Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 10, 1994 TAG: 9402100232
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A16 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The article discusses ways in which previously incurable diseases can be cured. Critics are afraid of gene therapy, but people are often afraid of things they don't understand. Gene therapy is another medical advancement. Nobody is playing God as so many people seem to think.
If someone has appendicitis, the appendix is removed. If people have cancer, they're given chemotherapy. Appendicitis happens to be a curable problem that once was not. Now some genetic diseases that kill are being treated and cured. In a kidney transplant, the surgeon opens up the patient's body and removes the defective organ. With gene therapy, the same thing happens - the defective material is being removed and replaced. It's another type of transplant, except on the cellular level.
It was also stated, ``those leery of gene therapy'' think it will go too far and be used for aesthetic purposes, such as a certain color of eyes. People who can afford it have been having plastic surgery to fix noses and bags under the eyes for years. Unwanted fat cells are removed by liposuction. Colored contact lenses are worn to change eye color to match this week's hair color. People are exercising in gyms to make their muscles bigger. Is this not similar to gene therapy, changing what nature originally gave you?
I believe the vast majority of doctors in this country are far more ethical and morally conscious than critics give them credit for. I don't think Hitler's superhuman race will be sought after, even when all of the chromosomes are mapped.
TODD MINNICH
CHRISTIANSBURG
Send Limbaugh into limbo, too
BRAVO! Someone's finally spoken out in support of President Bill Clinton and his tireless efforts to get changes in problems that have been largely ignored for the past 12 years. The man is a master at peacemaking, although his attempts are like pouring water on a duck's back where some Washingtonians are concerned.
A new society - the ``society of whiners, etc.'' (Jan. 24 letter to the editor by Nino A. Sylmar, ``Clinton giving his all to job'') and their emigrating to Outer Mongolia - is a capital idea. Add Rush Limbaugh to this slate and it would be a sure-fire winner. It would be a nice rest for us! It's time to stop the snide ``Slick Willie'' remarks and give President and Mrs. Clinton our full support, which they deserve, and the office the respect it must have from all of us.
Why not let the news media run the office? They know all the answers.
LOUISE W. WALTERS
SALEM
North is hardly in Jefferson's league
HOW DARE Fred Werth (Jan. 30 letter to the editor, ``Oliver North lied honorably'') associate Oliver North with Jeffersonian principles! Does he imply that all congressional committee members who questioned North were corrupt? Has he forgotten that one of their duties is to protect and defend the Constitution and the law of the land? Does he also suggest the guilty verdict on three felony counts in the criminal investigation of North was incorrect?
If the answer to those questions is yes, then we should give up on democracy, as North did, and change to a different system of government. How about a dictatorship or an absolute monarchy where we don't have to be concerned about laws or a Constitution? North spit on the Constitution that Thomas Jefferson so strongly supported!
It will be a shameful day for the Virginia Republican Party if North receives its nomination. Equally shameful is the party's repudiation of Sen. John Warner, one of its most experienced and respected members, who stood by his principles and refused to prostitute himself for political reasons.
As for John Repass' Jan. 24 letter (``A double standard for `truth''') and former GOP chairman Don Huffman's comments comparing Charles Robb with North, please get your values in perspective. Huffman finds ``Sen. Robb's escapades far more troubling,'' and Repass thinks Robb's probable lies about his nude massage are on a par with North's lies. I base my choice of a doctor, dentist or a mechanic on his knowledge and expertise, not on his private life.
This is the only country in the Western world that elects its government figures on the basis of whether they've had a fling. On this basis, Huffman, Repass or Werth wouldn't have voted for Washington, Jefferson, Eisenhower, Roosevelt or Kennedy. God help democracy in the United States!
MARCIA WEIS
ROANOKE
Service during snow `phenomenal'
ENOUGH bashing of the Roanoke airport and the U.S. Postal Service (letters to the editor on Jan. 25 by Jack Burke, ``Mail service, airport took a holiday,'' and Feb. 2 by Sharol R. Stoneburner and Susan J. Bottenfield, ``Penny-pinching thwarted air travel'').
Imagine the hue and cry if planes had been cleared for takeoff and crashed! I'm sure that airport administrators did everything possible to provide services for the public while putting safety of operations uppermost.
Our mail delivery was phenomenal during the entire period of inclement weather. Kudos to all, including Appalachian Power Co. employees and municipal and state road crews.
VIRGINIA BETHUNE
BLACKSBURG
Selling death like toothpaste
IT'S ALWAYS disturbed me the way illegal substances - some far more dangerous than others - get lumped together as ``drugs.'' This might help scare kids away from so-called gateway drugs such as marijuana. But if it doesn't, it just might convince them that dangers attributed to the harder stuff have been overblown as well.
Currently, there's little chance for kids to get reliable information before making decisions about drug use. If drug legalization could generate some accurate warning labels, it would be an improvement.
Still, one can only wonder if legalization would result in advertisements portraying cocaine use the way cigarette smoking is currently portrayed - as healthful and glamorous. That would be a disaster.
Of interest is the Jan. 20 Commentary article (``Cigarette labels: hazardous to health'') by Dr. Elizabeth Whelan. She argues that government-mandated warning labels have protected tobacco companies from being liable for damages they inflict on consumers. Without the government's judicial blessing, she says, victims' lawsuits would have long since punished tobacco companies for not fully disclosing smoking risks.
If we can keep from making the same mistake with other substances, perhaps there's an alternative to the disastrous war on drugs - one that doesn't involve more smiling faces promoting death.
ANDREW AKERS
SALEM
Sen. Bell listens to constituents
IN RESPONSE to Al Wilson's caustic attack on state Sen. Brandon Bell (Jan. 20 letter to the editor, ``Bell's no friend of public schools''):
I suggest the reason Brandon Bell is in favor of school vouchers is because he's been carefully listening to his constituents, not other politicians.
The reason people like Wilson object to a voucher system is because it takes control of the money out of the government's hands and puts it back in the parents' hands. This is not about Democrats or Republicans. This is about power.
Politicians care about programs; voters care about their children.
It's parents who make the difference. Get off our backs with the already abundant taxes for government programs, and maybe we'll have more time to spend with our children instead of working excessively just to make ends meet! (``Big Brother'' sucks up three to four months of our yearly income already!)
I've met Sen. Bell on several occasions at meetings involving public education and the National Education Association's agenda. He's a gentleman, he listens, and he hasn't developed that condescending slick attitude that's so prevalent among elected officials and career bureaucrats. He's just a regular guy trying to do the right thing. Kind of sickening, isn't it, Al?
EILEEN M. LLORET
ROANOKE
Learn from past election mistakes
WHERE HAVE all the good ones gone? From the time our nation was first formed, Virginia has produced a lot of good leaders. However, times have changed.
First, we have Robb. Unfortunately, he's still on the taxpayers' payroll. Next, we had Wilder. Thank goodness, that's over for all of us. Now there's a chance we'll have Oliver North. Don't we ever learn?
Come on, Virginia, let's do better.
CLARENCE MILBOURN
BOONES MILL
by CNB