LETTERS

A HARROWING DAY IN SPACE

"If the Mir space station were an automobile, you can be sure it would be up on blocks in someone's backyard." ED TROSTER Smyrna, Tenn.

I have always been fascinated with space exploration and have had a tiny urge to work in that field. But after reading your story about the glitches aboard the Mir space station [SPACE, Nov. 3] and seeing its diagrams and its massive, complex structures, I think space exploration is scary. Whatever happened to the classic, simple space vehicle? Is it possible that we are in over our heads with all this complicated technology? TORRE CATALANO Buffalo, N.Y.

How right that we can read about heroes like Mir commander Vasili Tsibliyev, crew member Alexander Lazutkin and American astronaut Michael Foale in magazines like TIME. How right that, on the brink of a new millennium, space exploration is experiencing a public reawakening, and the average person is encouraged to look up and confront the questions that make being alive a thrilling experience! MARIO DI MAGGIO, Education Officer Durban Natural Science Museum Durban, South Africa

TAKING ON MICROSOFT

Your report on the U.S. Justice department's antitrust suit against Microsoft [BUSINESS, Nov. 3] had a balanced view and was well written. But the issue is not whether Microsoft is a monopoly or uses unfair practices, such as requiring its hardware partners to put its Web browser, Internet Explorer, on the computers they make. The question is, Should the government do anything about it? It ought to break Microsoft into two or three companies and then get out of the way and let them compete. CHIEH CHANG Hillsborough, Calif.

I take exception to the offhand comment that by 2001 everyone will be using computers with Windows 2001 and that the only holdouts will be "aging potheads still designing really cool fractal algorithms" on Macintosh computers. Even in jest, comments like this distort reality. Macs are not relevant only to impractical deadbeats. Most of us know that if you want an elegant computer that is easy to set up, operate and maintain, you buy a Mac. Otherwise you get a PC. ALAN THOMPSON San Mateo, Calif.

The Justice Department and Netscape should stop whining about Microsoft's alleged monopoly. In a competitive marketplace, failure to serve customers means that the competition wins. The Sherman Antitrust Act was never designed to protect companies that fail to provide service and then whine when their customers turn to competitors for it. JOHN M. SHONTZ Helena, Mont.

THE V CHIP IN PCS?

Re your item on FCC proposals for installing television V chips in personal computers [NOTEBOOK, Nov. 3]: in seeking comment about whether to put the chips in new PCs, the FCC is following the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which directs the agency to ask questions concerning V chips, including whether PCs that double as TV receivers should be equipped with the chips. These are only proposals and do not include PCs that do not function as TV receivers, nor do they apply to the Internet. My hope is that the computer industry and all interested parties will tell the FCC what their concerns are and how they think the V chip should work. REED E. HUNDT, Former Chairman Federal Communications Commission Washington

NOT AGAIN!

The drastic fall of the stock market should come as a surprise to no one [NATION, Nov. 3]. After all, how much longer were we going to support 22-year-old fund managers with their red suspenders and $200 lunches? BRIAN SMITH Miami

The ongoing currency mayhem and turmoil in the stock markets of Asia were, in my view, the result of a carefully calculated plot by bloodthirsty speculators. They prove Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's accusation that the outside world, particularly the West, was trying to destroy Malaysia's economy. With Asia battered, I wonder who's next? CHEE KEONG WOON Petaling Jaya, Malaysia

TULANE RESPONDS

In your article regarding fraud at Tulane University Medical Center titled "Dead Wrong?" [NATION, Nov. 3], you accused the late Dr. Michael Gerber, former chairman of pathology and laboratory medicine at the center, of embezzlement and other financial wrongdoings and implied that his (and his wife's) death in an automobile accident was staged. The story is based largely on allegations by a disgruntled former employee, Dr. Aizenhawar Marrogi, who is currently in litigation with the medical center. These allegations are wholly without basis.

Here are the facts: Dr. Gerber and his wife are dead. Ten people, including nine family members, identified the bodies before cremation. No hip-replacement device was found in the crematorium. The medical examiner states that the Gerbers' bodies match premortem photos of the couple. The Gerbers' organs were donated to a medical center in Knoxville, Tenn., ensuring that tissues available for identification and testing were preserved.

Dr. Marrogi's departure from Tulane was initiated by a committee of his peers. Their judgment was based on his academic and clinical record. At Dr. Marrogi's request, a second, different faculty committee examined the decision and found no basis for his complaints. All these facts were available to TIME.

