Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Headline Article Date: Wed, 4 Nov 92 16:16:30 EST Message-ID: \SE A;TOP OF THE NEWS;NATION \BY FROM WIRE DISPATCHES AND STAFF REPORTS S=NEW STORY Girl, 4, receives 5 organs in transplant PITTSBURGH - Doctors yesterday transplanted five organs into a 4-year-old girl who was born with an intestine too short to absorb nutrition properly. Charlie Fourstar, who lives on Montana's Fort Peck Indian Reservation, was in critical condition but doing well after receiving a liver, stomach, pancreas and small and large intestine in a 16-hour operation at Presbyterian University Hospital. "She's doing fine," one of her doctors, Satoru Todo, said at midday. He said she was waking up and her liver was beginning to produce bile, a good sign. The child was born with shortgut syndrome, in which the small intestine cannot absorb nutrition properly, and has been fed intravenously her entire life. If the operation succeeds, she will be able to eat normally. The intravenous feeding destroyed Charlie's liver and affected her stomach. S=NEW STORY Man promotes Bush on jet's intercom FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - A man seized control of a USAir jet's intercom system to make a pitch for President Bush at 30,000 feet, authorities said. Richard Allan Drennan, 27, began cursing and threatening crew members after he was refused another beer, then grabbed the microphone during the flight Sunday from Philadelphia to Fort Lauderdale, the FBI said Monday. Mr. Drennan, a real estate property manager, told passengers: "Vote for George Bush. Clinton is not capable of running the country," authorities said. He was charged with interfering with a flight crew and freed Monday on $25,000 bail. The charge carries up to 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. S=NEW STORY NASA begins preparing Discovery for launch CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA yesterday began assembling the space shuttle Discovery for launch next month on a mission to deploy a secret Defense Department satellite. The eighth and last mission of the year is tentatively set for liftoff Dec. 2, nearly a month behind schedule because of problems with a faulty steering engine. The shuttle's five-member crew, all military officers, will launch a satellite that the Pentagon has refused to identify. The crew will also work on several military experiments, including tests of a laser communications system, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. S=NEW STORY Exposure to chemicals linked to leukemia Exposure to a wide range of dangerous chemicals on the job may be linked to genetic changes that show up in a rare form of leukemia, researchers reported yesterday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Jack Taylor of the National Institute of Environmental Health Science found that genetic damage showed up more frequently in patients with acute myeloid leukemia who also had worked around chemicals than in patients with the same disease who had not worked around them. They were found to work in high-risk occupations, including artistic painter, auto mechanic, dry cleaner, beautician, farmer, electrician and nurse as well as industries such as printing, rubber, pharmaceutical and chemical. Contact with chemicals such as benzene has long been thought to be one cause of leukemia, but this is the first study to make the genetic link with one particular form of the cancer. Acute myeloid leukemia is a fast-acting cancer that, if untreated, can be fatal within a few weeks to a few months. S=NEW STORY Snow falls from Canada to Texas Snow greeted voters yesterday from the northern Rockies and Dakotas south into the Texas Panhandle and New Mexico, closing some highways and leaving others snow-packed and slippery. Rescuers in Colorado searched for two climbers missing since Sunday in an area of heavy snow and high wind. Wyoming warned of slick roads, blowing snow and fog over many parts of the state, and about a 50-mile stretch of Interstate 80 between Laramie and Cheyenne was closed at noon. Blizzards swept the Laramie Mountain range and up to 2 additional feet of snow was expected in some mountain areas yesterday. Snow had started falling during the weekend in parts of the northern Rockies. Forty inches had fallen at Arrowhead Lodge, west of Sheridan, Wyo., and 46 inches at Gothic, Colo., the National Weather Service said. Bear Lodge, also west of Sheridan, reported 30 inches and Lake City, Colo., had 18 inches. S=NEW STORY Uninsured more likely to suffer injuries CHICAGO - Uninsured hospital patients suffer negligent medical injuries more than twice as often as insured patients, according to one of the largest and most comprehensive studies of its type. One possible reason is that uninsured people tend to lack regular medical care and to take regular-care problems to emergency rooms, where treatment is accelerated and more prone to mistakes, researchers said. Also, hospitals may be reluctant to admit uninsured patients, turning them away despite serious health problems, the researchers said in today's Journal of the American Medical Association. The study is the first to show that inferior treatment is directly linked to insurance status, regardless of race, gender, patient income or type of hospital, said the principal author, Dr. Helen R. Burstin of Harvard Medical School. S=NEW STORY Activists criticize Vatican statement KANSAS CITY, Mo. - An activist group for homosexual Catholics has been joined by two bishops and a former bishop in criticizing a recent Vatican statement that the group says allows discrimination against homosexuals. New Ways Ministry, based in Mount Rainier, Md., has prepared a four-page advertisement scheduled to appear in the Nov. 13 issue of the National Catholic Reporter, a weekly newspaper published in Kansas City. More than 1,500 people have signed the ad, including Bishop Walter Sullivan of Richmond, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit, and retired Bishop Charles Buswell of Pueblo, Colo. The advertisement, titled "A Time to Speak," cites a 1986 letter on homosexuality in which the Vatican acknowledged Catholic social teaching that "the intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action, and in law." The advertisement then notes a June 1992 statement from the Vatican to U.S. bishops indicating there were circumstances, such as teaching, adoptive parenting and military recruitment, in which the principle could be discarded. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM