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Pope to continue mission despite infirmity BY NICOLE WINFIELD TUB ASSOCIATED PRBSS VATICAN CITY - Although speech is becoming harder for him, Pope John Paul II still can carry out his mission and shows no sign of resigning, several car dinals said Tuesday. Papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls hinted a time might come when the Vatican has to reevaluate how to cope with a pon tiff whose skill as a communica tor, a hallmark of his 25-year pa pacy, is clearly declining. “I work very close with him, and I see his mind, his capacity for projecting things, for putting new goals, which is absolutely intact,” Navarro-Valls said in an inter; . view with ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “So the problem is not there - at least it’s not there yet.” When asked whether the Vatican would have to deal with the problem later if it became nec essary, he said: “I suppose so.” John Paul has had trouble speaking for several years as a re sult of Parkinson’s disease, which causes him to slur his words. Recently, however, he has occa sionally been unable to deliver his full speeches, often only saying a line ortwo before turning the text over to an aide to finish. The change was most evident during his September visit to Slovakia, where for the first time in over 100 foreign trips the pope was unable to complete his arrival speech. As recently as last week, however, John Paul managed to get through his comments, albeit with great difficulty. Cardinals who are gathering in Rome for celebrations surround ing John Paul’s 25th anniversary as pope on Thursday said that even though he has such difficulty speaking, he shows no sign of step ping down or turning over leader ship of the Roman Catholic Church. “He still seems to be able to do it,” Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop of Washington, D.C., said in an interview Tuesday. “As long as God lets him do it, he’s go ing to continue doing it.” When asked whether the pope might step aside if he can no longer speak, McCarrick said he couldn’t put himself in the mind of the pope. “I do believe that this Holy Father is so much in the hands of God, he’s going to let God tell him.” John Paul himself has made clear he does not intend to resign, saying he will carry out his mis sion to the end. Portuguese Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, head of the Congregation of the Causes of , Saints, told the Portuguese news paper Diario de Noticias that only the pope can decide what he would do if he loses the ability to com municate. “Evidently it would have to be evaluated, it would have conse quences, but it wouldn’t be funda mental for the pope’s work,” he was quoted as saying. “The word is very important for those who govern, but the Holy See is gov erned more by the head than by the word.” Cardinal Pio Laghi of Italy, a top papal envoy, said that even as John Paul loses his ability to speak, he remains lucid and able. “He doesn’t feel incapacitated at all,” the AGI news agency quot ed Laghi as saying Tuesday. “He governs with his mind and his heart.” , McCarrick conceded that the pope’s inability to communicate effectively must be frustrating for a man who appeared on stage in his youth, can speak several lan guages and has always made a point of addressing the faithful in their native tongues. “It must be so hard for him,” McCarrick said. “Because I re member 25 years ago, he strode across the stage of the world and he was so eloquent and he could speak so beautifully in so many languages. It must be so hard, but he keeps going, (saying) ‘Give me the next page, I’m going to read it.’” Study finds tanning lamps increase skin-cancer risk BY PAUL RECER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON - Regularly bak ing to a golden tan under sun lamps can increase the risk of ma lignant melanoma, a sometimes fatal skin cancer, and the younger a woman starts the greater the risk, a study says. The study, which analyzed the lifestyles and melanoma risks for women between the ages of 30 and 50, found what the researchers said was the strongest evidence yet that artificial sun tanning can be dangerous to healthy skin. Melanoma risk is highest among fair-skinned people in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and North America. Since the 1950s, the rate of the skin cancer has tripled in Norway and Sweden, where light skin is com mon. About 50,000 cases of melanoma are diagnosed annually in the United States and about 7,500 people die of the disease each year, according to American Academy of Dermatology officials. In the study, appearing this week in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, an in ternational group of researchers analyzed data from the Women’s Lifestyle and Health Cohort Study in Norway and Sweden. In 1991 and 1992,106,379 women complet ed extensive questionnaires about their exposure to sunlight and to artificial tanning. In 1999, the re searchers rechecked the women’s cancer status using the national health registries in Norway and Sweden. The researchers found 187 cases of malignant melanoma diagnosed among the study group during the eight-year follow-up period. They found that women of any age or hair color who regularly visited tanning salons once or more per month increased their chance of developing melanoma by 55 percent. The risk was highest for young adults. Compared with women who never used a solarium, wom en who reported using artificial tanning systems once or more per month when they were between the ages of 20 and 29 increased their risk of melanoma by about 150 percent. “Our results provide stronger evidence than those of other stud ies that solarium use is associat ed with an increased risk of melanoma,” the authors of the study wrote. “This is just one of many papers that have suggested a link between indoor tanning and the develop ment of melanoma skin cancer,” said Dr. James M. Spencer, vice chairman of dermatology at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York. He said studies have also linked artificial tanning to basal cell and squamous cell car cinoma, two common types of skin cancer. Spencer said it is well known that ultraviolet light causes skin cancer. “Whether you get it at the in door tanning parlor or at the beach, (UV light) is a carcinogen,” he said. People may have good reasons to work and play in natural sun light, where they can protect themselves with sun block, Spencer acknowledged. However, “there is no compelling reason to go to a tanning salon,” he said. “It is just for a cosmetic tan that fades in a couple of weeks and can cause you a lifetime of trouble.” Melanoma is virtually 100 per cent curable as long as it is limited to the skin. If allowed to grow, though, the cancer can penetrate to blood vessels and the lymphatic system and then spread rapidly throughout the body. “If it spreads to the lymph nodes or to the internal organs, it is time to put your affairs in or der,” said Spencer. “Once it is spread, there’s nothing to do. There are treatments that might buy some time, but that doesn’t cure anybody.” The incidence of melanoma has increased rapidly in the last half century, and Spencer, an official with the American Academy of Dermatology, said about 50,000 Americans will be diagnosed with it this year. In the study, researchers also found that the risk of melanoma from sun exposure was about twice as high for blondes than for women with dark brown or black hair. For red-haired women, the risk was about four times as high, the researchers said. The presence of irregularly shaped moles, called nevi, also in creases the risk of melanoma can cer, the study found. Women with a single nevus on the leg were about twice as likely to develop the disease. With more than sev en nevi, the risk went up about 300 percent, the researchers report. Nevi are moles that arise from the pigment-producing cells of the skin. Those considered of most concern for cancer are asymmet rical in shape with ragged edges, have different shades of color and are larger than about a quarter inch. Panel to rehear Wofford student’s deportation case THE ASSOCIATED PRESS GREENVILLE, S.C. — An immi gration panel has granted a Wofford College student a rare chance to have his case against de lo no their rehearing. The panel’s decision has the po tential to be a landmark one, possi bly marking a shift in how the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services deals with de nnv’to V* o v»/-1 again. The panel will rehear the case of Hitesh Tolani, 21, and his mother, Jaya, on Jan. 21 in Atlanta and “It’s an opportunity to set a new national standard” BUZZ BERWELL HITESH AND JAYATOLANI'S GREENVILLE ATTORNEY ships, such as the Tolani’s case, at the ap peals level, Berwell said. “It’s an op portunity to set a new national could decide whether the two will be deported to India after living for nearly two decades in the United States. “We take encouragement that they are trying to open the door,” said the Tolanis’ Greenville attor ney Buzz Berwell, who noted that two other cases have been re manded since the Tolanis won standard,” said Berwell, who, as part of the law firm Nelson, Mullins, Riley and Scarborough, has taken on the Tolanis’ case for free. 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