Editorials
Tuesday, July 21, 1998

Don’t suppress facts
at Mahoe’s sentencing

FROM the beginning, the court case of hula teacher Howell "Chinky" Mahoe has been slowed by stall tactics and cloaked in secrecy, partly because of the young age of the victims. It all started when the well-known kumu hula was arrested and charged with fondling four boys who danced in his award-winning troupe. After Mahoe, 43, pleaded no contest to felony and misdemeanor counts of sexual assault, his sentencing hearing was delayed three times for various reasons.

Now, through the filing of a highly unusual motion, Mahoe's attorney is asking Circuit Judge Wilfred Watanabe to follow the letter of the law rather than the intent, and to keep his client's presentencing report strictly confidential. This means that the prosecutor would break from tradition and be prohibited from citing any facts in the report, which includes the defendant's social and criminal history, during Mahoe's sentencing hearing set for August 24.

Judge Watanabe, who himself has access to the report, should deny this gag order masquerading as a legal motion. The prosecutor must not be hampered in any way as he builds his argument for sentencing, especially since he will not divulge information detrimental to the victims. Such an order would simply hinder the public's right to know pertinent facts about Mahoe in this high-profile case, and to determine for themselves the appropriateness of his punishment. As Dan Foley, a prominent civil-rights attorney in Hawaii, points out, the Constitution requires open trials to which members of the public have access -- either in person or through the news media.

Secrecy will only breed suspicion that the hula teacher is receiving preferential treatment because of his celebrity status in the community. That would be unfair to the victims in this case, as well as other defendants in the justice system.

Medical ID codes

TWO years ago, to allow individuals to take their health insurance with them when changing jobs, Congress enacted legislation and approved changes to simplify administration of the system. However, the computer data base envisioned under the sweeping law may threaten the security of patient information. If the government is unable to assure privacy in implementing the health portability law, it should tell Congress it is impossible to achieve.

Sensitive to such concerns, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala has scheduled public hearings solely on the unique patient identifier, which is a departure from the department's normal procedure of issuing a proposal and inviting public comment. Meanwhile, five bills delineating who can have access to medical records without a patient's consent are circulating in Congress.

Under the law, every person in the country would have a medical identifier in the form of a computer code. Proponents say the identifier would allow doctors and hospitals to keep track of people as they change insurance plans. Provisions of the law are intended to protect privacy by restricting the disclosure of medical information on individuals by limiting access and the type of information to be included.

Such a data base would be undeniably impressive. But breaches of privacy already have occurred in health maintenance organizations. Effective protection of medical records assembled into a national data base is difficult to imagine, as long as hackers continue to find ways to crack into computer systems. Until technology has developed to the point that security can be assured, individual registration in any medical repository should be strictly voluntary.

Secondhand smoke

PROPONENTS of smoking bans in public places have relied heavily on a 1993 Environmental Protection Agency report that secondhand smoke presents a significant health risk to nonsmokers. But a federal judge in North Carolina has ruled that the agency was mistaken in its conclusion, thereby damaging the credibility of those trying to discourage smoking among youth.

U.S. District Judge William Osteen, acting in a lawsuit filed by the tobacco companies, said the EPA "did not demonstrate a statistically significant association" between secondhand smoke and lung cancer.

The EPA report was more political than scientific. It said that a nonsmoking woman who lives with a smoker is 1.19 times more likely to develop lung cancer than a woman living with a nonsmoker, thus posing a significant health risk. However, epidemiologists consider an increased risk of less than 1.3 times to be weak, a standard ignored by the EPA in its report.

Other studies have been cited in bolstering the EPA's flawed analysis, but those are just as questionable. For example, researchers at the American Cancer Society reported that the increased risk of developing lung cancer was 20 percent among women living with smokers, while failing to point out that an increased risk of less than 30 percent is considered weak.

The EPA study was cited most often by crusaders against secondhand smoke in their attempt to ban smoking in public places like in Hawaii, where present law prohibits smoking in most offices. Moves to extend the ban to island hotels, restaurants, bars and nightclubs have been rejected thus far by the Honolulu City Council.

Scare tactics about secondhand smoke have seriously eroded the credibility of health advocates. The danger is that children who recognize warnings about secondhand smoke to be overstated will incorrectly conclude that all warnings about tobacco are propaganda. The recent rise in teen smoking may mean that they have already come to that conclusion.

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John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher

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A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor