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1430053_4 | may also recommend a transvaginal ultrasound examination to reveal ovarian enlargement or cysts or overgrowth of the uterine lining. An endometrial biopsy may be performed to check for cancer. With a syndrome so diverse, the treatments are also varied. Some trial and error may be involved since different approaches work better in some women than in others. Many women are helped by birth control pills, particularly the combination oral contraceptives that contain low-androgenic progestins, like Ortho-Cyclen and Ovulen. This regulates the menstrual cycle, suppresses FSH and LH release, lowers testosterone levels (relieving symptoms like acne and excess hair growth), raises the level of the protective cholesterol and protects the uterine lining. If a woman with PCOS then wishes to become pregnant, she is advised to stop the pill and immediately begin trying to conceive before her hormone levels become abnormal again. The ovulation-stimulating drug Clomid is also often prescribed in such cases. Those found to be insulin resistant are helped by the insulin-sensitizing medications used to treat Type 2 diabetes, most often metformin (Glucophage) or the newer drugs, pioglitazone (Actos) and rosiglitazone (Avandia). Treatment of insulin resistance can help a woman who is trying to shed excess weight. Many women with PCOS have found that in addition to regular exercise, a diet relatively low in carbohydrates helps control weight by reducing the level of insulin the body must produce to process glucose. But since women with PCOS are already at risk of developing heart disease, overconsuming saturated fats and cholesterol is unwise. Focus instead on lean meats, fish and poultry and low-fat dairy products with lots of nonstarchy vegetables and low-calorie (low sugar) fruits, like berries and cantaloupe. Eat grain products in modest amounts and preferably unrefined -- whole wheat breads and cereals, oats and brown rice. The Emotional Connection Depression, embarrassment, discouragement, stress, anxiety and feelings of hopelessness are not uncommon among women with PCOS, especially before they receive proper diagnostic work-ups and effective treatments. Many find help in support groups, sometimes through chapters of the Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome Association (on the Web at pcosupport.org). The group can also be reached at P.O. Box 80517, Portland, Ore. 97280 or by phone at 877-775-PCOS (877-755-7267). A new book, ''Living With PCOS'' (Addicus Books, $14.95), by Angela Best-Boss and Evelina Weidman Sterling with Dr. Richard S. Legro, contains inspiring stories from affected women and information about diagnosis and treatment. PERSONAL HEALTH | Women Can Fight an Almost Secret Syndrome |
1405769_0 | To the Editor: Re ''Spam: An Escalating Attack of the Clones'' (June 27): Spam isn't really a technology problem -- it's an economic one. Spam has a cost to the network infrastructure and to the recipients, but virtually none of it is charged to the spammer. Whenever a resource is priced below cost it will be overused by some to the detriment of others. Typically the only penalty for sending spam is that the spammer loses a free e-mail account when the provider is inundated with ''Remove Me'' replies. But the spammer doesn't care. If sending e-mail cost as little as one-hundredth of a cent per message, there would be a lot less one-time spamming. While this is easier said than done, it would start to bring the economics of spam back into balance and set the stage for a long-term solution. MICHAEL J. ZEHR Cambridge, Mass. | The War Against Spam |
1410792_0 | To the Editor: Re ''Facing the Hormone Dilemma'' (letters, July 22): One of the most neglected benefits of hormone replacement has yet to be mentioned, its effect on mood. Scientific evidence confirms that the decline or absence of estrogen during menopause may be the first step in a sequence of endocrine events that can cause severe depression in susceptible women. Studies strongly suggest that depression may be dramatically relieved through estrogen replacement. I happen to be one of those susceptible menopausal women who experienced a disabling psychiatric illness. I was fortunate that my doctor suspected a hormonal imbalance. Estrogen replacement brought about a dramatic recovery. MARCIA LAWRENCE Fort Lee, N.J., July 22, 2002 | Estrogen and Mood |
1410850_1 | in criminal law, bail arrangements and police powers to make it easier for the authorities to prosecute acts of terror and organized crime. He added, ''In reviewing the cease-fires, I will give particular weight to any substantiated information that a paramilitary organization is engaged in training, targeting, acquisition or development of arms or weapons, or any similar preparations for a terrorist campaign in Northern Ireland or elsewhere.'' In an interview afterward, he explained that he was empowered to bring sanctions against any groups violating the cease-fire terms, but he added, ''Obviously, I hope not to have to do it.'' A senior Bush administration official, in a telephone interview from Washington, said: ''This is a significant development. The statements from Prime Minister Blair and John Reid reflect a strong feeling that the time has come to complete the transition from an era of paramilitaries to an era of politics.'' President Bush expressed support for Mr. Blair, saying in a statement that the militias must ''end their violent activities, cease all preparations for them, and recognize the political process as the only valid vehicle for change.'' The moves today come as a majority of Protestants, having lost faith in the peace process they once backed, are putting pressure on David Trimble, the head of the Ulster Unionist Party and the leader of Northern Ireland's home-rule government, to persuade Britain to get tougher with Sinn Fein, the political party of the Irish Republican Army. Mr. Trimble had asked Mr. Blair and Mr. Reid to consider expelling Sinn Fein from the Northern Ireland government, but the two men declared instead that paramilitary groups across the board bore responsibility for the current situation. ''What we have got to do is make sure that this small number of paramilitaries -- on both sides, frankly -- do not wreck what is the one decent chance for a good future for Northern Ireland that we have,'' Mr. Reid said. He did single out Sinn Fein for special comment because it has ministers in the Northern Ireland executive. ''They must appreciate that operating jointly in government, as the agreement requires, calls for a measure of responsibility and trust that the transition from violence to democracy continues apace, has not stalled and will be completed without delay,'' he said. Mr. Trimble warned Monday that the disillusionment among Protestants was jeopardizing his party's influence and sending unionists into the rejectionist camp | Blair Says Northern Ireland's Militias Must All Disband |
1408903_2 | a higher risk of breast cancer in women who had taken the drug for four years or more and that it had not questioned the drug's ability to relieve hot flashes, night sweats and other problems suffered by women entering menopause. Dr. Kusiak said that the company had asked its sales force to call on all the significant prescribers of Prempro to let them know that the study was coming out and to explain its findings. ''The doctors were anxious to hear from our reps,'' she said. She said it was too soon to say how many women would stop Prempro. A Pharmacia spokeswoman, Caroline Bullock, confirmed that the company's representatives had increased calls to physicians about Activella last week. ''Women are going into doctor's offices and asking to come off Prempro, but they still need alternative treatments,'' she said. The part of the Women's Health Initiative study that was halted included only Wyeth's Prempro, which contains a mixture of estrogen and progestin. While the hormonal treatments that compete with Prempro contain forms of estrogen and progestin chemically different from Prempro, there is no evidence yet that they are safer than Prempro. The makers of nonhormonal drugs used to treat osteoporosis are also trying to take advantage of the Prempro study. Besides helping to relieve symptoms of menopause, one of Prempro's approved uses is the prevention of osteoporosis. For example, sales representatives from Eli Lilly told doctors they visited last week that the company's drug Evista was a safe alternative to hormone therapy, according to the ImpactRx survey. ''We're doing a lot of education,'' said Lauren Cislak, a Lilly spokeswoman. She said the company wanted to make sure that patients and doctors knew that Evista did not include estrogen or progestin, like Prempro and the other hormonal treatments. Merck & Company ran a full-page ad in The New York Times on Sunday, promoting Fosamax, another drug that treats osteoporosis. The ad made it clear that Fosamax is a nonhormonal treatment. ''We're encouraging women to have a discussion with their doctor,'' said Gregory Reaves, a spokesman for Merck. Mariann Caprino, a spokeswoman for Pfizer, said the company's discussions with physicians about FemHRT might have increased as doctors who were curious about the study asked the company's sales representatives for more information. ''There is tremendous complexity involved in understanding this study,'' Ms. Caprino said. She said Pfizer did not talk about the | Survey Halted, Drug Makers Seek to Protect Hormone Sales |
1408826_1 | fatalities amongst combatants on all sides,'' the group said. ''We also acknowledge the grief and pain of their relatives.'' The apology, published in the Irish republican newsletter An Phoblacht/Republican News, comes days before the 30th anniversary of one of the I.R.A.'s deadliest attacks, known as Bloody Friday. On July 21, 1972, the center of Belfast was ripped apart by 22 bombs in 75 minutes, leaving nine people dead and 130 injured; additional bomb hoaxes disrupted the security forces' response to the attacks. Despite the coming anniversary, the apology seemed to take politicians genuinely by surprise, in both its unexpected timing and its broad scope. Unlike previous announcements, the British and Irish governments were not informed about the statement beforehand. ''The process of conflict resolution requires the equal acknowledgment of the grief and loss of others,'' the statement read. ''On this anniversary, we are endeavoring to fulfill this responsibility to those we have hurt.'' It said the I.R.A. remained committed to the Northern Ireland peace efforts and to ''the acceptance of past mistakes and of the hurt and pain we have caused to others.'' John Reid, Britain's secretary of state for Northern Ireland, welcomed the apology, and called it ''an acknowledgment that the futility of the pain'' caused by the conflict would not be repeated. Richard N. Haass, President Bush's liaison to Northern Ireland, said in a telephone interview: ''It's important in any situation of this sort that parties deal effectively with their past. Normalization often comes in discrete steps, and this is a discrete step.'' David Ervine, leader of the Progressive Unionist Party, which has ties to Protestant paramilitary groups, said he hoped the statement ''heralds a new attitude.'' The unionists, who want increased ties with Britain, are pushing Prime Minister Tony Blair to take action against the I.R.A.'s political wing, Sinn Fein, by the end of July over its links to rebels in Colombia, and its failure to destroy its weapons caches. Jeffrey Donaldson, a dissident politician from the Ulster Unionist Party, called the statement ''a halfhearted apology,'' and called on the I.R.A. to take more concrete steps, like fully disarming or disbanding entirely. Prime Minister Bertie Ahern of the Republic of Ireland has also called on the group to disband. Mr. Donaldson, in a radio interview with Irish state broadcaster RTE, said: ''Their words are not matched by their actions, and their actions speak louder than their words.'' | I.R.A. Apologizes for Civilian Deaths in Its 30-Year Campaign |
1408935_0 | An article in Science Times on July 9 about sensory integration dysfunction, a new diagnosis being given to many young children who have difficulties processing stimuli that come in through the senses, misstated a comment from Dr. Adrian Sandler, a developmental pediatrician, about effective therapy for children with other types of learning disabilities. Dr. Sandler said that while sensory integration therapy, a type of occupational therapy, did not help children with other types of learning disabilities, these children could be helped by other forms of occupational therapy. | Corrections |
1407081_1 | and blood clots found in the study did not seem great enough to warrant going off hormones. ''I've read the reports,'' said Rosemary Herpel, 59, of Shaker Heights, Ohio. ''We're talking about 8 more people in 10,000 who got breast cancer. I just think that's not significant enough to make me stop. I'm very concerned with bone loss. I have friends who haven't taken hormones, and they are experiencing bone loss.'' Janice Kennedy, 56, a third-grade teacher in Lima, Ohio, said: ''I'm really not buying what they're selling. I know their studies have documented numbers, but for me, hormone replacement has been beneficial.'' Ms. Kennedy sees her doctor once a year and has regular mammograms and pap tests. Because she is on a low-dose estrogen patch, and progestin in pill form, and there is no breast cancer in her family, she feels safe. Many women who take hormone supplements to treat temporary symptoms of menopause may decide to continue, said Roger A. Lobo, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. ''If a woman wants to take estrogen and progestin for her quality of life, my recommendation would be that she take the hormones in low doses and that we monitor those doses once or twice a year,'' Dr. Lobo said. ''And she should have mammograms once a year.'' Hot flashes, which are caused by fluctuations in natural hormones, typically last only a couple of years, as women go through menopause, doctors say. Dr. Lobo said he commonly prescribed hormone replacement therapy in doses that were only half as large as those used in the Women's Health Initiative study. One patient, Dr. Lobo said, is determined to remain on hormone replacement therapy in spite of being at some risk for breast cancer. ''We've tried to take her off before,'' he said, ''but she has such bad hot flashes, she can't sleep, and it affects her work.'' But the study did not specifically address whether women at high risk for breast cancer are any more likely to get breast cancer when they take the hormones. Doctors will be less likely to recommend hormone replacement therapy for women looking to prevent heart disease and preserve their long-term health. ''We have to stop using the drugs for healthy women,'' concluded Dr. Maura Parker Quinlan, a hormone replacement therapy specialist at the University of Chicago Hospitals, who is now recommending | Patients Weigh Quitting Drug After Research Indicates Risk |
1407109_4 | 1975 in The New England Journal of Medicine indicated that estrogen substantially increased the risk of cancer of the lining of the uterus. Soon, doctors and drug companies found an alternative. They began giving estrogen with progestin, which counteracts the effects on the uterine lining, leading to monthly bleeding that resembles a menstrual period. Women who had had a hysterectomy could take estrogen alone. Women who had a uterus could take the hormone combination. The problem was solved, or so most thought. Sales soared again in the 1980's, Dr. Marks said, after a major advertising initiative by the company, which promoted the hormones for the prevention of osteoporosis. There was no doubt that the drugs helped many women through a difficult time when their sleep was disrupted by night sweats and their days by hot flashes. ''There is nothing else out there that addresses the symptoms of menopause,'' said Dr. Victoria Kusiak, vice president of global medical affairs at Wyeth. But scientists and doctors were saying something more -- that it could be used for disease prevention. Many were impressed by evidence from dozens of observational studies in which women who happened to take estrogen were compared to women who did not. The drawback to these studies, however, is that women who decide to take estrogen, studies have shown, tend to be different from those who do not. They are healthier, leaner, less likely to smoke. The question is, does estrogen make women healthy, or do healthy women take estrogen? Nevertheless, many of the studies indicated that those who took the drugs had fewer heart attacks and fewer strokes, that they had stronger bones and fewer fractures. There were also laboratory studies demonstrating effects on animals and cells that seemed to support the observations. ''There was all this mechanistic stuff,'' Dr. Grady said. ''I have six inches of papers suggesting that it improves coronary vasodilation, that it prevents atherosclerosis.'' In fact, she said, the accumulating evidence for a heart disease benefit, although indirect, seemed overwhelming. Even a large study by the National Institutes of Health seemed to support the notion of benefit. It looked not at disease but at markers for disease, cholesterol levels and bone density. Women who took hormones had better cholesterol levels and denser bones than those taking a placebo. ''If you look at this evidence -- and it's part of the mind-boggling aspect of this whole | Hormone Replacement Study A Shock to the Medical System |
1407082_0 | Shares of Wyeth, the drug company that makes the top-selling drugs for hormone replacement therapies, tumbled more than 24 percent yesterday after news that a large study had found that women taking one of the company's drugs had a higher risk of breast cancer. The hormone replacements are Wyeth's biggest-selling products. Sales of Prempro, the subject of the federal study, and the related products, Premarin and Premphase, generated more than $2 billion in sales last year, or nearly 15 percent of Wyeth's revenue. Some Wall Street analysts said they thought Prempro sales would fall sharply as many women stopped taking the drug. But they said investors might have overreacted by pushing the stock price down so low. Shares of Wyeth dropped $11.94, to $37.30. Viren Mehta of Mehta Partners, a health care investment firm in New York, estimated that the three drugs now accounted for about 20 percent of Wyeth's market value and said he thought most of the sales of Prempro, which is a combination of estrogen and progestin, could be lost. Prempro had sales of about $732 million last year, according to IMS Health, a health care information company. But Mr. Mehta noted that the researchers had decided to continue the long-term federal study of Premarin, which contains only estrogen. Premarin sales were $1.3 billion last year. ''The market is reacting as if the products are being pulled from the market,'' said Rita M. Freedman, a health care analyst at PNC Advisors in Philadelphia. ''This is not good news, but it is not a disaster.'' Wyeth executives tried to calm investors yesterday, saying the hormone therapies still played a crucial role in treating the symptoms of menopause, which is the main reason women begin taking them. The directors of the federal study, the Women's Health Initiative, sent letters to the 16,000 participants, telling them to stop taking Prempro. The researchers halted the study after finding a higher risk of breast cancer in women who were taking the drugs compared with those who were taking a dummy pill. Dr. Victoria Kusiak, vice president for global medical affairs at Wyeth, said that the risk of breast cancer found in the federal study was actually lower than the risk found in other studies and already stated in the drug's label. | Wyeth Stock Falls 24% After Report |
1411683_3 | stress, said there was a thin line between denial and ''overlooking.'' ''If there is nothing you can do about the situation, if it is beyond your control, you have the option to either obsess about it or move on,'' he said. ''A lot of these people worried about the stock market may just be moving on in their own quiet way.'' For the six million American women of menopausal age on hormone replacement therapy, it is still hard to tell if they are in denial or just confused. Earlier this month, a large federal study of the therapy was halted because the drugs, a combination of estrogen and progestin, caused slight but significant increases in the risk of breast cancer. Adrienne Burros, an artist in New York, said last week that she has been taking hormone replacement medication for six years and, despite the recent news, has no immediate plans to stop. ''I have read everything and still can't figure out what to do, so I have sort of given up on making any decisions at all,'' she said. ''My friends are all in the same boat.'' Ms. Burros said that her ability to deny that the therapy might be bad for her had only been helped by the fact that her doctor is, well, also in denial. ''Even he doesn't know what to do,'' she said. ''So as long as he is in denial, I can be too.'' Robert Strang, executive vice president of Decision Strategies Fairfax International, a security and investigative concern, said that denial was the only way a lot of people, especially those in law enforcement, could get out of bed. ''Nuclear attack, breaches in mainstream security, fear of water contamination,'' Mr. Strang said last week as he counted threats to domestic well-being on his fingers. ''If you take any of those seriously, as seriously as they could be taken, well, you won't get out of the door in the morning. A healthy level of denial keeps the collective blood pressure down.'' Some forms of denial actually keep blood pressure up. Eric Schlosser, the author of ''Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal'' (Houghton Mifflin), said that the popularity of fast food was an ideal demonstration of the human power of denial. It is, after all, the logical conceit behind the popularity of fast food. How else could Americans, who get fatter every | What, Me Worry? |
1411705_2 | stations. Despite recent events, American airports and airplanes have not reached a red-alert level, and so many travelers still expect some sense of ''normality'' when they catch a flight. That is, after all, what the White House wants Americans to feel, and air travel for many people still means going on vacation and relaxing. Some security experts say an invisible wall of security, like that set up in casinos, could help alleviate anxiety and inconvenience. This would include a heavy reliance on surveillance cameras and undercover guards. It could also mean an increased use of profiling, which itself points to instances in which security seems to do more harm than good, at least from the perspective of many Muslim, black and Hispanic men. But the argument against having an invisible security system is that visible measures might act as a deterrent, even if they heighten anxiety. Most businesses that rely on continuation of a leisure mindset might balk at the levels of security now required of airports and airlines. Rare is the department store that would choose to broadcast messages saying that bombs are not allowed. It is no surprise, then, that many airline executives, in an effort to preserve their bottom line, have been berating the government for creating tough security measures that they say are driving passengers away for various reasons. Besides stirring up paranoia, concentrating security in one area can turn other sites into attractive targets, some security experts say. The widening of the security perimeter often just displaces the danger zone to the area right outside the perimeter. For example, the tightening of security at the X-ray checkpoints in airports has made the crowded ticketing areas attractive targets, and the addition of guards to those counters could move the bulls-eye farther out, to the parking lot. ''I'm not sure if we put more police officers out, that will be an improvement,'' said John D. Woodward Jr., a former operative with the Central Intelligence Agency who works as a senior policy analyst for the Rand Corporation, focusing on national defense. ''You just can't protect everything. If you're moving out the perimeter, you're providing targets elsewhere. And you have to ask what are the acceptable risks we can live with.'' Some psychologists also argue that while security overkill may in fact decrease anxiety, it can at the same time create a false sense of complacency. Social psychologists point | The Nation; Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid |
1411831_0 | Britain named Rowan Williams, 52, right, the Archbishop of Wales, to become Archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of 70 million Anglicans, in October. The cleric is outspokenly against the war in Afghanistan and in favor of gays and women becoming priests. Warren Hoge | July 21-27: INTERNATIONAL; THIS TURBULENT PRIEST |
