University Daily Kansan/Wednesday, Aug, 19, 1987
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Nurse's aide pleads guilty to killing
The Associated Press
CINCINNATT1 — A former nurse's aide who fed cyanide and other poisones to chronically ill hospital patients pleaded guilty yesterday to killing 24 people and was sentenced to three consecutive life prison terms.
Donald Harvey, 35, of Middletown,
Ohio, reportedly admitted killing as
many as 50 people, most of whom
were chronically ill patients at three
Cincinnati hospitals.
He pleaded guilty to 24 charges under a plea-bargain agreement that will allow him to become eligible for parole in 60 years, when he is 95.
Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge William Mathews also ordered Harvey to pay $270,000 in fines, plus court costs.
"This man is sane, competent but is a compulsive killer." Hamilton County Prosecutor Arthur Ney Jr. told the judge. "He builds up tension in his body, so he kills people."
Harvey sat quietly during yesterday's hearing. He declined the judge's invitation to comment and was led off to the Hamilton County jail in handcuffs immediately after sentencing.
Harvey used cyanide, arsenic and
a petroleum-based cleaner to poison his victims, Ney said. He also pulled plugs on hospital respirator machines and repeatedly poisoned a roommate who later recovered. On one occasion, Harvey laced the drink of a woman friend with a hepatitis serum to give her the disease. She recovered, the prosecutor said.
Harvey pleaded guilty to 24 counts of aggravated murder, four counts of attempted aggravated murder and one count of felonious assault. The indictments, returned by a special county grand jury, were announced earlier yesterday morning in court.
At least two of Harvey's victims survived after he poisoned them. Two others died several months after they were poisoned, but Ney said authorities could not conclusively prove that the poisonings caused the deaths.
Ney agreed as part of the plea bargain not to seek the death penalty in exchange for Harvey's guilty pleas to all criminal charges filed in the case.
Twenty-one of the victims were patients at Drake Memorial Hospital, a city hospital that provides long-term care for patients confined
to beds or wheelchairs.
The prosecutor said Harvey killed hospital patients by pouring cyanide into gastric tubes or using cyanide or arsenic to poison their orange juice, water or desserts. He repeatedly poisoned roommate Carl Howeler in 1986 after arguments, then helped nurse him back to health, Ney said.
Harvey also admitted poisoning Hoeweler's father, Henry, who died, and mother, Margaret Hoeweler, who survived the poisonings, the prosecutor said.
Harvey used a hepatitis serum to infect a woman friend, Diane Alexander, with the disease in January 1984 by putting the serum into her drink. Alexander, a beautician who worked for Carl Hoeweler, was hospitalized but survived. The prosecutor said Harvey had obtained the hepatitis serum from the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Cincinnati, where he worked before his employment at Drake.
employment Defense attorney William Whalen told The Cincinnati Enquirer that Harvey claimed to have killed at least 10 other people during his 10 years at the VA hospital.
Genetics declared safe Report says DNA-splicing methods OK
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Modern techniques of genetic engineering are "powerful and safe" and no more dangerous than selective breeding techniques used for thousands of years, the National Academy of Sciences said yesterday.
In particular, the products of recombinant DNA techniques, in which DNA fragments from different species are combined, should be judged by how dangerous they are, not how they are produced, said a report from the academy council.
There is no evidence that a gene will convert a benign organism to a hazardous one simply because the gene came from an unrelated species
A gene is a small section of cell material that, when active, directs the cell to assemble a particular protein. Groups of genes and asso-
gene came from an arthropod. A recombinant DNA-modified organism is not a 'novel' organism; rather, it is like a breeder's new variety of flower. the report by a committee of five experts said.
ciated control sections of the cell's chromosomes, which are made of DNA, control all heredity. For example, they determine whether someone's eyes will be blue or brown.
Recombinant DNA techniques developed in the last 15 years use special enzymes to snip out genes from one DNA molecule and splice them into another of a different species.
genetically-modified organisms offer benefits in agriculture, medicine and pollution control, particularly in lessening dependence on toxic chemicals, but these benefits will not be realized without "a wise balance between the thrust of innovation and the restraint of regulation," the report said.
Scientists need to draw up guidelines "from an ecological perspective" for researchers and regulators on use of modified organisms, the report said in presenting these conclusions:
—"There is no evidence that unique hazards exist, either in the
use of recombinant DNA techniques or in the movement of genes between unrelated organisms.
"The risks associated with the introduction of recombinant DNA-engineered organisms are the same in kind as those associated with the introduction of unmodified organisms and organisms modified by other methods.
other methods.
