NATION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, June 12, 1996
5B
Kevorkian attends death
Associated Press Writer
DETROIT — Less than a month after his latest court victory, physician Jack Kevorkian attended the death of a New Jersey woman, a lawyer for the assisted suicide advocate said yesterday.
Ruth Neuman, 69, who reportedly died from carbon monoxide poisoning, was the 29th person to die in Kevorkian's since 1990.
Neuman of Columbus, N.J., was brought to the North Oakland Medical Center in Pontiac, Mich., at about 12:25 a.m. Doctors pronounced her dead around 12:50 a.m. after trying unsuccessfully to revive her, hospital spokeswoman Choli Nativao said.
Natavio said Neuman's body was brought to the hospital by her son, who was joined several minutes later by Kevorkian's attorney Geoffrey Fieger.
Fieger, reached later at home, said Newman had been incapacitated many years after a series of strokes.
the last of which left her partially paralyzed on her left side. She also had uterine cancer and diabetes, he said.
She contacted Kevorkian several months ago and had undergone a lengthy period of counseling with him, Fieger said. The woman checked herself out of a New Jersey nursing home and traveled to Michigan, accompanied by her son and daughter, to meet with Kevorkian, Fieger said.
Flienger would not say how or where she died. But he did say other doctors, whom he refused to identify, were present in addition to Kevorkian. In at least one other instance, other doctors have been present at a death attended by Kevorkian, Fliester said.
WWJ-AM reported that Fieger said Neuman died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Kevorkian, reached at his home, referred questions to his lawyer.
An autopsy on Neuman could be performed later today, said a
spokeswoman at the Oakland County medical examiner's office who refused to give her name.
"If she's a suspicious death she's automatically a medical examiner's case. If they're saying Dr. Jack's involved, that would be a suspicious death," the spokeswoman said.
Kevorkian, a 68-year-old retired pathologist, has maintained that as a doctor he has a moral duty to help patients end their suffering, even if the only way is to end their lives.
Kevorkian has said that nothing short of "being burned at the stake" would halt his campaign to provide fatal relief to patients suffering from unending pain.
The death comes less than a month after Kevorkian was acquitted in two assisted suicides. Over the last two years, he has been acquitted of assisted suicide charges in three trials covering five deaths.
Oakland County Prosecutor Richard Thompson has said that even after the high-profile court failures, he wouldn't back down from possibly trying Kevorkian again.
After his latest court victory May 14, Vekorkian said: "I now consider this a legitimate medical service. I've never been so convinced of being right in my life."
the last death involving Kevorkian was that of Austin Bastable, 53, a multiple sclerosis patient from South Windsor, Ontario. The May 6 death came during Kevorkian's last trial.
In his first two trials, Kevorkian was charged under a temporary law the Legislature targeted at him. But in the last case, the charges were based on a 1994 Michigan Supreme Court ruling that said assisted suicide was a felony under the common law — the traditions and legal precedents dating to old England.
Fieger contended that judges on the state's highest courts and prosecutors had conspired to get Kevorkian by creating a new common law crime of assisted suicide.
Violent deaths frequent at U.S. schools
The Associated Press
Death rate a result of guns in urban schools conflict among students says systematic study
CHICAGO — More than 50 killings or suicides occur each year near or at U.S. schools, according to the first systematic study of violent school-related deaths.
Most deaths are in urban areas, involve handguns and teen-agers, and are the result of interpersonal conflicts, according to the study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which examined deaths from July 1, 1992, through June 30, 1994. Almost a third of the deaths were gang-related.
havens," said James Mercy, director of the CDC's Division of Violence Prevention. "These deaths fly in the face of that sentiment."
"We think of schools as sate
The CDC study, published today in The Journal of the American Medical Association, identified 105 school-related violent deaths, consisting of 85 killings and 20 suicides. Victims included 76 students, 63 of them in grades nine through 12.
And while the deaths account for less than 1 percent of killings and suicides among school-age children, they represent the tip of the iceberg of all the violent acts that go on around schools, Mercy said.
School-related deaths were those that occurred on the campus of an elementary or secondary school or when the victim was on the way to or from school or a school event.
Researchers used online news databases, and followed up by studying police reports, medical examiners' records, and by interviewing police and school officials. Of all the deaths, 81 were caused by firearms — at least 62 of them handguns — 18 by knives or blades, five by ropes and one without a weapon. Thirty-three deaths were gang-related.
The 105 fatalities occurred at 101 different schools in 25 states. Sixtythree deaths occurred in urban areas, 32 in suburban areas and 10 in rural areas.
The researchers, led by Dr. S. Patrick Kachur, said preventing school deaths will require more than a classroom approach and will need to involve whole communities.
Dr. Michael Doyle of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, who was not involved in the study, agreed that community-based approaches are key and children need to be taught how to resolve conflicts nonviolently. He also supports a blanket ban on handguns.
But a spokesman for the Gun Owners of America, based in Springfield, Va., said a gun ban would not accomplish anything. The highest rate of gun deaths in the study was in urban areas, which tend to have the strongest anti-gun laws, said spokesman John Vellecko.
Mark Logan, an agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said investigators were pursuing both angles, but noted there was no evidence the girl, who is Caucasian, is linked to any other church fires.
"Prior to 1968, there were no restrictions to purchasing firearms by minors," Vellecko said. "Prior to 1968, I don't think anyone would suggest that schools were more violent. So why are teen-agers more violent today? You just cannot say it's because of access to guns."
