$A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, November 30, 1995
Nwrlom/ RILD
,:,,
Forged
e-mail sent
to Cornell
Message targets
judicial administrator,
mentions offensive list
The Cornell Daily Sun
ITHACA, N.Y. - Students, staff and
faculty received a forged e-mail message
over Thanksgivingbreakpurportingto be
from Cornell's judicial administrator.
The message, labeled "confidential,"
discussed the university's recent han-
dling of an offensive list of"75 reasons
why women should not have freedom
of speech," written and circulated by
four first-year students.
The forged message referred to the
students as "fourlittlepigs" and described
the university's response as a "strategy
that was not only successful in diffusing
the scandal,buthas actually enhanced the
reputation of the University."
Cornell Information Technologies
investigated the incident over the week-
end and determined the message was
"very clearly a forgery," said David
Lambert, CIT vice president.
Soon after learning of the message,
CIT used a filter to prevent the author
from sending the mail to all Cornell
students, staffand faculty, Lambert said.
Nevertheless, most people affiliated
with Cornell had probably already re-
ceived the message, he added.
The author of the message "clearly
comes from outside the University,"
Lambert said. Although CIT has "some
information about the person," Lam-
bert declined to release further specif-
ics on the individual until the investiga-
tion has concluded.
The fraudulent message called the
"75 reasons" list "disgusting," and de-
scribed Cornell's decision not to punish
the student authors as a "highly suc-
cessful public relations exercise."
The "75 reasons" list appeared last
month and has since provoked angry
responses from across the country. The
incident gained media attention from
The New York Times, The Washington
Post and MTV News.
The forged message was "not terrifi-
cally difficult to trace," Lambert said,
adding that his staff spent only about
five to six hours investigating the issue
over the weekend.
The message's return address,
blk7@phantom.com, can be traced to a
set of World Wide Web pages called
"Mindvox," said John Horne, a Cornell
staff member who posted his research
into the issue on a Web newsgroup
page. Mindvox is a "low-key Internet
provider" characterized by "low-bud-
get, backroom, hacker-type pages,"
Horne said.
Lambert described the author as "not
someone engaging in the most rational
kinds of thinking," and probably "just a
prankster as opposed to-someone with
an extreme ideological position."
The author of the message has most
likely violated New York state law as well
as other system policies, Lambert said.
"Spoofing," the practice of imperson-
ating someone else's network identity
on the Internet, violates Cornell's Cam-
pus Code of Conduct and most other
systems' policies, Lambert said.
In anotherrecent "spoofing"mincident,
Cornell student Julie Chon, co-president
of the campus group Feminist Majority,
received a message calling her a
"feminazi" on Saturday. The return ad-
dress was phuckyou@bite.my.cock.
Chon said she intends to file a com-
plaint with CIT.
- Distributed by University Wire
AP PHOTO
Former President Carter listens to a reporter during a press conference in Cairo yesterday.
Aficanleadersagreehowtohaten
A [[.Rreturn o ilon Rwandarefugees
Schroeder
announces
retirement
Colo. Democrat is longest-
serving woman in Congress
WASH INGTON (A P)-Democratic Rep. Pat Schroeder,
the longest-serving woman in Congress and a fiery opponent
of House Speaker Newt Gingrich, said yesterday she will not
seek re-election.
"I suddenly woke up and said, 'My whole adult life, I've
been here,"' said Schroeder, 55, who is in her 12th House
term. She said she had no intention of running for the Senate
seat being vacated by Sen. Hank Brown (R-Colo.).
"If I had wanted to run for the Senate I
think I would have done it a long time
ago," Schroeder said in an interview in
her office. Instead, she said, she will seek
teaching, writing or other opportunities
dealing with people.
Schroeder is the 14th House Democrat
to announce retirement plans this year.
Several in the group are running for the
Senate. In contrast, just four House Re-
publicans have announced plans to retire.
Schroeder said she was confident a Schroeder
Democrat would be elected to fill herseat
from Denver. She said she had considered retiring in 1994,
but was glad she didn't "because no one could have foreseen
this tremendous upheaval" of Democrats in the minority for
the first time in 40 years.
"I wanted to make sure I thought we were at a time when
it would not hurt the Democratic Party," Schroeder said,
saying she is confident Democrats will hold her seat andhave
a good shot at winning back the House, which has 234
Republicans, 198 Democrats, one independent and two vai
cancies.
"People have finally awakened and understand that Nwt
Gingrich is really the Republican Party," Schroeder said
"That everybody is either a femiNewtie or a Newtoid, and if
they vote Republican they are getting Newt."
Schroeder's disdain for Gingrich is reflected almost dailyin
her House speeches. After the speaker's recent complaint that
President Clinton had snubbed him on Air Force One, Schroeder
appeared on the House floor with a small statue she said was
Gingrich's "Academy Award for best child actor."
Earlier in the year, she blasted him for suggesting women
shouldn't serve in combat because they could get infections
from being in a ditch for 30 days.