1411598_0 | THE recent news that hormone replacement therapy may be harmful to women was reason to celebrate for Susan Wagner, president of Equine Advocates, an organization she founded in 1996 to rescue, protect and prevent the abuse of horses. ''We're ecstatic,'' said Ms. Wagner, whose 5,000-member organization is based in Bedford. ''We feel it's the first real nail in the coffin of the Premarin mare urine industry, and that we may actually see an end to what has been a 60-year catastrophe for horses.'' Introduced in 1942, Premarin, the leading hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women, is manufactured from estrogens obtained from the urine of pregnant mares. It is a major profit center for Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, with annual sales of $1.3 billion. As the women of the baby boom have reached menopause in greater numbers, the demand for Premarin has increased. So have protests from groups that say horses are abused and slaughtered in the production of this drug. The treatment of an estimated 35,000 mares and the fate of their foals born on Premarin mare urine farms across North America have mobilized equine supporters who want to halt the drug's production. The advocates say Wyeth Pharmaceuticals mistreats mares and contributes to an overabundance of foals, many of which are slaughtered. Wyeth countered that many independent experts had looked into the care of the horses and have confirmed that they received a high standard of care. ''Millions of women have come to rely on Premarin to take them through their postmenopausal years,'' said Natalie de Vane, a Wyeth spokeswoman, ''and its effectiveness in treating menopause and preventing osteoporosis is well established. Fringe groups of animal activists are continuing a misinformation campaign that detracts from the value that Premarin provides to women's health care.'' Equine Advocates has demanded that Wyeth discontinue Premarin, saying that synthetic alternatives are available. But Wyeth maintained that no product made from synthetic or natural estrogens contained all the components found in Premarin or was supported by six decades of research like Premarin. Many Premarin mare urine farms are in North Dakota and in Canada. According to Ms. Wagner, mares are tethered to urine collection pouches in small stalls, and water intake is regulated for concentrated urine. In response to critics, in 1996 Wyeth began inviting equine veterinarians to visit the ranches. A May 1997 report by a team consisting of the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, the American | Criticism of Drug Therapy May Aid Mares, Group Says |
1411789_6 | a request for proposals from architectural firms to help redesign the trade center site. Port Authority officials quickly swatted down the effort; Mr. Garvin withdrew the request, and soon another call for planners was jointly released by the Port Authority and the development corporation. A further sign of its relative lack of power came in the Port Authority's insistence that all the site's office and retail space be restored. Given that a major portion of the land had to be reserved for a memorial, planners were left with few options but to produce a very dense arrangement of buildings. The agency does have some muscle, though, in the form of money. Congress required that the corporation get at least $2 billion of the $21.7 billion appropriated for rebuilding. That has occasionally left state and city officials asking for money for business recovery programs from an agency appointed by city and state executives. And the development corporation's outreach efforts, including helping to pay for the recent town hall meetings to consider the initial six rebuilding plans, set the stage for the ensuing public revolt. The Victims' Families The dust from the collapse of the twin towers had barely settled when people began to talk of how to memorialize the victims of the tragedy. But even 10 months later, many family members cannot bring themselves to visit the site, much less engage in a public debate over its future. The public face of the group -- often referred to simply as the families -- has been represented by a relatively small number of people, but it has become clear that collectively they are not of one voice. In the early days, some family members vowed to chain themselves to bulldozers if any effort was made to build anything on the site where their loved ones had fallen. Those threats have dissipated, but the momentum behind a ''soaring'' memorial, as Mr. Giuliani put it, has not. Frustrated with their reception from Mr. Bloomberg, family members have made efforts to re-engage Mr. Giuliani in the public discussion about a memorial. Most recently, Mr. Pataki has emerged as their biggest champion. The Design Professionals As commercial life in the city slowed considerably after Sept. 11, designers and architects quickly found their creative juices bubbling over, and they were unable to keep themselves from thinking about what form the rebuilding process would take. They wanted to | At Trade Center Site, A Wealth of Ideas; Competing Interests Are Fighting To Have a Say in Reviving Downtown |
1411501_4 | bit as ubiquitous. Television commercials show soft-focus pictures of people on swings, picking flowers, climbing rocks or going to sleep with a smile on their faces, all ending with a very quick list of possible side effects (dry mouth and nausea seem especially popular) and the key line, ''Ask your doctor.'' They seem bent on not only eradicating every sniffle and ache; they want to create an entirely new language as well, one in which the Z and X would be the most useful letters in the Scrabble box: Vioxx, Celebrex, Zoloft, Zestril, Zyrtec, Aciphex, Tiazac, Zithromax, Zyprexa, Xanax, Xalatan. The names read like a list of unvisited galaxies for a ''Star Trek'' quest. How are we supposed to choose? Perhaps it would be safer to just swallow them all. Americans now take close to three billion prescription medications a year. Considering that the cost of these drugs is a huge part of what is making health care completely unaffordable, trimming back on our personal pill intake could be seen as performing one's civic duty. Some of these medicines will be the darlings that send the stock shares bursting off the charts, while others will engender class-action lawsuits. There will be those pills that, based on what our doctor told us and what a friend overheard and what a magazine article read in a dentist's office proclaims, we will decide are indispensable to our well-being. Women made their way through history without the benefit of estrogen replacement before the craze hit in 1966. Women also had shorter life expectancies than they do now. Those two sentences do not have a cause-and-effect relationship, but what we want out of medicine is to lessen our suffering and stave off our death for as long as possible, and so we must weigh out the benefits and consequences of every pill. Whereas these decisions should feel informed, they in fact seem more like a trip to the craps table, betting, throwing and crossing our fingers. Chances are the key bits of information are not being withheld from us. Chances are no one is exactly sure. Estrogen is out, but wait another 20 years and it might qualify for a comeback. And when it does, we'll still be there, lining up for the pill. THE WAY WE LIVE NOW: 7-28-02 Ann Patchett is the winner of this year's PEN/Faulkner Award for her novel ''Bel Canto.'' | Estrogen, After a Fashion |
1410293_0 | To the Editor: Re ''Survey Halted, Drug Makers Seek to Protect Hormone Sales'' (Business Day, July 17): Before women feel confident to continue hormone replacement therapy for four years or less, they should consider that the follow-up of participants in the Women's Health Initiative study has just begun. It may seem logical that women who take hormones for less than five years are safe from the excess morbidity caused by hormone replacement therapy. But only long-term follow-up of this important study will tell. SHEILA FEIT, M.D. Syosset, N.Y., July 17, 2002 | Facing the Hormone Dilemma |
1410255_2 | not necessarily turn on until pressure falls 30 percent below what is recommended, a safety margin that is potentially much lower than the safe pressure in a fully loaded vehicle. Tire makers say that by raising the recommended tire pressure on some cars, the rule could increase the margin of safety for consumers, ensuring that drivers would be warned to reinflate their tires before pressure actually dropped below the level considered safe. The drawback would be a slightly less comfortable, stiffer ride. But the alternative, said Donald B. Shea, the rubber association's president, is to offer a false sense of safety to some drivers. ''It's intuitive; if you put in a warning system, people will say, 'it must be O.K., the light's not on,' '' he said. The group's survey of 80 vehicles found that 58 would be dangerously under-inflated by at least 1 pound per square inch, and some by 10 pounds, before the warning light came on. ''In some cases, there is actually going to be a period of time when those tires are going to be driven, underinflated, while not triggering an alarm,'' said Ann Wilson, senior vice president of the association. Association executives cited a government survey that found that 65 percent of people say they would check their tire pressure less often if they have a warning system on board. Automobile manufacturers dispute that. Robert S. Strassburger, vice president of vehicle safety at the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, said that failure to signal a problem would probably occur only in one vehicle in 1,000. One reason, Mr. Strassburger said, is that vehicles are seldom fully loaded. Stephanie Faul, a spokeswoman for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, said that the presence of a warning system would probably discourage some people from checking their tires, and that few people checked their tires often enough already. If people will not bend down, unscrew the valve cap and apply a pressure gauge, Ms. Faul said, then the automatic system ''would have to be calibrated for all possible consequences.'' The traffic safety agency initially favored requiring the more accurate, more expensive monitors, but automakers persuaded the Bush administration to offer manufacturers the option of using the simpler, cheaper system. Public Citizen and the Center for Auto Safety, both founded by Ralph Nader, and the New York Public Interest Research Group have filed suit to require the more sensitive monitors. | Tire Industry Says Warnings On Pressure May Fall Short |
1410292_0 | To the Editor: Re ''Many Taking Hormone Pills Now Face a Difficult Choice'' (front page, July 15): The findings of the Women's Health Initiative study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health regarding the adverse effects of Prempro are not a call to desert all hormone replacement therapy, but an invitation to investigate more optimal regimens, including those that cycle the progesterone component or deliver it in micronized rather than synthetic form. When I recently began considering hormone replacement therapy for menopausal symptoms, I consulted five clinicians in my community whom I consider experts on the topic about their experiences. I got five different opinions on what to take and how to take it. Much more needs to be revealed about other forms of hormone replacement therapy that may yet serve many women well. KAREN ENGBERG, M.D. Santa Barbara, Calif., July 19, 2002 | Facing the Hormone Dilemma |
1410188_0 | To the Editor: ''An Icelandic Battle of Wildlife Versus Voltage'' (front page, July 16) recounts a conflict being waged in many parts of the world where living river systems and the human and ecological communities they support are sacrificed to satisfy aluminum giants like Alcoa. Alcoa and other energy-intensive partners are planning three huge dams for the Amazon, which would flood rainforests and indigenous peoples' villages and also threaten endangered species. Is this necessary? According to the Container Recycling Institute, in 2001, more than 750,000 tons of aluminum went unrecycled in the United States, enough cans to circle the earth 153 times. We are struck by the lack of transparency in the power purchase agreements in Iceland, emblematic of an era in which companies appropriate resources with little accountability and growing disdain for the earth's fragile balance. GLENN SWITKES São Paulo, Brazil, July 17, 2002 The writer is Latin American program director for International Rivers Network. | Ecology in a Can: It's a Jungle Out There |
1410296_0 | To the Editor: Re ''Many Taking Hormone Pills Now Face a Difficult Choice'' (front page, July 15): Having achieved three score and 10 -- I admit it -- and having taken estrogen and progesterone for 27 years, and with no family history of breast cancer, I would like to continue my small dose. I attribute my excellent bone mass test results to these drugs. I would like to keep playing tennis weekly. It's a choice: Do I prefer a shorter, but more active life span, or longevity, with possibly more disabilities? No contest! For me, quality of life wins, even though it may not be quite so long. ALICE E. BISK Far Rockaway, Queens July 17, 2002 | Facing the Hormone Dilemma |
1405421_0 | On the eve of next week's International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, a new report from the United Nations AIDS program states that at current infection rates, AIDS, the deadliest epidemic in human history, will kill 68 million people in the 45 most affected countries over the next 20 years -- more than five times the number claimed by AIDS in those nations in the past 20 years. In some of these nations, AIDS could kill half of today's new mothers. This need not happen. H.I.V. prevention campaigns work, and there is overwhelming evidence that the AIDS epidemic can be controlled -- but only when governments make fighting AIDS a priority. A handful of developing countries are proving this. Uganda, devastated by years of dictatorship and war, has also been ravaged by one of the highest H.I.V. prevalence rates in Africa. But after infection rates in the capital city of Kampala reached more than 30 percent in 1990, leaders in Parliament, urban neighborhoods and villages began to talk frankly and publicly about H.I.V. and AIDS. Community groups started education and prevention programs. Today Kampala's H.I.V. prevalence rate is 11 percent and falling. Zambia may become the second African nation to reverse its epidemic with education and prevention campaigns mounted by government and local communities. The prevalence of H.I.V. has fallen among young women in both urban and rural areas -- to 24 percent in 1999 from 28 percent in 1996 in cities and to 12 percent from 16 percent in the countryside. In Cambodia, a society that is still emerging from genocide and conflict, large-scale education and prevention programs (including steps to counter the stigma of H.I.V. and AIDS) have led to a decline in adult H.I.V. infection rates -- to 2.7 percent at the end of 2001 from 4 percent in 1997. And in Brazil, where access to H.I.V./AIDS treatment is constitutionally guaranteed, the number of AIDS deaths is plummeting and prevention programs are succeeding in some of the groups that are at highest risk for infection. There are other hopeful signs. Almost 100 countries now have national AIDS strategies. Governments have signed a United Nations declaration pledging to achieve specific global targets in fighting AIDS and creating an international framework for accountability. These efforts are to be applauded, but they are not enough. What's missing? Money, for one thing. By 2005, $10 billion will be needed annually to finance | In Poor Nations, a New Will to Fight AIDS |
1405417_2 | in separate talks to buy liquefied natural gas from Australia, Indonesia or Qatar, to be shipped by sea to Guangdong province in southeastern China. In September, the Chinese government authorized the negotiation of a joint venture to develop the huge but remote Tarim Basin gas field in Xinjiang province, near the intersection of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and China. The pipeline would pass through another large gas field in the middle of China and draw gas from it as well, but the Chinese government has insisted that the pipeline go all the way across the country, as a way of pursuing economic development and political control over its westernmost lands. While construction was supposed to be under way by now, the joint venture negotiations have proved longer, more complex and more tortuous than expected. Energy companies commonly try to share the financial and engineering costs of big projects as widely as possible before trying to grab as much of the eventual output as possible. But the Chinese pipeline project, which is not only costly but involves extensive negotiations with various ministries of the Chinese government, has become convoluted even by the standards of energy deals, analysts said. Beijing has assigned 55 percent of the project to the PetroChina Company, a unit of the China National Petroleum Corporation, and the rest to a foreign coalition led by the Royal Dutch/Shell Group. Shell's partners in the coalition were the Hong Kong China Gas Company, as well as Gazprom, Russia's gas monopoly, and Stroytransgaz, its pipeline affiliate. The selection of the Shell group last September was a setback for the Exxon Mobil Corporation, which had sought to be the foreign partner. But Exxon Mobil unexpectedly re-entered the negotiations in the last week, signing a memorandum of understanding with the members of the Shell consortium. Under the memorandum, Exxon Mobil will take 15 percent of the project, Shell and Hong Kong China Gas will take another 15 percent and the Gazprom businesses will take the remaining 15 percent, Exxon Mobil and Shell officials said. Exxon Mobil is in talks to share some of its stake with CLP Holdings, the holding company for China Light and Power, an electric utility in Hong Kong. Nick Wood, a Shell spokesman, said Shell wanted to include Exxon Mobil because ''it's a massive project, and we believe the project will benefit from combining the skills and experience'' of all the companies. | Energy Concerns Said to Be Near China Pipeline Pact |
1405457_1 | Heart Association. Days before The Journal was published, groups that support some uses of hormone therapy issued statements citing limitations of the study's findings, saying they do not apply to most women approaching menopause, because the women in HERS had an average age of 67 and a diagnosis of heart disease. A doctors' group, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, issued a statement that said for women in early menopause, hormone replacement was the best way to relieve menopausal symptoms like hot flashes and prevent bone loss, ''with minimal risk of side effects.'' The group added, ''The HERS study is not relevant for this younger patient population.'' Wyeth, the company that makes Premarin, the most widely used form of estrogen replacement, issued a similar statement. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said the HERS study did not determine whether hormone treatment could prevent heart disease in younger, healthier women. ''Answers on this issue will have to come from other research studies,'' the group said. Dr. Wolf Utian, executive director of the North American Menopause Society, said that if a woman had been using hormones for several years without problems, there was no reason to discontinue them, even if she had heart disease. The HERS study, Dr. Utian said, might frighten women ''into walking away from therapy that for them as individuals might be beneficial.'' Dr. Grady agreed that for younger postmenopausal women with severe symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats, hormone replacement was the most effective treatment. But she said she was skeptical of the idea that hormones might eventually be proved to prevent heart disease in healthy women. Her reason, she said, was that medical treatments that prevented disease always helped treat it or slow it as well. Since hormone therapy does not help women who already have heart disease, there is little reason to think it can prevent the disease or to prescribe it for that purpose, she said. The original HERS study included 2,763 women who were studied for 4.1 years. The women were assigned at random to take either placebos or daily doses of estrogen (0.625 milligram) and a synthetic form of the hormone progesterone, a progestin (2.5 milligrams). The estrogen was Premarin. The findings suggested that women who took hormones had a higher risk of heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems in the first year, and a decreased risk after the third year. | Hormone Therapy Study Finds Risk for Some |
1405487_4 | drug users into the wider population, Dr. Piot said. In Ukraine, nearly one in four new infections now occurs through heterosexual sex. The Caribbean is the second-most-affected area in the world. Infection rates are 6 percent in Haiti and 4 percent in the Bahamas. The epidemic in China is now spreading through heterosexual sex. Earlier, nearly all H.I.V. infections were transmitted through injecting drug use and unsafe use of blood. Worldwide, 15- to 24-year-olds account for half of all new infections. Almost 12 million young people now have H.I.V., and an additional 6,000 young adults become infected every day. The number of children left orphaned by AIDS continues to increase sharply. About 14 million children living today have lost one or both parents to AIDS. The number will continue to grow rapidly, as up to one-half of today's new mothers are likely to die of AIDS in the worst affected countries. A number of countries have experienced new successes in slowing the spread of H.I.V., and in some cases have made progress to make access to H.I.V. treatment more available for those infected, providing models for action for other countries. Zambia may soon become the second African country, following Uganda, to reverse a widespread epidemic, Dr. Piot said. In cities in Zambia, H.I.V. prevalence is falling among young women, to 24 percent in 1999 from 28 percent in 1996. In rural areas, the comparable rates have fallen to 12 percent from 16 percent. In Uganda, the prevalence of H.I.V. continues to decline, Dr. Piot said. In 2001, the number of people living with H.I.V. had fallen to 5 percent from 8.3 percent in 1999. The Polish government has successfully curtailed an epidemic among injecting drug users and prevented it from gaining a foothold in the wider population by mounting a strong national response, he said. In Cambodia, Dr. Piot said that strong political will and large-scale prevention programs have helped lower H.I.V. prevalence among adults to 2.7 percent at the end of 2000 from more than 4 percent in 1999. Dr. Piot said that although many countries, including some of the world's poorest, have significantly increased their AIDS budgets, they still fall far short of the $9 billion needed annually to combat the epidemic in heavily infected countries ''But so far, these countries are the exception, and not the rule,'' Dr. Piot said. The report will be available at www.unaids.org. | Report, Reversing Estimates, Forecasts Big Increase in AIDS Death Toll |
1406967_0 | A large federal study of hormone replacement therapy in postmenopausal women was abruptly halted, researchers say, because the drugs caused a slight but significant increase in the risk of invasive breast cancer. An estimated six million women take the drugs, estrogen and progestin, to replace the hormones lost at menopause. The hope was that the drugs would not just relieve the hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness that can plague women at menopause but that over all they would also improve women's health. That, the investigators report, did not happen. The results of the study have been long awaited since it is the first and only large one to compare the effects of hormone replacement therapy with placebos in healthy women. The directors of the study, known as the Women's Health Initiative, sent letters to the study's 16,000 participants, which they should receive today, telling them to stop taking their medications. The data indicate that if 10,000 women take the drugs for a year, 8 more will develop invasive breast cancer, compared with 10,000 who were not taking hormone replacement therapy. An additional 7 will have a heart attack, 8 will have a stroke, and 18 will have blood clots. But there will be 6 fewer colorectal cancers and 5 fewer hip fractures. The study was to continue until 2005, said Dr. Jacques E. Rossouw, who is its acting director. For the first few years that the women took the drugs, they were at no increased risk of cancer, heart disease or blood clots, and the study did not address the benefits of using the drugs for a short period to relieve the symptoms of menopause. The decision to end the study came on May 31, in a periodic look at its accumulating data by an expert panel, the data safety and monitoring board. Suddenly, Dr. Rossouw said, after women had taken the drugs for an average of 5.2 years, the data had crossed a line. ''The breast cancer risk exceeded the predefined boundary for safety,'' he said. While cautioning that the danger to an individual woman is tiny, the study investigators say that over all the drugs' risks exceed their benefits. The study did not address the question of estrogen alone. Women who have had hysterectomies take estrogen by itself -- progestin is added only to prevent estrogen from causing cancer of the uterine lining, and doctors do | Study Is Halted Over Rise Seen In Cancer Risk |
1406820_2 | into dysfunction, Mrs. Catron and others say, when they interfere with a child's daily life -- his ability to learn, or make friends, or get a good night's sleep. ''You and I can shut out extraneous sounds, we shut out extraneous touch, like when we are sitting in a chair,'' Mrs. Catron said. ''We don't process constantly that our bottom is against the chair. But these children do, so they can't concentrate. Some of them withdraw from other kids; they don't want to be touched or they don't want to have all that noise around them. That's one end of the scale. Then there's another end, where kids are moving all the time because they can't get enough movement.'' Alex, Mrs. Catron says, is a little bit of both. He exhibits ''tactile defensiveness,'' shying away from the soft touch of a handshake. But he loves to throw himself on the mats in her basement gym -- evidence, she says, that he is seeking out ''deep pressure touch.'' During a recent therapy session, he twirled endlessly from a trapeze, spinning wildly without getting dizzy. Mrs. Catron encourages him to seek out the kind of movement he seems to need, with the goal of helping him ''organize himself'' to respond to sensory input. Alex's parents, both clinical psychologists, who agreed to interviews only if they were not identified, said the treatment seemed to be making a difference. Their son is sleeping better, and not crying nearly as much. ''He is tremendously less irritable, he's smiling more often, he doesn't have that pained look on his face anymore,'' Alex's mother said. No one knows precisely how many children might be affected with sensory integration dysfunction, in part because medical doctors have not yet accepted it as a standard diagnosis. There is no entry for sensory integration dysfunction, for instance, in the psychiatric diagnostic and statistical manual. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not track it as a disease. Nonetheless, Dr. Sandler, of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said there was evidence suggesting as many as 10 to 12 percent of children may have some type of sensory processing problem. Among children with developmental disabilities, including autism and cerebral palsy, he said, the percentage is as high as 30 percent. Children exposed to drugs in the womb, premature infants and hyperactive children also appear to be disproportionately affected. In some cases, newborns, | Debating Diagnosis of a Sensory Malady in Children |
