MJ, 5/19
Kennedy's Health Bill Undercuts Moynihan (op-ed), MJ, 5/15
Kevorkian Is Recharged With Murder, Washington Post, 5/11
Kids Sentenced for Killing Dad, Morning Herald, 6/24
Kodak Sells Part of Drug Unit, USA Today, 6/24
Largest Lyme Disease Vaccine Trial Under Way, Martinsburg Journal, 6/8
Lewis Puller Remembered in Life, Death, 'Brotherhood,' Pentagram, 5/20
Marlboro Men Strike Back, Washington Post, 6/22
Medical Group Questions Benefits of MRI, Wall Street Journal, 5/16
Medical Museum to Give Dinosaurs Run for the Money, MJ, 6/27
Modified Clinton Health Bill Advances, Washington Post, 5/26
More Funding for Drug Treatment Key to Curbing Cocaine Use, BS, 6/19
Moundsville (WV) Doctor Agrees to Competence testing, MJ, 6/3
New AIDS Drug Approved by FDA, Washington Times, 6/28
New Asthma Drug More Effective, Researchers Say, MJ, 5/12
Normandy Group Fires Staffers for Complaining, Washington Times, 6/9
Official: Drug Use in Local Middle Schools on Rise, MJ, 5/12
Parents May Forbid Child's Resuscitation, Baltimore Sun, 5/18
'Patience': An AIDS Musical Lewd & Crude, Washington Post, 6/10
'Peyote:' The Rite Stuff, Washington Post, 5/20
Philip Morris Companies Warn Canada on Plain-Pack Law, WSJ, 5/16
Philip Morris Fights Back in Ads, USA Today, 6/27
Phone Taps, Bugging Surge to Record Levels under Clinton, MJ, 5/12
Plays Dramatize Disease Without Docu-Drama Feel, Baltimore Sun, 6/23
Plunger in Tussle as CPR Aid, USA Today, 5/11
Prescription for Health Care, USA Today, 6/17
Puller's Name Should Be on Wall, Vets Say, Martinsburg Journal, 5/13
Race, Women, and Hip Fractures, Washington Post, 6/2
Raw Oysters Can Be Deadly, Group Warns, Washington Post, 5/26
Reason for Heart Disease in Blacks, Morning Herald, 6/25
Report: AIDS Threat to World's Children, Martinsburg Journal, 4/29
Report Blames 'Gulf War Syndrome' on Chemical Attacks, WP, 5/26
Report: Tobacco Research Group Concealed the Facts, MJ, 5/27
Scientists Seek OK of a New AIDS Drug, Martinsburg Journal, 5/21
Sen. Kennedy Proposes Opening Health Plan to Others, WP, 5/11
Should Cigarette Taxes Be Raised to Help Pay for Health Care? MJ, 6/28
Small Business Might Get a Break in New Health Deal, MJ, 5/12
Smoking Ban May Face Changes, Morning Herald, 6/21
'Soldiers' Home Takes All Armed Forces, Pentagram, 5/20
Some Cities Look to Ban Panhandling Near ATMs, Morning Herald, 6/28
Some Water Cleanups Not Feasible, Study Says, Washington Post, 6/24
Study Connects Gene to Asthma, Hay Fever, Martinsburg Journal, 6/1
Study: Risk From Silicone Breast Implants Is Slight, MJ, 6/16
Teenager With HIV and a Message, Washington Post, 5/26
Texas to Sue Over Illegal Immigrants, Washington Post, 5/27
Toll-Free Data Road? Washington Post, 5/26
2 Hours a Week of Exercise May Lower Heart Attack Risk, WP, 6/2
US Potato Exports Set Record in '93, Herald Mail, 6/21
Veteran Near Death After Beating, Washington Post, 5/11
Veterans Mark Poignant Glory of Soviet D-Day, Washington Post, 6/26
Welfare Project Indicates Difficulty of Reform Goals, WP, 6/22
Welfare Reformers Emphasize Dads' Duty, Washington Times, 5/11
What Accounts for Reported Decrease in Number of Abortions? USAT, 6/17
Why Burden the Health Plan with Abortion? (op-ed), WP, 5/26
Woman: Keep Adoption Records Confidential, (Landers) MJ, 6/20
Women in 40s May Gain From Mammograms, USA Today, 5/11
Your Child Support, Or Your [Driver's] License, USA Today, 6/28

                    Wish We'd Said That...

          Maybe there will be another case, and maybe learning
          from Angela they can save that baby. You can't put a
          price tag on human life. (Fern O'Dor, Angela
          Lakeberg's aunt)

                    ...Glad We Didn't

          You don't want to spend public money chasing these
          kinds of long odds when we have so many children who
          are not even getting proven, effective care...I
          wouldn't have changed my mind even if Angela had
          lived. (Arthur Kaplan, bioethicist)

                         We Did Say It...

          Thanks, Art, for proving once again why our friend
          Nat Hentoff calls your tribe "the priesthood of
          death." (Earl Appleby, patient advocate)

  Of Note is published biweekly by ABLEnews, a Fidonet-backbone echo
  featuring disability/medical news and information. ABLEnews is
  carried by more than 300 BBSs in the US, Canada, Australia, Great
  Britain, Greece, and Sweden. The echo, available from Fidonet and
  Planet Connect, and gated to the ADANet, FamilyNet, and World Message
  Exchange networks, is a public service of CURE.

  ABLEnews text files--including our digests: Of Note and Mednotes
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...For further information, contact CURE, 812 Stephen Street, Berkeley
Springs, West Virginia 254511 (304-258-LIFE/5433).