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Qtyr Daily (Ear Hwl Dole, Gramm Present Opinions As They Vie for GOP Nomination THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON, D.C. Senate Ma jority Leader Bob Dole is threatening to blocka voteonDr. Henry Foster’sbidtobe surgeon general and says the nomination is in such deep trouble that it may not even emerge from committee. Dole, a leading candidate for the Re publican presidential nomination, also singled outthecontroversialmovie “Priest” for criticism. He suggested political leaders have a responsibility to engage the enter tainment industry in debate about the con tent of movies and television programs. “IfTmthepresidentoftheUnitedStates, I’m going to encourage people to turn off their TV sets and not patronize these mov ies,” he said in comments broadcast Sun day on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Dole’s comments appeared aimed at conservatives who are angered by what they see as America’s moral decline. On the Foster nomination, Dole said it may not even get out of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee which plans hearings beginning May 2. “If it does, I’m not certain that I’ll call it up," Dole said. “I’d say the nomination is in extremis. It’s not very viable right now,” he said. Foster has run into opposition on Capi tol Hill for understating the number of President to Open Security Documents Under Clinton’s Proposal, 25-Year-Old National Security Papers Would Be Declassified THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON, D.C. Relaxing government secrecy rules, President Clinton signed an executive order Monday stripping the classified label from millions of national security documents. The order requires the automatic declassification of all top secret, secret and confidential information which is 25 years or older. Unless it Ms into a narrow exemption category, such as revealing the identity of a source of information, the information will be open. Private experts said it would provide historians with a treasure trove of classi fied documents, principally from the Pen tagon and State Department, about the making of past military and foreign poli cies. But it would not prevent government officials from continuing to use the secrecy stamp despite Clinton’s assertion to the contrary, they said. “It will not fundamentally change the classification habits of current government officials," said Steven Aftergood, a gov ernment secrecy specialist at the Federa tion of American Scientists. “While these rules sound good, it’s not clear whether in practice they mean any thing,” Aftergood said. For instance, he said, the order will not result in declassification of documents showing how much money is spent annu ally on intelligence. Clinton’s order eases the impact of a 1982 directive by then-President Reagan that vastly increased the scope of what would be classified. Nolongerwillthegovemmentpresump tively classify certain categories of infor mation. "The order will lift the veil on millions of existing documents, keep a great many future documents from ever being classi fied, and still maintain necessary controls over information that legitimately needs to be guarded in the interests of national secu rity,” Clinton said in a statement. For the first time, he said, government officials would be required to provide jus tification about why information is listed as classified. Federal employes would be encouraged to challenge improper classification and would be protected from retribution for doing so. The duration of secrecy of most newly classified information would be 10 years, subject to some limitations. “We will no longer tolerate the excesses of the current system," the president said. “For example, we will resolve doubtful calls about classification in favor of keep ing the information unclassified,” Clinton said. Two years in the drafting, the order omitsaprovision once included that would have required officials to use a balancing test before classifying documents, weigh ing any harm to the national security against the measure of public interest in disclo sure. Instead, it merely authorizes, rather than mandates, agency heads to apply the bal ancing test. In that regard, “The order is a major disappointment to us,” said Kate Martin, directorofthe Center for National Security Studies, a private group that lobbies on behalf of civil liberties and national secu rity issues. “When they took out the public interest balancing test,” she said, “they did so in order to basically eliminate the role of the judiciary in looking at whether informa tion should be kept secret. “Recent events have shown that some kind of outside, independent accountabil ity is necessary, otherwise the government is going to keep information secret that should be made public.” abortions he has performed. “Things dribbled out about Foster’s past record that has nothing to do with abortion. In fact, he didn’t tell the truth,” Dole said. Another con tender for the GOP presidential nomi nation, Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, reiteratedhispledge Sunday to end affir mative action and Senate Majority Leader 808 DOLE says he might block the vote on Clinton's surgeon general nominee. balance the federal budget by the end ofhis first term if elected president. Gramm appeared Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation." Dole on NBC said he did want to be a censor, but that people should express their views if they have concerns about the mov ies shown in theaters and on television screens. “My view is that shame is still an impor tant tool in America,” he said. The film "Priest" has generated contro versy for its portrayal of some troubled Roman Catholic clerics. “It’s about a gay priest, an alcoholic KfsSßt qrHOOL a V ■ m hbb m il ■ll im—mm—iw—w m swim M 8 |H flHHjHtt SBBHHfIj iE. .. . 