14—The Daily Collegian Friday, July 19, 1985
Study backs excessive surgery
By BRENDA C. COLEMAN
Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO In parts of Massachu
setts, some surgical operations are
performed more than twice as often
as in other sections of the state, a new
ptudy says, bolstering evidence
Americans spend unnecessary bil
lions on hospital care.
"You know from your own experi
ence, and your friends', that (in)
going to the doctor with a bad back,
one will say, 'Go to the hospital for
two weeks,' and another will say, 'Go
home and put your mattress on the
floor for two weeks,' " said the re
searcher, Dr. Benjamin A. Barnes of
Harvard School of Public Health in
Boston.
A study by Barnes and his col
leagues in today's issue of the Journal
of the American Medid i al Association
Clues to future climate
sought from stale air
LOS ANGELES (AP) Add old
air to the list of valued antiques.
Scientists, hoping to learn how
much carbon dioxide has in
creased in the atmosphere, have
asked museums nationwide to look
for historic objects holding sealed
air.
"There is some fear that in
creasing levels of carbon dioxide
as the result of increased fossil
fuel use will cause severe climate
changes because of the so-called
greenhouse effect," says Allen
Ogard, a researcher at Los Ala
mos (N.M.) National Laboratory,
operated by the University of Cali
fornia for the U.S. Department of
Energy.
The greenhouse effect occurs
when carbon dioxide traps solar
radiation in the atmosphere, rais
' ing. temperatures worldwide
possibly by several degrees over
the next century, according to the
Environmental Protection Agen
cy.
That could melt polar ice caps
and raise the sea level, eroding
shorelines, some scientists have
speculated.
To measure the increase in car
bon dioxide accurately, scientists
needed accurate samples of air as
it used to be.
indicates 1980 rates of surgery in
some parts of Massachusetts were
double what they were in others for
three procedures: tonsillectomy, in
sertion of a heart pacemaker and
removal of damaged spinal disks.
Two other procedures hysterec
tomy without removal of ovaries and
surgery to remove knee cartilage
were 90 percent more common in
these areas, the study said.
Slight but significant geographical
differences emerged for four other
procedures: cataract surgery, hys
terectomy with removal of ovaries,
setting a broken thigh bone and par
tial removal of the colon and rectum,
the study said.
The only procedure for which there
was no significant difference was
removal of the prostate gland, indi
cating "far less discretion as to
whether it's carried out or not," Bar-
"To do that we needed historical
air," said co-researcher Jane
Poths.
So Los Alamos asked the na
tion's museums and other institu
tions to look for such things as old
brass buttons, antique telescopes
and ancient hour glasses that may
contain sealed air from specific
periods of history.
Ogard says a sunken river boat
in the Mississippi River could
have many items containing old
air.
"Maritime museums and exhib
its have become particularly in
teresting because of their
navigational and optical instru
ments and hollow brass buttons
from officers' uniforms," Ms.
Poths says. "There are good his
torical records for many of these
old instruments. We know exactly
when some of them were last
serviced and resealed."
The Adler Planetarium in Chi
cago yielded a 17th century hour
glass.
Researchers also found "some
drug bottles in Maine" that were
sealed close to 100 years ago.
But pickings have been slim,
Ogard conceded.
"We are finding that most things
that can be opened, have been."
nes said
The Massachusetts study is the
first to describe hospital use in a
highly populous state with large ur
ban areas and several medical
schools, Barnes said. Previous re
search has been done in Vermont,
Rhode Island and Maine.
The study divided Massachusetts
into 172 areas, identifying the 20 with
the highest rates of surgical proce
dures and the 20 with the lowest. It
found that in high-use areas, patients
spent an estimated $l6 million for
surgical procedures excess of the
state average.
Some of the highest and lowest
rates were in the Boston area.
"These high rates and low rates
have to be looked at and reconciled,"
Barnes said. "Both rates can't be
right."
He emphasized that the study did
Just a test
Scientists
By LEE SIEGEL
AP Science Writer
LOS ANGELES A man-made comet launched over
the Pacific Ocean was visible from Texas to Peru, and
scientists called the experiment a success yesterday
despite a fire that destroyed a NASA observation plane on
the ground
The creation of the artificial comet 74,000 miles above
the ocean was the last in a $7B million, international series
of eight experiments designed to study how Earth's
•magnetic field is affected by the solar wind, an electrical
ly charged gas that speeds from the sun at nearly 1
million mph.
