Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 29, 1995                   TAG: 9503290062
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IN HEALTH

WASHINGTON - Children born to poor, black women and to uneducated mothers of all races are more likely than others to be mildly retarded, federal researchers reported Tuesday. The government announced an intensive development program to help the youngsters make up ground.

Mothers who never finished high school are four times more likely to have mildly retarded children than better-educated women, and black children are more than twice as likely to suffer mild retardation as whites, the researchers said.

They found that at least half of the retardation in black children was due to poverty and other social conditions.

Armed with this evidence, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will start a program to help at-risk children develop better mental skills from birth through age 3.

The project will target 5,000 children in 10 cities. Parents will be taught to stimulate their newborns, and at-risk toddlers will be enrolled in special child-development day care centers until age 3 to see if their later performance in school improves.

The program starts with two small pilot studies early next year; sites have not yet been picked.

- Associated Press

Doctor touts easy sterilization

MIAMI - A doctor believes he has found a way to sterilize women permanently without surgery or scars: two squirts of a substance similar to Super Glue.

Researchers injected small amounts of methylcyano-acrylate, or MCA, into the fallopian tubes of 17 rabbits. After six months of mating, none became pregnant or had complications, said Dr. Gregory Berkey, a radiologist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

He hopes the substance gets approval from the Food and Drug Administration so tests can be conducted on women.

Berkey presented his findings Tuesday at a meeting of the Society of Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology in Fort Lauderdale.

- Associated Press