She said she sees the whole Republican Party "morphing
into Newt Gingrich."
As longtime phrase-meister for the Democrats, she's als6
credited with hanging the "Teflon President" label on Presi-
dent Reagan while he was in office.
An outspoken feminist, Schroeder came to the House in
1972, bringing along her husband and children, then ages 2
and 6. She had been a practicing attorney and law instructor
in Colorado and a hearing officer for the Colorado Depart-
ment of Personnel.
In Congress, she became a leader for abortion rights and a
host of other issues affecting women. She was the driving
force behind the family and medical leave act and worked t
improve living conditions for military families.
She was the first woman to be appointed to the House
Armed Services Committee and chaired that committee's
subcommittee on military installations and facilities whe
the Democrats were in the majority last year.
The Washington Post
CAIRO, Egypt - Leaders of four Central
African nations yesterday agreed on confi-
dence-building and security measures aimed
at hastening the return home of 2 million
refugees displaced by last year's ethnic blood-
letting in Rwanda.
It was far from clear, however, that the
pledge by leaders of Zaire, Rwanda, Burundi
and Uganda would translate into a solution for
a crisis that so far has resisted every effort at
international mediation while raising fears of
renewed bloodshed and turmoil.
The four presidents and a representative of
Tanzania met here under the sponsorship of
former U.S. President Carter in an effort to
map a coordinated plan for the refugees, most
of whom are members of Rwanda's majority
Hutu ethnic group who fear they will be killed
in ethnic reprisals if they go home.
The plan is aimed at curbing the influence of
Hutu extremists who have been using refugee
camps in Zaire, Uganda and Burundi as a base
from which to destabilize Rwanda's govern-
ment, which is dominated by the country's
Tutsi minority. Rwanda has pledged to protect
the refugees if they return.
Among other things, Carter said, Zaire has
pledged to round up Hutus suspected of using
threats to keep the refugees in their camps;
jungle radio stations used to stirethnic hatreds
will be located and closed; and, perhaps most
important, Carter will appeal to the United
Nations to extend the mandate of peacekeep-
ing troops who had been due to leave Rwanda
We feel that when
the first ones go home
and certify that
they're safe ..,there
will be an increasing
number who will
return"
- Former President Carter
next month.
Rwanda's government, which ousted a Hutu
extremist regime in July 1994, is eager to see
the peacekeepers leave in keeping with its
desire to re-establish national sovereignty. But
Carter said Rwandan President Pasteur
Bizimungu, a Hutu, has no objection to extend-
ing their mandate by another three months.
Carter said that while he and the other sum-
mit participants are confident the refugees can
return safely to Rwanda, the departure of the
peacekeepers next month might "send a signal
to the refugees that would be troubling."
"We feel that when the first ones go home
and certify that they're safe ... there will be an
increasing number who will return," Carter
said at the unexpected conclusion of the meet-
ing just a day after its opening. "No one is
contemplating forcible return of the refugees."
The meeting had been due to close yesterday
or Saturday.
Many of the commitments announced yes-
terday, such as agreements by the participants
to close their borders to militias, already have
been made in other forums. Moreover, it was
unclear how the plan will be accepted by the
refugees, whose representatives remain on
hostile terms with the Rwandan government
and were not invited to Cairo.
Carter said, however, he is optimistic that
this plan will succeed where others have
failed. "In my opinion, these commitments
by the leaders of nations ... will be hon-
ored," Carter said, noting that participants
have agreed to follow-up meetings on imple-
menting the plan.
The crisis has its roots in last year's geno-
cidal campaign by Hutu extremists against
Rwanda's Tutsi minority that killed an esti-.
mated 500,000 people, including many mod-
erate Hutus. After the Tutsi-dominated
Rwandan Patriotic Front defeated Rwanda's
Hutu-dominated government, many Hutus
fled to neighboring countries. Two million
of them remain in U.N. camps costing $1
million per day.
The largest group, about 800,000, is in Zaire,
whose government has indicated that the refu-
gees are wearing out their welcome. Hutu
militias there have staged cross-border raids
into Rwanda, inviting retaliation by the
Rwandan military and causing tension between
Rwanda and Zaire.
New research confinns lumpectomy radiation effective
Los Angeles Times
Settling an ugly controversy over
treating early-stage breast cancer, newly
updated studies involving thousands of
women show that lumpectomy - cut-
ting out the tumor and minimal adja-
cent tissue - coupled with radiation
therapy is as effective as removing the
whole afflicted breast.
That conclusion, reached by three
studies appearing in today's New En-
gland Journal of Medicine, should reas-
sure women and their doctors, giving
them more confidence in the treatment,
Conclusion settles controversy over falsified Montreal study
I
which is less disfiguring than
mastectomy.
Although cancer surgeons have per-
formed lumpectomies since the mid-
1980s, the rationale for doing so was
suddenly called into question last year,
when it was publicly reported that the
largest study supporting the procedure
was based partly on a half-dozen falsi-
fied cases from St. Luc Hospital in
Montreal, Canada.