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It gives the impression that all Catho lic priests are like these two,” said Dole, a Methodist from Kansas. He noted that protests by Catholicgroups forced the film’s distributor to delay its national release, which had been slated for Good Friday. On other Senate business, Dole said that while he still hoped to repeal a ban on 19 types of assault weapons, he has no immediate plan to try to reverse the Brady Law, which requires a waiting period for handgun purchases. Both Dole and Gramm said they did not believe there are enough votes in Congress to pass a constitutional amendment to ban abortion. But both suggested that if elected presi dent, they would use the executive power to limit access to abortion. “We all know that the there is not a consensus in the party or in the country to reform the Constitution,” Gramm said. “But that doesn’t mean there aren’t things we can do.” Gramm refused to support the Clinton administration’s review of affirmative ac tion, saying “the facts are in,” and vowing to end “quotas and set-asides." Gramm said, “I think it is fundamen tally divisive to have Americans judged on their ethnic group rather than on how hard they work or on their merit.” Experts React to Charges Against Lab BY WENDY GOODMAN STAFF WRITER Reactions from several medical groups have varied as to whether homicide charges wereappropriateinthe case of a laboratory that failed to diagnose two patients with cervical cancer. Reckless homicide charges were filed against a Chem-Bio Corp. laboratory in Milwaukee following the deaths of two women whose test results for cervical can cer were misread. The two women belonged to the same health maintenance organization and had both had several Pap smears there. Pap smears are used to detect signs of cervical cancer in women. Both women received clean bills of health after their tests, but later learned they had been misdiagnosed and actually had cervical cancer. The misdiagnoses by the laboratory and doctor, according to statements by the Milwaukee district attor ney, were blatant errors and should not have happened. Arnold Collins, a spokesman for the American Medical Association, said cer vical cancer was often curable if detected by tests. “You can’t guess about the individual person, but iffound early enough, it is quite curable,” Collins said. Carlan Graves, a National Cancer Insti tute spokeswoman, said she agreed with Collins, adding that the deaths of the two women were unwarranted. Cervical Cancer According to the American Cancer Society, cervical cancer is one of the leatfing causes of death in women in the United States. PHBBBrRRBBPRBHBBHHhb Women who die each year 5,000 New cases among women 16,000 each year tv, •>-/'WI !w nf- t Estimated for 1995 15.800 new cases 4.800 deaths ’ . •' ■* SOURCE; AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY DTH/CHRIS ANDERSON “In theory, cervical cancer shouldn’t even exist," Graves said. “You can find it before it turns cancerous by Pap smears because you can find abnormal cells, do follow-ups, and then it is virtually 100 percent curable.” Graves said these facts indicated that cervical cancer could be prevented in cases in which women were being tested on a regular basis. The misread Pap smears for both women took place during the late 1980s. “This was before some of the clinical reforms had taken place,” said Alice Kirkman, a spokeswoman for the Ameri can College of Obstetricians and Gyne cologists. After being correctly diagnosed, both women filed and settled malpractice claims against the laboratory and doctor. Tuesday, April 18,1995 Reckless homicide charges were also filed by the district attorney last week against the laboratory accused of misread ing the tests. According to the AMA, this is the first such case in Wisconsin that has prompted criminal charges. “The usual punishment for negligent doctors is for licensing boards to take away their credentials, and that is a pretty severe sanction," said a spokesman for the AMA in Washington, D.C. “The only stand that the AMA has taken is that criminal penal ties are unusual and quite severe.” The Joint Commission in Wisconsin, which normally investigates claims of malpractice and the accreditations of medi cal institutes, is looking into the problems the case presents. “If there is something going on that we believe is a threat to the patients and their care then we will immediately be on the case investigating,” said Kathy Berry, a spokeswoman for the commission According to a press release from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Pap smears have reduced the number of deaths from cervical cancer by nearly 70percent. Human error, like the one that took place in the laboratory in Milwaukee, can be common, though. ; Human errors can include doctors ei-; ther taking a sample with too few cells or 1 the laboratory technician failing to see an! abnormality on a slide. Kirkman said the - cases of slides being misread like the one in ' Milwaukee did not occur often. ; 5
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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