Charges of financial impropriety at the center raised by Dr. Marrogi were examined by internal auditors last spring and re-examined after your article appeared. No basis in fact was found in the allegations. There was no unapproved billing system for the pathology department and no excessive billings for meals or travel. No evidence of a life-style insupportable by Dr. Gerber's income has been found. The article greatly exaggerated the cost of Dr. Gerber's home. Medical-center accounting records reflected all of Dr. Gerber's professional financial transactions. None were found to be out of the ordinary. No Internal Revenue Service investigation of Tulane took place, although an irs investigation of Dr. Gerber was undertaken, with which Tulane fully cooperated.

Dr. Gerber was an internationally recognized teacher and scientist, respected by former students and colleagues worldwide. The Tulane University Medical Center is a financially vigilant and prudent institution whose faculty provides--for no fee--excellent care of indigent patients at New Orleans public hospitals. In your ill-conceived article, you have smeared the reputation of an outstanding physician, traumatized his grieving family and insulted a major academic center. In short, your article was dead wrong. JOHN C. LAROSA, M.D., Chancellor Tulane University Medical Center New Orleans

JIANG'S WASHINGTON VISIT

The summit between China's Jiang Zemin and Bill Clinton [WORLD, Nov. 3] was at best the pause that represses. Suddenly, we have an American leader who is loath to berate publicly a brutal regime about human rights. And this is the same Clinton who insisted that American troops be deployed in places like Haiti and Bosnia. J. ANTHONY BLACK New York City

From January through August of this year, the U.S. accepted $38.8 billion in Chinese exports and the Chinese imported $7.8 billion in American goods, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. While the $31 billion deficit is not the largest in any bilateral trade relationship, our balance of trade with China is extremely lopsided. If the current trend holds, the U.S. trade deficit with China will total more than $50 billion by the end of this year. The question is not whether we will deny most-favored-nation trade status to China because of its human-rights abuses but how long America will be punished for speaking out about them. Will China ever grant American imports the equivalent of most-favored-nation status? BRAD SHERMAN, U.S. Representative 24th District, California Washington

FEELING THE SURGICAL KNIFE

I was jolted by your article on being awake during surgery [MEDICINE, Nov. 3]. Some years ago, my grandmother survived hip-replacement surgery despite her claim that she had not been anesthetized. She spoke of her excruciating pain and fear to the two doctors the day following surgery. When we decided to file suit to protect other patients, there were attempts to make her seem incompetent and thus invalidate her claims. No matter. Her attorney had her IQ tested to prove competency (145 IQ at age 78). I certainly knew that she wasn't nuts and that she would not accuse someone without reason. Your report on "awareness" survivors has put everything into place. What a benign term for such a traumatic experience! KATHIE MARSHALL Encino, Calif.

I wonder if some of the incidents of patient awareness during surgery might result from hospitals' attempts to control costs by not overmedicating, Maybe the health-maintenance-organization executive who could feel the surgeon make incisions when she underwent laparoscopic gall-bladder surgery was getting a taste of her own medicine. An HMO executive can really get concerned about the quality of care when it is her own. JOHN A. DILLE Naperville, Ill.

I know firsthand about the terrifying experience of "awareness" during surgery, having gone through it during open-heart surgery in 1977. As a psychiatrist, I work with patients with a variety of post-traumatic-stress disorders arising from car accidents, physical abuse and other traumas. The new device that can monitor the patient's brain waves and alert the medical staff if there is a potentially dangerous state of awareness will save the sanity of many surgical patients. But many of those who experienced such a trauma long ago may not even realize that surgery was the cause of present stress. Physicians should screen for such a history when patients have flashbacks or refuse to undergo necessary procedures. There are short-term treatments to resolve the trauma. LOUIS W. TINNIN, M.D. Trauma Recovery Institute Morgantown, W.Va.

Tracking brain waves to detect awareness during surgery has been a dream for years, but technology to date has not met the challenge. Your report raised patients' anxiety, and you may have created unwarranted optimism that a solution has been found. MICHAEL F. MULROY, M.D. Department of Anesthesiology Virginia Mason Medical Center Seattle

THE WALT WHITMAN OF ART

Who but art critic Robert Hughes would have the sensitivity and perspective to see artist Robert Rauschenberg [ART, Oct. 27] as the Walt Whitman of the 20th century art world? Who could better distinguish the American character of Rauschenberg's work than a critic who just completed a marathon book on our visual culture, American Visions? KIT BASQUIN Milwaukee, Wis.

CLARIFICATION

In a Notebook item [July 21], TIME reported that the Chicago law firm of Daley & George was under investigation. TIME did not say, and did not mean to imply, that the firm has engaged in illegal conduct in the representation of its clients. We express our regret for any misunderstanding.