Feds continue to look for reasons why Black churches are burned
Also, the victims and perpetrators in the study tended to be 16 or 17 years old, suggesting the problem is violent teens, not guns, he said.
Federal investigators looking for evidence of a conspiracy in a wave of fires at Southern Black churches say satanic markings were seen on a North Carolina sanctuary before it was burned and the 13-year-old suspect may have used the blaze as an anti-religious statement.
Sanctuary blaze may be a protest
The Associated Press
Meanwhile in Texas, three men were questioned Monday about suspicious fires at two black churches. One of those fires was ruled arson today.
In the North Carolina case, NBC Nightly News, quoting federal officials it did not identify, said the girl was suspected of being part of a devil-worshiping cult.
Logan said investigators were pursuing possible links between the fire and satanic markings seen at the church and nearby areas. He said the suspect also might have been making an anti-religious statement with the fire.
However, ATF spokesman Earl Woodham cautioned today against drawing any conclusions about Logan's comments that he meant investigators had actually found evidence of satanic activities.
"We are going to look into it to see if there is any substance to it, but we will not confirm that there was any posting of satanic or other known graffiti on the church," Woodham said.
Logan was en route to Washington and could not be reached for additional comment.
While police refused to comment
on the report, they acknowledged that investigators who specialize in racial and cult activity were questioning the girl.
"If there's any possibility that it's cult-related, they've got a very cooperative suspect who I am sure will tell them about it," said Capt. D.L Skipper of Charlotte-Mecklenburg police, which arrested the girl Sunday.
"This is a very troubled 13-year-old," said Deputy Chief Larry Snider.
The fire destroyed a 93-year-old wooden sanctuary at Matthews Murkland Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, N.C., on Thursday night. The sanctuary was used to store old pews; the congregation worshipped at a building nearby.
The ATF has been investigating 30 church fires since January 1995 and has declared five of those cases closed with arrests. Two weekend fires in Texas would bring the total to 32.
In Greenville, Texas, about 40 miles northeast of Dallas, the New Light House of Prayer was heavily damaged late Sunday night. Another fire moderately damaged the Church of the Living God a mile away.
The New Light House of Prayer was ruled arson, ATF agent Steven Steele said today. Samples were sent to a laboratory for tests but it will take a couple of weeks to determine what accelerant was used, he said.
Two Caucasians and a Hispanic American, charged with alcohol-related crimes, were questioned about both fires, although the second blaze was reported three hours after their arrest. Fire Chief Robert Wood called the fires acts of local vandalism.
Biotech industry considers ethics of testing embryos for genetic disorders
The Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA — Fertility specialists question whether they should test embryos for a newly discovered breast cancer gene, potentially allowing parents to pick a child without that type of cancer risk.
Parents are asking whether they should test their children for genes that won't cause disease until adulthood — and can't be prevented. Patients are wondering how to keep frightening test results from causing their health and life insurance to be canceled.
The biotechnology industry is grappling with such questions, hiring ethicists and polling the public to determine where and how companies should draw the line on potentially profitable but ethically troubling discoveries.
"The public is wary," said Carl Feldbaum, president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, which brought 3,000 industry executives and scientists to its annual meeting on Monday to debate ethical issues. "We are asking what things people think are unacceptable, and we are listening."
Biotechnology is a young but fastgrowing industry, with 40 medical technologies and 21 agricultural products on the market.
Yet companies already have faced ethical controversy. Religious leaders have denounced scientists for
patenting genes they discover, saying no one can own genes. Critics protested a biologically-engineered hormone to boost cows' milk production, saying it might promote infections.
And Congress only now is grappling with how to keep genetic test results private so patients don't face discrimination because they inherited certain disease risks.
But as scientific discoveries expand doctors' knowledge and power over biology, companies are taking a hard look at how far they can go versus how far they should go.
Gene testing of embryos is just an example of the dilemma. University
of Pennsylvania bioethicist Artnur Caplan says fertility clinics keep asking his opinion on testing embryos for the BRCA-1 gene that puts about 5 percent of women at risk for inherited breast cancer — even though the test is still experimental in adults.
"That question's going to explode as more genes for traits and disorders are identified," said Caplan, who on Monday urged companies to be cautious in developing such tests. Caplan said if sufficient traits can be tested for, some people may want to have test tube babies not because they are infertile, but because they are selecting for traits. The nation has never found an easy balance
between profit-making and ethicsmaking, said W. Steven Burke of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.
"Whether that is doable with biologically based products I think remains to be seen," he said.
Companies are hiring outside ethicists and lobbying for genetic privacy laws. The Biotechnology Industry Organization has conducted meetings in eight states so far, asking members of the public what research should not be pursued.
The public did not want the technology used to create basketball stars or raise anyone's IQ, Feldbaum said of the poll results.
Even school students may join the debate. The Pennsylvania Biotechnology Association just mailed teachers nationwide a magazine, partly funded by the Education Department, that teaches genetics basics and asks, "Suppose your parents want to have you tested even though you might become dangerously depressed if you knew you had a fatal gene?"
The Hastings Center, an ethical think tank, just began raising $750,000 to help industry and doctors address the dilemmas. High on the list is delineating when biotechnology is a treatment or merely a way to make people better than normal, ethicist Mark Hanson said.