Marshfield News-Herald from Marshfield, Wisconsin • 1

TT TT Ml ram FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21 2003 MARSHFIELD, WISCONSIN WWW.MARSHFIELDNEWSHERALD.COM 50 CENTS 1 Marshfield res. rcr 1 1 rr it 11 Gulf War offers insight on winning the peace jilope lisp So weleome pasts 1 i 7 CONFRONTING I --3 Marshfield out of playoffs TheMarslidTigeis hockey tBam's season ended with its 6-0 toss to Wisconsin Rapids bi the WlMregionals SP0RTSB1 Coming this Sunday Wisconsin GOES GRAY By Greg Barrett Cannes News Service BASRA, Iraq In the fly-infested children's ward of one of the southernmost hospitals in Iraq, pediatrician Mohammed Kamil doesn't pause hen parents ask why their sons and daughters are dying. "Because of America," he says, responding as if by rote. "I blame America." It doesn't matter that Kamil's response is only part of the truth. The short answer is repeated so often that it has become boilerplate logic explaining all sorts of misery in the Shiite region of a nation ruled by a Sunni named Saddam Hussein.

Iraqi doctors attribute Basra's stark increase in cancer cases and childhood leukemia to depleted uranium in the tank-busting shells the U.S. military used in 1991 to drive Saddam's forces from Kuwait They blame the United States for the United Nations economic sanctions that vet and delay medical shipments including chemotherapy drugs Vincristine, Adriamycin, ifosfamide and methotrexate. And they fault the United States for the bombing of Iraq's electrical grids in 199L The tactic was intended to stall Saddam's military, but it also crippled civilian water treatment plants and triggered disease epidemics. The United States led the allied forces to swift victory in the Persian Gulf War. But by most accounts, it lost the ensuing public relations battle.

In news reports from North America to Europe to Asia and especially in the Middle East Washington is cast today as the villain. So, Saddam's Republican Guard may not be the biggest challenge facing the United States in any new war with Iraq. The more difficult battle may be winning the acceptance of Arabs in general, Iraqis specifically. If the United States charges helter-skelter into See IRAQ Page A2 Dan YounoVMarshfield News-Herald Richard Way of Escanaba, talks with Hope Lodge coordinator Kathy Brecke (left), along wittihis daughters, Kathy Jacobs and Pattj Kenneally, as they stand in the living room at Hope Lodge. Richard and his wife, Betty, have both been battling cancer and are considering staying at Hope Lodge while being treated at tte medical complec in Marshfield.

Facility for cancer patients and families opens March 10 More women are pinched between caring for their children and for an elderly parent more spouses are overwhelmed as caregivers, and more grandparents have become day-care providers. Find out in Central Wisconsin Sunday how Wisconsin's families are affected every day by the aging population. a big said Betty Way of Escanaba, Mich. "You just wonder how you'll come along." For a combined 12 years, Betty and her husband, Richard, have each battled cancer and made the five-hour drive to Marshfield Clinic. Just last week, surgeons removed cancerous tumors on Betty Way's colon.

After she heals, the 74-year-old woman will undergo weeks, if not months, of chemotherapy. Their journey will be made easier in a new By Amy E. Bowex Marshfield News-Herald For the past two years, American Cancer Society members nationwide questioned Marshfield's determination to open a Hope Lodge. Soon those fears will be put to rest along with the worries and concerns of thousands of patients who travel to Marshfield each year for aggressive cancer treatment "It's an awful, awful expense, and I think that's "home away from home." One of only 18 nationwide, the Hope Lodge will serve Marshfield Clinic and Saint Joseph's Hospital cancer patients and their families. Wisconsin's only Hope Lodge will accept its first patients March 10, and interest among cancer patients has been according to clinic and hospital officials.

Dr. Doug Reding, an oncologist at Marshfield Clinic, said he expects the free lodge to have a waiting list within two months. Marshfield is the smallest community in the nation to have a lodge. The city competed with Madison and Milwaukee for the home which has 22 bedrooms, private bathrooms and kitchens. The Ways will discuss staying at the Hope Lodge.

Their living expenses during treatments are astronomical, Richard Way Baid. Betty Way has stayed in the hospital since Feb. 8, with her husband and children See HOPE Page A2 Bashing the French in vogue in U.S. Study: Pain tolerance partly genetic 0 By David B. Caruso The Associated Press PHILADELPHIA Mon dieu, how some Americans are bashing the French these days! Americans galled by France's reluctance to endorse an invasion of Iraq are boycotting French wine and french fries and trading jokes and insults about all things Gallia A Las Vegas radio station Tuesday used an armored vehicle to crush photographs of French President Jacques Chirac, photocopies of the French flag, a Paris travel guide, bottles of wine and a loaf of French bread.

In Beaufort, N.C., one restaurant owner took french fries off his menu and replaced them with "freedom fries." In West Palm Beach, bar owner Ken Wagner dumped his entire stock of French wine and champagne into the street, vowing to serve vintages only from nations that support U.S. policy. And Palm Beach County Commissioner Burt Aaron-son said he would try to block a subsidiary of the French conglomerate Vivendi from getting a $25 million government contract to build a sludge treatment plant "France's attitude toward the United States is deplorable. I dont want to have any French companies earning dollars from American interests," the 75-year-old See FRANCE Page A2 of this gene, one inherited from each parent but they can inherit forms that differ by one amino acid. The COMT gene that contains the amino acid methionine, or met, is less active than if it contained the amino acid valine, or val.