1406817_0 | The Ones That Got Away Throw the little ones back. For recreational anglers, that's a general rule, and it is made more specific for certain fish, which have minimum length restrictions. Commercial fisheries usually are subject to limits too; often they must use gear that will avoid catching fish below a certain size. The idea, of course, is to manage populations so that there will be enough fish around for future generations to catch. But as two researchers from the State University of New York at Stony Brook have discovered, all that positive concern about ecology may have negative evolutionary consequences: taking only the larger fish can eventually result in lower yields. The researchers studied captive populations of Atlantic silversides, a small fish found off the North American coast. With some of the populations they selectively removed the largest 90 percent of the fish, equivalent to throwing the little ones back. With others they did the opposite, leaving only the largest. The researchers found that by the fourth generation the total weight of fish, and the mean weight of individuals, in the populations where small fish were removed was nearly twice that of populations where large fish were taken. Their research was reported in the journal Science. By taking away the smallest fish, the researchers were removing those with the slowest growth rates; in other words, they were genetically selecting for fast-growth fish. Removing the largest fish did the opposite, selecting for those fish with slow growth rates. The researchers say that minimum size restrictions may need to be rethought. A throw-the-big-ones-back rule, they suggest, may better help some fish populations survive and thrive. Peeking Inside the Cell There are plenty of sensing technologies for detecting changes caused by chemical or biological processes. Litmus paper, for instance, can be used to determine changes in acidity caused by a chemical reaction in a laboratory beaker. But what about measuring a reaction inside a cell? That's a tricky proposition, not the least because of the dimensions involved. Most techniques for measuring metabolic reactions in cells require disrupting the cell. Now, researchers in Germany have come up with a system of molecule-size sensors that can measure cellular reactions in vivo. For starters, they have used it to measure the uptake of the sugar maltose by yeast. The researchers focused on a class of bacterial proteins called periplasmic binding proteins, which have the unusual | OBSERVATORY |
1406810_2 | on. ''It sounds strange,'' Mr. Bezaury conceded. ''People say, you'll pay me for what?'' In addition, he said, many of these rural farmers find the legal documents difficult to understand and, accustomed to dealing in cash, are uneasy when handed a check. The new cash-rich program is not without skeptics. Some monarch experts say it will not be possible to raise enough money to protect and maintain what seem to be countless acres of forest stretching across these mountains around the sanctuaries. Still others, like the Mexican and American foresters working with the Michoacán Reforestation Fund, say the real key is not locking up the trees in the sanctuaries. Instead, they say the need for wood must be filled by restoring the vast oyamel fir forest -- one of the rarest types of forest in Mexico -- in and around the sanctuaries and elsewhere in the region. Only a newly invigorated forest, these biologists say, can protect the butterfly's trees by providing the necessary cuttable forest away from the roosting grounds. ''The population of people living in the Monarch Biosphere Reserve need something like 40,000 oyamel fir trees a year,'' said Ed Rashin, forester with the Michoacán Reforestation Fund. ''The pressure is there.'' The Michoacán Reforestation Fund, which produces one plantable tree for every 50 cents that is donated, has received support from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service as well as from private donors. In five years, it has planted more than half a million trees in and around the sanctuaries, a huge number in absolute terms but still just a scattering of trees in these ravaged mountains. While farmers are loath to give up productive farmland, Mr. Rashin and his partner, José Luis Álvarez, have persuaded many to reforest depleted land that would have produced meager corn crops by providing these families with free trees. After five years, families can begin thinning these fast-growing plantations, providing them with a convenient source of wood that conservationists hope will keep them from cutting in the sanctuaries. In fact, the fund's work provides one of few hopeful scenes around El Rosario, one of the most heavily visited and degraded of the sanctuaries. Here and there on patches of forsaken farmland, amid the dust and fallow fields on these hillsides, their work can be seen -- scattered patches of green oyamel firs, 5 to 10 feet tall, reaching for the sky. | Protecting Monarchs by Trying to Protect Forests |
1406796_0 | We were an unlikely group, the three of us, united only by our being blindsided by a medical anomaly that we share with hundreds of other women. Lori Levy, a registered nurse, had never heard of it when she woke up six years ago, temporarily unable to string words together. Neither had Nancy Conn-Levin, a health educator, whose altered vision was the first sign something was wrong. I, a health journalist, could not even pronounce it, much less tell my family how it might alter our lives. Yet here we were having lunch in the bowels of Pennsylvania Station and bonding over our meningiomas, the brain tumors we each had until surgery removed them. I had no clue of the tremor about to hit until I fainted last October and smashed our car into a guardrail. No headaches, ringing ears, seizures, double vision or numbness. Nothing. But an M.R.I. found two sizable growths -- one nudging my right temporal lobe and another encasing my carotid artery. Meningiomas (muh-nin-gee-OH-mas) are the most common brain growths, malignant or benign. But women with the tumors outnumber men 2 to 1, at a rate estimated to be 4.2 for every 100,000. The tumors can occur from childhood, but generally peak at midlife. I was 54. Each year at least 3,000 new meningiomas are diagnosed. The actual number is probably higher because only 14 states require doctors to register them. As I quickly found out, misinformation abounds. Most infuriating, almost no research is being done on what causes these tumors or why of all central nervous system tumors, only this one strikes more women. ''You could consider them one of the most neglected tumors of women,'' said Dr. Peter M. Black, a leading Boston neurosurgeon and a Harvard professor. ''Female hormones appear to play some role in the growth of a significant subset of meningiomas, but it is unclear what their exact role is.'' When I met Ms. Conn-Levin and Mrs. Levy, they were celebrating being tumor-free for over six years. These women, from Monmouth County, N.J., felt good. They showed no mental or physical disabilities. As for me, four months after surgery and a month after radiation, my eyes are open and my double vision is gone. I have lost no mental capacity. The right side of my skull is still a numb drum, and my bite is misaligned, so chewing is not easy. | Blindsided By a Tumor Few Study |
1406816_2 | The Boston doctors noted that pelvic pain can be incapacitating even when there is minimal endometriosis. The disease process is thought to begin with some of the tissue that lines the uterus, the endometrium. The tissue is shed during menstruation, but in endometriosis travels in the wrong direction -- up through the fallopian tubes into the peritoneal cavity. Once there, estrogen, immunological factors and other substances in the peritoneum can stimulate growth of the misplaced tissue. Although the cause of endometriosis is not precisely known, a number of risk factors and possible causes have emerged from recent research. Risk appears to be increased by extended exposure to menstruation and estrogen. Short menstrual cycles, prolonged menstrual flow and high levels of body fat contribute to a greater than average risk. Women with few or no pregnancies and those who rarely exercise fall into the same category. A link between endometriosis and exposure to environmental toxins like dioxins and PCB's has been demonstrated in monkeys. In humans, exposure to dioxins may explain the relationship between endometriosis and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. ''Endometriosis is notoriously underdiagnosed,'' noted a team of researchers from the Mayo Clinic, who reported an increased risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma among postmenopausal women with a history of endometriosis. One reason is that a definitive diagnosis usually requires minor surgery, something that many women are not willing to pursue and some doctors are reluctant to suggest. In the surgery, a tiny incision is made in the lower abdomen and a laparoscope is inserted, giving the doctor a clear view of misplaced endometrial growths. No cure has been found for endometriosis, but a number of treatments can help. Although all have side effects, in most cases the treatment is far less debilitating than the disease. Gynecologists differ in what they consider the best way to approach the problem, with some starting with surgery to remove all visible lesions of endometriosis and others first trying hormone treatments. In treating adolescents, Dr. Laufer prefers to start with surgery, which can be done using a laser or electrical coagulation to destroy the lesions and any scar tissue and restore a normal pelvic anatomy. He reported that in adult women, surgery resulted in immediate improvement rates of 70 percent to 100 percent, with an average improvement of 82 percent a year later. Medical treatments are used before or after surgery to inhibit growth of any remaining abnormal tissue | Painful Signs of Endometriosis Should Be Taken Seriously |
1406800_4 | gives a tour of his rustic nursery in which he is raising seedlings of native trees to reforest around his home and which villagers plan, in the future, to use to reforest the protected areas of the butterfly sanctuaries. Another man explains how he learned to enclose his chickens and cows, making it possible for him to locate his animals easily and to collect valuable eggs and manure. Others point out how they now dig canals and terrace the land to prevent erosion and preserve the soils. And all around there is great excitement about toilets -- a novelty here -- soon to be brought by Alternare. These special devices separate solid from liquid waste and allow collection of both to be used, ultimately, as fertilizer for the soils. The farmers are used to discussing their work. Once people have been trained in particular techniques or skills, they begin training others, in the farmer-to-farmer method of conversion which has worked so well for Alternare. Despite the local enthusiasm, Alternare has its detractors, some of whom complain that the work is not really about butterflies. ''Some people say this is social development,'' said Mrs. Del Río, shaking her head. ''No, this is conservation.'' She insists that every step, whether as indirect as teaching farmers to organize so they can work together more effectively or as direct as teaching reforestation, makes the farmers less dependent on cutting the forest to make their way. Then there are those who worry that Alternare's process of changing rural traditions one farmer at a time moves too slowly to save the forests of the monarch butterfly. One study found that in the last 30 years, nearly half the intact forest in the wintering areas had been degraded or destroyed. Mrs. Del Río acknowledged that Alternare did struggle even to move at its slow pace. The group only recently was able to patch together enough funds to buy a reliable truck, critical for reaching one remote village after another on these rugged roads. And Alternare does need to extend its reach. Organizations within Mexico and from other countries, including Guatemala, have asked to be trained in Alternare's methods, but without a training center that has been impossible. Despite the pace, Mrs. Del Río, who is trying to raise $150,000 to build a training center, said she believed there was no other way. ''No law can change these | Aid for Farmers Helps Butterflies, Too |
1412378_0 | Monsanto has pulled back from its stated timeline for bringing the first genetically modified wheat to market by 2005, company spokesmen said yesterday. The company, based in St. Louis, is not acknowledging that the crop will be delayed. But it is no longer stating a timetable, saying only that it will bring the crop to market after it meets certain goals, like building demand for the product and devising a system for segregating the genetically engineered wheat from other wheat. The new position reflects the difficulty the company has been having in winning acceptance for the crop. Wheat millers in Japan and Europe, large markets for American wheat, say they do not want the genetically modified product. And some American farmers fear that genetically engineered wheat will be mixed in with other wheat, hurting exports in general. In a speech at a meeting on Monday of U.S. Wheat Associates, a trade organization that promotes exports, the head of a large Italian wheat miller said his company would ''stop buying U.S. or Canadian wheat at once'' if genetically modified wheat were introduced. A spokesman for Monsanto, Mark Buckingham, said the company was planning to file this year for regulatory approval of Roundup Ready wheat, which has a gene that allows it to withstand the company's Roundup herbicide. But he said that Monsanto would not introduce the product until it had ''industry acceptance across the board,'' which will take more time. Genetically engineered crops that have already reached the market -- mainly soybeans, corn and cotton -- continue to gain in popularity among farmers. But concerns about consumer resistance are making it hard for any new genetically engineered crop to gain a foothold among buyers. TECHNOLOGY | Timetable Softened on Gene-Modified Wheat |
1412427_0 | The Democratic-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee, over the objections of the Bush administration, approved an international treaty today that is intended to eliminate discrimination against women. The vote set up a politically divisive floor fight pitting women's rights groups against religious and social conservatives. The treaty, known as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, or Cedaw, requires member nations to reduce barriers against women in housing, politics, employment, health care and legal systems. The convention requires that women have equal rights to work, pay and benefits. It also guarantees safe working conditions and prohibits discrimination based on a woman's political activities. But conservative groups have asserted that the treaty could be used by feminists to impose their agenda -- from abortion rights to employment quotas -- on sovereign nations, including the United States. Under fierce pressure from conservatives, the Bush administration -- which has said it supports the treaty's broad goals -- had asked the Senate to postpone the vote to allow the Justice Department time to review the pact. But Democrats rejected those pleas, intent on scheduling a floor vote before the midterm elections, when they hope pressure from women will force moderate Republicans to support the treaty. ''The treaty is a means to an end, a tool which strengthens the ability of the United States, as well as women's advocates around the world, to press nations to expand rights for women,'' said Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democrat from Delaware who is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. The treaty's supporters acknowledged that it still faced an uphill battle. Ratification requires 67 votes in the Senate, meaning supporters will have to find at least 16 votes among the Republicans. In the vote today, 2 Republican Senators -- Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Gordon H. Smith of Oregon -- joined the committee's 10 Democrats in supporting the pact. Treaty supporters said their initial vote counts indicated that they were still at least 3 votes shy of 67. Some Democrats said that if ratification was not assured, they would not want to bring the treaty to the floor this fall -- meaning it would be sent back to committee for action next year. But Eleanor Smeal, president of Feminist Majority, an advocacy group for women's rights, said there would be pressure on Republicans, including President Bush, to support the treaty if it | Senate Panel Approves Treaty Banning Bias Against Women |
1406496_0 | For years, as the number of people moving legally or illegally across national borders has grown, governments have resisted United Nations efforts to collect reliable statistics and coordinate procedures governing immigration. The United Nations estimates that at least 185 million people -- up from 70 million three decades ago -- are now living in countries other than where they were born. But demographers say that attempts to analyze these population movements are often frustrated by government officials who try to inflate or to obscure them. Now, in the midst of an intensifying debate about immigration in Europe and the United States, in part fueled by fears of terrorists crossing borders, the United Nations population division will meet on Thursday and Friday in New York to begin exploring global cooperation on the issue. The meeting is expected to be the largest of its kind, attracting the participation of governments, refugee organizations, volunteer agencies and policy analysts. ''This time, people are serious,'' said Demetrios Papademetriou, a former public policy analyst in the United States Labor Department who is now the co-director of the Migration Policy Institute, a research organization in Washington created by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace two years ago. ''There is a different air to this meeting. A lot of people are now making serious investments.'' Beyond what are perceived as problems of immigration in richer countries, there is mounting evidence of threats to peace and life from migrations, often forced, in poor nations. For example, African leaders have said that the long-running Congo war cannot be resolved until Hutu refugees from neighboring Rwanda, now ruled by Tutsis, have been moved out. Debates over immigration, said Joseph Chamie, director of the United Nations Population Division, are characterized by ''a yawning lack of data, absence of theories to explain international migration, a weak understanding of the complex interrelationship between migration and development, and concerns about the social, economic and political consequences.'' There are no internationally agreed upon definitions of terms like ''citizenship'' or ''residence.'' Nationalist hackles rise quickly in some developed countries, especially in Europe and Japan, when demographers suggest that low birth rates and aging populations may require huge inflows of immigrants to keep economies afloat. Two years ago, for example, Mr. Chamie was publicly criticized by the European Union after talking with the media about the possible need for ''replacement migration'' before European governments had had a chance | U.N. Coaxes Out the Wheres and Whys of Global Immigration |
1406511_5 | shoes. ''They found an extra key in my wallet. I guess the magic wands are more effective now. It makes me feel more secure.'' Many people familiar with the new procedures here say the quality of the screeners has greatly improved since the government removed the private contractors, although the airlines still use two such companies -- Globe and Huntleigh -- to review boarding passes at the checkpoints. When the first federal screeners reported to work on April 30, there were 210 of them. The federal agency has since filled the remaining 500 positions here, and about that many have completed training, said Deirdre O'Sullivan, an agency spokeswoman. People can apply by filling out a form over the Internet or calling a toll-free number. If they qualify on the basis of that, they are asked to take a five- to eight-hour test that checks for English proficiency, the ability to lift a suitcase and other requirements. They then start 60 hours of on-the-job training while the government does a background check. Some lawmakers have said they want to push for stricter job requirements, like high school diplomas. Here at B.W.I., federal officials realized quickly that all the checkpoints in the various terminals had to be expanded to include more magnetometers. Pier C went from three lanes to five, Pier B from three to seven. But construction to expand Pier D from three lanes to seven will not be finished until August, which means that the checkpoint gets jammed up now during peak travel times. Travelers at that pier are not allowed to go through security until an hour and a half before their flight, and passengers should realize they do not need to come too early, Ms. Miller said. This airport maintains a strict zero-tolerance policy, a nationwide regulation criticized by many airline and airport executives. On June 29, the entire Southwest Airlines pier was evacuated when a man walked out of the area and back in without going through security. Early Friday morning, one baggage claim area was cleared out when someone spotted a glass bottle with an unknown liquid on a conveyor belt. But you can never be too careful, Ms. Miller said. Last week, security guards stumbled across a man who was taping plastic knives to the bottom of public telephones, she said. The guards took him away. Why he did what he did, no one knew. | Airport Has a No-Nonsense Approach to Security |
1406570_0 | Ugandan newspapers have devoted considerable ink to the largest foreign investment project ever in East Africa -- a $550 million dam and power plant on the Victoria Nile. The project, first proposed in 1994, has plenty of dramatic elements -- money, power and, now, corruption. Last week, the project reappeared on front pages with the news that the World Bank was suspending its financing amid allegations that a contractor had bribed a Ugandan official to move the project along. President Yoweri Museveni, who broke ground for the project months ago, says Uganda needs the dam to boost its meager power production. But environmentalists say it will damage the scenic Bujagali Falls, which have spiritual significance to some locals. ''Those who are playing with the Bujagali dam project do not know what they are playing with,'' Mr. Museveni fumed in the state-owned New Vision newspaper, vowing to finance the project with government funds if the World Bank balks. In an editorial, the paper called for the jailing of any corrupt officials but recommended that the dam proceed. ''It is too important to be derailed by this relatively minor matter,'' the paper said. MARC LACEY THE TALK OF... | Uganda: Bribe Charge Stalls Vast Dam Plan |
1406478_7 | said. Bernard B. Kerik, the police commissioner at the time, said he did not believe that any communication problems between the agencies had significantly affected their performance. ''I was not made aware that day that we were having any difficulty coordinating,'' he said. Communications 'Down to the Lobby,' But No One Came Battalion Chief Joseph Pfeifer held his two-way radio to his ear. He tried to edge away from the noise in the north tower lobby, hoping the reception would improve. Still no good. Minutes before, he stood on a street corner in Lower Manhattan and watched as American Airlines Flight 11 flew directly overhead and crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. Now, as the first chief to reach the building, he was sending fire companies up the stairs, including one led by his own brother, Lt. Kevin Pfeifer, who did not survive. Then he found that he had no way to speak with the rescuers starting the long climb: once again, the firefighters were having terrible radio problems inside this high-rise building. More than eight years earlier, hundreds of firefighters came to the World Trade Center after terrorists tried to bomb one of the towers off its foundation. ''Communications were a serious problem from the outset,'' Anthony L. Fusco, then chief of the department, had warned in a 1994 federal report on the Fire Department's response to that attack. They had lost touch with firefighters trying to extinguish the smoldering bomb crater underground, and with others who had climbed clear to the top of the towers. Now, Chief Pfeifer tried to turn on a device known as a repeater, which had been installed at 5 World Trade Center to help solve those problems by boosting the radio signal strength. The repeater didn't seem to be working, Chief Pfeifer said later. Another fire chief arriving at the trade center tried a second repeater in his department car. That did not work, either. As hundreds of firefighters climbed toward the upper floors where 1,100 people were trapped, one communications post after another was proving unreliable. Even commanders spread among four separate posts could not get through. ''I wasn't getting communications and I couldn't communicate into the building,'' Deputy Assistant Chief Albert J. Turi, now retired, said in an interview. By 9:30 a.m., after both planes had struck, a rumor was circulating that a third hijacked plane was | FATAL CONFUSION: A Troubled Emergency Response; 9/11 Exposed Deadly Flaws In Rescue Plan |
