6B
Thursday, April 27, 1995
NATION/WORLD
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Nicotine studies question tobacco
Regulation of tobacco needed researchers say
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — New research contends teen-agers start on lownicotine chewing tobacco and graduate to stronger brands that, because of gradual chemical changes in the recipe, have the potential to release more nicotine into their bloodstream.
The studies released yesterday promise to rekindle the debate that tobacco companies manipulate nicotine levels to make their products more addictive.
The tobacco industry furiously denied the accusation, and the nation's largest chewing-tobacco manufacturer dismissed the new studies as a rehash of old criticisms.
But the American Medical Association and other tobacco critics used the research to renew their calls for an immediate government crackdown.
The studies were reported yesterday in the journal Tobacco Control. They document for the first time the different pH levels — a measure of acidity and alkalinity — of 17 brands of smokeless tobacco and their resulting increases in easily absorbed nicotine, and show how
Smokeless tobacco is "a ticking time bomb in the mouths of millions of young people," said Gregory Connolly of the Coalition on Smoking Or Health. "We have to act today if we want to deal with this silent epidemic."
Among the findings:
teen-agers move from the mildest to the strongest brands.
SOURCE: British Medical Association
Scientists already knew acidic tobacco releases nicotine into the bloodstream far more slowly than alkaline tobacco. U.S. firms have denied manipulating acidity for nicotine release. But Connolly quoted a new Swedish Tobacco Co. publication that says the industry adds chemicals to increase products' alkalinity "in order to release the nicotine from the tobacco."
Two laboratories, at the National Institute of Health and the American Health Foundation, independently measured the acidity of smokeless tobacco brands and the "free nicotine" in them. As tobacco loses its acidity, it frees more nicotine from chemical binds so it can pass through the mouth's membranes into the bloodstream.
Connolly also pointed to industry documents given to Congress last fall that show a U.S. Tobacco Co. marketing plan to introduce young people to its mildest brand, Skool Bandit, and slowly "graduate" them to the strongest. Copenhagen.
KNIGHT RIDDER-TRIBUNE
Skoal Bandit was 1,000 times more acidic than Copenhagen. And the free nicotine rose by 17 times as the brands' pH increased, from a mere 7 percent in Skoal Bandit to 79 percent in Copenhagen.
The first survey of teen-agers' actual brand preferences found that the newest users bought Skool Bandit while older users preferred stronger brands. But after four years of use, only half of the Skool users still preferred the mild brand — nearly a third had switched to Copenhagen.
"It is very unlikely that differences as large as these are inadvertent," said Dr. John Slade of the Robert
Wood Johnson Medical School, who independently analyzed the studies.
But U.S. Tobacco said the studies all rested on a "false and misleading assumption," that alkalinity plays a major role in nicotine absorption. "The fact is that a variety of other chemical, biological and behavioral factors determine the absorption of nicotine," said spokesman Alan Kaiser.
He refused to elaborate. The Smokeless Tobacco Council declined comment.
The scientists acknowledged that the research isn't final — they're just beginning to measure people's
blood to prove whether free nicotine is absorbed at the same rate that the brands' rising pH levels predict. But they noted that previous measurements of Copenhagen users found higher nicotine levels than in smokers, while Skool Bandit users register only small amounts.
The FDA is still considering whether to regulate nicotine-containing products as addictive drugs.But the new studies prove "the use of smokeless tobacco begins as a pediatric disease," said FDA spokesman Jim O'Hara."As public health officials, we need to confront this pediatric disease with intensity and comprehensive strategies."
Chechens cling to their war-torn homeland
Effects of fighting pervade all parts of residents' lives
The Associated Press
Behind him are block after block of leveled houses, including the one he used to live in.
ARGUN, Russia — Eleven-year-old Islam Khasimilsov sells cigarettes and on a crate along Argun's dusty main road, traveled heavily these days by armored personnel carriers spilling over with Russian soldiers.
"Pow! The roof was blown off! There are mines in the yard, and if you step on one — pow!" said the boy, whose family returned early this month to Argun, about six miles east of the Chechen capital Grozny, after three months as refugees in nearby Dagestan.
Weeks of Russian air strikes turned most of Arguin into little more than a junkyard of twisted metal and chunks of cement. Before taking the town in early March, military officials had said it was a stronghold of the Chechen rebels fighting for independence from Moscow.
Now it just looks as if a twister had hit. And hit. And hit. It is a scene increasingly familiar across the Chechen countryside as Russian
troops force Chechen fighters farther south and assume control of ruined, barely inhabited towns and villages.
Villagers eye the soldiers with a mix of fear and quiet defiance.
"Look at our history — Chechens have always been insulted," said Adam, 30, who would not give his last name because he said young men like him were under constant suspicion and threat from the Russian military.
"But we are the proudest and most hospitable people in the Caucasus. And we would rather die on our soil than lose it."
Adam said he was not a fighter. But he and many others across Chechnya believe the forces of rebel president Dzhokhar Dudayev never will let the Russians hold Chechen towns like this one in peace.
"We don't talk to (the Russian soldiers) — we have nothing to do with them," said Aimani Madayeva, 68, a small, wrinkled, toothless woman in a green head scarf and purple housecoat who now lives in the former police station. "Only Allah knows when they'll leave, but there won't be any happiness until then."
Russian military leaders say they have conquered the Chechen plains and are battling the last of the rebel forces in the southern mountains. It was unclear what long-term effect a Russian moratorium announced for the period of Victory Day celebrations next month would have on the
fighting.
But troops come under frequent sniper fire, including troops in Grozny. A rebel attack that killed 16 Russian soldiers this week in Gudermes, the next major town east of Argun, indicates how vulnerable the troops are to partisan attacks.
