April 10, 1990

LEAD: Alberto Fujimori, an once little-known obscure agricultural engineer who campaigned in traditional Japanese robes, displaced the novelist Mario Vargas Llosa today as the favorite to become Peru's next President.

LEAD: On the day he was to submit a package of ''radical'' economic proposals to President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Deputy Prime Minister in charge of the program was still talking today of ''drafts'' and ''possible alternatives,'' not a clear plan of attack against what he acknowledged is a severe crisis.

LEAD: A new treatment can significantly reduce the death rate of patients who go into shock from bacterial infections, potentially saving tens of thousands of lives each year, a research report to be released this week shows.

LEAD: Insurance companies are liable for $960 million in damage and injury claims against Owens-Illinois Inc. arising from the use of its products containing asbestos, a New Jersey superior court has ruled.

LEAD: PSYCHOTHERAPY and psychiatric diagnosis are still often used to enforce conventional standards of masculinity and femininity and sometimes to brand as mentally ill people who depart from the norm, several new studies show.