December 20, 2006
China Tightens Adoption Rules for Foreigners
By PAM BELLUCK and JIM YARDLEY
China plans to tighten rules on foreign adoptions, barring people who are single, obese, older than 50 or who fail to meet certain benchmarks in financial, physical or psychological health from adopting Chinese children, according to adoption agencies in the United States.
The restrictions are in response to an enormous spike in applications by foreigners, which has far exceeded the number of available babies, said leaders of American adoption agencies who were briefed by Chinese officials earlier this month.
The new regulations, which have not yet been formally announced by the government-run China Center of Adoption Affairs, or C.C.A.A., are expected to take effect on May 1, 2007, and have raised concern and anxiety among prospective adoptive parents in this country.
China has in recent years been the No. 1 source of foreign-born children adopted by Americans — in the fiscal year 2006, the State Department granted 6,493 visas to Chinese orphans — and its regulations on who can adopt have been less restrictive than those in some other countries, adoption agencies said.
Now, however, the agencies said, the Chinese government has formulated guidelines intended to recruit adoptive families with qualities that Chinese officials believe will provide the greatest chance that children will be raised by healthy, economically stable parents.
“They need somehow to cut down on the number of families that are submitting” adoption requests, said Jackie Harrah, executive director of Harrah’s Adoption International Mission in Spring, Tex.
“Their feeling is that while singles can be good parents,” Ms. Harrah said, “it is better for a child to be raised in a two-parent family, it’s better for a parent to be educated, it’s better for a parent not to be obese because they have a chance of living longer. What C.C.A.A. really wanted was the cream of the crop.”
Several agencies said they had been flooded with confused, anxious or disappointed calls and e-mail messages from people wanting to adopt or those going through the application process. Most of those who had already initiated adoption applications were told that if they got all their paperwork in by May 1, they were likely to be approved.
But international adoption agencies have already begun turning away applicants who did not meet the new criteria.
The guidelines include a requirement that applicants have a body-mass index of less than 40, no criminal record, a high school diploma and be free of certain health problems like AIDS and cancer. Couples must have been married for at least two years and have had no more than two divorces between them. If either spouse was previously divorced, the couple cannot apply until they have been married for at least five years.
In addition, adoptive parents must have a net worth of at least $80,000 and income of at least $10,000 per person in the household, including the prospective adoptive child.
Parents can be as old as 55 if adopting a child with special needs.
Timothy Sutfin, executive director of New Beginnings Family and Children’s Services, an international adoption agency in Mineola, N.Y., said the new guidelines put China in the middle of the spectrum of countries — not as restrictive as South Korea, but stricter than places like Guatemala or Vietnam.
Keith Wallace, the chief executive of Families Thru International Adoption, based in Evansville, Ind., said that adopting an American child could also be restrictive, with standards for the health, economic situation and marital status of the family.
Despite the new rules, adoption agencies said they did not believe that the numbers of Chinese children adopted by Americans would decrease. Since 1991, Americans have adopted 55,000 Chinese children. Adoptions cost about $15,000, according to agency Web sites.
Since one agency, Great Wall China Adoption in Austin, Tex., posted the new rules on its Web site last week, “we’ve had about 400 e-mails and phone calls a day,” said Heather Terry, director of regional offices for the agency. “Some families were just turned down today. One was a couple where the husband had social anxiety disorder and takes Zoloft,” a violation of the new guidelines that bar people who are taking medication for anxiety or depression.
One person who is disqualified is Tony Velong of Temple Terrace, Fla. Mr. Velong and his wife, Tracey, had previously adopted two girls from China and were considering applying for a third. But they are too old: he is 59 and she is 51.
“I’m sure anybody who is healthy and eligible to adopt a child and couldn’t because of the age rule would be disappointed at least,” said Mr. Velong, who was 55 when the first child was adopted.
There is no question he is physically fit: he is the police chief of Temple Terrace.
“I’m still working the street,” Mr. Velong said, “and you have to be in good shape. In reality, today’s 60 was yesterday’s 40, and I don’t think that’s fully understood.”
A major reason that Chinese babies, most of them girls, are available for adoption is China’s two-decade-old population control measure known as the “one child policy.”
The C.C.A.A., which was known to be developing the new guidelines for months, refused a request in recent weeks for an interview on adoption policy, and yesterday a call to the Chinese Embassy in Washington was not returned. An unidentified official cited by The Associated Press confirmed that the government was adopting new guidelines but declined to discuss specifics.
