NATION/WORLD
The Michigan Daily -- Thursday, November 16, 2000 - 9A
Beatle attacker
acquitted,
committed
OXFORD, England (AP) - A man who stabbed George
Harrison because he believed he was possessed by the for-
mer Beatle was ordered confined to a mental hospital yes-
terday after being acquitted of attempted murder by reason
of insanity.
Judge Michael Astill said Michael Abram would be held
"without time restriction" and must gain the approval of a
mental health tribunal if he seeks release.
Abram had been accused of breaking into Harrison's
home in Henley-on-Thames, west of London, and stabbing
him repeatedly, puncturing a lung. He also was charged
ith attacking Harrison's wife, Olivia, when she came to
her husband's defense.
In a statement read outside Oxford Crown Court by the
couple's son, Dhani, the Harrisons criticized the "ancient
lunatic law" that allows acquittal on mental grounds.
"It is a tragic occurrence that anyone should suffer
such a mental breakdown, but we can never forget he was
full of hate and violence when he came into our home,"
the couple said.
Abram had been in and out of psychiatric facilities for
ears and sought help in the weeks before the Dec. 30,
999, attack.
After the verdict, his mother, Lynda, said he is "well on
the road to recovery."
Lowering
cholesterol
ould help
mild attacks
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Every-
one hospitalized with a mild heart
attack or bad chest pain should quick-
ly get a cholesterol-lowering drug and
ndergo testing for possible angio-
lasty or bypass surgery, two large
studies conclude.
The studies, released yesterday,
could transform treatment for the I
million to 2 million Americans each
year who go to the hospital with
small heart attacks or severe angina
pain.
One study found that immediately
giving them the cholesterol-lowering
drug Lipitor - regardless of their
olesterol levels - could reduce the
risk of death, new heart attacks and
other bad outcomes by 16 percent.
The other study found that routine-
ly checking these patients' heart
arteries with angiograms, then fixing
blockages when necessary with
bypass surgery or ball'oon angioplas-
ty, could reduce these events by 18
percent.
Lipitor and other cholesterol-lower-
g drugs known as statins are already
a mainstay of treating people with
bad hearts. However, heart attacks
can disrupt cholesterol readings, so
doctors often wait a few weeks before
starting patients on the medicines.
Patients who suffer only mild heart
attacks or chest pain are not always
evaluated for angioplasty or bypass
surgery.
Dr. Christopher Cannon of
righam and Women's Hospital in
oston.. who conducted the
angiogram research, said he believes
the results of both studies should
immediately be put into practice.
Other doctors said the results may
'indeed change medical care, but they
cautioned that doctors will need time
to sort out the findings. They also
noted that many small hospitals can-
not perform angiograms.
The results of both studies were
released at a meeting in New Orleans
of the American Heart Association.
The cholesterol-lowering diug study
was sponsored by Pfizer, which
makes Lipitor, while the angiogram
study was financed by Merck, which
makes one of the medicines used in
the research.
"Patients with a threatened or mild
heart attack benefited from immediate
and intense treatment" with Lipitor,
*aid Dr. Gregory Schwartz of the
Denver Veterans Affairs Medical
Center, who led the study.
The study suggests that fast,
across-the-board treatment is impor-
tant, because patients do better no
matter what their cholesterol level.
Indeed, the study found just as much
benefit among those with low choles-
terol as in patients with high readings.
The researchers randomly assigned
patients to get either Lipitor or a
dummy pill, in addition to all of the
usual medicines, within a day or so of
entering the hospital. Before treat-
ment, their levels of LDL -- the bad
cholesterol - averaged 123. After
treatment it fell to 72.
l ,>
AP PHOTO
Rachel Yaakov, right, sister of assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin,
comforts Dalia Rabin-Pelossof at the grave her mother Leah Rabin during her
funeral in Jerusalem yesterday-.
Leah Rabin laid to
rest near husband
JERUSALEM (AP) - Leah Rabin, a passionate
campaigner for peace, was buried yesterday beside
her husband, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who
was assassinated in 1995 by an extremist Israeli
who objected to his peace offers to the Palestinians.
World leaders, including U.S. first lady Hillary
Rodham Clinton, paid tribute to Rabin, who died
Sunday of cancer.
More than 1,500 invited guests attended the sim-
ple ceremony in a pine grove at Jerusalem's Mount
Herzl ceremony. The mourners included German
President Johannes Rau and Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder, Russian Foreign Minister lgor Ivanov
and U.S. Mideast peace envoy Dennis Ross.
Rabin's daughter, Dalia Rabin-Pelossof,
pressed a white handkerchief to her face to hold
back tears as the simple wooden coffin was low-
ered into the ground.
In a sign of the unique status Rabin had
acquired, she was the first Israeli who did not hold
high office to be buried in a plot normally reserved
for the nation's presidonts and prime ministers.
Clinton said Rabin was "a wonderful woman, a
dear friend, an ambassador of peace, a woman of
valor."
She said she was wearing a pin Rabin had
given her, and pledged that the United States
would always stand by Israel, "especially in diffi-
cult times like these," a reference to six weeks of
Israeli-Palestinian violence that has left more
than 200 people dead.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres
praised Rabin for taking her husband's message
of Israeli-Arab peace to the world after he was
shot and killed on Nov. 4, 1995.
"When Yitzhak was assassinated, Leah knew
that she must not turn into a grieving, agonized
widow," but must carry the torch ignited by her
husband, Peres said.
Rau recalled that Rabin was born in Germany
but emigrated with her fanly when the Nazis
came to power.
When she visited Germany after her husband's
assassination to spread his legacy of peace, "peo-
ple listened to her," Rau said.
Several speakers noted her sharp tongue.
Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered thanks to
Rabin for her steadfast commitment and work for
peace and "also for the tough criticism that you
gave me in recent days."
In a newspaper interview, she said her husband
would be spinning in his grave because of con-
cessions Barak offered the Palestinians in
Jerusalem.
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