HEALTH

DOCTOR: ONE DAY OF VIOXX CAN CAUSE HEART ATTACK

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – Intermittent use of Vioxx or even a day’s use of the painkiller could be enough to cause a heart attack, a prominent heart and medication expert testified yesterday on behalf of a man who is suing the maker of the drug, claiming it caused his heart attack.

Vioxx breaks down so slowly in the body that it takes about 85 hours to clear out of the blood, testified Dr. Benedict Lucchesi, a professor at the University of Michigan who helped develop the first pacemaker. “Based on the science, there’s every reason to believe that a single dose, multiple doses, whatever, can lead to an adverse event,” such as a heart attack or stroke, Dr. Lucchesi said.

That could be a key point in 60-year-old Idaho postal worker Frederick “Mike” Humeston’s case against Vioxx maker Merck. Mr. Humeston had a heart attack in 2001 after taking Vioxx for only two months and skipping some doses.

Dr. Lucchesi also told jurors that repeated evidence and warning signs linked heart risks to the painkiller Vioxx before and shortly after its launch. Dr. Lucchesi said after reviewing correspondence among Merck executives and scientists that he was surprised the company didn’t put more emphasis on those risks.

– Associated Press

WASHINGTON

LABOR UNIONS END BITTER BATTLES

Two of America’s largest labor unions, the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, announced yesterday that they have ended a series of bitter jurisdictional battles in which both unions were competing to organize child care and home care workers.

The agreement, known as a “no-raiding” deal, is notable because it brings together two unions that are on opposing sides of a rift that split the American labor movement earlier this year.

At the time, the president of AFSCME, Gerald McEntee, was sharply critical of the decision made by the Service Employees and their president, Andrew Stern, to withdraw from the AFL-CIO. In a joint statement yesterday, both men promised to work together.

The pact creates a joint local of child care providers in California and Pennsylvania and will place newly organized home care workers in California into a similar new local affiliated with both parent unions.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

IRAN ACTIVE IN SPREADING ISLAMIC EXTREMISM, REPORT SAYS

Iran is more active than Saudi Arabia in spreading Islamic extremism, according to a report issued yesterday by the Government Accountability Office.

The report – undertaken at the request of the chairman of the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator Collins, a Republican of Maine, and the committee’s ranking member, Senator Lieberman, a Democrat of Connecticut – was intended largely to ascertain Saudi Arabia’s role in the dissemination of extremist Islamic ideology, and to account for the American government’s efforts to combat it. Many of the GAO’s findings – culled from and reviewed by the Departments of Defense, State, and Treasury – downplayed the involvement of both the government of Saudi Arabia and private Saudi entities in the dissemination of extremist Islam, identifying independent “indigenous groups,” such as Palestinian Arab Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah, as more pronounced threats. Other states, too, were cited as key players: “A current DOD official and a former Treasury official told us that Iran currently poses a larger threat in this regard than does Saudi Arabia,” according to the report.

The GAO study also documented promises of reform issued by the Saudi regime, but cautioned in the introduction: “However, U.S. agencies do not know the extent of the Saudi government’s efforts to limit the activities of Saudi sources that have allegedly propagated Islamic extremism outside of Saudi Arabia.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

EX-ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL CHARGED WITH CONCEALING TIES TO LOBBYIST

A former Bush administration official was arrested yesterday on charges he made false statements and obstructed a federal investigation into his dealings with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to court documents and government officials.

David Safavian, then-chief of staff of the General Services Administration and a former Abramoff lobbying associate, concealed from federal investigators that Mr. Abramoff was seeking to do business with GSA when Mr. Safavian joined him on a golf trip to Scotland in 2002, according to an FBI affidavit and the officials.

At the time, FBI agent Jeffrey Reising said in the affidavit, a lobbyist – identified separately as Mr. Abramoff – had enlisted Mr. Safavian’s help in trying to gain control of 40 acres of land at the Federal Research Center at White Oak in Silver Spring, Md., for a not-for-profit organization.

For his part, Mr. Safavian edited a letter the lobbyist was preparing to send to GSA, and arranged and attended a meeting involving a GSA official, the lobbyist’s wife and others to discuss leasing the property, the affidavit said.

Mr. Safavian took a job in the Office of Management and Budget last year. He resigned that post, effective Friday, OMB spokesman Alex Conant said.

– Associated Press

HINCKLEY SEEKS WEEKEND VISITS TO PARENTS’ HOME

A psychologist testified yesterday that John Hinckley should be allowed to spend some weekends at his parents’ home in Virginia, a three-hour drive from the hospital where he has spent more than two decades for shooting President Reagan and four other people. Found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1982, Hinckley no longer suffers from the depression and delusional behavior that led to an obsession with actress Jodie Foster and an attempted assassination of the president, Paul Montalbano, a hospital psychologist, said in federal court.

– Associated Press

MIDWEST

JURY SELECTION BEGINS IN CASE AGAINST FORMER GOVERNOR

CHICAGO – A former Illinois governor, George Ryan, was relaxed and smiling yesterday in federal court as attorneys began selecting a jury for his racketeering trial. Only three of 300 potential jurors were interviewed by noon, but U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer said she hoped to have the 12-member jury and six alternates selected to begin opening arguments Thursday.

Mr. Ryan, who won accolades from capital punishment critics by clearing the state’s death row before he left office in 2003, faces 22 charges of racketeering conspiracy, mail fraud, lying to the FBI, and tax fraud. Federal prosecutors have accused the Ryan administration of doling out big-money state contracts and leases to political insiders, resulting in charges being brought against 79 people, including many state employees.

– Associated Press