European panel condemns creationism effort
STRASBOURG, France, Oct. 5 (UPI) -- European lawmakers approved a report condemning efforts to teach creationism in schools, underscoring concern about an emerging socially conservative agenda.
Meeting in Strasbourg, France, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe members approved, in a non-binding 48-25 vote, a report that criticizes creationism advocate for potentially sacrificing children's education "to impose religious dogma" and to promote "a radical return to the past," The International Herald Tribune reported Friday.
The report said creationism, a belief that a supreme being created life and the universe, was "an almost exclusively American phenomenon" but some of its tenets had migrated to Europe.
Denying pupils knowledge of various theories was "totally against children's educational interests," the report said. Creationism supporters endorse "a radical return to the past which could prove particularly harmful in the long term for all our societies," the report said.
Believers of a literal interpretation of the Bible joined people who accept the theory of evolution as "the result of a transcendent will, an 'intelligent design,' " the report said.
It also pointed to a Muslim version of creationism, highlighting a Turkish cleric's work, "The Atlas of Creation," that was distributed to schools in Belgium, France, Spain and Switzerland.
Malpractice caps lure docs to Texas
AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 5 (UPI) -- Medical malpractice award caps in Texas have swollen the ranks of medical specialists and license applications at the state medical board, official said.
Texas voters approved a constitutional amendment capping medical malpractice lawsuit awards four years ago. That has led to doctors from across the country to head to the Lone Star State to set up practice, and taking healthcare to some historically underserved rural areas, The New York Times reported.
The physicians' arrival flooded the medical board’s offices in Austin with applications for licenses to practice, nearing 2,500 at last count. Average wait time for a license: about six months.
“It was hard to believe at first; we thought it was a spike,” Dr. Donald W. Patrick, executive director of the medical board and a neurosurgeon and lawyer, told the Times of the license application increase. But the trend held.
“Doctors are coming to Texas because they sense a friendlier malpractice climate,” he said.
Critics, however, question whether patients are more vulnerable since the cap, the Times said. With reduced malpractice exposure, critics said, many doctors cut back on their insurance coverage, making it more difficult for plaintiffs to collect damages.
North American researchers eye ALS vaccine
MONTREAL, Ontario, Oct. 5 (UPI) -- Researchers from U.S. and Canadian universities said they are working on a vaccine for treating the degenerative condition known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
The researchers are developing a vaccine that would target a toxic protein in people with the genetic mutation -- found in a small percentage of cases of the neuro-muscular disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the Montreal Gazette reported Friday.
"The particular protein that has been the subject of much discussion is one that is made in every cell of the body in very high quantities," Harvard University neuro-scientist Robert Brown said at the Montreal Neurological Institute, which is conducting a symposium this week on ALS.
In people with the genetic mutation, the protein becomes toxic, changing in a way that causes it to become unstable, "probably impairing many, many aspects of the motor neurons that will die," he said.
Brown and researchers from Universite Laval in Quebec City are conducting more research on the Canadians' work that showed such a vaccine targeting the toxic protein was effective in lab mice genetically bred with ALS.
Means test for Medicare drug plan sought
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 (UPI) -- The Bush administration is backing a proposal to charge upper-income seniors more for using Medicare's prescription drug benefit, officials said.
U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., is working with the administration to attach a "means testing" provision to upcoming legislation, The Washington Post reported Friday.
An administration official said the provision would save the government billions of dollars by raising fees on beneficiaries with annual incomes of more than $80,000 -- even though similar efforts were turned away.
"You say it saves money and these people can afford it, but it also eats away at the incomes of seniors," John Rother, policy director for senior lobbying giant AARP, told the Post.
The plan was part of Bush's 2008 budget but died earlier this year without much fanfare.
"Working couples with incomes over $160,000 should not be subsidized by retired firefighters or schoolteachers," Ensign said. "They should pay more of their share."
The proposal enjoys support from both parties in both chambers.
"Means testing is going to be a necessary part of all our entitlement programs," said U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, D- Tenn., who is seeking a new commission to tackle the pending crisis in entitlement programs. "We simply cannot afford the promises we've made."
