Alo A8 NEW ENGLAND Union-News, Wednesday, 1 2000 1 Misconduct Trooper's killer escapes death penalty I- charged in gene work It was hoped the therapy would grow new blood vessels in patients suffering from circulatory problems. By DEBORAH NELSON and RICK WEISS Washington Post WASHINGTON A Tufts University scientist failed to report the of a volunteer in his gene therapy experiments and put other participants' lives at risk, including a patient with early signs of cancer that may have spread as a result of the treatment, federal officials charged yesterday. Patients suspected of having cancer were supposed to be excluded from the study because it involves a treatment that fosters the growth of new blood vessels, which are known to feed tumors. Yet a volunteer diagnosed with a lung mass was enrolled anyway, and his tumor doubled in size within three months of treatment. In another case, a volunteer had a heart attack after getting a gene infusion in her heart, and died from complications a few months later.
But the scientist and his team waited months before revealing the problems to hospital officials overseeing the experiment's safety. And even then, only the complications and not the death were reported. These and other alleged violations of federal research rules are detailed in a nine-page warning letter from the Food and Drug Administration to Jeffrey Isner, who led the research at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Boston. The letter raises serious questions about the quality and safety of Isner's high-profile efforts to grow new blood vessels in patients with heart disease and other circulatory problems.
Those efforts, which for a time seemed to offer a miraculous way to grow crucial blood vessels around blocked ones, have been stalled since late February, when the FDA ordered a halt to four human gene therapy experiments that Isner oversaw pending the completion of its inspection. More generally, the new revelations come at a time when field of gene therapy is trying to recover from a spate of bad publicity. The experimental approach, which tries to cure diseases by giving people new genes, has been under intense public and regulatory scrutiny since the death in September of a teen-age volunteer in a University of Pennsylvania experincret, Federal concluded that regulators the Penn ultiexperiment and many others around the country were not in compliance with federal rules. The Boston experiments were sponsored by St. Elizabeth's and by Vascular Genetics Inc.
of Durham, N.C., a company that Isner cofounded. By STRAT DOUTHAT Associated Press HARTFORD The state Court yesterday overturned the death sentence given to Terry Johnson, who killed a state trooper in 1991, and ordered him imprisoned for life without parole. Johnson and his brother were convicted of killing Trooper Russell Bagshaw early in the morning of June 5, 1991. Johnson fired nearly 20 hollow-point bullets at Bagshaw's cruiser after the trooper's routine patrol interrupted the burglary of a North Windham sporting goods store. Terry and Duane Johnson were convicted of capital felony in separate trials.
Terry Johnson received a death sentence. Duane Johnson was sentenced to life in prison. But the high court ruled that jurors erred when they found that Terry Johnson had killed Bagshaw in an especially cruel or heinous manner. That finding was based on the conclusion that Bag- Prosecutor says law needed to apply to killing of officers shaw had been terrorized when he was ambushed. The Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the shooting itself was not enough to meet the standard for the death penalty.
"The vile nature of the crime committed by the defendant in this case cannot be overstated," the high court ruled. But the court said the jury could not have found that Johnson, who was 21 when he killed Bagshaw, caused the trooper pain above and beyond what caused his death. Bagshaw's widow, who has remarried, has moved and could not reached for comment. Windham County Chief State's Attorney Mark Solak said he was disappointed with the ruling but glad that the high court found no errors that would have meant retrying the case. He added that he regrets, as a citizen, that the death penalty law will not apply in cases where police officers are gunned down from a distance.
He said he planned to ask the Legislature to make it a death penalty crime to kill a police officer. "We should not have to ask juries to count the breaths of life in a mortally wounded police officer," Solak said. Gov. John G. Rowland, who supports the death penalty, said the ruling does not alter his stance on the issue.
"I still trust the system," he said. "The judicial side will make its determinations. We abide by its decision." Ronald Gold, an assistant state public defender, said the court Dazed Conn. town ponders fiery suicide of 2 4 State police believe the boys had been planning their deaths for some time. By JUDITH FORMAN Associated Press EAST HADDAM, Conn.
There were no skid marks in front of the tree. The two teen-age boys who drove a Ford Bronco straight at the giant spruce and died in a fiery crash early Monday had made clear their terrible intentions in cell phone goodbyes a few minutes earlier. Tell our parents we love them, the boys told friends. Then at the same tree where his -15-year-old brother died in a car crash six months ago 13- year-old Michael Dombrowski and his 15-year-old friend Jeffrey Barton ended their lives in this town about 20 miles from Hartford. Friends said a grief-stricken Michael had planned his death as a tribute to the elder brother he idolized.
He was too young even to drive. Jeff, whom friends described as troubled, joined Michael out of friendship. "This just created a. situation where we're starting to ask ourselves, 'Why East said School Superintendent Steven Durham. The tree, which stood on the lawn at the First Church of Christ, was cut down Monday afternoon for fear it would become a magnet for more suicides.
Church leaders had planned to cut it down sooner, but had left it. standing as a memorial to Daniel Dombrowski and Hunter Daniels, both 15, who died Nov. 6 when a car driven by a third teen-ager struck the tree. The driver of that car, 19-year-old Jason Duplin, faces two charges of manslaughter with a motor vehicle while intoxicated. State police believe Michael and Jeff had been planning the sui-: cides for some time, but it is not clear how long.
when their friends found out or whether any adults were informed, said Sgt. Stephen Ostroski. 1-. A friend, Kaitlin Mullarkey, had written them a note urging them to find some other way to show their love for Daniel, The Hartford Courant reported. "I don't know why they felt like they had to do this," she said.
Late Sunday night, after making calls to a number of friends, the boys took Michael's father's Bronco. Shortly after 3 a.m. Monday, after making additional calls from the car at one point telling friends that they had taken some pills to dull the pain of the crash they steered the SUV toward the tree. At the moment of the crash, one of the boys may have been on the phone with a girlfriend, Ostroski said. Police don't know how fast they were going.
But the vehicle burst into flames and was destroyed. Pieces of metal and glass weremelted into the surface of the road. The medical examiner's office ruled the deaths suicides yesterday. The boys' families have declined to comment. 2nd suit filed on strip searches of women By HEIDI B.
PERLMAN Associated Press BOSTON Jail officials are learning that they may have inappropriately strip-searched women for years. This realization, being delivered in the form of multiple lawsuits, could be costly. A class-action lawsuit filed Monday against Plymouth County in federal court comes just one year after a similar, larger, suit was filed against Suffolk County. The women say their constitutional rights were violated. But jail officials, who changed their strip-search policies after the Suffolk suit was filed, say they feel threatened unless they know for sure that prisoners are not sneaking contraband or weapons into the jails.
"Our people are now exposed to a greater danger," said Gerard Lydon of the Suffolk County Sheriff's office. "Now we find items in the facility and have no real explanation asto how they got there." A strip-search is done by having a woman disrobe, squat and cough. Plymouth County officials say all searches of women are conducted by women, and that none of the women are ever touched. "The process isn't pleasant," said Rob Lyons, a spokesman for the Plymouth County Sheriff's office. "But people tend to think that it's worse than it is." Federal law says prison officials need "reasonable suspicion" to search a person prior to arraignment.
State law is even more restrictive and requires "probable cause" before a full body search. Both Suffolk and Plymouth County officials changed their strip policies last year to comply with the federal and state laws after the first suit was filed. But the women who signed onto these cases maintain that they did nothing to deserve being searched. One of the women in the Suffolk County suit was caught selling sausages outside the FleetCenter without a permit. Another was arrested after her children failed to return a rented video game.
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