At the time, participating researchers
from across North America insisted that
the compromised cases did not under-
mine the basic conclusion of the study,
which drew on more than 2,100 pa-
tients. Still, amid questions surround-
ing the multi-million dollar federally
funded study, Congress and the Gen-
eral Accounting Office investigated the
widely covered incident in 1994, which
not only aroused additional fear of the
disease but eroded public trust in medi-
cal science.
The Montreal hospital forced the re-
tirement of Dr. Roger Poisson, who
admitted to falsifying the patient
records, and the National Cancer Insti-
tute ousted the study's chairman, Dr.
Bernard Fisher, a distinguished cancer
specialist at the University of Pitts-
burgh.
Fisher, a 20-year veteran of the Na-
tional Surgical Adjuvant Breast and
Bowel Project, was not accused ofmis-
conduct, but was criticized for allowing
the Montreal fakery to occur on his
watch, despite the fact that he promptly
reported it to the NCI after learning of
the problems in 1991.
Currently the project's "medical di-
rector," Fisher is the lead author of a
study this week that re-analyzed and
updated the original lumpectomy pa-
tient data, leaving out the tainted
Montreal cases. "I think we can really
put this to rest now," he said of the
controversy. "The findings indicate very
conclusively that lumpectomy followed
by breast radiation is the appropriate
"Two THUMBS UP!"
- SISKEL & EBERT
therapy for most women with breast
cancer."
In the new analysis of the original
2,100 patients, the researchers found
that women who underwent
lumpectomy and radiation therapy lived
as long as those treated by a total
mastectomy, long regarded as the most
effective available therapy. After an
average of 12 years since surgery, about
60 percent of patients in both treatment
groups were still alive.
Underscoring the importance of the
follow-up radiation, the researchers
found that a subgroup of women who
received only lumpectomy were three
times more likely to suffer a recurrence
of breast cancer than women treated by
lumpectomy and radiation.
Dr. David McFadden, a surgeon at
UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center, said
the updated study was a "confirmation"
of lumpectomy-radiation therapy and a
"consolation" to patients. "One isolated
example of scientific fraud shouldn't
upset people's faith in clinical research,"
he said.
Another study this week validated
Fisher's re-analysis. National Cancer
Institute researchers checked more than
1,500 of the original patient records at
37 U.S. and Canadian hospitals.
The NCI audit uncovered no evi-
dence of additional fraud and corrobo-
rated 97.5 percent of the data entries.
They said they regarded the relatively
few lapses and discrepancies as book-
keeping errors not unexpected in a large
complex study. "The results are se-
cure," said the NCI's Dr. Jeffrey S,
Abrams, who participated in the auditi
"The data have been verified. I'm satis-
fied that we've settled the issue."
Ironically, a study that was vilified
last year as an example of scientific
betrayal and dishonesty is being hailed
this week as just the opposite: a marvel
of clinical research, so thoroughly safe-
guarded that it reached an important,
conclusion in spite of tampering.'
Abrams said: "We were very pleased
that even in a trial that is 20 years old
we were able to find and verify the vast
majority of data. That made us feel
confident that we were not dealing
with a problem that is widespread in
clinical trials."
In this week's third study, public-
health experts at Oxford University n
England combined the results of 64
clinical trials involving 29,000 breast
cancer patients treated with surgery and
radiation before 1985.
The Oxford researchers also found
that lumpectomy-radiation reduced the
recurrence of breast cancer by a third,
compared to surgery alone. And they
too found that both mastectomy and
lumpectomy with radiation offered
women the same chance of surviving
10 years: roughly 70 percent.
Commenting on the three New En-
gland Journal studies, Dr. John C.
Bailar III, a cancer specialist at the
University of Chicago, suggested in an
accompanying editorial that the "evil
dence is now persuasive" that
lumpectomy-radiation 'is as effective
as any treatment available. And it has
the advantage of "sparing" breast tis-
sue, he said.
EMMA THOMPSON
JONATHAN PRYCE
i". A F I L M u y C H R I S T O P H E R V I A M P T O N
:e
:;
'INGTON:
Best Actor Award
Jonathan Pryce
CAN Special Jury Prize
Christopher Hampton
O 1995 Dora Productions. PoyGrm
W 1.4m U oo~atse Ti~ AllRighs Reserved . rati ever rtrxwre,
GRAMEERCY
P I C T U R E 5
JOIN THE MOST PROMISING
PROFESSION OF THE 21 ST CENTURY
Prospective Teacher Education Meeting
Thursday, November 30, 1995
6:00 p.m.
Whitney Auditorium
Room 1309 School of Education Building
Call 764-7563 for more information.
Exclusively at the Michigan Theater 603 E. Liberty
Tonight 9:30: Friday 7:00 & 9:30: Saturday 4:30, 7:00 & 9:30: Sunday 9:45
FINAL SCREENING MONDAY, DECEMBER 4 7:00 & 9:30
I
1 I" - -i.
I