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CARDIAC DEFIBRILLATORS

Cardiac health specialists at a forum Wednesday were divided on whether advanced heart-saving equipment should be available for ordinary citizens to use at home.

Automatic external defibrillators can help the more than 200,000 people who experience sudden cardiac arrest each year, said Dr. Howard Torman, a former medical reporter who moderated the forum.

Unlike a heart attack, where blood flow to the muscle is disrupted, sudden cardiac arrest involves ventricular fibrillation, the misfiring of electrical signals that trigger the heartbeat, Torman said. The heart stops pumping blood to the rest of the body, eventually causing death. If the condition is not dealt with within 10 minutes, the patient rarely survives, he said.

An automatic external defibrillator can provide treatment within that time. The device is a simplified version of systems used in emergency rooms and ambulances. Its sophisticated computer program withholds the electrical pulse until it detects fibrillation that needs treatment.

Two of the forum's co-sponsors, the American Red Cross and the National Center for Early Defibrillation, said most cardiac incidents occur at home, so getting automatic defibrillators widely distributed to the general public would provide proper treatment, even before rescue personnel arrive.

Dr. Lance Becker, professor of medicine at the University of Chicago and director of its Emergency Resuscitation Research Center, told the forum the defibrillators and trained people could prevent half of the 1,000 cardiac deaths daily in the United States. He said the best candidates for the home devices are those people who would benefit from an implanted defibrillator -- such as the one Vice-President Dick Cheney has -- but who cannot undergo surgery for a variety of reasons.

But Arthur Kellerman, a doctor at the department of emergency medicine at Emory University in Atlanta, said disseminating such defibrillators more widely is a bad idea, for now. Having done studies on defibrillator use by emergency personnel, Kellerman told the forum there is a serious lack of data on how the devices would affect possible homebound cardiac victims.

"It could produce a false sense of security," he said. "A patient with chest pain or symptoms might figure they can wait and see what happens, because they've got this backup in the house, instead of seeking immediate emergency care."

People interested in spending money on an automatic defibrillator might do more good by splitting those funds between a health club membership and donations to their local rescue squad, Kellerman said.

-- If you or a family member had heart problems, how beneficial do you think it would be to have a cardiac defibrillator in the home?

(Thanks to UPI's Scott Burnell in Washington)

LIFTING THE VEIL?

An Islamic woman is fighting a decision by the state of Florida to deny her a driver's license because she refused to remove her veil for the identification picture.

Sultaana Freeman says her religion forbids her from revealing her face to strangers.

Freeman had a Florida driver's license until Dec. 17 when the state revoked it because she refused to allow examiners to take her photograph without a veil that shows only her eyes and forehead.

"It was not a problem until after Sept. 11," said civil liberties attorney Howard Marks, referring to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington. He filed a petition in circuit court in Orlando on Jan. 17 seeking to overturn the decision. He said similar regulations have been overturned in Indiana, Colorado and Nebraska.

Marks is centering his approach on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1998, which was passed to shore up provisions of the Florida Constitution regarding free exercise of religion.

But state officials are not backing down. "Florida law requires a full facial view of a person on their driver's license photo," said Robert Sanchez of the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. "We have no choice but to enforce it."

Freeman said when she lived in Illinois, she had no problem with her driver's license. She said she was photographed with her veil.

-- Is this a safety issue, or one of religious freedom, and why?

ABANDONMENT LAW

A Michigan law allowing mothers to abandon their newborns at hospitals where they would be safe has not resulted in the quick adoptions that sponsors had hoped would ensue.

The Detroit Free Press reports judges have been reluctant to clear the infants for adoption because the issue of fathers' rights is not addressed by the law.

The Michigan law -- known as the Safe Delivery Act -- was adopted following several abandonments, including one where the infant died outside a Warren, Mich., church. It allows the mother to leave a newborn at a hospital, police station or firehouse without fear of prosecution.

But "it's a mess," said Karen Cook, a Beverly Hills, Mich., attorney who has dealt with two such cases. Since the law took effect last year, 12 babies have been left at hospitals across the state -- nine in the Detroit area alone. Only six children have been placed in adoptive homes.

The problem is that the law allows the mother to give up the baby without providing enough information to allow the system to contact the fathers.

"A parent's right to parent their child is one of the most sacred rights we have," said Circuit Judge Patrick Brennan, who has refused to terminate the father's rights in the three cases he has handled. "I don't think there is due process of law here. I have some concerns about whether fathers have sufficient notice."

State Sen. Shirley Johnson of Royal Oak, who sponsored the bill, doesn't agree. She said the law requires the abandonment and pending adoption to be advertised, and that's enough.

Thirty other states have similar laws and also are wrestling with the fathers' rights issue.

-- What do you think?