1406451_3 | Kern said. ''At times I would call people and kind of nudge them,'' he added, but to little avail. He thinks it is because scientists do not want to give their competitors an advantage. ''They now know something they're not going to do again and their competitor does not,'' Dr. Kern said. He said a postdoctoral student might have spent seven or eight months on a failed attempt. ''As a consolation to the poor postdoc, you say, 'One thing you do know is what genes not to look at.' That provides a warm feeling in their heart. But the moment they submit it for publication, that warm feeling goes away.'' In an ideal world, said Dr. Leon Gordis, a professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins, all studies, positive or negative, would be judged by whether they were well done and whether they were interesting. ''I don't think there should be a journal of not finding associations,'' Dr. Gordis said. ''If you have a good study, it should be entered into a prestigious medical journal.'' That, of course, is what happens with studies like the ones on cellphones, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American Medical Association and The Journal of the National Cancer Institute, or the prostate cancer study, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association. But then, Dr. Gordis and others added, another complication enters in. ''On certain controversial or emotionally charged issues, when do we decide that no further studies are needed?'' Dr. Gordis asked. WITH cellphones, some scientists are continuing to look for evidence of danger. Now, Finnish scientists have announced that they will be reporting on laboratory experiments that suggest that cellphone radiation alters the blood-brain barrier, allowing chemicals into the brain that should be kept out. There is, of course, no evidence that any such thing is happening in humans. But the very effort shows that the cellphone issue remains alive. Another way to keep an issue alive is to look for subgroups of people in large negative studies whose experience seems to support a given hypothesis. You can always find such subgroups if you slice the data, said Dr. Barnett Kramer, editor of The Journal of the National Cancer Institute. They will appear simply by chance, he said, adding that since the total effect is null, for every subgroup with a positive effect, there is another | Ideas & Trends; Science Needs a Healthy Negative Outlook |
1411059_0 | THIS summer, my son David, 9, went off to camp for the first time, armed with a special correspondence ''minidesk'' that my friend Susan (the expert on all child-related gear) insisted I buy for him. For $24.99, I got a purple plastic box with a clipboard and calculator on the cover and little storage bins inside. David and I shopped together for the contents, which included fill-in-the-blank camp stationery (for days when he was too busy to write much) and postcards (for when he had even less to say). We added felt-tip markers and gel pens, paper clips and tape, along with three pages of addresses laser-printed onto self-adhesive labels and a cellophane envelope with 37-cent stamps. Underneath it all, I slyly taped a family photo to the box's bottom, gently reminding David whom he was missing (or, more likely, who was missing him). I also wrote three breezy letters and posted them in advance -- as per the camp's instructions -- so that he would not experience the disappointment of an empty mailbox upon his arrival. Then I put David on the bus to camp and waited for some form of communication. It did not take long. By the end of the second day, the official camp Web master (who moonlights as a water-skiing instructor) had sent an e-mail announcement that the Web site was up and running. I clicked on my preassigned user name and password and scanned the digital photos. There was my child, grinning broadly in the center of his bunk photo. His bunkmates looked equally happy, and his two counselors looked normal (no visible body piercing or shaved heads). I clicked on the candid photos, and thought I detected David on the baseball field, or possibly paddling a canoe. A sweeping sense of relief came over me. He had gotten there safely. He was having fun. Or maybe the photographer had bullied everyone into compliance? I peered closely at the screen, analyzing David's expression. If he was faking it, he was certainly doing a good job. Next, the Web site prompted me to send David an e-mail message. Campers themselves aren't allowed access to computers, but parents can send messages, which are printed out and distributed at mail time. This process is likely to revolutionize camp communications, particularly between fathers and their children. I don't remember my father's ever writing me at camp, although I | Re: Hello Muddah (You've Got Mail) |
1411130_1 | official in the German church, is traveling in Canada with Pope John Paul II, who is not expected to address the scandal in the United States. In April, the pope called American cardinals to an emergency meeting to discuss the issue. In Germany, numerous cases are surfacing in the press, three alone in the diocese of Essen, which recently sent into retirement a 57-year-old priest suspected of pedophilia 22 years ago. The case is too old for legal prosecution. The other two cases stem from 1992 and 1999. German prosecutors have also opened an investigation into a priest in the Mainz diocese, and he was suspended from his duties last week during an internal investigation, according to the vicar general in Mainz, the Rev. Werner Guballa. The priest is accused of having repeatedly abused a 14-year-old boy in his care in the late 1980's. Another priest is being investigated for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy in 1998. Two priests in the Paderborn district were suspended last week on pedophilia charges and another two were suspended in Bavaria. The allegations, Cardinal Lehmann said, ''shock the church in this country just as in the United States, even if there are far fewer cases here.'' Church officials say that at least four priests in Germany are being investigated on suspicion of abusing children, but some see no reason why the number in Germany should be proportionally lower than in the United States. In Essen, Bishop Franz Grave estimates that there may be 200 to 300 cases in Germany, where there are some 18,000 Roman Catholic priests. The Rev. Hans Langendörfer, the secretary of the German Bishops' Conference, said those figures were estimates. ''This is not proven,'' he said, ''but every instance is an instance too many.'' The Vatican has been encouraging, he said. ''No German bishop wants to evade this depressing issue, and in this we feel supported by Rome.'' German priests adopted a charter last month barring sexually abusive clergy from priestly duties. The charter has been submitted to the Vatican for approval, but representatives of victims consider the sanctions too mild. More steps will be discussed at a September assembly of the German Bishops' Conference. ''We know that moral credibility suffers when one does not responsibly and rigorously deal with such horrendous, punishable acts,'' Father Langendörfer said. Some in the Vatican regard the pedophilia scandal as a particularly American obsession, but | German Church Is Learning From U.S. Mistakes on Abuse |
1407867_5 | as best we can, and begin the process of healing and reconciliation.'' A credible beginning was made on June 14 in Dallas, when the conference of bishops voted overwhelmingly to approve a ''Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People'' that requires every bishop to alert civil authorities to all allegations of clergy sexual abuse against a minor. Any priest known to have abused a child or young person, no matter how long ago, is prohibited from wearing clerical garb or serving in a parish, school, hospital or nursing home. But the decision to laicize or ''defrock'' a priest is still left to the discretion of the individual bishop. This concession to the Vatican, which reserves the right to oversee the process of laicization, was balanced by the mandatory establishment of diocesan review boards and a national review board to monitor compliance, to be led by outgoing Gov. Frank Keating of Oklahoma, a no-nonsense law-and-order Catholic. But can the church police itself? Can the bishops, whose number includes erstwhile protectors of criminals, be trusted to reform their own practices? Certainly most lawyers, the authors of ''Betrayal'' and the media in general would answer: ''Not a chance.'' May we also inquire, then, who will police the media? Journalists did not create this crisis, but neither have they been entirely innocent of following their own agenda -- one that has little or nothing to do with lingering anti-Catholicism but more to do with pushing a dramatic story, and one that, unfortunately, all too often eliminates ambiguity. The authors of ''Betrayal'' are largely successful in their attempt to achieve balance in their description and analysis of the events that caused the crisis, as well as the contested issues of celibacy and homosexuality in the priesthood that swirl around it. They are weak, however, in establishing the broader context. Absent a credible account of what Catholics find vital and holy in Catholicism, it is difficult to understand one of the compelling facts reported by the Globe investigators: the continuing love and support by American Catholics, however embarrassed and heartsick they are, for their parish priests and robust communities of faith. One in 10 men, and one in 5 women, in the United States have reported experiencing sexual abuse, usually at the hands of family members. Perhaps it is a foolish and unrealistic hope that the suffering within the American Catholic community may lead | Earthen Vessels |
1408069_0 | A Facial for Washington Q. Despite the ongoing restoration of the arch in Washington Square Park, the statues of George Washington on the arch have been neglected, and the father of our country is looking pockmarked. Is a face-lift planned? A. Yes, according to the Parks Department. A team of marble dermatologists will soon work on the two Washington statues on the north face of the 107-year-old arch, but the arch had to be shored up first. The 77-foot arch was designed by Stanford White, replacing a wooden one built in 1889 to commemorate the centennial of Washington's inauguration. In 1998, the arch was fenced off to protect pedestrians because the structure was calling apart. Close to $3 million was raised from the Giuliani administration, the City Council, the Manhattan borough president's office and private donors to restore the arch. Crews are cleaning and stabilizing the arch and will soon began restoring the statues. The one on the east pier depicts Washington as a general; it was designed by Herman A. MacNeil and was completed in 1916. The one to the west, designed by A. Stirling Calder, depicts Washington as president and was completed in 1918. The restoration is scheduled to be complete in 2004 and should have Washington looking as if he just stepped from Dr. Zizmor's office. Cold Comfort Q. On the south side of 125th Street at Park Avenue, under the Metro-North tracks, is a locked, deserted one-story building. A legend on the exterior says ''. . . port station'' but the word that precedes it is worn away. What is this building's history? A. This small building is a remnant of what was once a common feature in the city's transportation system: a public restroom. In the 1940's there were more than 1,500 of them in New York's subway and train stations, and they were inspected weekly. Today there are fewer than 100. This public restroom was built in the 1890's by the old New York Central Railroad directly under the railroad's tracks at 125th Street and Park Avenue. The faded sign actually reads ''fort station,'' as in ''comfort station,'' which is what the sign offered riders looking to freshen up on the way to Connecticut or Boston or coming into the city from the north. The New York Central merged with the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1968, forming the Penn Central, but it was not enough | F.Y.I. |
1408112_1 | the mojito's moment, have introduced mojito-flavored rums like Mojito Club and Martí Auténtico: in effect, the ''Buena Vista Social Club'' in a bottle. The mojito is also being knocked off and reinvented -- the sincerest form of flattery. Douglas Rodríguez, the Latino celebrity chef, serves a mojito martini at Chicama in New York -- a two-fisted attempt to grab two trends at once. Mary's Off Jane, a New York cafe, bakes mojito cookies. ''We developed a mojito product to tap into the trend,'' said Angelo Vassallo, a vice president at Pernod Ricard USA, which introduced Mojito Club last month. ''Clubs, prestige accounts were making their own mojitos. We saw it as an opportunity to come up with a new flavor system, the next adopted by Americans -- an alternative to the margarita, which is the No. 1 cocktail in the country.'' The mojito originated in Cuba as a farmers' drink in the late 19th century as Cuba's rum industry modernized, making the mojito as common as beer. Only the rich drank it with ice and soda. The mojito's popularity in the United States coincides with an increased interest in Cuban-style rums. Cuban rums are unavailable. Joseph Magliocco, president of Chatham Imports, which developed Martí Auténtico, worked with two rum makers in the Dominican Republic to create his basic rum recipe, which emphasizes the notes of flower, fruit and nut that are typical of Cuban rums. Yerba buena, or Cuban mint, specified in recipes as the mojito's native mint, is peppermint, though the classification is also loosely applied in Cuba to bergamot and the rugose form of spearmint, according to Dr. Art Tucker in the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Delaware State University. Dr. Tucker is an expert on mint. ''The latter, 'M. Spicata,' is very interesting and is found wherever the Spanish went, from Lake Atitlon in Guatemala to New Mexico to the Philippines,'' he said. Ah, there's that music again. MOJITO From Cuba Cafe 1 ounce mint leaves, torn in half 2 ounces fresh lime juice 1 1/2 ounces white rum 1 teaspoon extra-fine granulated sugar Crushed ice 4 ounces club soda. 1. Muddle (crush with a pestle) the mint with the lime juice in the bottom of a tall cocktail glass. 2. Add the rum, sugar, crushed ice and soda. Cover and shake, and uncover, serving with a lime wedge. Yield: 1 serving. SHAKEN AND STIRRED | 'Buena Vista' in a Glass |
1408203_0 | To the Editor: While we agree that menopause is not a disease, to minimize the existence of perimenopause by implying that it is a marketing technique by ''drug companies, book publishers and herbal supplement makers to exploit the concerns and pocketbooks of millions of health-conscious women over the age of 35'' is truly a disservice to women (''Menopause Forever,'' June 23). While we do not yet fully understand the perimenopause, research is ongoing to elucidate how reproductive hormones may play a role in ensuing symptoms such as hot flashes, changes in the menstrual cycle, irregular bleeding and exacerbation of conditions such as fibroids and endometriosis. Women need to be empowered with knowledge. Unfortunately, not all health-care providers, pharmacists, herbalists -- let alone journalists -- are versed in the intricacies associated with perimenopause. Though not yet well understood, its existence cannot and should not be denied. JUDI L. CHERVENAK, M.D. NANETTE SANTORO, M.D. The Bronx The writers are, respectively, an assistant professor and a professor of reproductive endocrinology at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine. | A Disservice to Women |
1407947_5 | Auditorium. One of the three halls, of medium size, is already in use. I'll be back to review the entire project when it is completed. But it is a rare experience to observe both projects take shape. Piano is a humanist, perhaps the leading exemplar of that tradition in our time. Yet he has attained that place by reversing one of the fundamental developments from which humanism emerged. The Renaissance was contingent on the separation of architecture from building. It relied on the development of techniques for drawing (il disegno), which in turn propelled a shift from construction toward theory. Henceforth, architectural practice would consist largely of manipulating abstract symbols. Piano, by contrast, has collapsed the divide between metaphor and material. Born into a family of builders, he approaches design as a technique for ''making architecture out of building'' (to borrow a phrase from the historian Neil Levine). This is the most fully modern aspect of Piano's work. It has nothing to do with style but much to do with elegance, in the mathematical as well as the corporeal sense of that term. Seen in the context of his ideas, Piano can give lightness of being even to solid brick walls. Despite his enduring focus on technological innovation, Piano is sometimes belittled as overly conservative. Though his workshop in Genoa uses computer programs as design tools, Piano's mind is not trained on the grand horizons of the digital age. Structure and function engage him. His attitude toward materials recalls that of the Arts and Crafts movement of more than a century ago. Today, this attitude seldom generates critical excitement unless it is focused on the development and application of new materials of patently space-age genesis. Novelty is useful in its own right. So is the revision of history that comes with the passage of time. For me, Piano's work is squarely contemporary, because it compels us to face the extent to which tradition is the source of many things traditionalists most deplore. The treatment of architecture as two-dimensional images. Blob-making computer programs. Virtual environments. Transparency. The dematerialization of architecture is a more elemental consequence of the classical rebirth than the reduction of history to an encyclopedia of period styles. Thanks to that consequence, the public has become familiar with the idea that architecture exists as much in the inner world of the observer as in the sphere of material reality. | Lessons of a Humanist Who Can Disturb the Peace |
1408067_2 | but they had come to realize that Kidd always did things differently. The captain, peacocking a bit in his waistcoat on the quarterdeck, tucked the Adventure Galley into a neat opening amid the forest of masts of idle merchant ships. His quartermaster barked out orders; the men on deck played out the anchor cables -- ropes as thick as a sailor's biceps -- until the anchor hit bottom and the flukes grabbed. Small ships clustered about, and quickly learned that Captain Kidd had come here looking to line up 150 hardy men to go on a mission to hunt down pirates. In essence, Captain Kidd had entered a pirate stronghold in search of a crew to chase pirates. Only a man with towering self-confidence (or a death wish) would dare to load his ship with former pirates or friends of pirates who, mid-voyage, with any ill luck, might find themselves shooting at cousins or neighbors. Captain Kidd, on this summer day in 1696, was 42 years old, in the prime of his life. . . . The only surviving portrait of Kidd catches him in half profile: penetrating brown eyes arced by strong brows, a somewhat large nose. His lips seemed curled at the edge with a certain cockiness. He wears a wig, as did most successful men of his generation. (A 1703 wig tax would show that about 50 New Yorkers donned this succinct status symbol.) Kidd's choice in borrowed hair is a fairly subdued shoulder-length affair, in stark contrast to some of the ''big wigs,'' i.e., the giant cascades of curls favored by some crotchety bald English businessmen. WHEN HARLEM NEARLY KILLED KING By Hugh Pearson Seven Stories Press ($18.95, hardcover) Meanwhile King sat still, calm, and lucid with the letter opener protruding from his chest. Spingarn tried to comfort him, holding his hand while they awaited the arrival of an ambulance. As they did so, a woman named Mrs. James Watson wanted to remove the blade (the elderly Mrs. Watson as well as a woman representing Mayor Wagner's office would later be placed under doctor's care due to stress from having witnessed the incident). But another witness who apparently had far more knowledge of the best way to handle such wounds insisted that no one touch it. While waiting, the stabbed King assured everyone, ''That's all right! That's all right. Everything is going to be all right!'' | Why Beats Snapped Their Fingers, Why Captain Kidd Wore a Wig |
1408283_0 | In a stunning decision, federal scientists announced they were halting a large study of combination hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women because the harm associated with estrogen and progestin exceeded the benefit. The risks -- of breast cancer, blood clots, heart attack and stroke -- were tiny. But so were the benefits: slightly fewer hip fractures and colorectal cancers. The study, involving 16,000 healthy women, was asking if the combination of estrogen and progestin could prevent disease. Another part of the study, involving women who have had hysterectomies and who are taking estrogen alone, is continuing: data have not yet shown evidence of net benefit or net harm. Gina Kolata | July 7-13: SCIENCE/HEALTH; HORMONE STUDY HALTED |
1408052_0 | THANKS to technology, gadgets are smaller and quicker, permitting instant communication and remote day trading. But what good are they when we're peeling potatoes at a minimum security prison? Technology may have made our lives more efficient, but the latest developments in corporate America have shown us that we may need an upgrade in the ethics area. Here are a few products that have some backbone: THE G.P.S.: Wondering if your accounting rules are entirely on the up and up? Is it O.K. to put a ''strong buy'' rating on a stock that you just described in an e-mail message as ''smells like herring?'' Are you asking yourself: ''Who are these so-called 'shareholders' I've heard so much about?'' It may be time to consult your new G.P.S. -- the Global Positioning Spitzer. This handy navigational device keeps you on the straight and narrow by telling you at all times where you can find Eliot L. Spitzer, the New York attorney general. Then it's just a matter of firing off an instant message asking him whether it would be considered illegal, or just creative bookkeeping, to burn down your office, then shred the ashes. A related product is a global positioning system for your conscience. Using expert triangulation, you can find where your sense of right and wrong has wandered. SHELL-CHECKER: In the spirit of spelling-checker programs, this remarkable new software will give you a heads-up if you start working on a document or e-mail message about starting partnerships like ones that Enron has been accused of setting up. With squiggly red underlines, it will highlight offending words you otherwise might not blanch at, like''pyramid,'' names of Star Wars characters or ''steal.'' In one version of the software, an animated creature appears at the top right corner of the screen and says: ''It looks as if you're trying to start a shell corporation. Would you like assistance drafting a letter to the parole board?'' (For better or worse, you will never be able to turn off this feature.) Also available will be the portable shell-checker. Fitting comfortably in your pocket, it will give you a light shock every time you say the words ''Bermuda'' and ''taxes'' during a board meeting. THE TIME MACHINE: This is a handy application for the Palm Pilot that can help keep you on the righteous path. Simply enter your plans for overstating revenue, doing off-book transactions, | Now, the Personal Ethical Assistant |
1407747_6 | arbitrary exercise of power is one of the opponent's charges. In the symposium, Mr. Fish seems to backpedal a bit, arguing that pomo might actually have an effect. It might, he suggests, teach us to understand the opponent not as an evil abstraction but as a fellow human being with his own motivations. Mr. Fish, for example, says that when Reuters stopped using the word terrorism because ''one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter,'' this policy was mistakenly attacked as pomo-style cultural relativism. Actually, he argues, Reuters saw that the word was ''unhelpful'' because, in Mr. Fish's words, it ''prevents us from making distinctions'' that might allow us to get a better picture of whom we are fighting. But this explanation is disingenuous. Mr. Fish is really saying that he prefers one set of distinctions over another -- distinctions that, in this case, emphasize resemblance, or perhaps even symmetry, between the terrorist and his opponent, while ignoring the central differences, including the fact that this is a war against Islamic terrorism and its totalitarian ideologies. Finally, pomo is bound to affect interpretations of the war because postmodernism bears a peculiar relationship to the West itself. As I argued in September, the insistence that differing perspectives be accounted for and that the ''other'' be comprehended is an outgrowth of Western science and Western liberalism. Postmodernism evolved from those Enlightenment ideas. But then, in the name of those same principles, pomo challenged the West's claims for priority over competing perspectives, criticizing its philosophical idealism and its notions of objectivity. The war now taking shape may even be related to the principles that gave birth to postmodernism. Avatars of absolutism -- terrorist Islamic fundamentalists -- are challenging the liberal democratic societies of the West, objecting to their power, their values, their differing creeds, their modern (and postmodern) perspectives. This is something Mr. Fish recognizes. But postmodernism tends to retain its old critical habits. So when postmodernist arguments are applied to the war, they often seem directed at the West, relativizing its claims and qualifying condemnations of the opposition. Of course, pomo isn't directly or indirectly responsible for 9/11. But cannot pomo be taken to task for its views and effects without Mr. Fish and others retreating into McCarthy-era rhetoric, posing as victims of Western absolutism? They are acting as if they are not quite secure in their possession of the truth. CONNECTIONS | Moral Relativity Is a Hot Topic? True. Absolutely. |
