Today's Globe: mercy flight, gift rules, Harvard Vanguard credit, breast cancer recurrence, Vivitrol reaction, Eva Reich

A witness said that people were visible inside the burning Beechcraft, "but there
was nothing you could do." (Globe Staff Photo / George Rizer)

A volunteer pilot flying a Long Island cancer patient and his wife on a mercy mission to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston nose-dived through low cloud cover into the empty back row of a supermarket parking lot in Easton yesterday morning. All three aboard the plane died in the crash.

Despite howls of protest about a new law designed to crack down on gifts to doctors, several Massachusetts life sciences companies say they remain hopeful the regulations can be implemented in a way that doesn't hurt their ability to work with physicians.

Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, the state's largest physicians practice not affiliated with a hospital, says it has been able to free up about $15 million that was set aside as collateral for a line of credit with Bank of America Corp.

Women who survive breast cancer for five years after treatment have a relatively low risk of the disease recurring, according to a US study published yesterday.

Federal regulators warned doctors about severe skin reactions seen in patients taking Vivitrol, an injectable treatment for alcoholism made by Cambridge-based Alkermes Inc. and marketed by Cephalon Inc.

Dr. Eva Reich, daughter of Dr. Wilhelm Reich and lecturer on the controversial work on orgonomy that he pioneered more than a half century ago, died Sunday at her home in Hancock, Maine. She was 84.