8A
Thursday, April 3, 1997
NATION/WORLD
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
USDA investigates tainted fruit
Strawberries caused illnesses
The Associated Press
DETROIT — Her family thought it was just a stomach virus. Then Amanda Bischoff began vomiting constantly and the little girl's eyes turned yellow.
"She looked like a daffodil," Patty Bischof said of her daughter.
Amanda was one of about 150 Michigan schoolchildren and adults whom authorities believe contracted hepatitis A from tainted frozen strawberries that were shipped to the government's school lunch program.
Amanda got better in time to celebrate her ninth birthday Friday, but thousands of students and educators in six states may have been exposed, including as many as 9,000 people in Los Angeles, where tainted fruit cups were served last week in 18 public schools.
Some communities plan to offer protective gamma globulin shots
to hundreds of youngsters.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said yesterday that it would investigate how Mexican-grown strawberries got into the USDA school lunch program, which is required to buy only U.S. products.
So far, the only reported illnesses linked to the tainted berries have been in Michigan. Strawberries with the same lot numbers were also sent to Arizona, California, Georgia, Iowa and Tennessee.
About 1 million pounds of strawberries could be contaminated, FDA Acting Commissioner Michael Friedman said. A little less than half were sent to the school lunch program, while the others were used commercially, he said.
The vice president of the berries' distributor, San Diego-based Epitope, contradicted the FDA figures yesterday, saying 2.6 million pounds were shipped in mid-December. Some 1.7 million pounds went to the school lunch program and 900,000 pounds went to other customers, Matthew Kramer said.
It is too early to say how much
Affected States
Iowa
Tennessee
Arizona
Michigan
California
Georgia
danger the public is in because many of the strawberries were processed into other foods that would have been cooked and killed the virus, Friedman said.
Hepatitis A is often spread through uncooked food and causes a mild liver infection. The elderly, people with weak immune systems and the young risk more severe symptoms. For most people, symptoms appear about four weeks after exposure. They include jaundice, fatigue, abdominal discomfort, vomiting, fever and dark urine.
The virus can be transmitted orally or through human waste, by food handlers with poor hygiene, through undercooked shellfish from infected waters or through tainted water or ice.
In Amanda's hometown of Marshall, about 100 miles west of Detroit, the epidemic peaked a
couple of weeks ago, before officials had connected the strawberries to the disease.
Amanda was one of nine people in Marshall who was hospitalized for dehydration. "I felt sort of sick, like I had the flu," the 9-year-old said. She threw up and lost her appetite but said she really knew she was sick when she didn't want to play Barbie dolls with her cousin.
About 2,000 people in the area got shots after the illnesses began. Many lined up at school basketball games or visited doctors who extended their office hours.
Dr. Thomas Dobbins of Marshall extended his office hours to handle the influx of patients. The virus hit close to home — his 8-year-old daughter, Kehvet, got sick.
"It's kind of a miserable thing all around for people that get a good case of it," he said.
School officials checked freezers across the country yesterday in districts that received the fruit.
Amanda is going back to school on Monday and is finally getting her appetite back, her mother said.
Albania OKs multinational aid
Rebels question Italian involvement after collision in sea
The Associated Press
TIRANA, Albania — Italy's premier flew to Albania with heavy security yesterday to try to smooth the way for Italian troops who will lead an international aid mission to the chaotic country.
Italian Premier Romano Prodi crossed the Adriatic Sea by helicopter to talk with Albania's prime minister, Bashkim Fino, in the southern city of Gijokastra. Four helicopters hovered above while Prodi landed, accompanied by 40 Italian special forces soldiers — a heavier guard than usual.
sel crowded with refugees.
Fino said that Prodi came to reconfirm that the Albanian government still wanted the deployment of the multinational force.
Prodi also accepted Fino's invitation to visit the insurgent-held southern port of Vlora, where rebels say Italian troops are unwelcome after last week's deadly collision between an Italian warship and an Albanian ves-
European military officials meeting in Rome to plan the international mission expected to require 5,000 troops, about half of them from Italy. The force is to secure aid shipments and bring some order to the anarchy in Albania.
The country disintegrated into armed insurrection in January after the collapse of shady investment schemes that cost thousands of Albanians their life savings. Many Albanians blame President Sali Berisha for the collapse.
More than 200 people have died and at least 700 have been injured since the rebellion began, and 13,000 Albanians have fled to Italy since February, giving the nation an interest in stopping the unrest.
Fino, during an interview with an Italian talk show last night, said that the Italian government should let the refugees stay in Italy until life in Albania got back to normal.
Prodi's government has said that the refugees should be allowed to stay for only about two months.