1409960_5 | and Spanish, is in its third printing. And the Lupe Solano books, which are written in English, have been translated into 10 languages, including Italian and Japanese. The books have received warm reviews. ''After five books in a distinctive series set in Miami, the private eye Lupe Solano has developed a snappy style and a healthy self-confidence in her professional skills,'' Marilyn Stasio wrote in her Crime column in The New York Times Book Review in December about ''Bitter Sugar'' (Morrow). But what truly distinguishes her work from hundreds of other mystery writers and characters is her Cubanía. Through the adventures of Lupe Solano, readers get a course on Cuban Miami. Lupe is a family-centered, God-fearing Cuban-American, and from her readers learn how Cubans eat, drink, live, pray and even how they die. Ms. García-Aguilera's life of adventure and fame may seem charmed, but, like most exiles everywhere, she carries with her the pain of having left her country. In Cuba, where her father owned a sugar mill and refinery, she lived in an exclusive neighborhood and took French lessons. Her world changed abruptly on Dec. 15, 1959, when her mother picked her up after the lunch break at her bilingual American school in Havana. She took her to the airport and told her they were going to Palm Beach to spend Christmas with grandparents. Before Carolina boarded the plane, still wearing her school uniform, her mother whispered in her ear, ''Don't come back.'' Carolina was 10. She has never returned to Cuba. ''With every heartbeat,'' she said, ''I feel this sense of loss, of unfinished business, of having been taken violently from my home and from the normal course my life would have followed.'' So it is little surprise that all her books deal with Cuba or Cuban-Americans. The idea for her next one grew out of a visit with her whole family to Las Vegas last year. At a restaurant, a waiter who heard them speak Spanish asked if they were Cubans, and proceeded to mention all the Cubans who worked in the restaurant and hotel businesses. A little research revealed that many of the families who owned or worked in casinos in Cuba before Castro came to power have settled in Las Vegas. Today, more than 11,000 Cubans live there. That's plenty of people for a plot and many potential bodies to end up in unpleasant circumstances. | A Private Eye Prowls Little Havanna |
1410000_3 | who commissioned the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White to design a master plan in the 1890's? Acting as clients on behalf of the corporate good, such individuals defend designs against the idea that architecture is the art of compromise and accommodation. In recent years architectural historians have been rewriting the history of Renaissance and Baroque architecture in terms of individual patronage. They now give at least equal weight in explaining the rise of Europe's great churches, palaces and plazas to the patrons who decided what was needed as to the architects and artists who gave it form. Pope Julius II is celebrated as a vital partner with Donato Bramante, Michelangelo and Raphael in creating St. Peter's, the Sistine Chapel and the offices of the Vatican. For even an architect mining a design vision desires the creative tension produced by a strong client. Just such a client enabled Mies van der Rohe to bring the experiments with the form and materials of the steel frame that had preoccupied him for decades to a level of perfection never surpassed. In 1954, Samuel Bronfman, chairman of Seagram's, was planning an office tower on Park Avenue when his daughter Phyllis Lambert persuaded him to jettison an unmemorable design by one of the era's productive commercial firms in favor of a bid to realize a landmark worth of his efforts. Ms. Lambert recalled that Bronfman had to be brought around to accepting the building's lofty glazed base: Mies insisted that Bronfman lean down to the pedestrian's level to see on the model just how beautiful the effect would be of entering a glazed void under a lofty tower, especially when it was encountered on a plaza that broke the great line of Park Avenue's masonry cliff face. But it was Bronfman, by saying he wanted a warmer color and effect than Mies's Chicago apartment buildings, who inspired Mies to use the tawny bronze mullions that are the trademark of the Seagram Building's classical serenity and reserve. Architects take some responsibility for the low esteem to which a great client has fallen. Frank Lloyd Wright delighted in telling the story that when Edgar J. Kaufmann phoned from the airport to say he was on his way to look at plans for his country house, none had yet been devised. But Wright sat down and drew the complete designs for the department store magnate's home | Ideas & Trends; For Great Buildings, Get a Great Client |
1406687_1 | their work. Dr. Eric R. Kandel of Columbia University, a senior Hughes investigator and a Nobel Prize winner in medicine in 2000, said Dr. Cowan had ''really elevated the level of recruitment dramatically'' and ''democratized the distribution of the Hughes position so that many new universities had an opportunity to have representation.'' Hughes investigators have been involved in many advances in research on cancer, heart disease and muscular dystrophy, among other illnesses. Dr. Kandel said, ''There's no question in my mind that I was proposed to win the Nobel Prize because of the opportunities that Hughes provided me to move into molecular biology, and Max supported that fully.'' Dr. Cowan, who was also distinguished professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, did pioneering work in neurobiology and was best known for his research into how the wiring of the brain develops, and his efforts to integrate neuroanatomy, neurochemistry and neurophysiology as a discipline. William Maxwell Cowan was born on Sept. 27, 1931, in Johannesburg. He graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg in 1952, and continued his studies in England at Oxford University, from which he received a doctoral degree in 1956 and his medical degree in 1958. He was on the Oxford faculty from 1953 until 1964. He immigrated to the United States in 1966 and was on the faculties of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Washington University in St. Louis. He was the vice president of the Salk Institute from 1980 to 1986, when he became the provost and the executive vice chancellor of Washington University. After retiring from Hughes he renewed his association with the Salk Institute and became an adjunct professor for the University of Texas's Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. He also was a founding member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, a nonprofit organization of more than 200 scientists who work to improve public knowledge of brain research. The author of many scientific papers and editor of numerous books, Dr. Cowan was managing editor of The Journal of Comparative Neurology from 1969 until 1980. He was editor-in-chief of The Journal of Neuroscience from 1980 to 1987 and editor of The Annual Reviews of Neuroscience. He is survived by his wife, Margaret, of Rockville, Md.; two sons, Steven, of St. Louis, and David, of San Diego; a daughter, Margaret Ruth Cowan of Seaford, England; and two grandchildren. | Dr. W. M. Cowan, 70, Scientist With Hughes Medical Institute |
1406679_0 | A parade by the Protestant Orange Order today ended in heated scuffles that injured 27 people, despite predictions by organizers and security forces that the annual event would be peaceful for the first time in nearly a decade. Crowds of Orangemen and their Protestant supporters -- including small children egged on by their parents -- dismantled a steel barricade that blocked them from marching through a predominantly Roman Catholic neighborhood, and then hurled bottles, stones and debris at the police. The officers responded by charging the crowd swinging truncheons and firing several plastic bullets, while British Army soldiers installed a much larger barricade that was lined with barbed wire and supported by enormous blocks of concrete. The fighting injured 24 police officers, 9 of whom were hospitalized, and 3 civilians. Three people were arrested. Last week, Orange Order officials publicly called for a quiet protest against a ruling that banned their march down the Garvaghy Road, a Catholic enclave in this Protestant town. Catholic residents contend that the march through their neighborhood amounts to a provocation. The parade marches to a church at Drumcree, a tiny countryside parish, for a service in memory of Northern Ireland soldiers who died at the Battle of the Somme during World War I. Since the first standoff between security forces and protesters in 1995, Drumcree has become a rallying cry for unionists and loyalists, the militant Protestants who want Northern Ireland to remain part of Britain. Today's protest included not only fighting but also bitter statements against the Catholics, who were once a minority discriminated against, but who have made some gains under the province's power-sharing government. On Saturday night, Assistant Chief Constable Stephen White, of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said he was ''still hopeful that there will be a peaceful and dignified protest tomorrow.'' Expecting little trouble, British soldiers initially erected a flexible barricade only about eight feet high. It was briefly opened this afternoon so that Chief Constable White could accept a protest letter from the Orange Order marchers, and although he was spat upon as he accepted it, he commended the crowd as a whole on their good behavior. Minutes later, a barrage of stones and bricks flew toward his officers, and the crowd began tearing down the flimsy wall. As a cold rain fell this evening, small bunches of protesters remained gathered at the barricade, and 2,000 police | Despite Peace Hopes, 27 Hurt in Ulster Protestant Parade |
1406720_1 | sex workers, injecting drug users and now, increasingly, young people -- get no information or help with prevention. This week, as the 14th annual international conference on AIDS proceeds in Barcelona, it is increasingly clear that the cost of AIDS rises with each minute that the epidemic grows. AIDS is depleting food stocks in Africa and creating generations of orphans. Preventing the spread of AIDS has proved difficult and slow, as programs need several years before they begin to reduce the rate of transmission. People do not easily change behavior, especially when it requires them to confront the possibility of death and negotiate new patterns of sexual relations. In many countries where AIDS is most rampant, the need for money to feed a family forces women into sexual relationships in which they have little power. But AIDS prevention is working on a national scale in countries as varied as Senegal, Thailand, Uganda, Brazil, Zambia and Cambodia. A new report by a group of experts convened by two foundations that finance work on AIDS, the Bill and Melinda Gates and Henry J. Kaiser Family foundations, argues that the money can be especially effective now because we have a list of proven strategies. The most important factor in preventing the spread of AIDS is strong political leadership to legitimize discussion of the disease and cut the stigma that contributes to silence. Another requirement worldwide is to train not only nurses and specialists, but also ordinary people from high-risk groups who can counsel their peers. Countries must combine mass media messages on AIDS with programs for specific groups. In Uganda, comprehensive sex education and AIDS education in schools have contributed to a delay of two years in the onset of sexual activity. Sex workers are another especially important target, because men who use prostitutes introduce the epidemic into the general population. Thailand and the Ivory Coast have shown that aggressive programs of peer education and condom promotion among prostitutes can work -- in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, AIDS prevalence dropped by two-thirds among sex workers from 1992 to 1998. Other examples of successful AIDS prevention exist. The challenge is to expand these efforts to a national and global scale. Few governments today fail to acknowledge the urgency of preventing AIDS, but their recognition of the catastrophe helps little if they cannot get the money to save their nations from being engulfed by the disease. | Slowing the AIDS Plague |
1405197_0 | Pressing for Change On Airport Security Travel agents have lately been trotting out anecdotal surveys purporting to show that the so-called hassle factor at airport security is overemphasized. But that clearly isn't the way the airlines see it. ''The importance of the hassle factor cannot be minimized,'' said Don Carty, the chief executive of American Airlines, in a speech last Thursday to the Vancouver Board of Trade. In the last two months, Mr. Carty and his counterpart at Continental Airlines, Gordon M. Bethune, have been especially vocal in arguing that the hassle factor -- especially the random intensive searches and extra pat-downs that many frequent fliers are routinely subjected to at airports, over and above the regular security check-in -- is one obstacle holding back robust resumption of business travel. Now the airlines are turning up the volume. Later this month, the Air Transport Association, the airline trade group, is scheduled to meet with the federal Transportation Security Administration to press the airlines' case for a security initiative that could expedite security passage for regular fliers who agree to an advance background check. Known as the known-traveler, trusted-traveler or registered-traveler program -- and sometimes described as a kind of reverse-profiling system -- the initiative would let frequent fliers apply for a biometrics-encoded ID card. This would eliminate the rationale for subjecting them to additional random intensive searches beyond the routine checkpoint screening. In recent days, Continental Airlines posted on its Web site an invitation for customers to write to Congress to express support for it. Business travelers are especially unhappy with current ''slow, inefficient and wasteful'' screening procedures, Continental said. Northwest Airlines has also thrown its weight behind the proposal to reduce the potential pool of suspect passengers ''instead of treating all 260 million Americans as potential terrorists,'' said Mary Beth Schubert, a spokeswoman. ''This is the smart way to do security,'' said Dirk C. McMahon, Northwest's vice president for customer service. ''The federal government,'' he added, ''remains noncommitted.'' Holding Back On Travel Plans Misgivings about airport security procedures were cited by 46 percent of 350 corporate-travel executives recently asked to describe the factors holding back a full resumption of business travel to 2000 levels, the National Business Travel Association says in a survey released yesterday. High travel costs were cited by 56 percent. And 75 percent said that they had ''increased contact with alternate suppliers in the last 12 | MEMO PAD |
1405195_4 | insurance also provide travel advisories through Web sites. Kroll Associates, a corporate security firm in New York, offers a service with iJET of Annapolis, Md., that provides a security briefing, tracks travelers' itineraries and automatically e-mails pertinent alerts for $25 a trip. As an alternative, for $8 a day, iJET ships customers a satellite phone to receive the information, call anywhere in the world and instantly contact iJET's crisis center. Many security companies hold classes for business executives on how to elude kidnapers; generally, the instruction includes an analysis of home and office security and reminders to vary travel routes and times and to make sure, before setting out, that no unfamiliar people are lurking down the street. Some insurers offer such training free to executives covered by their kidnapping policies. A.I.G. found in a study in Mexico City that people who took the course were much less likely to be victimized than those who did not. Even so, Ms. Borden of A.I.G. says, most people never get around to taking the half-day of instruction. A.I.G. requires people in Mexico City who buy its kidnapping insurance to take these classes within 60 days or lose the coverage. Earlier this year, a wealthy Mexican who had bought the insurance was kidnapped just a few days short of the deadline. He was ambushed a few blocks from his home as he drove to work alone one morning, when most kidnappings take place, and was held hostage for a month. Had he taken the course, he might have been spared that fate -- Ms. Borden says that no Mexican customers who have received the training have been kidnapped. Mr. Schwartz, 54, knows his wife worries about him when he travels, and to ease her fears he phones her as soon as he arrives in another country and again when he checks into a hotel to give her his room number. He also keeps his office informed of his whereabouts, a precaution that he knows might get help to him faster if he ever disappears. But if frequent travelers to high-risk nations know the dangers they face, they try not to dwell on them. ''If I thought there was a high probability of being kidnapped,'' said Mr. Fullwood, the Xerox executive, ''I probably would be talking about a different assignment.'' Readers are invited to send stories about business travel experiences to businesstravel@nytimes.com. BUSINESS TRAVEL | Among Executives, Fear of Kidnapping Rises |
1412153_0 | It has been 23 years since John Paul II visited Mexico on his first foreign trip as pope, and now he is to return for what many here quietly consider a final farewell. He was the first pope to visit Mexico, one of the largest and most devout Catholic countries in the world. At that time, strict anticlerical laws by the country's authoritarian government would not even allow priests to wear their vestments outside the church. But Pope John Paul paraded through the streets, drawing millions of people, especially here in the largest Roman Catholic diocese in Latin America. In his first farewell, the new pope declared Mexico a country ''forever faithful.'' For all of the church's strength in Mexico, though, there is a troublesome, yawning divide between the teachings of the church and the beliefs of Mexican Catholics. The divide is clear in surveys showing that Mexicans favor birth control, oppose religious education and are open to abortion. It propels the steady growth of Protestant churches, particularly in rural Indian communities, where people increasingly press to allow women to serve as religious leaders and to allow members of the clergy to marry. It is also embodied in committed Catholics, like President Vicente Fox and his wife, Marta Sahagún. Both are divorced, and they were married a year ago in a civil ceremony without having their first marriages annulled by the church. Their break with Roman Catholic norms rankled religious leaders across the country. In the weeks leading up to Pope John Paul's visit here, newspapers have been filled with speculation over whether they will be denied a private audience. ''Mexico, like many other countries, is in the process of a broad secularization,'' said Roberto Blancarte, a sociologist at the Colegio de México. ''Despite its devotion to the Catholic Church, there is a growing distance between Vatican doctrine and Mexican daily life. ''Morality is a private matter. The conscience of each person is their guide, not the church.'' On Tuesday the ailing 82-year-old pope is to arrive for his fifth trip to Mexico. During a three-day stay, he is to canonize the church's first indigenous saint, Juan Diego, a 16th-century Aztec peasant. Juan Diego is considered the keeper of the image of Mexico's patron and most enduring symbol of national identity, the Virgin of Guadalupe. Mexico, strategically important to the Vatican as a bridge linking religious movements in the United | Pope to Visit a Mexico Divided Over His Teachings |
1412271_0 | Alcibiades Hidalgo, a former Cuban deputy foreign minister, has defected to the United States, saying he does not want to be ''one more peon on Dr. Castro's farm.'' Mr. Hidalgo told El Nuevo Herald in Miami that he arrived Thursday on a raft that sank near the Florida coast. Joe Garcia, executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation, said Mr. Hidalgo had told his debriefers that President Fidel Castro has moved to crush any chance of democratic reforms, despite the recent urgings of former President Jimmy Carter. ''He is a big-level defection,'' Mr. Garcia said of Mr. Hidalgo. ''He brings with him some interesting insights.'' David Gonzalez (NYT) | World Briefing | Americas: Cuba: Ex-Official Defects |
1407273_3 | than self-gratification.'' Mr. Grimes is serving a 37-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to the same charge that Mr. Sankus did. ''It's the same reason that people join gangs,'' said Allan Doody, the Customs Service investigator who led the DrinkorDie investigation, part of a broader anti-piracy campaign called Operation Buccaneer. ''They're hanging out on the cyber-street corner.'' But in contrast to petty criminals and warring gangs, Internet piracy groups have a worldwide impact of at least tens of millions of dollars, if not more. Such groups secure their reputations by releasing thousands of free movies, games, music and software programs on the Internet each year. While such groups rarely profit financially from their activities, their warez (pronounced like the word wares), proliferate rapidly around the world, reaching those who do sell them for gain -- for example, people who hawk the software through pay-for-access Web sites or burn them on CD's for sale on the street, in shops or at Internet auction sites. The copies ''become the raw materials that others use for commercial piracy,'' said Bob Kruger, president of the Business Software Alliance, an industry group that asserts that software piracy costs $10.1 billion a year in lost sales worldwide. The victims of piracy take the threat very seriously. Havard Vold, president of an eight-person company in Cincinnati called Vold Solutions, was horrified to discover that DrinkorDie had released a free version of a specialized engineering program that his company sold for $9,500. ''That was very scary,'' Mr. Vold said. ''They do not understand the impact of copyright infringement, especially on the smaller companies.'' Although the warez scene took root only in the early 1990's, piracy has expanded rapidly, particularly in the last five years. Increasing access to the Internet worldwide, cheap computer storage costs and the proliferation of digitized media have helped set off an international online shopping spree in which just about anyone can obtain a pirated version of a coveted software program, computer game or movie openly and easily. By contrast, the warez groups themselves tend to operate in secrecy, relying on encryption technologies, disguised Internet Protocol addresses and invite-only chat channels. And their world is highly structured, with a strict hierarchy and rules. The pirates are organized into two main types: release groups that produce the pirated works and courier groups that serve as worldwide distributors. Government investigators estimate that there are roughly 30 major | Pirates on the Web, Spoils on the Street |
1407285_2 | Roman Tourists'' by Tony Perrottet. Many young Romans had the cash and leisure to travel the empire, so a tourist amble of several years wasn't that uncommon, books by Homer in their backpacks, or whatever. Mr. Perrottet retraced a typical journey. There certainly seems a need for some clear thinking in Washington these days, so it's a hopeful sign that a new translation by Gregory Hays of Marcus Aurelius's ''Meditations'' (Modern Library) is selling well there, said Ann Godoff, publisher of Random House. '' 'Mediations' is the first self-help book,'' she said. ''We need wise men today. Marcus Aurelius and Cicero were true wise men, so maybe that's why they are selling nicely.'' Coming in September is Lindsey Davis's 13th novel, ''The Body in the Bath House'' (Mysterious Press), about crime in ancient Rome. And in November is a second novel by Michael Curtis Ford, ''Gods and Legions'' (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's), a novel set in ancient Rome. (His first novel, ''The Ten Thousand,'' also published by St. Martin's, was about ancient Greece.) His editor, Peter Wolverton, associate publisher of Thomas Dunne Books, also believes in the ''Gladiator'' effect. He said, ''There's everything -- epic adventures, battle scenes galore, political intrigue brewing.'' With hardly any promotion, or advertising, Mr. Ford's first novel has netted more than 10,000 sales. Respectable. ''I've always been a classics fan, studied Latin,'' Mr. Ford said. ''It's doing all the research, gathering the background that's fun. What happened then was so outrageous and adventurous, you can't imagine making it up. Why make up stories like 'Gladiator' when what really happened is beyond fiction?'' The movies ''Spartacus'' and ''Cleopatra'' piqued his interest in the period too, he said: ''I'm not mining anything unknown -- it's just that the stories have come to the fore again.'' Could it be that Russell Crowe has reawakened our interest in ancient Greece and Rome, in democracy's beginnings? That's quite a leap, a mythology in itself. Yet the Cicero biographer Mr. Everitt, who lives in London, said: ''I have a feeling that in Europe history is the flavor of the moment. On television there are endless programs on historical figures that there wouldn't have been five years ago. The 'Gladiator' impact has been important.'' He added, ''There may be a concern for the past because the center isn't holding, and somehow we can retrieve our identity by retrieving the past.'' Mr. Everitt, | Book Parties With Togas |
1407345_0 | Britain Easing Up on Pot Law Britain, which has a sharply rising rate in marijuana use, announced it would stop arresting people for private use of the drug. PAGE A3 Safety vs. Drug Eradication The American-backed aerial spraying of drug crops in Colombia could be disrupted by a new law on safety and health standards. PAGE A10 Sharp Rise in AIDS Orphans AIDS will leave 20 million children in Africa without one or both parents by 2010, nearly double the current number, according to a report. PAGE A12 Cloning Moratorium Urged A report by President Bush's bioethics advisers recommends no outright prohibition of cloning for biomedical research. PAGE A21 | INSIDE |