- "Assessment of the risks of introducing recombinant DNA-engineered organisms into the environment should be based on the nature of the organism and the environment into which it is introduced, not on the method by which it was produced."
An account of the academy report's findings appeared in Saturday editions of The New York Times.
Jeremy Rifkin, a prominent critic of use of recombinant techniques, said the report was a "whitewash" that contained "whole sections where they come to conclusions that differ with the conclusions of scientists we consult."
Bypass centers suggested
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The federal government could get the best treatment for Medicare heart bypass patients and save nearly $200 million a year in the process by sending them to selected surgical centers, a report said yesterday.
"Hospitals and surgical teams that perform more than 200 (bypass) surgeries per year have better outcomes in terms of mortality rates, lengths of stay and charges," said the report issued by Inspector General Richard P. Kusserow of the Department of Health and Human Services.
"Some of the nation's most prominent cardiac surgeons and medical centers are offering package prices for (bypass) surgery," the report found. "If the Health Care Financing Administration negotiated similar rates for Medicare, more than $192 million could be saved each year in hospital and medical insurance reimbursement."
Approximately 250,000 heart bypass operations are done a year about 63,000 of them on Medicare
beneficiaries, which cost the government $1.5 billion.
"The irony is that we can afford to send our beneficiaries to the very best (facilities) and have a good outcome, and it will be cheaper," Kusserow said.
The official, who operates independently of the department he monitors, emphasized that he was not suggesting elderly Americans be forced to go to a certain hospital to get the surgery, but rather that Medicare officials consider giving them the option.
opportunities.
For example, he said the Texas Heart Institute, one of the nation's most highly regarded bypass surgery centers, charges a flat $13,800 for the procedure, compared with the aver-
if you don't at the same time, Kusserow
expressed confidence that many
Medicare beneficiaries would want to
take advantage of having their
surgery at a hospital with an established track record if given the
opportunity.
"We can't say we're going to send you 200 miles away from your family if you don't want to go," he said.
age Medicare payment of $24,588.
"If we were to fly the beneficiary and spouse (to Texas) first class, put the spouse up in a first-class hotel and give them an economy rental car, we'd come out cheaper than Medicare does now," said Kusserow.
Medicare does not pay such travel expenses now.
"Maybe it should," said Kusserow. He said the Texas example was not to say Medicare should send its patients to a handful of national centers, but to regional hospitals that do a sufficient bypass volume to warrant maintaining an expert surgical team that functions with medical and economic efficiency.
"You're not talking about going 1,000 miles, you're maybe talking about going 100 miles," he said.
Selection of 1988 candidate proves difficult for AFL-CIO
In response to Kusserow's suggestions, made inside the government before being released publicly, HCFA agreed to consider setting up a demonstration project to "negotiate all-inclusive, package payment prices with selected surgeons and medical centers."
WASHINGTON — Unable to unite behind a candidate, the AFL-CIO yesterday abandoned hopes of making an early presidential endorsement and freed individual unions and political activists within its ranks to work on behalf of various candidates.
The Associated Press
"Our rules say we have to have a two-thirds majority to endorse, we don't have it," said AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland. "The field is wide open, and support is scattered. Accordingly, I don't expect a convention endorsement in October."
Since last February, Kirkland had kept the presidents of the 89 unions and most labor activists in the federation from endorsing or working on behalf of any candidate until the AFL-CIO's biennial convention in October in Miami.
But for the first time this year, the guidelines permit individual unions and officials to begin working with candidates in slating labor delegates for the Democratic and Republican conventions next summer.
With polls showing rank-and-file union members overwhelmingly prefer "none of the above," the AFL-CIO's 35-member executive council concluded that finding a consensus candidate early, as labor did with Democrat Walter Mondale in 1984, was all but impossible.
The executive council adopted voluntary guidelines yesterday urging officers and other top national officials of its member unions to continue refraining from working on behalf of individual candidates.
strategy" aimed at packing the Democratic National Convention with as many activist labor delegates as possible.
Five of the largest AFL-CIO unions immediately began planning plans for an alternative "multicandidate
Sparks said recent responses to calls for membership opinion in his union showed 40 percent still had no presidential preference.
"We're looking for delegates and a foot in the door with all of the major candidates," said Philip Sparks, a spokesman for the 1.2 million-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. "We want to make sure we're a force in the early primary and caucus states."
Among Democrats, the Rev. Jesse Jackson was the only candidate to get more than 20 percent support.
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