Some of the guidelines are a culmination of what had been a previous tightening of criteria, agencies said. For the past few years, for example, to whittle down the applicant pool, China has limited the number of single parents allowed to adopt to 8 percent of the total, partly on the theory that if a single parent dies, the child has no other parent to turn to, agencies said.
The ease of China’s earlier standards was probably one reason for the deluge in applications, agencies said. But China is also popular because its system is well organized and efficient and because Chinese orphans are generally well cared for and have a good chance of being healthy when adopted.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Friday, December 08, 2006
December 8, 2006
Troubled Children
Off to College on Their Own, Shadowed by Mental Illness
By LYNETTE CLEMETSON
Her mother called it a negotiable proposition. But to Jean Lynch-Thomason, a 17-year-old with bipolar disorder who started college this fall, her mom’s notion to fly from their home in Nashville to her campus in Olympia, Wash., every few weeks to monitor Jean’s illness felt needlessly intrusive.
“I am so totally aware of the control you have over me right now,” Jean said, sitting in her parents’ living room one evening last June, before coolly reminding her mother of her upcoming 18th birthday. “In a few months the power dynamic is going to be different.”
For Chris Ference, 19, who is also bipolar, the fast-approaching autonomy of his freshman year held somewhat less appeal. His parents had always directed every aspect of his mental health care. Last summer, over Friday night pizza at his home in Cranberry Township, Pa., he told them that assuming control felt more daunting than liberating.
“If it was up to me, I would just have it so you could make those decisions for me up until I was like, 22,” he said. “I mean, you’ve raised me well up to now. You know me better than anyone.”
The transition from high school to college, from adolescence to legal adulthood, can be tricky for any teenager, but for the increasing number of young people who arrive on campus with diagnoses of serious mental disorders — and for their parents — the passage can be particularly fraught.
Standard struggles with class schedules, roommates, and sexual and social freedom are complicated by decisions about if or when to use campus counseling services, whether or not to take medication and whether to disclose an illness to friends or professors.
Keeping a psychiatric disorder under control in an environment often fueled by all-night cram sessions, junk food and heavy drinking is a challenge for even the most motivated students. In addition, the normal separation that goes along with college requires new roles and boundaries with parents, the people who best know the history and contours of their illness.
Like Jean and Chris, young adults approach the move to a new life differently, some with defiant independence, some with avoidance. Each approach, say psychiatrists, counselors, dormitory assistants and other campus leaders, comes with its own risk. The students who are most dependent on their parents may be dangerously unprepared for the inevitable stresses of college life. On the other hand, students who are adamant about doing everything on their own may be afraid to reach out for help when they stumble.
For parents, the anxious pride at seeing children go off to college is often tinged with fear that their child might fall apart, spiraling into depression or becoming suicidal. Are they going to therapy as they promised? Are they taking the right dose of medication at the right time? Should they as parents inform the school that their child has an illness? Is a fight with a roommate part of a normal transition to college life or a sign of impending trouble? Does an emotional e-mail message written at 3 a.m. represent a transitory moment of turmoil or a reason to get on an airplane?
Once teenagers legally become adults, which in most states happens at age 18, they, not their parents, assume control over decisions about therapy and medication. If trouble arises, parents may or may not hear about it because college counselors are bound by confidentiality when dealing with adult students.
The Trauma of Separation
For Jean, as for many teenagers coping with mental disorders, just getting through high school was an ordeal. After experimenting with home schooling, a high pressure prep school and an outdoor learning academy geared to nature activities, Jean, a bright student with inconsistent grades but high SAT scores, decided to forgo her senior year and find a college that would take her without a high school diploma.
She was accepted at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., a nontraditional college of roughly 4,400 students that issues written evaluations in place of letter grades.
Evergreen’s environmental focus — the campus has its own organic farm, composting program and a contest for commuters who bike, walk or carpool to campus — felt like a good fit for Jean, who is passionately committed to the environment and social justice.
A consciously quirky teenager who sews her own clothes (to avoid crass consumerism, she says) and who prefers bus trips to flying (to avoid contributing to the pollution caused by air travel), Jean is disarmingly straightforward and self-aware.
She said she stopped taking medications when she was 14 because the side effects left her feeling “out of whack and emotionally inauthentic.”
She is determined to stay off medications during college, and she devoted considerable advance thought to possible triggers for her illness, like the long rainy winters of the Pacific Northwest.
“I don’t feel vulnerable about this transition because this is very much my decision,” she said. “This is a very autonomous move, very much me structuring my own life. I feel like I am putting myself in a situation with really clear intentions.”