People who inherited both a met and val gene copy tolerated pain at levels between the two extremes. A quarter of the U.S. population carries the "stoic" gene variation while another quarter has the gene variant that makes them supersensitive to pain, estimates Dr. Jon-Kar Zubieta who conducted the research. By Lairan NeerpiAabd The Associated Press WASHINGTON When it comes to pain, people can be wimps, stoics or somewhere in between.

Now scientists have found one reason a variation in a single gene that shows stoics really can tolerate more pain. The discovery by University of Michigan neuroscien-tists emphasizes the need to customize pain treatment and might even allow doctors to soon try predicting which patients will respond to a certain kind of medication. People's perceptions of Why would a gene that regulates dopamine also affect painkilling endorphins? Too much dopamine in the brain reduces endorphin content, Zubieta explained. People with the double-val gene make a very potent COMT enzyme that clears out dopamine rapidly, triggering more endorphin production, while people with the double-met gene have the opposite reaction. It's an important discovery, said neurobiologist Adron Harris of the University of Texas at Austin, who has long studied why men and women tolerate pain differently.

pain are tremendously variable. A crushing blow to one person can be trivial to another; likewise, pain medication that helps one patient may do nothing for the next. The new research shows how much you suffer is due at least partly to a gene that helps regulate how many natural painkillers, called endorphinSj your body pro-ducea The gene produces an enzyme called COMT that metabolizes the brain chemical dopamine, which acts as a signal messenger between brain cells. Everyone has two copies It's time to go tubing For those who don't enjoy skiing, tubing is an easy alternative. Some city parks directors say that tubing has surpassed ice skating as the No.

1 interactivity in urban areas. UFESTYLEC1 WEATHER Senior suicides become growing concern in U.S. Seniors and suicide There were 5,306 suicides among Forecast for ,0. Saturday: a Flurries possible. DetaitsB6 High: 21 Low: 3 INDEX people 65 and older 2000', 18 of the nation's 29,350 total.

Suicide rate per 100,000 (for ages noted): 5-14 1 0.8 '25-34 rl 12.8 35-44 f3 14.6 4W4EIZ314J 55-64 65-74 12.6 psychologist who studies a small but disturbing subgroup of senior suicides. Florida leads the nation in murder-suicides. That's when one person kills another, usually a spouse or lover, and then commits suicide. As many as 2,500 such deaths occur in the nation annually, according to estimates by Cohen and other researchers. Older couples account for about 20 percent of those deaths, or as many as 500 a year.

But in senior-heavy Florida, the percentage of murder-suicides in older couples is double the national average. Cohen found 58 such deaths in Florida in 2001, But the suicide rate among seniors is actually 50 percent higher than among the nation as a whole. That gap is more pronounced among those ages 85 and up. Though suicide rates in general have declined over the past few decades, senior suicides are expected to swell in coming years as baby boomers begin reaching old age. By 2030, the USA's senior population will double to 70 million.

As the nation grays, the ratio will catch up to the proportion in Florida, where 20 percent of residents are 65 and older. That's a trend that troubles Donna Cohen, a University of South Florida the latest year figures are available. "If you look at Florida as a bellwether state, 25 years ahead of the rest of the country in age, then that's a pretr ty troubling thing," she says. The Spivacks' deaths seem to have been a suicide pact, which researchers say occurs in fewer than 1 percent of suicides. Estelle Spivack appears to have taken the lead, probably helping her ailing husband out the window before she went, police say.

Taped to the kitchen table next to the phone was estate information and the name of the See SUICIDES Page A2 By Deborah Sharp Gannett News Service HOLLYWOOD, Fla. On the day Moe and Estelle Spivack planned to die, they complained to the rondomini-um maintenance man that the screens in their bedroom window blocked the ocean breeze, Moe Spivack, 85, had recently returned from a hospital bout with emphysema. He said it would be easier to' breathe without the screens. So the maintenance man removed them. Several hours later, Spivack and his 80-year-old wife, Estelle, crawled out the window and plummeted 17 stories to their deaths.

Moe went first Estelle followed a few seconds later. Police found a card with emergency contacts in her shirt pocket It was New Year's Eve. Other retired couples who live in the 18-story building were coming and going to parties. "It wasn't pretty," recalls Lt. Tony Rode of the Hollywood Police Department "It was a very disturbing scene." The way the Spivacks killed themselves was uncommon, but senior suicides are far from rare.

The problem among those 65 and older is often overshadowed by teen suicide, experts say. Advice C2 iDcai A3 Business A 7 Obituaries A4 Classified C3 Opinion' A6 Comics B5 Records A4 Lifestyle C1 Sports B1 75-84' "1 177 85 and 19-4 older uawUgiraMHM Soucm: NMoral Carter tor Hoar SkMoc AimncM Awnrtinn or Sddctotogy "Si 7 88 3 00029 5 A GANNETT NEWSPAPER i 1 fliiiiEi i -V-.