March 20, 1985

IMAGING TECHNOLOGY

VANCOUVER (CP) — The
British Columbia health min-
istry has purchased exper-
imental imaging equipment
from West Germany that is
so new and untested a special
advisory council to the prov.
incial government recom-
mended it not be bought.

But Health Minister Jim
Nielsen said he is pleased
with the purchase.

If the equipment is dev-
eloped successfully, the min-
istry believes it will signal a
new age in imaging tech.
nology. The goal is to reach

kept in computer memory,
rather than on film, redueing
costs and making images
such as X-rays instantly
available over telephone
lines.

Premier Bill Bennett says
a recent purchase of $1

the stage where images are

million worth of the equip-
ment is offset by the sale of
$5 million worth of B.C. coal.

The bulk of the $1 million,
however, is just a portion of a
$15-million experimental pac-
kage at Victoria General
Hospital, said Nielsen.

The new radiology system
is being developed by Sie-
mens A.G., a giant West
German electronics firm.
Some of it has been installed
at Victoria General, where
chief radiologist Dr. Gordon
Ritchie says the game could
pay off. For now, he ack.
nowledges his hospital's en
try into the world of ‘high
technology is a costly gam
ble.

Premier Bill Bennett men-
tioned Siemens in a televised
speech to the province last
month. He spoke of how new
government policy-would see

New equipment,newage

“innovative new _ partner.
ships to promote jobs.”

Since then, government,
corporate and medical of
ficials have said the experi-
mental equipment will do the
job of standard radiology
departments, but no one
knows if it will do it better.
Standard radiology equip
ment would cost $8 million to
$10 million.

Victoria General is com-
mitted to the deal, but the
$15-million price tag , rep
resents only the cost of the
first two of four phases.
Hospital officials don't know
how much the rest will cost
because some of the equip.
ment hasn't yét been in
vented.

A provincial government
radiology advisory council

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FOTOFINISHING

OTTAWA (CP) — An infant is born grotesquely de
formed, with almost no brain. It is given a lethal injection
of a pain killer.

A young man emerges from a car accident physically
mutilated and severely brain damaged and comatose. He
is not hooked up to a resuscitator and dies.

An old woman, bed-ridden, loses the will to live and
begins a slow and painful slide to death. She is given pain
killers and warned too many will be fatal. She dies of an
overdose.

In each case, the patient died through direct or
indirect intervention of medical personnel who believed
the patient had a right to death.

And in each case, the medical personnel left
themselves open to legal retribution and, possibly,
murder charges.

With the rapid technological advances in the medical
industry that allow increasingly sophisticated life-sus
taining methods, doctors and nurses are facing such
decisions daily and apparently sometimes without

Mercy killing murder?

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consent of the family.
The most common subjects of mercy killing are the
very young — who would face years of misery and pain

or the very old, says a University of Victoria ethies pro Get the most

fessor. from s
There are no figures on the annual number of merey 2 fl your pictures . ..
killings in Canada but it is estimated it happens at least : — ‘
once a day somewhere in the country, says Prof. Eike ___ Custom Enlarging — any size. a =
Kluge, who is co-writing a book on the subject. Prints from slides — negative included — paper |
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are deliberately allowed to die each year, either through = |
fatal injections or by starvation. |
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The usual route is deliberate starvation,” which YOU WILL RECEIVE A BONUS COUPON.
takes about eight days but can take up to 17'4 days,

Kluge says, describing it as the “worst way of dying I can
think of.

“The problem is that in the public eye, consideration
of non-action is not perceived as readily as consideration
of an injection or hitting someone over the head.”

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‘D and D': Demon worship, murde:

TORONTO (CP) — “In the real world, I can't go fighting
dragons or exploring new planets or fighting supervillains
But in a game, I can be a heroic warrior or a spy or an
interstellar explorer — it allows me to do things I wouldn't
otherwise be able to do.”

