Across the Nation

House GOP leaders attack budget plan

WASHINGTON -- Only hours after White House and Republican negotiators reached agreement on education spending for the year, House GOP leaders unexpectedly torpedoed the plan, leaving budget talks in shambles and raising prospects that Congress would be forced to meet in an unusual post-election session to finish its business.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) upended the agreement that had been sealed with glasses of Merlot at 1 a.m. Monday morning, singling out a provision long sought by organized labor - and opposed by business - aimed at reducing cases of crippling repetitive stress injuries in the work place.

Although their decision stunned and angered the top GOP negotiators - who had assumed they were authorized to cut a final deal - it underscored Republican confidence that the party would benefit politically by taking a confrontational stance with President Clinton on the remaining spending and tax issues. It also reflected growing concern among GOP lawmakers that the education bill was getting too expensive.

The GOP decision drew sharp complaints of bad-faith bargaining from Clinton, White House officials and congressional Democrats, who charged that the Republicans had bowed to pressure from business lobbyists to block the workplace provision.

Clinton hinted he might retaliate by vetoing another bill that funds the legislative branch and the salaries of lawmakers.

"We got to an honorable deal, and it didn't last 12 hours," said White House Budget Director Jacob "Jack" Lew. "It's very, very frustrating. It's very disheartening."

But Hastert and DeLay made no apology for overruling their negotiators, signaling that Republicans were prepared to fight through the election to extract an acceptable compromise on spending and taxes. "We're not going to get pushed out of town with a bad deal," Hastert told reporters. "You call it a stalemate. I call it fighting for the American people to get good legislation for them."

AIDS vaccine study ignites dispute

CHICAGO -- A study suggesting a vaccine-like AIDS treatment is ineffective has erupted in a public dispute between the manufacturer that paid for much of the study and doctors who say the company tried to squelch their research.

The study's conclusions, published in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, echo doubts about HIV-1 Immunogen expressed several years ago by advisers to the Food and Drug Administration.

The results suggest that when added to the drug regimen for HIV-infected patients, HIV-1 Immunogen failed to reduce the risk of developing full-blown AIDS.

The drug carries the brand name Remune.

Immune Response Corp., the drug's manufacturer, contends researchers omitted favorable data and skewed the results.

The company entered a fairly common arbitration process during which it tried to produce "a more balanced manuscript," said Ronald Moss, the company's vice president of medical and scientific affairs.

Instead, the researchers violated their contractual agreement and published incomplete findings, Moss said.

"It seems like tabloid journalism that JAMA would not investigate this further" before publishing, Moss said.

HIV-1 Immunogen was developed by the late Dr. Jonas Salk, who created the first polio vaccine. It was developed before powerful "drug cocktails" including protease inhibitors became standard HIV treatment, and Immune Response says subjects' use of such drugs affected the findings in the JAMA study.

Dr. James Kahn of the University of California at San Francisco, the study's lead author, said the company withheld important data and then tried to suppress publication.

The company denies both claims. In an arbitration complaint last month, Immune Response also demanded $7 million to $10 million from Kahn and the university, claiming dissemination of the negative findings caused it financial harm, UCSF attorney Christopher Patti said.

Freight trains collide, force evacuations

BELLEMONT, Ariz. - Two freight trains, at least one of them carrying hazardous material, crashed and caught fire yesterday night, forcing evacuations in the small town of Bellemont. One engineer was missing and at least three people were injured, authorities said. One train rear-ended the other about 10 miles west of Flagstaff, and a locomotive caught fire, said a spokeswoman for the Coconino County Sheriff's Department. Authorities evacuated about a dozen of the 1,000 people who live in Bellemont because there was hazardous material aboard at least one of the trains.