Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

[SkeptInq@aol.com]

 Skeptical Inquirer Electronic Digest, May 16, 2000

 Visit the CSICOP and Skeptical Inquirer Magazine website at
 http://www.csicop.org. Receiving over 200,000 hits per year, the CSICOP site
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 Karr at skeptinq@aol.com.

 --NEW YORK TIMES: Vatican Discloses 'Third Secret' of Fatima
 --NEW YORK TIMES: NEJM Names Third Editor in a Year
 --APS 'WHAT'S NEW': Congress Briefed on Intelligent Design
 --NPR SCIENCE FRIDAY: FDA on Gene-Altered Food and Salmon/ The Latest on Mad
Cow Disease

 NEW YORK TIMES: VATICAN DISCLOSES 'THIRD SECERT' OF FATIMA

 May 14, 2000
 For the full article, go to
 http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/051400pope-fatima-secret.html

 Vatican Discloses 'Third Secret' of Fatima
 By ALESSANDRA STANLEY

 [FÁTIMA, Portugal, May 13 -- The Vatican today disclosed the so-called third
 secret of Fátima, which for decades has kept this shrine of the Virgin Mary
 at the center of conspiracy theories and doomsday cults. The Vatican
 described the secret as a vision of the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope
 John Paul II....]

 NEW YORK TIMES: NEJM NAMES THIRD EDITOR IN A YEAR

 May 12, 2000
 For the full article go to:
 http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/health/051200hth-medical-jou
 rnal.html

 New England Journal of Medicine Names Third Editor in a Year
 By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN

 [WALTHAM, Mass., May 11 -- Dr. Jeffrey M. Drazen, a leading asthma
 researcher at Harvard with strong ties to the drug industry, was named the
 editor of The New England Journal of Medicine here today.
 But the journal's tough conflict-of-interest rules will prevent Dr. Drazen
 from writing certain articles and editorials for at least two years.
 Pledging to protect the integrity of The Journal's information, Dr. Drazen,
 a professor of medicine at Harvard, said he would recuse himself from the
 editorial process for any papers submitted that relate to asthma or to nine
 major companies from which he has received research grants or consultation
 fees....]

 APS' 'WHAT'S NEW': CONGRESS BRIEFED ON INTELLIGENT DESIGN

 From the APS's What's New e-mail bulletin, written by Robert Park.

 [4. ALTERNATIVE SCIENCE: CONGRESS BRIEFED ON INTELLIGENT DESIGN.
 Darwin took a pounding on Wednesday when The Discovery Institute
 (www.crsc.org) brought its top guns to Capitol Hill to brief
 members and their staffs on the need for "Intelligent Design" in
 public school science curricula as an alternative to Darwinian
 evolution.  They portray ID as the scientific middle ground
 between biblical literalists and Darwinists.  The controversy,
 however, is not a debate between scientists.  Brown biologist Ken
 Miller, an outspoken critic of the ID movement, asks, "How many
 papers on intelligent design have been published in the peer
 reviewed scientific literature?"  The answer, Miller says, "is
 none."  Next week: Who in Congress is supporting the ID movement?]

 NPR SCIENCE FRIDAY: FDA ON GENE-ALTERED FOOD AND SALMON/ LATEST ON MAD COW
 DISEASE

 May 12, 2000
 TALK OF THE NATION

 To listen to the full audio, go to
 http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/cmnpd01fm.cfm?PrgDate=05/12/2000&PrgID=5

 HOST: Ira Flatow
 HOUR ONE: FDA Commissioner Henney/ GM Salmon
 (14.4 | 28.8)
 Guests:

 Dr. Jane E. Henney
 Commisssioner
 Food and Drug Administration
 Rockville, Maryland


 Rebecca Goldburg
 Senior Scientist
 Environmental Defense
 New York, New York

 William Muir
 Professor, Genetics
 Purdue University
 West Lafayette, Indiana

 Elliot Entis
 President and Chief Executive Officer
 Aqua Bounty Farms/ A/F Protein Inc.
 Boston, Massachusetts

 Last week the FDA issued new proposals for regulating genetically modified
 organisms. In this hour, we'll talk with FDA Commissioner Jane E. Henney
 about the new guidelines. Plus, experts say the first genetically modifed
 animal to make it to our dinner plates will most likely be a salmon
 engineered to grow faster. We'll take a look at the new fish and it's
 potential effects on us ...and other salmon.


 HOUR TWO: Creutzfeldt-Jacob & Mad Cow Diseasese
 (14.4 | 28.8)
 Guests:

 Joseph Berger, M.D.
 Chairman and Professor, Department of Neurology
 University of Kentucky Medical Center
 Lexington, Kentucky

 Mary Jo Schmerr
 Lead Scientist, Prion Diseases Research Unit
 National Animal Disease Center
 United States Department of Agriculture
 Agricultural Research Service
 Ames, Iowa

 Linda Detwiler
 Senior Staff Veterinarian
 Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
 United States Department of Agriculture
 Robinsville, New Jersey

 A study released last week in the U.K. failed to find evidence that tainted
 beef from the 1996 Mad Cow disease epidemic has caused widespread illness in
 people. In this hour, we'll talk about what's being done to control Mad Cow
 disease here and abroad. Plus, efforts to detect and treat the human form of
 the disease.

  --------------------------------

 SI Electronic Digest is the biweekly e-mail news update of the Committee for
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