Alex von Thorn, co-owner of The Worldhouse game
store in Toronto, tries to explain the allure such fantasy
role-playing games as Dungeons and Dragons hold for him
and about 1,000 regular customers.

Better known in the jargon-dominated world of
“gamers” as DandD, Dungeons and Dragons is hailed by
boosters as an imagination-expanding pastime that has
rescued glassy-eyed children from the brain-numbing TV
tube.

But opponents call the game a dangerous manual’on the
occult that teaches children the fine points of demon worship
and murder while masquerading as a 1980s version of
cowboys and Indians. Some day DandD has been responsible
for suicides and murders in the United States.

Although on the market since the early "70s, DandD and
its attendént controversy leaped into Canadian headlines
last month when it was linked to a murder trial in Orange
ville, Ont., a small community northwst of Toronto.

A psychiatrist testified a 14-year-old boy charged with
first-degree murder in the strangling deaths of a pre-teen
Orangeville sister and brother was pre-oceupied ‘with the
fantasy game. The boy has pleaded not guilty by reason of
insanity and a verdict in the case will be delivered March 20.

“Basically, Dungeons and Dragons is a form of
interactive role-playing game where instead of passively
reading a story, everybody participates in it and decides the
outcome,” says von Thorn, 26

In the game, players adopt characters whose traits —
including constitution, dexterity, strength and wisdom -
are determined by the role of dice.

Led by a dungeon master, or game leader, player-char.
acters verbally embark on an hours-long adventure where
they encounter monsters and other obstacles. The outcome
of each encounter — whether monsters are killed or subdued
and characters injured, sometimes fatally — is again
determined by dice rolling

For Rudyard Griffiths and Chris Otter, both 14 year-old
Grade 9 students and regular customers at The Worldhouse,
DandD has been a way of stretching their imaginations and
their list of friends.

“I think one reason I like fantasy (games) is that I was a
big fantasy reader,” Griffiths says. “Not only could I just

ELLE ABN sp

read a book, but by playing a role-playing game, I could be in
a book.

“The biggest asset about Dungeons and Dragons is
there’s no way to win,” says Griffiths. “The party (of char
acters) works together as a team, not against the dungeon
master, but as a way of advancing.”

Both teens have cut down on the amount of DandD they
play after their parents suggested their hours of play were
affecting their grades.

“That's when we were complete space cases,” says
Otter. “We allowed ourselves to become addicted.

That fear of pre-occupation and the nature of the game
books are at the root of movements aimed at banning or at
least curtailing the sale of Dungeons and Dragons and its
role-playing offshoots in North America

Ed Brouwer, a Penecostal youth pastor at Broadway
Tabernacle in Orangeville, calls the game satanic and shoots
down contentions it expands a child's mind while teaching
co-operation and interactive social skills.

“That's the same line they fed us when we were
smoking marijuana in the 60s,” Brouwer, a former drug
addict, says of the mind-expansion argument. “And while it
may be a game of co-operation, it's co-operation of violence.
pre-meditated murder and warring

Brouwer says Dungeons and_Dragons how-to books
contain detailed incantations for casting spells, descriptions
of assassination techniques and insanity curses

LINKS TO DEATHS

His concerns are echoed by Dr. Thomas Radecki, a
psychiatrist at the University of Illinois, who says at least 11
teenage suicides and two murders were directly caused by
Dungeons and Dragons. In 14 other deaths, DandD played a
major role, he says.

Radecki, chairman of the 3,000-member National
Coalition on Television Violence, says the group wants the
U.S. government to require DandD books to include
warnings the game can cause injury

Like Brouwer, Radecki admits he has never played the
game: “I don’t think one has to shoot cocaine to know it's a
problem

Cheryl Freedman, co-owner of The Worldhouse, says
the game mostly attracts university and high school
students, although “a precocious 10-year-old can play

As to the controversy, Freedman: “If you don't know
what your kids are doing, you're scared.

Freeman says parents who are intimidated by the game
usually approve when they come into the store and see the
games, and many play DandD with their kids

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