1407327_0 | Moving quickly to try to prevent women from stopping their hormone replacement treatments because of fear of breast cancer, the Wyeth company has sent 500,000 letters to doctors and other health care providers urging them to consider when they talk to patients the ''critical role'' that one of its products, Prempro, has in relieving the symptoms of menopause. A spokesman for Wyeth, Douglas Petkus, said the company began sending the letters on Tuesday, soon after researchers announced that they had halted a large study of the long-term use of Prempro. The researchers stopped the study of the drug, a combination of estrogen and progestin that six million women take, after finding that it caused small increases in breast cancer, heart attacks, strokes and blood clots. The letter provides a glimpse at how Wyeth hopes to hold onto sales of Prempro and its related hormone therapy drug, Premarin, which generated more than $2 billion in sales for the company last year. The letter tries to differentiate between women who take Prempro for more than four years, the point where researchers found a higher risk of breast cancer, and those who took it for less time. The letter urges doctors to consider Prempro's benefits of relieving hot flashes and other problems in healthy women who begin the therapy early in menopause. Wyeth appears to be trying to keep any loss of sales limited to women who take Prempro for four years or longer. To reduce fears, Wyeth also points out that the risks of breast cancer and heart problems had already been found in other studies and included in Prempro's labeling. | Company Sends Letter to Retain Hormone Sales |
1407355_0 | The news keeps getting worse about the value of hormone replacement therapies for postmenopausal women. Less than three months ago an international panel concluded that there was little evidence to support many of the presumed benefits of the treatments. Now federal health officials have halted a large study of hormone replacement therapy because the regimen used, a combination of estrogen and progestin, was doing more harm than good when taken for several years. The action has been met with shock and disbelief by many women and their doctors. The danger to any individual woman appears very slight. But this discouraging saga offers a sobering lesson in how aggressive marketing by the drug industry and a fervent desire for medical miracles on the part of patients and doctors can propel use of a drug far beyond that justified by scientific data. Hormone therapies were originally approved to treat the symptoms of menopause, such as hot flashes and night sweats, a purpose for which they are unquestionably effective. But many women take them for years to enhance a feeling of well-being or in the belief they can help prevent some of the ailments of old age. But the federal study that has now been halted, a rigorously controlled trial involving more than 16,000 healthy women, has made it clear that prolonged use can be somewhat risky. The estrogen-progestin combination caused a slight increase in breast cancer, heart attacks, strokes and blood clots, with the heart attack risk starting in the first year of treatment. This damage outweighed a small beneficial effect in reducing hip fractures and colon cancers. No woman need panic over these findings. The scientific directors of the study stress that the drugs increased a woman's risk of contracting breast cancer -- the finding of most concern -- by less than a tenth of a percent per year, a tiny amount. But if the drugs are taken by millions of women over several years, the risk translates into tens of thousands of cases of breast cancer or cardiovascular disease, a clear public health concern. The federal study has reached no judgment yet on the pluses and minuses of taking estrogen alone, the course of therapy for eight million American women who have had hysterectomies. That portion of the trial will continue. The emerging medical consensus seems to be that long-term use of the estrogen-progestin therapy is questionable, particularly for purposes | Hormone Therapy Woes |
1410344_0 | To the Editor: Re ''Preventive Medicine, Properly Practiced,'' by Susan M. Love (Op-Ed, July 16): As a woman who has been suspicious all along of using hormones for the perfectly natural state of menopause, I have a suggestion for a study that will surely offer possibilities for a drug-free approach. Find the third of women who experience no debilitating menopausal symptoms (we are out there) and study their nutrition, exercise and other lifestyle factors for the light they will undoubtedly shed on the matter. But since this will produce no profits for the drug companies, I doubt we will ever see such a study. ANN C. SPARANESE Englewood, N.J., July 16, 2002 | Drug-Free Menopause |
1410402_4 | consistent hassle on both ends of the trip.'' The chief executive of Delta Air Lines, Leo F. Mullin, has been one of the chief industry critics of the Transportation Security Administration's performance. In an analysis now being widely quoted in the travel industry, Mr. Mullin said that 27 percent of passengers identified the ''hassle factor'' as the main reason for reducing or avoiding flying, and that this would result in an estimated $3.8 billion revenue cut for airlines in 2002. Besides the security problems and the lagging pace of the federal takeover of screening, the main concerns are what many consider to be the impossibility of meeting a Dec. 31 deadline for airports to buy and put in operation large bag-screening machines, an undertaking that will cost billions. There also was growing resentment that the Transportation Department seemed to be adamantine in its opposition to some form of a so-called trusted-traveler identification card proposed by the airlines to expedite the security check-in process for frequent fliers who undergo background checks. ''There's a growing awareness on all fronts that we're in for possibly a big national embarrassment at the end of the year'' when predictions are that mandated bag-screening equipment will be so inadequate and unreliable that huge delays and airline schedule cutbacks will ensue, said Kevin M. Mitchell, the chairman of the Business Travel Coalition. Profligate spending, an ''aura of secrecy'' and ''intransigence'' toward consulting on-site managers at airports aggravated the problems, said David S. Stempler, the president of the Air Travelers Association, which earlier this month called for the creation of a national security task force to assist the government in airport security using industry and consumer experts. But Joe Brancatelli, a travel consultant and online business travel writer (www.joesentme.com) disagreed with what he called the ''whining'' of airlines, airport managers and others over the inevitable inconveniences of an intensive new security undertaking. ''We're in a war,'' said Mr. Brancatelli, who said he himself was subject to frequent random searches at airports. ''Who said war is supposed to be efficient? Wars are inefficient, inconvenient and costly.'' The much-criticized Dec. 31 deadline for the screening of all checked baggage to detect explosives is crucial, he maintained. ''If they delay it now, it will never happen,'' he said. ''And then we're all going to have to write stories when they blow up the next plane, and that's inevitable.'' ON THE ROAD | Looking at the Realities Of a Damaged Industry |
1410470_0 | To the Editor: After five years of a rocky perimenopause, I became menopausal six years ago (''Hormone Therapy: One Size, Clearly, No Longer Fits All,'' July 16). Without the help and support of two distinguished physicians I could not have survived intact the effect that the loss of estrogen and testosterone had on my body, brain and emotions. My physical symptoms were severe: night sweats with pain, inability to sleep and loss of energy. I was forgetting everything, could hardly drag myself through a day of teaching, could barely think or talk much of the time, lost all interest in sex and became deeply -- understandably, I think -- depressed. With the physicians' help and hormone replacement therapy, I feel as if I have rejoined the human race. It is terribly important that people understand how essential H.R.T. can be for a small percentage of us. DR. NINA MORRIS-FARBER Queens | The Role of Hormones |
1410471_0 | To the Editor: Treating menopause with hormone replacement therapy is like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer (''Hormone Therapy''). The medical profession has a bad habit of late of grossly exaggerating various discomforts in order to ''treat'' them with extreme methods. ''Menopause is not a disease'' but a phase of life, the article says. Nevertheless, it refers to the ''symptoms'' of menopause, suggesting that it is indeed an illness. Instead, why not refer to the ''signs'' of menopause? And since older women have been around, since ancient Rome, through colonial America and beyond, it would be useful to investigate how these women of past time periods alleviated the signs of advancing age. Perhaps it began with something as simple as opening a window. NADIA SILVERSHINE Kentfield, Calif. | The Role of Hormones |
1410403_0 | There is a mind-bending illogic behind the Bush administration's decision yesterday to withhold $34 million from the United Nations Population Fund, which is working in China despite continued practices there of coerced abortion and sterilization. It is precisely because of China's reprehensible policies that the U.N. presence is important. Cutting off funds to the agency is an inexcusable sop to right-wing anti-abortion activists in an election year. It will increase the number of abortions worldwide by depriving poor women of the education and help they need and that the U.N. agency provides. The U.N. Population Fund is the world's biggest agency focused on women's reproductive health and the only serious external force in China trying to change the way local officials hold down population growth. Last year Secretary of State Colin Powell praised its ''invaluable work.'' Faced with accusations that the agency was complicit in Chinese misdeeds, the administration sent in a study team in May. It found no evidence that the fund knowingly supports or participates in any Chinese program that coerces abortion or sterilization. It recommended that the $34 million requested by Congress for the agency last year be released. Instead, the administration refused yesterday to do so because of China's continuing birth-control practices. This means that some 12.5 percent of the agency's budget is now wiped out and that vital and worthy programs like midwife training in Algeria and a new AIDS center in Haiti are suddenly without funding they need. The administration says it will give the $34 million instead to the Child Survival and Health Program Fund, part of the State Department's Agency for International Development. The problem is that that agency cannot duplicate the work of the U.N., which operates in dozens of countries where the United States has no aid presence. Reproductive health and freedom of women are central to the improvement of poor societies. The U.N. Population Fund is one of the most important forces at work today helping poor women. The United States should be supporting it, not undermining it. | Population-Control Politics |
1411954_0 | To the Editor: Re ''Facing the Hormone Dilemma'' (letters, July 22): It is disappointing that many women who are taking hormones have been left with the impression that harm has been done or that they are in grave danger. In fact, none of the individual risks in the Women's Health Initiative study, other than blood clots, were distinguishable from chance alone. In the ovarian cancer study, the increased risk was not statistically significant until after 20 years of estrogen use, and even then, the increased absolute risk for an individual woman was less than two-tenths of 1 percent. With women now living a third of their lives after menopause, the health and quality of that life cannot be ignored. Individual women still have individual symptoms, histories, priorities and risks. There is no one-size-fits-all response. Each woman is entitled to an evaluation of her personal risks and benefits by a knowledgeable doctor. LILA E. NACHTIGALL, M.D. New York, July 22, 2002 The writer is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at New York University School of Medicine. | If You Take Hormones |
1412077_0 | HAMPTON-Colin Campbell. Of Amelia Island, Florida, a former Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of UNUM Corporation, parent company of UNUM Life Insurance Company, died on Wednesday, July 24, 2002, in a local hospital. Mr. Hampton died after heart surgery. He was 79. Under Mr. Hampton's chairmanship, UNUM became the first mutual life insurance company of size to ''demutualize'' officially converting from a mutual company to a publically owned company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In the process, the company's surplus was distributed to its policy holders in part in cash and in part in stock amounting to a total distribution of roughly $652 million. Mr. Hampton was a true visionary. From the time he became CEO in 1970, until his retirement in 1988, UNUM's assets substantially increased from $270 million to over $7 billion. Profits increased over this time period from $2.5 million to $125 million. The company gained reputation as the leading seller of Long Term Disability Income and the only insurance company with a dominant position in both Group and Individual Disability Income. Mr. Hampton was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of the late George Wellington and Jean Stewart Hampton. He graduated from Vanderbilt University, attended New York University Graduate School of Economics; received an M.B.A. from the University of Maine and an honorary Doctor of Science in Business Administration from Thomas College. He served in the U.S. Air Force in World War II as a First Lieutenant, receiving the European Air Medal with Oak Leaf Clusters. He married his college sweetheart, Marjorie Alice Brown, of Savannah, Georgia, in June 1951. Mr. Hampton first entered the investment business in 1949 in New York as a security analyst with Bankers Trust. In 1956, he joined Union Mutual Life Insurance Company in Portland, Maine, as a security analyst in the Investment Department. Mr. Hampton quickly moved up in the company, finally becoming Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer in 1970. Mr. Hampton served the state of Maine in numerous ways. He was a Director and Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce in the Greater Portland region, Chairman of the Maine Committee on the Judicial Responsibility and Disability, and Chairman for the Greater Portland United Way Campaign and Cumberland County Chairman for the March of Dimes. He served as co-chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's ''Campaign to Remember,'' Maine State Campaign, | Paid Notice: Deaths HAMPTON, COLIN CAMPBELL |
1410692_0 | INTERNATIONAL A3-8 U.S. Rebukes Israel Over Gaza Airstrike The Bush administration condemned as ''heavy-handed'' the Israeli attack on an apartment building that killed the founder of the military wing of Hamas, Salah Shehada, but also 14 civilians. The attack, using a one-ton guided bomb launched by an American-made warplane, reportedly injured more than 140 people. A1 Tens of thousands of mourners took to the streets and cried for revenge. A6 Israeli Draft Exemption Parliament passed a bill, 51 to 41, that exempts thousands of rigorously Orthodox yeshiva students from compulsory military service. A6 Move to Ease Cuba Restrictions The House ignored a veto threat and voted to ease restrictions on traveling and sending money to Cuba. A4 Philippines Militants Indicted The United States Justice Department announced the indictment of five fugitive leaders of the Islamic group Abu Sayyaf for a series of kidnappings that led to the death of an American missionary on June 7. A8 New Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, 52, a Welsh churchman outspokenly in favor of gay clergy and women as clerics and opposed to Western militarism, will become the 104th archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the world's 70 million Anglicans. A3 Award in Salvador Torture Case A federal jury in Florida ordered two retired Salvadoran generals to pay $54.6 million in damages to three civilians who were tortured by security forces during El Salvador's civil war more than 20 years ago. A8 Democracy in Trouble A United Nations report warned that gains made with the emergence of dozens of democracies in the last decade are at risk of being reversed. A8 World Briefing A8 NATIONAL A10-15 Mineta Faults Congress On Aviation Security Funds Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta said Congress had ''dramatically undermined'' the ability to meet aviation security deadlines by not providing enough money. A1 The House approved $28.5 billion in emergency spending for military operations, domestic security and New York's recovery from Sept. 11. A15 Shift in Views on Ashcroft Many religious conservatives say they are troubled by Attorney General John Ashcroft's actions in fighting terrorism. And some Bush advisers are expressing displeasure over Mr. Ashcroft's public profile. A1 Mr. Ashcroft disagreed with his own staff when he told Congress that the F.B.I. could not use gun background check records in investigating terror suspects, a G.A.O. report said. A14 Opposition to Security Bill Many House Democrats are considering voting against the | NEWS SUMMARY |
1410595_2 | central figure in a British television series about a bumbling Irish priest. He has also cited ''The Simpsons'' as ''one of the most subtle pieces of propaganda around in the cause of sense, humility and virtue.'' He is reported to be interested in severing the links between the state and church in Britain, where members of the clergy must swear allegiance to the crown. His appointment had to be agreed to by Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Tony Blair, who were choosing from two names forwarded by a 13-member Crown Appointments Commission. He also supports a move already under way to end the ban on church weddings for divorced people, a prohibition that would block a marriage between Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles. Dr. Williams's appointment was hailed by the heads of all British faiths, though some churchmen with particular interests found separate resonances in the choice. ''For the first time lesbian and gay Anglicans can feel they have a real friend at Lambeth,'' said the Rev. Richard Kirker, general secretary of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement. ''Under his leadership, homophobia will be challenged and intolerance rooted out.'' Lambeth Palace in London is the official residence of archbishops of Canterbury. Frank Naggs, a member of a conservative evangelical group within the church, said there were ''fundamental concerns'' about Dr. Williams's tolerance of homosexuality and support for women as priests. He said his group would press for an early meeting with him to discuss what he called ''his radical agenda.'' Dr. Williams was born in Swansea in 1950, the only child of Nancy and Aneurin Williams, Presbyterians who joined the Church of Wales when their son was in his early teens. His father was a mining engineer. Dr. Williams grew up middle class, witnessing the poverty that came to the Welsh valleys with the decline in mining. He received B.A. and M.A. degrees in theology from Cambridge and doctorates in philosophy and divinity from Oxford. He returned to Cambridge for nine years as a tutor, dean and chaplain. In 1986, he became the youngest professor of theology at Oxford in 1986. He became bishop of Monmouth in Wales in 1992 and archbishop of Wales in 2000. His wife, Jane, is the daughter of a missionary bishop in India and she teaches doctrine and modern church history at Trinity College in Bristol. The couple have two children, a daughter, | A Believer in Gays and Women as Clerics To Become the Archbishop of Canterbury |
1410693_0 | A New Anglican Leader Britain announced that Rowan Williams, a Welsh churchman who supports gays and women as clerics and opposes Western militarism, will lead the Anglican church as the archbishop of Canterbury. PAGE A3 Girl Abducted, Then Escapes A 7-year-old Philadelphia girl who was abducted kicking and screaming a few feet from her home Monday night escaped less than 24 hours later after gnawing through duct tape that bound her. PAGE A10 Verdict for Torture Victims A federal jury in Florida ordered two retired Salvadoran generals to pay $54.6 million in damages to three civilians who were tortured during El Salvador's civil war. PAGE A8 Chaim Potok Dies A scholar and ordained rabbi who wrote ''The Chosen'' and other best-selling novels about Hasidic Judaism, he was 73. PAGE A17 | INSIDE |
1408594_1 | Putting J.F.K. Within Easier Reach One of business travelers' least favorite airports, the notoriously difficult to negotiate Kennedy International Airport in New York, is about to become easier to reach. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said yesterday that the long-anticipated AirTrain JFK, a $1.9 billion light-rail system was on schedule and nearing completion. The system, similar to the highly praised AirTrain project that allows travelers to Newark International Airport to seamlessly link to Amtrak and commuter rail lines, will open in phases after a period of equipment testing that starts in October. The first phase will link only to airport areas like the car rental and long-term parking facilities. The more ambitious phase, tentatively set for opening in stages later this year and next year, will provide direct rail links between the airport and commuter and subway lines. At Newark, AirTrain Newark ridership has been steadily increasing since service began in October 2001. Average ridership in recent months is nearing 3,000 people a day, the Port Authority said. Over all, nearly 600,000 passengers have used the system since its opening. Increasing Concern Over Screening Bags There is increasing nervousness in the travel industry about the potential for chaotic delays when federally mandated procedures for screening all checked baggage at airports take effect on Dec. 31. Officials at airlines, at airports and at a number of traveler advocacy groups have said the new screening equipment, especially the SUV-sized bag screening machines, was too expensive (an estimated $12 billion for the machines and for the design modifications to house them) and too inaccurate to do the job without causing pileups of bags and delays and cancellations of flights at the 429 airports that are required to have the gear. The latest group to weigh in on the issue is the Reason Foundation, a libertarian-oriented policy research organization. A study released by the Reason Public Policy Institute (available at www.rppi.org), calls for delaying the baggage-check plan and adopting a ''more realistic'' deadline for full baggage screening -- hopefully by machines that are more reliable than the ones currently being planned, which have been shown to reject 30 percent of innocent bags and can process fewer than 200 bags in an hour. The study recommends shifting the focus of inspection from ''detecting objects'' to identifying high-risk passengers. Hitching a Ride On a Business Jet It's a little like holding up | MEMO PAD |
1408553_2 | scientific data behind most menopausal remedies remain sketchy. The study reported last week is the only randomized clinical trial of hormone replacement therapy in healthy women. Women in the study were given Prempro, a combined estrogen-progestin pill that has been the most widely used form of hormone replacement therapy in the United States. (Progestin is added to estrogen because women who take estrogen alone stand a significant risk of developing uterine cancer.) The estrogen in Prempro is derived from the urine of pregnant mares. Other estrogen supplements are made of estradiol, a synthetic copy of the kind produced by human ovaries. Theoretically, the action of estradiol in the body may be different from that of equine estrogen, but there is no evidence to show that it would be any safer for breast tissue or cardiovascular health. Similarly, progestins that are chemically different from the kind in Prempro theoretically may not have the same effect as was found in the trial. ''We can't generalize our finding to the other estrogens and other progestins, or other doses or ways of taking hormones like pills versus patches,'' said Dr. Marcia Stefanick, the principal investigator of the Women's Health Initiative trial. ''But if pharmaceutical companies or anyone else starts to claim that these other kinds are safer, they really need to prove that.'' The Women's Health Initiative is continuing to study the use of estrogen supplements alone in women who have had hysterectomies. That part of the trial was not halted, but will go on as planned until 2005 because there is no evidence that the estrogen alone is causing an increased risk of breast cancer. Lower doses of estrogen and progestin have been found to be effective against hot flashes and vaginal dryness in studies done by Dr. Lobo. Lower doses, about half as strong as the standard dose, have the added benefit of reducing the chance of breakthrough bleeding, Dr. Lobo said. Dr. Lobo said he had been moving toward lower doses of estrogen over the last several years. It is logical to assume that lower doses will pose less risk to breast and heart health, he said, though no studies have proved that. Dr. Lobo also sometimes prescribes lower doses of progestin. Some women, he has found in his own practice, can take it for just 10 to 12 days every two or three months. Estrogen can be given in the | Hormone Therapy: One Size, Clearly, No Longer Fits All |