Jean’s parents, Amy Lynch, 52, and Phil Thomason, 53, were hesitant when Jean, the younger of their two daughters, refused to take medications after eighth grade. Her childhood and early adolescence had been a whirlwind of depression, rage and experiments with different medications and treatments.
But when Jean was about 14, Ms. Lynch and Mr. Thomason said, she began to seem more stable. Her developing coping skills, combined with reports about negative side effects of psychotropic drugs in children, persuaded them to acquiesce to her demands to ride out the swings of her illness drug free.
They said they believed Evergreen would be a good college for Jean. Still, the move — to someplace so far from home — made them anxious. In the months before Jean left, Ms. Lynch said she wanted her to go back on medication to smooth the adjustment to college life, a suggestion that Jean adamantly rejected.
Ms. Lynch worried that Jean took for granted the tacit stability of being at home.
When Jean’s depression sets in, she tends to close herself off from people. At home, Ms. Lynch said, “I can look at Jean and know in five minutes what’s going on with her and how to respond to it.”
At such a distance it will be difficult to catch the signs.
“I feel like we’re doing a high-wire act,” she said, “and I am not sure we have a strong enough net.”
Rummaging through the accumulated possessions of adolescence in her bedroom over the summer, Jean singled out the items that she could not leave without: her sewing machine, her coffee maker, the social justice posters that covered her wall.
With her mother out of earshot, she acknowledged that she understood her parents’ angst. “I get that this is intense for everyone,” she said. “I do.”
Hesitant to Leave the Nest
The uncertain months between high school and college were also anxious ones for Chris Ference and his parents.
Still groggy from an early morning drive to campus, his husky 6-foot-2 frame jammed into an auditorium chair in the student union, Chris shifted uncomfortably as a freshman orientation coordinator welcomed new students and their parents to the Behrend College, a Pennsylvania State University satellite campus in Erie, Pa.
“Today really is the first day of your freshman year of college,” the cheery administrator told the group on a June morning more than two months before the start of fall term.
Chris had initially been reluctant to go away to college. Though eager to leave the rigid structure and peer pressure of high school, where he told few friends about his illness, he preferred the idea of living at home during college and commuting to an engineering program in nearby Pittsburgh.
Troubled Children
Off to College on Their Own, Shadowed by Mental Illness
By LYNETTE CLEMETSON
Her mother called it a negotiable proposition. But to Jean Lynch-Thomason, a 17-year-old with bipolar disorder who started college this fall, her mom’s notion to fly from their home in Nashville to her campus in Olympia, Wash., every few weeks to monitor Jean’s illness felt needlessly intrusive.
“I am so totally aware of the control you have over me right now,” Jean said, sitting in her parents’ living room one evening last June, before coolly reminding her mother of her upcoming 18th birthday. “In a few months the power dynamic is going to be different.”
For Chris Ference, 19, who is also bipolar, the fast-approaching autonomy of his freshman year held somewhat less appeal. His parents had always directed every aspect of his mental health care. Last summer, over Friday night pizza at his home in Cranberry Township, Pa., he told them that assuming control felt more daunting than liberating.
“If it was up to me, I would just have it so you could make those decisions for me up until I was like, 22,” he said. “I mean, you’ve raised me well up to now. You know me better than anyone.”
The transition from high school to college, from adolescence to legal adulthood, can be tricky for any teenager, but for the increasing number of young people who arrive on campus with diagnoses of serious mental disorders — and for their parents — the passage can be particularly fraught.
Standard struggles with class schedules, roommates, and sexual and social freedom are complicated by decisions about if or when to use campus counseling services, whether or not to take medication and whether to disclose an illness to friends or professors.
Keeping a psychiatric disorder under control in an environment often fueled by all-night cram sessions, junk food and heavy drinking is a challenge for even the most motivated students. In addition, the normal separation that goes along with college requires new roles and boundaries with parents, the people who best know the history and contours of their illness.
Like Jean and Chris, young adults approach the move to a new life differently, some with defiant independence, some with avoidance. Each approach, say psychiatrists, counselors, dormitory assistants and other campus leaders, comes with its own risk. The students who are most dependent on their parents may be dangerously unprepared for the inevitable stresses of college life. On the other hand, students who are adamant about doing everything on their own may be afraid to reach out for help when they stumble.
For parents, the anxious pride at seeing children go off to college is often tinged with fear that their child might fall apart, spiraling into depression or becoming suicidal. Are they going to therapy as they promised? Are they taking the right dose of medication at the right time? Should they as parents inform the school that their child has an illness? Is a fight with a roommate part of a normal transition to college life or a sign of impending trouble? Does an emotional e-mail message written at 3 a.m. represent a transitory moment of turmoil or a reason to get on an airplane?
