The Charlotte Observer from Charlotte, North Carolina • 1

Pope prays for families poor National 2A Partly cloudy High today near 80 Mostly sunny Sunday High in the mid-70s2C Metro Final (4) Saturday October 7 1995 50C Birth defects linked to excess vitamin A in study As little as 10000 international units a day may be dangerous to the fetus a new study says By JANE BRODY New York Times Women who consume excessive amounts of vitamin A during the early months of pregnancy can cause serious birth defects in their unborn children a large new study has shown The babies of women who consumed more than 10000 international units of vitamin A each day or nearly four times the recommended amount from supplements or food or both were more likely to be born with malformations of the head heart brain and spinal cord The amounts that place babies at risk are currently found in a single pill in some vitamin preparations and can be readily obtained if more than one vitamin supplement is taken each day In fact one of the researchers said he and a colleague recently purchased single-nutrient supplements containing 25000 international units of vitamin A Although high doses of vitamin A are known to cause birth defects in laboratory animals and its chemical relatives have damaged human infants the new study is the first to quantify the risk of prenatal vitamin A in a large population and to establish what doses might be harmful The study showed that one baby in 57 born to women taking doses of vitamin A above 10000 IU daily is damaged as a result The higher the doses of vitamin A consumed the greater the risk the researchers found Babies born to women who consumed more than 10000 IU daily were 24 times as likely to be born with such defects as babies exposed to 5000 IU or less But babies exposed to 20000 IU of vitamin A during the first three months of gestation were about four times as likely to be bom with defects that included cleft lip cleft palate hydrocephalus and major heart malformations The study was conducted by Dr Kenneth Rothman an epidemiologist and his colleagues at Boston University School of Medicine among 22748 pregnant women in the Boston area who were identified between October 1984 and June 1987 and questioned in detail about what they ate and what supplements they took The overwhelming majority of the women studied 986 consumed less than the amount of vitamin A identified as Please see Vitamin Apage 1 0A Tragedy at the race track Mystery movements by popular jet explored Passengers might not have noticed but in hunt for cause of baffling Pittsburgh crash ignored By BERNIE KOHN Staff Writer On July 25 federal investigators were checking out reports of a momentary unintended banking movement that morning on a USAir jet approaching Richmond when they got a message: Another Boeing 737 operated by USAir this one on a flight from Memphis to Charlotte had apparently just done something similar become a familiar refrain In the 13 months since a USAir 737-300 mysteriously nosedived over Pittsburgh killing all 132 people aboard airlines and pilots have reported about 30 incidents of uncommanded rolling or yawing movements left-right shifts on 737 jetliners On large jets like 737s yawing movements can induce rolling movements More of those reports about a dozen according to several knowledgeable sources have come from USAir than any other airline USAir has 207 737s the third-largest fleet None of the incidents is known to have resulted in crashes or passenger injuries Passengers may not have even known that some of them occurred And officials with Boeing and federal agencies say none come close to replicating the frightening and puzzling aerodynamic movements of the Pitts- Please see 737spage 14A GARY O'BRIENStaff Aftermath: A Charlotte Motor Speedway firefighter died of head injuries when his car was pinned cage ripped from the vehicle Driver Steven Howard puts out the fire in the car of Russell Phillips who against the Turn 4 wall and the roof and protective (left) runs from the wreckage of his own car Driver is 3rd to die in Sportsman crashes was doing what he By RON GREEN Jr And GARY SCHWAB Staff Writers It began as Russell best day in racing It ended in his death Phillips 26 of Mint Hill was killed Friday in the Sportsman Division stock car race at Charlotte Motor Speedway Track officials said Phillips died of massive head injuries was probably his greatest day here He started on the pole and he led three said Phillip Baggett a spotter in the tower at the track and a friend of the driver was all happy and smiles here for the last three days He was on Please see Racerpage 8A Sportsman drivers race again today at 1 1 am was a freak deal caused by the angle that he got hit" Wheeler said it had happened to any kind of race car it would have been the same When a car gets on its top like that At least one driver called for stricter standards in the division need to look into having more experienced said Morris Bice whose car spun with another just in front of triggering the chain of events that ended with the wreck Bice was unaware Phillips had been killed after the race is a great series but they really need to govern the kind of experience these guys have" said Bice referring to the Please see Crashpage 8A By LIZ CLARKE And TOM HIGGINS Staff Writers The death of Russell Phillips from injuries suffered in a violent crash at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Friday once again raises safety concerns about Sportsman Division designed for beginning superspeedway racers Phillips 26 is the third person to die in six years of Sportsman racing at the Charlotte track Phillips died of massive head injuries when contact with another car flipped his white Olds-mobile on its side slamming its roof against the concrete wall in Turn 4 car then skidded upside down along the top of the wall before dropping back onto the track its roof sheared away Speedway President HA Wheeler called it terrible but stopped short of saying consider canceling the competition MARK SLUDERStatf Crash: Russell car is pinned against the Turn 4 wall by another car at Charlotte Motor Speedway Phillips is the third to die in six years of Sportsman racing at the Charlotte track Other deaths at Charlotte Motor Speedwaypage 8A 1 INSIDE After son dies they speak out against AIDS Federal officials opened and closed a civil rights investigation more than 1 5 years ago into a brutal police clash involving Mark Fuhrmannext page Clinton: US dodge Bosnia role NATO will suffer if pledge to send troops is blocked he says By JOHN HARRIS Washington Post WASHINGTON President Clinton warned Friday that NATO faces a bleak future if Congress blocks his pledge to send troops to enforce peace in Bosnia He cast the issue as part of a broader campaign he is waging beat back the forces of can only succeed if we continue to Clinton said appeal for an activist foreign policy from the Balkans to Haiti to the United Nations delivered in a speech to Freedom House a nonpartisan group founded to support democracy abroad -4 drew a barbed point-by-point rebuttal from Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole R-Kan The front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination said Clinton has not "made his case at all to the American on the wisdom of sending US ground forces to Bosnia if a peace settlement is reached He rejected the isolationist tag in caustic terms: certainly agree Please see Policypage 1 0A Business ID Classified 13C Comics 18C Deaths 11C Home IE Grieving parents: Jim and Mary Richardson try to be open about the cause of their death have nothing to be ashamed of We loved our son and tried to stand by him in his need" Jim Richardson said Ann Landers 19C Living IOC By DAVID PERLMUTT Staff Writer The mother could see something was wrong with her son last Thanksgiving He seemed weak he walked slowly And when his younger cousins challenged him to race during the ritual walk after dinner he took two steps and stopped love to run why you run?" Mary Richardson asked her hair-stylist son Greg not wearing the right A month later he joined his family for Christmas dinner Mary Richardson took one look and was certain something was wrong badly wrong know how my son looks and I knew I had a black child and this child was she said was the color of the inside of my hand several shades lighter His coloring was just bad and he seemed weaker than at Thanksgiving" Eighteen days ago Gregory Douglas Richardson died of AIDS at age 33 And what happened between that Thanksgiving walk and now is the story of how one high-profile family rallied around one of its' own and is speaking out about a disease that has disproportionately spread through America's black community Greg grew up the son of Jim Richardson a Mecklenburg Please see Diseasepage 13A How to contact The Charlotte Observer for delivery assistance classified ads or story ideas next page Observer Plus at 377-4444 gives you updated news and advertising throughout the day Directory page 12A This newspaper is printed in Pert 00 recycled paper and is recyclable Contents 1995 The Charlotte Observer BOB LEVERONEStaff A.