1408544_0 | In theory, AIDS is preventable and treatable. But in reality, AIDS has spread so rapidly it rivals the worst epidemics in history. AIDS has killed more than 20 million people since 1981, when the first cases were discovered in the United States. Today, 40 million people live with H.I.V., the AIDS virus, and most are doomed to die for lack of the powerful combinations of drugs that can control the infection. And because these people lack access to the blood test that can tell if they are H.I.V. infected, they may unwittingly transmit the virus to another 45 million people by 2010. The magnitude of the epidemic is a tragedy that speakers at the 14th International AIDS Conference held here last week attributed directly to the failure to make effective preventions and treatments available to vast populations in Africa and elsewhere. The preventions include relatively inexpensive and simple measures: disease information, sex education, safe sex, condoms, needle exchange programs and blood tests. Treatments include drugs to counter H.I.V. and the unusual infections that accompany AIDS. Lack of anti-H.I.V. therapy has orphaned at least 11 million children. ''That is why treatment is so important in developing countries,'' said Dr. Peter Piot, the under secretary general of the United Nations in charge of its AIDS program. A solution to better control the epidemic, AIDS experts and economists said, is to spend $10 billion a year, largely from donations from rich countries. But what is the most effective way to spend it? Preventing more people from becoming infected? Or treating those who are infected? Some AIDS experts had expected vested interest groups at the conference to bitterly debate the priorities. But if the rhetoric from the 17,000 participants from 124 countries at the largest AIDS conference ever held is a valid indicator, there was an overwhelming consensus for supporting prevention and treatment because one cannot work without the other. ''The issue has been widely discussed, and common sense and basic health principles say both need to go together,'' said Dr. Jordi Casabona, an infectious-disease expert in Barcelona and a co-president of the conference. Without a vaccine, few epidemics can be controlled by treatment or prevention alone, Dr. Casabona said at the closing news conference. ''The conflict between prevention and treatment has been blown out of proportion,'' said Dr. Merle A. Sande, an AIDS expert at the University of Utah. ''Most everyone involved in | The Urgent Search for an AIDS Plan |
1408532_0 | A new study may offer insight into the reasons that older women who exercise appear to have a lower risk of breast cancer. Researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle say they have found that in postmenopausal women, regular exercise seems to lower levels of estrogen in the blood. Older women with high levels of estrogen are more likely to develop breast cancer, said the researchers, who presented their findings this month at the International Cancer Congress in Oslo. The lead investigator, Dr. Anne McTiernan, and her colleagues based their findings on a study of 173 women, ages 50 to 75, described as sedentary and overweight. The women were divided into two groups. One took part in weekly stretch classes for a year. The other exercised for 45 minutes to an hour, five days a week, in the same period. Those women worked out two days at home and three days at a health center, where they were monitored. After three months, the researchers found that blood estrogen levels of the women who were exercising had dropped an average of 4 percent. The estrogen of those who were stretching increased 3 percent on average. At the end of the year, the study reported, the differences remained, although they were not as pronounced. The exercise appears central, the researchers said, because the women were not asked to change their diets. Some members of the stretch group lost weight, but their estrogen levels did not drop. On the other hand, the study found that some women who worked out maintained their weight and hormone levels. VITAL SIGNS: REGIMENS | Benefits of Not Staying Sedentary |
1408617_1 | a fight, Jake Siewert, an Alcoa spokesman, noted that the company had found ''a broad coalition'' welcoming it to Iceland. It had considered other locations, including India, Brazil and Vietnam, he said, adding that it would meet opposition anywhere. ''Where's the clean project?'' he said. ''Do you know of one that has no political impact and that environmentalists are all for?'' Hydropower, he added, would at least be cleaner than a coal-fired smelter somewhere else. For Iceland, which has only about 280,000 people, the project is a grand experiment in social engineering. The test is to see whether dying towns can be repopulated and virtually an entire region's economy redirected from fading fishing industries and skittish tourism. The smelter is to rest on Iceland's wind-swept eastern fjords, with a view to creating 2,000 construction jobs and 600 to 1,000 permanent ones in a region that Icelanders are deserting in droves. When and if the project is finished, 80 percent of Iceland's electricity will be dedicated to making aluminum. Other projects, like the Three Gorges Dam in China, cover more landscape and displace more people. But Iceland's endeavor is remarkable for the way it shifts around the basic elements of a fragile ecosystem in pursuit of economic revival. Outraged environmentalists say Iceland is selling its wild birthright, damaging its eco-tourist image and risking its credit rating to benefit a $23 billion American conglomerate and to win a mere handful of jobs. Prime Minister David Oddsson, who backs the plan, counters by saying that Iceland has profitably taken big risks to attract smelters twice before, that it must keep its rural areas populated and that it will still be able to establish a stunning national park, as environmentalists desire. ''We've calculated that the damage is relatively small,'' he said in an interview. ''And even 600 jobs in this part of Iceland is very important.'' The present plan was approved by 44 of Parliament's 63 members, including 12 members of the opposition. In a poll, 47 percent of Icelanders who responded supported the plan, and 30 percent opposed it. The chilly tundra north of Vatnajokull Glacier is Europe's second-largest wilderness area, after Svarlbard Island in the Arctic. The latest plan calls for damming up two of the area's three virgin rivers, draining them through 24 miles of tunnels, and then pouring the water through turbines to generate 700 megawatts of electricity. Last August, | An Icelandic Battle of Wildlife Versus Voltage |
1408546_4 | the vast amounts of wildness. Long distance migration patterns are still intact. Moose leave the North Fork and traveling more than 50 miles north into Canada. Wolves are also peripatetic. In 1989, a lone wolf left the Polebridge area and, with a male from Banff National Park, established a new pack 100 miles north. Grizzly bears sometimes do not hibernate in the winter here, perhaps because of abundant food sources killed by other predators and available all winter, but no one is sure. Researchers have also witnessed clashes between predators -- something known as trespass issues. ''It goes on every day,'' Dr. Boyd said. ''They don't know the territorial boundaries of other species. Wolves kill cougars, cougars kill coyotes, wolves kill grizzly cubs, and wolves kill black bears. Wolves kill wolves. It's just part of life.'' The North Fork also gives scientists a rare chance to study how predators regulate an ecosystem. When predators disappear, for example, deer and other browsers can grow wildly in number and damage plant populations, wipe out ground nesting birds and cause erosion from overgrazing. But here things are still intact. The simple formula for assuring the wildness of this valley is wild land. Conservation biologists know that the more human beings in an area, the fewer the carnivores. Some carnivores, for example, will not cross major highways. As people move into a valley, the food source that was once available becomes difficult to get to, and a piece of the survival puzzle is taken away. Take away too many pieces and the carnivores disappear. Wolves and grizzly bears that disperse out of Yellowstone National Park, for example, have an extremely high mortality rate -- there are simply too many sheep, llamas, filled dog-food bowls on porches and other temptations surrounding the park, and when predators get into trouble, they get killed. Biologists and conservationists want to maintain this wild chunk of America, and keep it from becoming an island ecosystem, with help from the Canadians. Sometime this summer, conservationists hope the federal and provincial Canadian governments will move to designate a 100,000-acre chunk of the Flathead Valley just north of the United States and adjacent to it, a part of Waterton Park, and set it aside to keep the region from becoming another fragmented, truncated island ecosystem. ''Completing Waterton is a priority,'' said Bob Peart, executive director of the provincial chapter of the Canadian | Where the Bears and the Wolverines Prey |
1408581_2 | debatable point that large numbers of business travelers are now flying on fares the airlines intended for leisure travelers. Now, with the financial collapse of one or more major airlines no longer an unlikely possibility, those airlines still appear to be dithering and fiddling with selected fare discounts and selected easing of restrictions, while stubbornly clinging to bedrock fare structures with the futile tenacity of the defenders of the Maginot Line in 1940. The major airlines have steadfastly insisted that the business traveler has merely cut back on trips, and will one day resume more frequent flying. However, industry professionals say a large and sharply growing number of business travelers have actually dropped from the radar simply because they have slipped into the cheap-fare world of the leisure-travel market. American Express officials noted yesterday that more than 40 percent of corporate tickets the company books now are so-called nonrefundables -- the cheaper, advance-purchase tickets that traditionally have been classified as leisure fares. Business fares are generally classified as full-price tickets that are fully refundable, with no restrictions like requirements for a Saturday night stay. Two years ago, only a quarter of corporate tickets were nonrefundables, said Nancy Carlin, an American Express vice president. As major airlines scramble to fill seats at almost any price, even restrictions like the Saturday-stay requirement, intended to discourage business travelers from buying leisure fares, are fading on many routes. Often, she said, the only real restriction on a cheap advance-purchase ticket is its nonrefundability. An unused nonrefundable ticket may be reused on the same airline within one year, with a penalty fee of $75 or $100. Because so many business travelers now use electronic ticketing, corporate travel managers worry about the tendency of employees to forget about those tickets, and let them expire, unused. American Express said yesterday that it would soon introduce a new service, Ticket TRAX NR, that automates for company travel managers the cumbersome process of keeping track of unused nonrefundable tickets, and applies their value to future tickets. American Express also announced a new centralized online booking tool called TravelBahn Portal, to gather on a single internal corporate site all air fares on the Web, while at the same time enabling company travel managers to compile the booking data they need to negotiate discounts effectively with airlines, hotels and other suppliers. Ms. Pappas, meanwhile, said that her company was releasing today | A Business Changed, Perhaps Permanently |
1408573_2 | down to a lower level for the second half of life. The symptoms of menopause are really not the symptoms of low estrogen but the symptoms of hormonal change -- puberty in reverse. And, as with puberty, the symptoms are transient, usually lasting between three and four years. In one study following women through menopause, 50 percent of the participants complained about hot flashes but only 16 percent felt they were really bothersome. For these women, it is perfectly reasonable to take hormone therapy for up to four years. At that point, a woman can either stop cold turkey (50 percent of women will do fine with this approach) or taper off over several months. There is a bigger issue than simply hormone therapy, however. There is a tendency, driven by wishful thinking combined with good marketing and media hype, to jump ahead of the medical evidence. In the 1950's, it was DES, a drug given to pregnant women to prevent miscarriages. It was many years later that a randomized, controlled study showed that it had no effect in preventing miscarriages. Finally, in 1971 it was learned that daughters of women who took DES were at increased risk of developing vaginal cancer. In the 1990's, the bone marrow transplant -- high-dose chemotherapy with stem-cell rescue -- was proposed to treat aggressive breast cancers. It was widely used until four randomized, controlled studies showed it was no better than standard therapy, and had far more side effects. Arthroscopic surgery for osteoarthritis was commonly performed but just last week a controlled study showed it had no objective benefit. Hormone replacement therapy is just one more example of this phenomenon. These examples show the importance of taking the time to determine the safety and efficacy of a particular therapy before we embrace it. This is particularly true in preventive medicine, since such therapy can create one disease in trying to prevent another that might not occur at all. The foundation of prevention still should be lifestyle changes: quitting smoking, eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly. Drugs, whether to prevent heart disease, bone fractures or breast cancer, should be secondary. This is not necessarily an easy lesson, but we need to demand medicine based on solid evidence, not hunches or wishful thinking. Susan M. Love is author of ''Dr. Susan Love's Hormone Book'' and an adjunct professor of surgery at U.C.L.A. Medical School. | Preventive Medicine, Properly Practiced |
1405897_0 | Wider application of measures known to stem the spread of AIDS would prevent 29 million people in the world from becoming infected by 2010, according to two new studies reported today. In concluding that there is overwhelming evidence that simple, relatively inexpensive steps can greatly reduce transmission of H.I.V., the AIDS virus, the reports said the number of adults infected each year would drop drastically if the measures were implemented. Some of those measures include improving the status of women, condom promotion and distribution, voluntary counseling and testing, and education programs for students and workers. But if countries fail to adopt the measures, about 46 million people, most in sub-Saharan Africa, China and India, would become infected by 2010, the reports estimated. The costs of a sustained aggressive program would be $10 billion a year, or $1,000 for each infection prevented, much less, prevention advocates argue, than the cost of treating people once they become ill. The studies began after the United Nations General Assembly special session on AIDS last year set goals of reducing the number of infected young people by 25 percent by 2005 among young people in the hardest-hit countries, and by 25 percent elsewhere by 2010. The goals can be met, said the authors of the reports, who are experienced AIDS workers from government health agencies, universities, advocacy groups and private foundations in all continents. The reports were issued in advance of the 14th International AIDS Conference, which begins here on Sunday. One report, by researchers from a variety of government and private groups, including the United Nations, the World Health Organization and the United States Census Bureau, is being published on Saturday in The Lancet. The researchers analyzed 86 published reports of prevention programs around the world and trends in new H.I.V. infection in 126 countries to calculate what impact prevention programs would have in each country in slowing the spread of the virus. The second report, sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, is a blueprint for reducing infections worldwide. That report will be discussed at the conference next week. Among other things, this report calls for efforts to improve the status of women in poor countries, which it says is central to limiting the spread of AIDS. Though AIDS rivals history's worst epidemics, and many people have expressed a fatalistic attitude about its continued spread, | Modest Anti-AIDS Efforts Offer Huge Payoff, Studies Say |
1405925_5 | operation, suggesting that there are several highly classified documents that address different parts of the planning. For instance, the ''Courses of Action'' document does not mention other coalition forces, casualty estimates, how Mr. Hussein may himself be a target, or what political regime might follow the Iraqi leader if an American-led attack was successful, the source said. Nor does the document discuss the sequencing of air and ground campaigns, the precise missions of special operations forces or the possibility of urban warfare in downtown Baghdad, with Iraqi forces possibly deploying chemical weapons. In fact, the discussion about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction is relatively terse. The document discusses the broad threat such weapons pose to American forces and surrounding countries, the need to deter Baghdad from using them, and, failing that, devising ways to counter them. It describes the number of Marine and Army divisions, air expeditionary forces, and aircraft carriers. These and other forces add up to as many as 250,000 troops, the source familiar with the document said, but there is little detail about those forces beyond that. Nor does the document contain a comprehensive analysis of the Iraqi ground forces, including the Republican Guard and various security forces that are believed to be fiercely loyal to Mr. Hussein. This again suggests that such analysis is either incomplete or is contained in another planning document. By emphasizing a large American force, the document seems to reflect a view that a successful campaign would require sizable conventional forces staging from Kuwait, or at least held in reserve there. An alternative plan, championed by retired Gen. Wayne A. Downing of the Army, calls for conquering Iraq with a combination of airstrikes and special operations attacks in coordination with indigenous fighters, similar to the campaign in Afghanistan. Relying solely on that approach appears to have been ruled out. General Downing resigned last week as Mr. Bush's chief adviser on counterterrorism, reportedly frustrated by the administration's tough talk against Iraq but lack of action. Among the many questions the military and the administration must address before staging an invasion is where to base air and ground forces in the region. Geography and history, specifically the gulf war, would suggest that countries like Kuwait, Turkey, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain would be likely candidates for staging troops or air combat missions. Any mention of using bases in Saudi Arabia, from which | U.S. PLAN FOR IRAQ IS SAID TO INCLUDE ATTACK ON 3 SIDES |
1405922_2 | today's shipment will set a standard for the security of what could be dozens of similar shipments of reprocessed fuels from Britain to Japan, which would create a huge temptation to international terrorist groups. According to Greenpeace, the Japanese government has well over 33 tons of separated plutonium stockpiled in Britain and France, and it is intent on having European companies mix these stocks with uranium for burning in nuclear power plants here. Japan has repeatedly confirmed its commitment to using reprocessed fuel from Europe for its nuclear industry. The government has made no comment about the current shipment. The forms a threat might take were already spelled out in a critique of flaws in maritime security involving plutonium shipments, written six years ago by experts from Sandia National Laboratories, in conjunction with the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore laboratories, the United States' three premier weapons laboratories. The report warned against risks from the seizure of the plutonium cargo aboard a lightly armed ship, to a devastating attack using high explosives, which would create the equivalent of a huge dirty bomb at sea. Wary of such a threat, South Korea today reportedly asked Japan not to allow the ships sailing today to enter the narrow strait just off Pusan that separates the two countries. Officials in many South Pacific countries, through whose waters the plutonium cargo ships are likely to transit, also fear that the vessels could be sabotaged en route. Kansai Electric, one of Japan's largest producers of nuclear energy and the operator of the reactor here that is returning the faulty plutonium fuel, would not say what route the ship planned to chart to Britain. Its destination is Barrow-in-Furness, the industrial port in northwestern England, where British Nuclear Fuels Limited, or BNFL, as the company is known, will receive the fuel. Governments in this region are particularly nervous after recent intelligence reports from the United States and Morocco that groups with links to Al Qaeda had discussed plans to use small, high-speed boats to attack Western naval vessels. These reports warned of sabotage plans centered near the Strait of Gibraltar. A similar attack using a small boat damaged the American destroyer Cole in the port city of Aden, Yemen, in October 2000. ''We are not informed about such things,'' said Tatsuya Kawabe, a spokesman for Kansai Electric. ''All I can say is that security today is equal to | Japanese Shipment of Nuclear Fuel Raises Security Fears |
1405873_0 | Meyer Reinhold, an author and scholar of classical studies, died on Monday in Nashville. He was 92. Dr. Reinhold, who was born in Brooklyn, was a firm believer in popularizing the classics by teaching them in translation. In so doing, he parted company with more traditional scholars. ''The age-old grammar-translation method of teaching Latin and Greek is giving way to more imaginative and innovative approaches,'' he wrote in a 1973 article supporting such innovation. Dr. Reinhold fell in love with the classics after reading Virgil's ''Aeneid'' as a student at Bushwick High School in Brooklyn. He went on to City College and then to Columbia, where he received his Ph.D. in ancient history in 1933. He then spent two years as a fellow at the American Academy in Rome. Upon his return to New York, he began teaching the classics at Brooklyn College and remained there until, at the height of the McCarthy era, he was forced to resign when he refused to answer questions about his political views and associations. In 1987 Brooklyn College formally apologized to Dr. Reinhold and others who lost their jobs during that period. Suddenly without work, he took a position in the advertising firm of his brother, Louis, all the while continuing his writing and research about the ancient world. In 1965 Dr. Reinhold re-entered academia as a professor of Greek, Latin and ancient history at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Two years later, he moved to the University of Missouri, where he later became the Byler Distinguished Professor of Classical Studies. After retiring from Missouri in 1980, he became a visiting professor at Boston University, where he founded the Institute for the Classical Tradition and The International Journal of the Classical Tradition. In 1995 he moved to Nashville, where he became a visiting scholar at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Reinhold was the author, co-author or editor of 23 books, including the two-volume ''Roman Civilization,'' written with Naphtali Lewis, which was published by Columbia University Press in 1951 and remains in print. His last book, ''Studies in Classical History and Society,'' was published this spring by Oxford University Press. Dr. Reinhold is survived by his brother, Louis; a daughter, Helen Reinhold Barrett of Nashville; and two grandchildren. His son, Robert, a former reporter for The New York Times, died in 1996. | Meyer Reinhold, 92, Scholar Who Popularized the Classics |
1405900_1 | full transition from violence to democracy.'' In recent months Belfast has been hit by the worst street disturbances in years, with Catholic and Protestant gangs attacking each other's neighborhoods and police officers with stones and firebombs. The police say the Irish Republican Army and Protestant paramilitary groups are helping orchestrate the rioting despite their claims of cease-fires in keeping with the peace agreement. David Trimble, the leader of the Ulster Unionists and the first minister of the power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly, called for today's meeting under pressure from people within his party who oppose the accord and want Sinn Fein, the political party of the I.R.A., ousted from the government. In the House of Commons on Wednesday, Mr. Trimble accused Mr. Blair of adopting a ''hands off'' policy toward Northern Ireland and said his response to the street disorders had been ''remarkably passive.'' On emerging from the talks today, Mr. Trimble said he had told Mr. Blair that something must be done about the violence by the end of the month because the confidence of unionists in the process was declining. ''He has to recreate this confidence and do it quick,'' Mr. Trimble said. Unionists, generally Protestants, favor keeping Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom. Their republican rivals, most of whom are Catholics, want to merge Northern Ireland with the Irish Republic. Mr. Blair said that all parties had agreed to take action against the rioters, and that he would produce proposals of his own before the adjourning of Parliament late this month. He added, ''I have no doubt at all -- and I say this to you very frankly though people within the unionist community will disagree with me -- no doubt at all that the leadership of Sinn Fein are committed to this process and want to make it work.'' The talks were conducted today under increased security after Colin Cramphorn, the acting chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said dissident republican groups had made death threats against Mr. Trimble and other Protestant politicians. Mr. Cramphorn also said the republicans might try to harm young Catholic recruits to the new police force, which is mandated to hire Catholics in equal numbers to Protestants to redress the imbalance in the Royal Ulster Constabulary that was 92 percent Protestant. One recruit escaped serious injury last month only because a bomb placed in his car failed to detonate. | Blair Vows to Halt Rioting in Northern Ireland |