"We're dealing not just with Dudayev, but with the whole Dudayev mentality," Gen. Kim Tsagolov, deputy chief of Russian forces in Chechnya, said in his Grozny office.
"But this is the death throes of Dudayev." Tsagolov, himself an Ossetian from the Caucasus, said he expected rebels to resort to sabotage and arson this summer.
"So far, the Caucasus mentality has been badly understood. It's a special feature of Caucasus peoples
— they are easily offended. Proud and honest. You just can't barge into the Caucasus like an elephant in a china shop," the general said. "We need a new ethnic and regional policy, and that's not done quickly."
They sit in the devastation without electricity, gas, jobs, stores or news from the outside. They are afraid to farm because of mines.
As the armored vehicles thunder through Argun, villagers say that nobody has come to help them start picking up the pieces of their town and their lives.
Russia's intensive air strikes on villages believed to support rebel fighters recall Soviet methods in Afghanistan, a comparison not lost
on people in Argun.
"But our guys are smarter than the Afghanans — they fought in the Soviet army, too," said Khasan, a dark-haired 15-year-old riding a bicycle.
Only about a third of Argun's 30,000 prewar population remains now, many having returned only recently from living as refugees.
They accuse Russian troops of running wild, knocking on doors demanding vodka and women, and driving armored vehicles over cars that get in their way.
The townspeople say Russians take tires, building materials and other things to sell. Russian soldiers deny such accusations or blame them on a few bad individuals. The Russians accuse villagers of harboring snipers who shoot at them at night.
At the Argun River, which runs between Argun and the Grozny region, Russian checkpoints have been set up on both sides of a single-lane bridge thrown up to replace a destroyed one.
Amphibious armored vehicles cross the river in exercises, and a firing range can be heard in the dusty hills ahead. On the Grozny side, a dozen armed vehicles line the road, and four soldiers hall passing cars.
"Hey Mister," a soldier asked the driver of a Zhiguli car, "wanna buy a tire for a Zhiguli?"
Argentine military admits to atrocities during 'Dirty War'
The Associated Press
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — For years Argentines were told not to dwell on the horrors of the "Dirty War." Now, the official silence has been broken with the frank admission that the army tortured and killed leftists and political dissidents two decades ago.
The truth has shaken the country to the core. While it may help Argentines confront their past, it may not help President Carlos Menem, who pardoned many of the people responsible and is up for re-election.
“It’s time to assume the responsibility and no longer deny the horrors of the past,” army Commander Gen. Martin Balza said Tuesday in acknowledging the army's role in the former military government's brutal campaign.
"The army did not know how to take on terrorists by legal means" Balza said on a televised
talk snow.
" ( I t )
employed illegitimate methods,
including the suppression of life,
to obtain information."
His surprise statement was applauded yesterday by human rights groups, which have pushed for a
"Especially when you consider that he (Balza) leads an army which in its heart has people
"The significance of Balza's words cannot be underestimated," said Simon Lazara, a director of the Permanent Assembly on Human Rights and spokesman for former President Raul Alfonsin.
tor Ibanez claimed prisoners were put on death flights from 1976 through 1978. He was the first member of the Argentine army to speak out on alleged military murder methods.
Human rights groups disagreed with Menem. Debate on the Dirty War, formerly stifled, now will gather steam, they hope, and lead to a shake up in the country's discredited armed forces.
The account echoed a confession in March by a former navy officer, Lt. Cmdr. Adolfo Scilingo. He, too, described how prisoners were drugged and tossed alive from navy planes.
new investigation into the disappearance of thousands of people during the Dirty War.
The military junta that seized power in 1976 went after left-wing guerrillas who sought to destabilize the country. More than 9,000 people, many of them intellectuals and dissidents unconnected with terrorism, were arrested and disappeared, an official report says.
Human rights advocates claim more than 30,000 Argentines disappeared under military rule.
It came on the heels of two chilling confessions by retired armed forces officers who said political prisoners were thrown alive into the Atlantic from navy and army aircraft in the 1970s.
Memen, who had repeatedly urged former repressors "not to rub salt in old wounds" by publicly confessing to atrocities, praised Balza's courage and said he expected statements soon from the air force and the navy.
He said he hoped Balza's revelation would pacify the country and put an end to further tales of torture by repentant officers.
"This is a relief because on the one hand it will stop public confessions from repentant military men and also society will be able speak more openly," Menem said.
in a newspaper interview published Monday, former Sgt. Vic
linked to that past." Menem's government has been criticized for not doing enough to investigate military crimes committed in the Dirty War. He granted amnesty in December 1990 to most military officers and former terrorists accused or convicted of crimes
The admission, just three weeks away from national elections in which Menem is seeking a second term, could not have come at a more sensitive time for the government.
On Tuesday, Menem's running mate claimed the confessions were designed to undermine the president's bid for re-election.
"The assassins are only ready to confess 20 or 30 days before the elections," said Carlos Ruckauf, a former interior minister.
A veteran of the 1982 war with Britain over the Falkland Islands, Balza was not accused of abuses during the trials of military leaders held after democracy was restored in 1983. He is regarded as a supporter of Argentina's constitution and democratic system.
Balza, who consulted Menem and spoke twice with Defense Minister Oscar Camilion before delivering his speech Tuesday, said he had originally planned it for Army Day on May 29 — after the elections.
Contrary to the hopes of rights activists, he said the army had no knowledge of lists of Dirty War victims.
Menem has said the military government destroyed information pertaining to its Dirty War.
HARBOURLIGHTS
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JAYHAWKS vs. Nebraska Cornhuskers
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