Meanwhile, trying to ease internal tensions, Fino's Social Party voted overwhelmingly yesterday to end its 10-month boycott of Parliament, which is dominated by
Berisha's Democratic Party
While basic foods are available in Tirana and port cities, and prices have largely returned to normal over the past week, U.N. officials in Geneva have said that Albania's food supplies may last only another week.
The top international envoy for Albania, former Austrian Chancellor Franz Vranitzky, said in Rome that it would be at least 10 days before the European force went in. Vranitzky is to meet with Fino in Athens today.
At least four Albanians died when the boat collided with an Italian warship. Survivors say more than 80 people perished, many of them from Vlora, the port of embarkation.
Albright's pitch doesn't hit home at Orioles game
The Associated Press
BALTIMORE — It was not much of a pitch, but the rookie righthander was not accustomed to such a duty. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright opened the 1997 Baltimore
Orioles season yesterday by tossing a 30-foot, one-hop pitch to Orioles catcher Chris Hoiles.
"I think I'll keep my day job," Albright said moments after leaving the field.
Trought had prepared for the big moment, practicing during the weekend in the State Department basement.
Madeleine Albright
Albright had made it clear that pitching was not in her repertoire.
The Orioles, she said, wanted sort of a curve ball, but that she wasn't up to curve balls.
Before the Orioles' inaugural game with the Kansas City Royals, Albright chatted briefly with Oriole third baseman Cal Ripken, who holds the major league record for the most consecutive games played.
Tension revived in West Bank
Israel's Channel 2 TV said Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai had approved construction of thousands of homes in West Bank settlements, an action that would be sure to further offend Palestinians angry about Israel's construction in disputed east Jerusalem.
The Associated Press
JELAZOUN, West Bank Israel acknowledged yesterday that it had quietly approved expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, adding to tensions on a day that saw new violence and anger between Israeli and Palestinians.
Netanyahu adviser David Barillan said the report was exaggerated but confirmed that settlement plans have been approved in recent days. Israeli policy is that it retains the right to expand existing settlements in the largely Palestinian West Bank, within limits.
A firebomb smashed into an Israeli army truck in the West Bank, sending it tumbling down a slope near the Jelazoun refuge camp and injuring 13 soldiers. In a nearby village, Israeli motorists beat a Palestinian they accused of stoning their car.
The United States increased its attempts at mediation, with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright speaking twice by telephone with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Marwan Kanafani, a representative for the Palestinian leader, said that the United States was trying to arrange an American-Israeli-Palestinian meeting.
Asked about the prospect of resuming talks, Arafat said that the Israelis would have to stop what he said were violations of past agreements, stop expanding settlements, stop confiscating land, and end the closure of Palestinian areas.
While the talks go on, Israel would proceed with its three-stage troop pullback in the West Bank, to be completed by mid-1998, Maraiiv said. The United States also proposes setting up a joint Israeli-Palestinian organization to fight terrorism.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted President Clinton's request that he come to Washington next week to discuss the breakdown in Israeli-Palestinian relations.
There have been daily antiIsraeli riots in the West Bank in recent weeks, with three Palestinians killed by Israeli army gunfire. An Islamic militant blew himself up in a Tel Aviv cafe March 21, killing himself and three Israel women.
The crisis began with Israel's decision last month to start construction of a Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim as a future capital. Israel has refused Palestinian demands to stop building.
Insurance company stops offering cult's alien policy
The Associated Press
LONDON — A company that had insured the Heaven's Gate cult against abduction, impregnation or attack by aliens said yesterday that it had stopped offering that policy in the wake of the 39 cult members' suicide.
"Innocent lives were wrecked," managing director Simon Burgess said. "We don't wish to contribute to a repetition of the Heaven's Gate deaths."
When the brokerage Goodfellow Rebecca Ingram's Pearson, known as GRIP, added alien insurance to its list of policies last summer, Heaven's Gate was one of 4,000 policyholders worldwide who bought it, Burgess said. Britain and the United States were the biggest markets.
While those policies will not be renewed, the company still offers other unusual policies, which account for about 10 percent of business.
*We insure virgins against immaculate conception, prostitutes against
loss of earnings from headache and backache; conversion to a werewolf or vampire; death or serious injury through paranormal activity; and unfaithful husbands against Bobbiting," he said. This was a reference to John Bobbit, whose wife severed his penis in 1993.
The Heaven's Gate cult learned of the company on the Internet, then bought a $1,000 policy on Oct. 10. It covered up to 50 members and would pay $1 million per person for abduction, impregnation or death caused by aliens.
But the cult members took their own lives last week in a California mansion, seeking redemption in a spaceship they believed was trailing the Hale-Bopp comet.
It bears repeating! recycle recu
Their policy beneficiary was the Society of Heaven's Gate. The cult paid the premium and the policy remains in force until Oct. 9, but collecting is another issue entirely.
"They would have to prove that they were abducted," Burgess said.
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