`The theoreticians are having a ball
with the data.' ... It was seen by
amateur astronomers in Phoenix,
Ariz., who 'said it began as a light
green color, then turned red, •
persisted for several minutes and
developed a very visible tail.'
Gilbert Ousley, project manager
"The theoreticians are having a ball with the data,"
project manager Gilbert Ousley said in a telelphone
interview from the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
"Some very good observations were made of the
comet," said Johns Hopkins University researcher Rich
ard McEntire, in a telephone interview from Baltimore.
A West German satellite released two canisters of the
not try to determine the appropriate
rate of surgery for each procedure,
only to show the wide variation in
rates.
An editorial accompanying the stu
dy cautioned that trying to make
medical practice patterns conform to
any "average" is dangerous because
some variations are necessary to
ensure good patient care.
"There is a growing zeal to reduce
the standards of medical practice to
average or below in a climate in
which economics alone becomes the
holy grail," said the editorial, written
by Dr. Joseph F. Boyle, immediate
past president of the American Medi
cal Association.
"In the process, the quality of med
ical care most assuredly will suffer,
all innovation will be stifled, and
individual professional judgment will
be mortally wounded unless we in the
call artificial comet a success
metallic element barium at 8:50 p.m. PDT Wednesday
from a point high above the Pacific off Tahiti. At 9 p.m.
PDT, the canisters released the barium, which glowed as
it was energized by solar wind, forming the artificial
comet.
The man-made comet the second ever launched
measured about 250 miles in diameter and sprouted a tail
4,500 miles long, somewhat smaller than the first man
made comet, which was created last Dec. 27 but wasn't
visible to most ground observers because of cloudy
weather, Ousley said.
He said four crew members and 15 scientists from
NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif.,
escaped without injury as NASA's four-engine Convair
990 flying observatory blew a tire and then caught fire as
it rolled down the runway at March Air Force Base, 65
miles east of downtown Los Angeles.
The fire was allowed to burn itself out, destroying the
equipment-laden plane, which was used as a model in the
design of the space shuttle.
It also was seen by amateur astronomers in Phoenix,
Ariz., who "said it began as a light green color, then
turned red, persisted for several minutes and developed a
very visible tail," which dissipated a few minutes later,
Ousley said.
The artificial comets Wednesday night and last Decem
ber were part of a joint American-West German-British
study named AMPTE, for Active Magnetospheric Parti
cle Tracer Explorers. In addition to the two comet-cre
ating barium releases, the project involved six other
releases of lithium and barium from the West German
satellite since last September, which weren't intended to
form artificial comets.
The interaction between solar wind and Earth's magne
tic field causes Earth's Northern and Southern Lights and
can disrupt communications on Earth and electronics
aboard spacecraft.
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theory
profession provide effective lead
ership."
Boyle said third -party payors who
previously have looked at variations
in medical practice envision enor
mous savings $3O billion to $4O
billion a year if all unnecessary
medical care is eliminated.
These estimates "provoke frenzy
among the increasingly cost con
scious in both the public and private
sector" who want to severely restrict
payments for medical care, he said.
Boyle criticized the Massachusetts
study, saying its data indicate real
possible s avings c only two-thirds as
great as the $l6 million that Barnes
and his colleagues estimated na
tionally, about $2.1 billion.
"We were not trying to pin down the
exact dollar mark," Barnes respond
ed. "It's $l6 million not $1,600. It's
still a lot of money."
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Thieves
harvest
rural crime
By ROBERT LEE ZIMMER
Associated Press Writer
CHAMPAIGN, 111. Thieves
often join in the farm harvest,
pilfering sacks of soybeans and
driving away pieces of machin
ery to the tune of $5OO million a
year, and experts say the farm
ers are often unwitting accom
plices.
Unlocked doors, machinery left
in fields and keys left in vehicles
all help thieves, experts say, and
so does the growing tendency for
farmers to be away much of the
day at other jobs. •
"People create a lot of opportu
nities for crime," said John van
Es, a rural sociologist at the
University of Illinois.
In fact, farmers are about as
likely to be the victims of prop
erty crimes as people in large
cities, said Joe Donnermeyer,
director of the National Rural;
Crime Prevention Center in Ohio.
Rural crime rates rose faster ,
than urban crime rates during'
the 19705, though both have de
creased slightly in this decade.
In Illinois, for example, the
rural crime index rose 22 percent
between 1973 and 1983, while the,
crime index for cities decreased 2
percent.
Across the country, the most
prevalent rural crimes are van
dalism and theft.
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D-43-007
(ID 1985 Collegian Inc