1405943_0 | Terrorists usually try to attack strong targets at their weakest point, security experts contend. But if the shooting today at Los Angeles International Airport was terrorism -- as Israeli officials believe, although American officials disagree -- then it was an attack on perhaps the airport's strongest point. El Al is famous for its strict security procedures, many of which were adopted by American airlines in the aftermath of Sept. 11, and has undercover agents on every plane and armed guards at every ticket counter. In addition, El Al recently increased its security procedures. ''Means of security have been reinforced and security checks of passengers, air crew and El Al planes throughout the world have been increased,'' the airline said after today's attack, although it said the unspecified changes had been made with no specific concerns about the Los Angeles airport. ''Unfortunately, we are very trained to engage all kinds of terrorist acts,'' said Yuval Rotem, Israel's consul-general in Los Angeles. Israeli officials have been ratcheting up security on El Al since the 1960's, when it became a target of attacks and hijackings. The only successful hijacking of an El Al jet was in 1968, when a flight from Rome was diverted to Algiers by Palestinian nationalists. In 1985, the airline suffered its most recent major attack, when Palestinians attacked the check-in counters at the airports in Rome and Vienna with guns and grenades, leaving 18 people dead. El Al has been successful in thwarting hijackings and in creating the most thorough system for screening passengers and baggage. It requires passengers to arrive at least two hours before their flights for security checks and questioning, uses special compression chambers to check baggage for air-pressure bombs and protects its cockpits with double doors. Its passengers are unapologetically profiled. While most Israeli Jews quickly pass through security inspection, Arabs and certain other foreigners are singled out for intense questioning. ''I think there is no end for security measures to be installed in order to prevent any kinds of events of this nature,'' Mr. Rotem said of today's attack. ''But again, it's up to the Americans to decide the level and the degree of security arrangements to be given and to be done in your own airports.'' That was pretty much what Mayor James K. Hahn of Los Angeles said today. The mayor, who just two days earlier proposed a $9.6 billion renovation of | An Attack Where Security Is Probably the World's Tightest |
1405843_0 | In May a group of Israeli and Palestinian politicians met with the people who negotiated Northern Ireland's breakthrough peace accord of 1998, hoping to learn something from their experience. Perhaps the Mideast crew should find another model. Northern Ireland has been plagued by firebombing and rioting, in direct violation of pledges by paramilitary groups to stop fighting. This along with BBC reports last month that the Irish Republican Army had tested weapons in Colombia. No wonder a sense of fatigue hangs over ''Endgame in Ireland,'' a four-hour report that trudges through 30 years of fighting and negotiating. This documentary is thorough, offering an abundance of smart interviews with numerous players from all sides. But such a catalog approach, more reportorial than analytic, tends to bog down in detail. This feeling of being bogged down, however, may be exactly the right mood for coming to grips with the frustrating obstinacies that have plagued the peace process in Ireland. But even in a dutiful rather than artistic vehicle like this, drama and emotionalism inevitably burst through. It's Ireland, after all, where politics is passion. This PBS series begins on Sunday night with ''Bomb and Ballot Box,'' which lays out the essential struggle that has dominated ''the Troubles,'' most intensely since ''Bloody Sunday'' in 1972, when British soldiers killed 14 Irish Catholics during a demonstration in Londonderry. The question has been whether the battle for a unified Ireland would be fought on the streets or in Parliament. Smooth Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein, the political arm of the I.R.A., makes the transition from terrorist to diplomat, even as his old comrades in the I.R.A. continue to prefer explosives to debate. It's easy to see why he wanted to break loose of restrictions barring his voice from English television. Mr. Adams has great screen presence, professorial but accessible, which he put to good use in the United States on chat programs like ''The Larry King Show'' after President Bill Clinton granted him a visa. Mr. Clinton became involved initially, as a sop to Irish-American voters, during his 1992 presidential campaign. Once he was elected, he found he had to answer to many constituencies, not least Britain, whose help he needed in Bosnia and elsewhere in Europe. The American role is examined most closely in the second part, which will be broadcast next Sunday. The series begins by recalling the 1984 bombing of the | Terrorism and Talk: The Cycle of Conflict in Ireland |
1405894_0 | Eight large energy companies concluded a framework joint venture agreement today for the development of a natural gas field in western China and the construction of a pipeline to carry the gas across the country to Shanghai. Already behind schedule, the high-capacity pipeline is supposed to snake nearly 2,500 miles across the country, helping slake China's enormous thirst for energy, especially low-pollution energy like natural gas. But the trans-China pipeline will not be enough by itself: in announcing today's deal at a press conference here, Wang Fucheng, the executive director of the PetroChina Company, also mentioned that his company had opened talks with Gazprom to import natural gas from Russia as well. PetroChina, the main partner in the venture with a 50 percent stake, put the cost of developing the gas field at $3.3 billion, plus another $5.2 billion for the pipeline itself. Still to be negotiated and built are the electric utilities and municipal gas distribution systems needed to consume the gas, at a cost that Chinese officials have estimated at up to $10 billion. Today's deal is a step forward for a project that was supposed to be well under way by now. ''Due to the complexity of the negotiations, it has been postponed a little bit,'' Mr. Wang said. This was to be expected for such an ambitious venture, he said. Deutsche Bank, PetroChina's financial adviser, said it would not be able to start arranging loans for the project until a final joint venture agreement is concluded. Philip J. Crotty, Deutsche Bank's managing director for corporate finance in Asia, said he expected the final agreement to be concluded in three to five months. Most of the borrowing for the $8.5 billion project is expected to be denominated in China's controlled local currency, the renminbi, and syndicated within China. That could turn it into the largest corporate loan syndication ever in the country, Mr. Crotty said. One or more of the four main, state-owned Chinese commercial banks would probably handle the deal, he said. ''If you're earning renminbi revenues, then that should drive you to arrange renminbi financing,'' Mr. Crotty said. Energy analysts had hoped that PetroChina would announce today that it had started signing contracts with customers to buy the gas, but Mr. Wang said this had not yet happened. The company has concluded 45 letters of intent covering slightly more gas than the pipeline's initial design | Energy Companies Agree On Trans-China Pipeline |
1409112_2 | we wanted to have.'' This shift has reduced MSN's costs, but not enough to prevent it from losing money. By contrast, when AOL reached eight million subscribers in 1996, it was profitable. AOL has suffered from a sharp decrease in advertising revenue and has also been losing market share in subscriptions. AOL has 37 percent of the Internet access market today, compared with 41 percent two years ago, according to a survey by Odyssey, a San Francisco research firm. (MSN's share increased to 11 percent from 5 percent in the survey.) The biggest gains have been by the various high-speed services offered by cable television and telephone companies. MSN's new strategy revolves around exploiting what it sees as AOL's market weaknesses and forging alliances with cable and phone companies for high-speed Internet service. Last month, for example, Verizon Communications agreed to use MSN software and service as part of its high-speed offering. The MSN 8 software represents an effort by Microsoft to catch up in areas where AOL is still perceived to have an advantage. It will allow parents to control and monitor their children's use of the Internet and will offer a variety of methods to block unwanted junk e-mail. Microsoft is also including a variety of features it had been selling on a stand-alone basis. For example, the Internet software includes the photo editing capability of Microsoft's $39.95 Picture-It software and a bill-paying service that had cost $5.95 a month on its MSN Money Central Web site. In part, Microsoft is trying to shift to selling software through subscriptions rather than through individual retail purchases, a step Microsoft has long hoped to take. At the same time, Microsoft is hoping to charge new monthly fees for various aspects of its Web site that had been free. For the first time, Microsoft will charge a monthly fee to people who use its MSN Explorer software but do not subscribe to its Internet access service. The fee has not been set but is likely to be $5 to $10 a month. AOL's similar ''bring your own access'' plan costs $15 a month. For the time being, however, Microsoft says that the vast bulk of its subscribers will come from its own Internet access service. While many MSN features, like its basic Hotmail e-mail accounts, will remain free, most of the enhancements, like its improved filtering for junk e-mail, will be | With Upgrade To Software, MSN May Nip At AOL's Heels |
1409031_3 | solve crimes. In St. Clair County, two bomb threats were phoned in to Collinsville High School using 911. Using phone number and location information, Mr. Forshee said, the caller was found and prosecuted. The new technology is also believed to have helped track down Lucas J. Helder, a suspect in pipe bombings in five states. As soon as Mr. Helder activated his cellphone on May 7, F.B.I. agents figured out that he was between two small towns in Nevada and, after a high-speed chase on Interstate 80, arrested him. ''The F.B.I. won't get into how they did it,'' said Gary Berks, communications officer for the state's Emergency Management Division, but as for whether E911 data was used, ''it sure seems likely.'' Introducing E911 technology nationwide will take some time. Cellular carriers can choose one of two methods: a network-based approach using triangulation to determine the location relative to cellular towers; or a handset-based solution using Global Positioning System technology to pinpoint the phone itself. Most carriers have chosen the handset solution, and the Federal Communications Commission has given them until the end of 2005 to replace 95 percent of phones on their networks with units that work with G.P.S. Even then, there is no guarantee that when you call 911, the emergency response center will be able to receive and translate that location data, but the phones are at least available. In Rhode Island, the entire state can now locate Sprint and Verizon customers who have G.P.S. phones. But because those phones are so new, few customers have them, so most of the expensive location technology installed at the 911-dispatch center remains idle. No owner of a phone equipped with G.P.S. has run into a problem in Rhode Island. Even in Lake County, Ind., the only notable rescue was that of the wayward boater. So is all this technology worth it? ''Absolutely, positively, 199 percent yes,'' said Mr. Hall of York County. ''That very first call we answered, everything we've gone through made it worthwhile.'' What about privacy? A cellphone that continually divulges the user's location makes some people queasy. Most of the new G.P.S. phones will let owners disable the location feature, except when calling 911 -- and there is a way around that, too. ''If you don't want 911 to find you,'' said Raymond LaBelle, emergency communications manager for the state of Rhode Island, ''just don't call us.'' | A Wireless 911 System Finds Those in Need |
1409134_0 | Paving stones and gasoline bombs were raining in on a working-class Protestant neighborhood over the high wall separating it from a Catholic enclave. A roof caught fire, boarded-up windows clattered and shook from direct hits, and two residents, Raymond and Patsy Laverty, talked about how the Northern Ireland peace movement they once supported had sold out their people. ''The Catholics treat us like we lived in the big house all those years, but we were never well off and we were oppressed too,'' Mr. Laverty, 41, said, watching a bombardment that has become almost routine. ''We hoped for a change,'' said his wife, ''but how can I tell my kids the peace process is working when we're getting shot at and you have to be Catholic to get a job.'' Once, of course, only Protestants were welcome in the workplace in Belfast. Mrs. Laverty, 40, winced at the reminder. ''I guess we've come full circle, haven't we?'' she said. Northern Ireland's majority Protestants have, in fact, taken on the grievances of a minority, and their growing feeling of precariousness in the land they once dominated is being seen as the biggest menace facing the province's fragile peace deal. The 1998 agreement created equal opportunity arrangements in Northern Ireland's political, institutional and professional life to try to halt violence and start to build trust between the two rival communities. It balanced promises for Catholics -- known as nationalists and republicans because of their wish to see Northern Ireland become part of the Irish Republic -- with guarantees to Protestants -- known as loyalists or unionists because of their desire to keep their land part of the United Kingdom. But while Catholics have succeeded in moving into residential and job areas they never penetrated before and have felt their public influence enhanced by aggressive and fiercely focused political leadership, Protestants have despaired as their society has appeared to come apart. Their working-class communities have descended into turf wars and gang struggles, their politicians have fallen into name-calling disputes among themselves and their educated elites have disengaged from public life, leaving the city for the security of hedged suburbs or fleeing Northern Ireland altogether. A census out later this year is expected to show the Protestant majority down to 51 percent and the Catholic minority up to 45. ''You find tremendous confidence among Catholics and an utter absence of it among unionists,'' said | Peace Gains by the Catholics Embitter Ulster Protestants |
1409046_5 | ''At the end of the day, the quality that you're going to get from a refilled or remanufactured ink cartridge is extremely low in relation to what you'll get from HP.'' Mr. Vaughan said that his company's ink was superior and that the cartridges' print heads and other parts were not designed for reuse. Hewlett-Packard offers its customers a ''take-back program'' for all of its cartridges. The company pays for shipping, but it does not pay for the returned cartridges and does not reuse or refill them, Mr. Vaughan said. Instead, they are broken down into their component materials, and about 65 percent of that material can be recycled. Paying for cartridges might open the company up to antitrust charges from the remanufacturers, Mr. Vaughan said. But unlike Hewlett-Packard, the remanufacturers cannot guarantee that returned cartridges are going to be recycled and not tossed out, he said. ''A cartridge does not have an endless life,'' he said. ''If a large percentage of them are going to a landfill because they are not reusable, that may make me think twice about whether I want to contribute to that.'' Cartridge remanufacturers dispute those claims about quality and the extent of their recycling. Ian Elliott, a senior vice president at Nu-kote International, a major remanufacturer based in Bardstown, Ky., said his company's remanufactured cartridges were tested in printers and were fully guaranteed. He acknowledged that the company had thrown out many cartridges that could not be resold, but said it now threw out 10 to 15 percent of them and was working hard to reduce that figure to zero. For example, it is now working with a company that can grind up unusable cartridges and turn them into plastic wheels for garbage cans. Most people who donate cartridges to recycling programs probably have no idea that they are handing over materials that bring significant profit to an upstart industry -- one that is generally not welcomed by the cartridges' original manufacturers. David Wood, who campaigns for waste reduction as program director of the GrassRoots Recycling Network, said there was ''some need for better accountability throughout these emerging recycling sectors in terms of what's happening to the materials.'' But just about any recycling is good recycling, Mr. Wood said, especially when the long-term environmental impact of discarded cartridges is unknown. ''The more stuff we can divert from landfills, the better,'' he said. Plastic Gold | Plastic Gold: Recyclers Find Profit in Printer Ink Cartridges |
1409198_0 | InVision Technologies said yesterday that the Transportation Security Administration had ordered 50 of its explosives-detection devices for installation in baggage-handling systems at major airports by the end of the year. The agency also ordered parts for 50 more of the devices and adjusted its previous order for free-standing InVision equipment that inspects carry-on luggage to include more large-capacity models in the mix. InVision said the new and amended orders were valued at $106.8 million. Barnaby Feder (NYT) | Technology Briefing | Hardware: U.S. Orders Equipment From InVision |
1407580_3 | as is destroying documents to keep them from being used as evidence in a civil lawsuit. Electronic documents pose special problems, Ms. Nimsger said, because every e-mail message and every document sent may survive on a recipient's computer even after the sender has deleted it. Steps that employers can take include requiring employees to put all e-mail messages related to a particular project into one folder that is archived or deleted after a certain period of time, Mr. Dennis said. That keeps the e-mail messages off the desktop computers of employees, but the process works only if employees comply; it cannot easily be automated. ''In any but the most sophisticated organization, the document retention policies are not uniformly observed,'' Mr. Dennis said. ''That's the biggest issue.'' Some companies tell employees to purge e-mail messages every 30 days, Mr. Overly said. But that policy can be difficult to enforce, and the last thing any company needs is to have a policy that is honored only part of the time. ''The keystone of any policy is it has to be uniformly applied,'' he said. If employees destroy certain documents because they involve one client or were written by one person, but not others, that is suspicious, he said. The same concern applies if employees suddenly start shredding and deleting documents, even in compliance with company policy, that they had previously let pile up, he said. Compliance can be achieved only by careful training, Mr. Lytton of International Paper said. ''We remind everybody once a year that we have the policy and ask them to tell us they're in compliance with it,'' he said. ''I think most companies do that.'' For some companies, keeping documents, even potentially incriminating e-mail messages, is worth the risk, Mr. Overly said. At companies with a lot of employee turnover, e-mail messages and other records may be the only way to make sure important information does not get lost. ''This is one of the reasons why Microsoft, even though it has been involved in many lawsuits regarding e-mail, has not adopted'' a policy of deleting e-mail monthly, he said. ''They may be deleting the only piece of evidence of how a particular piece of programming was created.'' Of course, he added, the more data a company keeps, the more expensive it is to sort through it if the company is sued. If a company has years of electronic | Companies Rethink What to Shred, and When |
1407623_0 | To the Editor: Re ''Study Is Halted Over Rise Seen in Cancer Risk'' (front page, July 9): What has been tested and found risky is one particular drug, Prempro, a pharmaceutical that combines conjugated estrogen with a synthetic progestin. Unfortunately, the study made no provision to follow the risks to women of supplemental estrogen in combination with natural progesterone on an intermittent cyclic basis, a regimen least likely to increase risks of breast cancer, heart attacks and strokes. Women should not be left thinking that all estrogen-progestin hormone replacement therapy is hazardous. What a pity that the study was poorly designed and that its conclusions lend themselves so well to misinterpretation. SUSAN RAKO, M.D. Newtonville, Mass., July 9, 2002 | A Cloud Over Hormone Therapy |
1407624_0 | To the Editor: Re ''Hormone Replacement Study a Shock to the Medical System'' (front page, July 10): Fourteen years ago, I stopped hormone replacement therapy after seven years on it. Increasingly, I did not feel well. I discussed it with my doctor, and he insisted that I stay on it. He told me that my bones would get brittle if I didn't take hormones. I went home, thought about it and decided that nice bones would not do much good in the cemetery, so I stopped the hormones. I immediately felt like a new person! HAYDEE PAVIA Laguna Woods, Calif., July 10, 2002 | A Cloud Over Hormone Therapy |
1407620_0 | To the Editor: Re ''Study Is Halted Over Rise Seen in Cancer Risk'' (front page, July 9): The Women's Health Initiative Study on estrogen-progestin replacement was doomed from the beginning, since the biology of the hormones and their receptors does not seem to have been considered in the design of the clinical trial. Premarin, the estrogen used in this trial, is a complex mixture of horse estrogens, along with other steroids not normally found in women. Provera, the progestin used, is a synthetic analog of the normal hormone progesterone. Progestins like Provera block the beneficial actions of estrogen and may have harmful effects of their own by binding to receptors of other steroid hormones. Concurrent and continuous exposure to estrogens and progestins for prolonged periods of time makes no sense in terms of normal physiology. Giving the hormones in a pattern different from the normal physiological situation is likely to result in abnormal responses. C. DOMINIQUE TORAN-ALLERAND, M.D. New York, July 9, 2002 The writer is a professor of anatomy and cell biology, and neurology, Columbia University. | A Cloud Over Hormone Therapy |
1407545_1 | performance on the day the towers collapsed. The report, due in August, will undoubtedly elaborate on some of the deadly lapses in command, communication and control that have been outlined this week by reporters for The Times. With each revelation about the chaos at the site of the disaster, it becomes clearer that the city's Fire Department has to modernize its leadership structure and its tragically inadequate communication system. Firefighters, whose instinct to save lives pushes them toward a disaster, must be trained to respond to commands to hold back. The spirit of firehouse comradeship that has always been the base of the department's organization is not adequate to mobilize or protect rescuers in an emergency on the huge scale of the one last September. And the Police Department and Fire Department must drop their historical rivalry and start to cooperate and share information. The details of what went wrong on Sept. 11 are heart-wrenching. After the south tower collapsed, police officials in helicopters surveyed the north tower, reporting 21 minutes before it too collapsed that those inside should evacuate quickly. Those messages went to police but apparently not to firefighters who were trapped by their own flawed radios and the inability of police and fire officials to communicate. Whatever reasons seemed important in the past for keeping these two emergency communication systems wholly separate no longer exist. Mr. Scoppetta and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly are both professionals who ought to be able to achieve the coordination of their departments, including a common -- and workable -- radio channel and cooperation on helicopter use. The two should also prepare for managing future crises of this magnitude with a prearranged agreement about how they will work together and who will be in charge. The firefighters' outdated radios served them particularly badly that day, and calls to evacuate went unheard or unheeded. There is no excuse for New York City's famed fire units to have such inadequate equipment, but the radios are symptomatic of even more fundamental difficulties. This week, 10 months after the event, Mayor Michael Bloomberg had to step in to resolve a minor dispute between the Fire Department and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey over how to share tapes of firefighters on Sept. 11. Now the mayor should address the larger issue of how to make the department ready for a new era of firefighting. | Refighting the Fires of Sept. 11 |
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