Today's posting is very long. You might want to print it out and then read it. Wall Street Journal October 1, 1996 Section A, page 1, col 5 <snip> BRACE FOR A BLIZZARD OF PAPERWORK FROM A NEW LAW "From an administrative point of view, it's a nightmare," says Richard Stover, principal at Buck Consultants of New York, of a new health-care portability law. Employers must now track ates of coverage for all employees, plus their dependents, and issue letters certifying their coverage when the employee seeks other plans. Employees can request the certifications as often as necessary up to two years after departing. Primarily affected are smaller businesses, which typically offer slimmer health benefits. Businesses must now offer new employees teh same coverage current employees get, even if the new employee has a pre-eisting health condition, such as a heart problem or AIDS. <snip> Wall Street Journal October 1, 1996 Section A, page 1, col 6 IN NAME ONLY: For Richard Thibeault, Being a 'Manager' is a Blue-Collar Life. excerpt is from: Section A, page 12 col 4 <snip> By 1 p.m. the sheet on the wall with the day's hourly sales goal tells a depressing story. Mr. Thibeault is already $39 behind. A packet from corporate headquarters arrives with a lengthy new form that managers will be required to fill out four times a day, monitoring the time it takes customers to be served, the quality of food, and staff morale. Filling out the forms will take up more time, he says wearily, "but if it's the rule, I will do it." <snip> Wall Street Journal October 1, 1996 Section B, page 6 col 5 <snip> CALIFORNIA EPA STIRS ANGER BY ORDERING DISPOSAL OF DATA DISPUTING ITS FINDINGS by Marc Lifsher Dateline: Sacramento, California State scientists who evaluate risks from chemicals, industrial-plant emissions and hazardous wastes have been ordered to destroy research data and internal records that differ from their administrator's final decisions. The new policy, which was laid out in an internal memorandum last sprin, is causing a huge uproar among state environmental activists, First Amendment advocates and scientists themselves. They argue that the directive is politically motivated to favor industry, runs counter to good science, and threatens to keep the public from getting all sides in key health debates. The blanket destruction of records is "subversive to the whole idea of the Public Records Act," said Terry Francke, director of the California First Amendment Coalition, a free-expression watchdog. "What you have is an overlapping of the domains of science and politics, and politics is winning." The memo, issued byt he California Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, asks employees to cull files to ensure they contain only materials that reflect management findings. "Please dispose of all documents ... [electronic-mail] messages and other communications prepared during the course of policy formulation which contain other policy proposals not adopted or reflected in the final decision," Charles Shulock, the office's chief deputy director, wrote on April 19. The memo was obtained by the Wall Street Journal. In an interview, Mr. Shulock said that no documents have been destroyed thus far because the Health hazard Assessment office is still trying to set up a mechanism to carry out the policy. But despite the internal firestorm, Mr. Shulock said the office remains committed to its plan. "We are not breaking new ground here," Mr. Shulock said, adding that the policy is consistent with managing records in "an orderly manner." In Mr. Shulock's original memo, he argues that the new "records retention policy" will protect sensitive "pre-decisional" deliberations and thereby promote "robust interal discussions." But many believe that the policy will have just the opposite effect. "It's ridiculous and isn't sincere. If they are concerned about free flow [of information] they would not conceive of shredding very important scientific evaluations," said Kristen Haynie, a spokeswoman for the California Association of Professional Scientists, a labor union. In follow-up correspondence to the original memo, Cal-EPA officials have maintained that the new document-destruction policy will clarify "publishing policies and procedures" and streamline paperwork. But such reasoning hasn't convinced the office's own field scientists. "The state has hired us and pays us as experts to exercise scientific judgment," Berkeley-based scientist Robert Howd wrote Mr. Shulock in a July 17 electronic message later contained in a document released by the state. "Controlling the right of scientists to decide what will be useful later would attack our professionalism, our honor and the scientific process itself." <snip> Wall Street Journal October 1, 1996 Section B, page 9, col 1 <snip> PAPERS DISPUTE TOBACCO RESEARCH CLAIMS by MIlo Geyelin A newly disclosed tobacco industry document suggests that cigarette manufacturers weren't looking for ways to reduce the health risks associated with smoking in 1964, despite pledging publicly for over a decade to get to the bottom of the smoking and health controversy. <snip> <snip> The document, obtained in pretrial fact-finding by lawyers for the family of a Mississippi barber who they cotend died of lung cancer caused by his customers' second-hand smoke, was written by two researchers dispatched in September 1964 by the British industry's research arm to compare U.S. operations with their own. <snip> <snip> Thousands of documents have emerged in recent years suggesting that the industry was aware of the dangers of smoking but didn't inform the public, fearing lawsuits. <snip> <snip> At R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., a unit of RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp., spokeswoman Peggy Carter added that the document is isolated and needs to be viewed in the context of millions of other documents produced by the tobacco companies. <snip> ------------------------------------- Name: Peter A. Kurilecz CRM, CA Aramco Services Company 9009 West Loop South Houston, Texas 77096-1799 FAX: 713-432-5151 E-mail: Peter A. Kurilecz <[log in to unmask]> Date: 10/01/96 Time: 09:32:55 This message was sent by Chameleon -------------------------------------