Once teenagers legally become adults, which in most states happens at age 18, they, not their parents, assume control over decisions about therapy and medication. If trouble arises, parents may or may not hear about it because college counselors are bound by confidentiality when dealing with adult students.
The Trauma of Separation
For Jean, as for many teenagers coping with mental disorders, just getting through high school was an ordeal. After experimenting with home schooling, a high pressure prep school and an outdoor learning academy geared to nature activities, Jean, a bright student with inconsistent grades but high SAT scores, decided to forgo her senior year and find a college that would take her without a high school diploma.
She was accepted at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., a nontraditional college of roughly 4,400 students that issues written evaluations in place of letter grades.
Evergreen’s environmental focus — the campus has its own organic farm, composting program and a contest for commuters who bike, walk or carpool to campus — felt like a good fit for Jean, who is passionately committed to the environment and social justice.
A consciously quirky teenager who sews her own clothes (to avoid crass consumerism, she says) and who prefers bus trips to flying (to avoid contributing to the pollution caused by air travel), Jean is disarmingly straightforward and self-aware.
She said she stopped taking medications when she was 14 because the side effects left her feeling “out of whack and emotionally inauthentic.”
She is determined to stay off medications during college, and she devoted considerable advance thought to possible triggers for her illness, like the long rainy winters of the Pacific Northwest.
“I don’t feel vulnerable about this transition because this is very much my decision,” she said. “This is a very autonomous move, very much me structuring my own life. I feel like I am putting myself in a situation with really clear intentions.”
Jean’s parents, Amy Lynch, 52, and Phil Thomason, 53, were hesitant when Jean, the younger of their two daughters, refused to take medications after eighth grade. Her childhood and early adolescence had been a whirlwind of depression, rage and experiments with different medications and treatments.
But when Jean was about 14, Ms. Lynch and Mr. Thomason said, she began to seem more stable. Her developing coping skills, combined with reports about negative side effects of psychotropic drugs in children, persuaded them to acquiesce to her demands to ride out the swings of her illness drug free.
They said they believed Evergreen would be a good college for Jean. Still, the move — to someplace so far from home — made them anxious. In the months before Jean left, Ms. Lynch said she wanted her to go back on medication to smooth the adjustment to college life, a suggestion that Jean adamantly rejected.
Ms. Lynch worried that Jean took for granted the tacit stability of being at home.
When Jean’s depression sets in, she tends to close herself off from people. At home, Ms. Lynch said, “I can look at Jean and know in five minutes what’s going on with her and how to respond to it.”
At such a distance it will be difficult to catch the signs.
“I feel like we’re doing a high-wire act,” she said, “and I am not sure we have a strong enough net.”
Rummaging through the accumulated possessions of adolescence in her bedroom over the summer, Jean singled out the items that she could not leave without: her sewing machine, her coffee maker, the social justice posters that covered her wall.
With her mother out of earshot, she acknowledged that she understood her parents’ angst. “I get that this is intense for everyone,” she said. “I do.”
Hesitant to Leave the Nest
The uncertain months between high school and college were also anxious ones for Chris Ference and his parents.
Still groggy from an early morning drive to campus, his husky 6-foot-2 frame jammed into an auditorium chair in the student union, Chris shifted uncomfortably as a freshman orientation coordinator welcomed new students and their parents to the Behrend College, a Pennsylvania State University satellite campus in Erie, Pa.
“Today really is the first day of your freshman year of college,” the cheery administrator told the group on a June morning more than two months before the start of fall term.
Chris had initially been reluctant to go away to college. Though eager to leave the rigid structure and peer pressure of high school, where he told few friends about his illness, he preferred the idea of living at home during college and commuting to an engineering program in nearby Pittsburgh.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
December 6, 2006
New York Bans Most Trans Fats in Restaurants
By THOMAS J. LUECK and KIM SEVERSON
The New York City Board of Health voted yesterday to adopt the nation’s first major municipal ban on the use of all but tiny amounts of artificial trans fats in restaurant cooking, a move that would radically transform the way food is prepared in thousands of restaurants, from McDonald’s to fashionable bistros to Chinese take-outs.
Some experts said the measure, which is widely opposed by the restaurant industry, would be a model for other cities. Chicago is considering a similar prohibition that would affect restaurants with more than $20 million in annual sales.
“New York City has set a national standard,” said Harold Goldstein, executive director of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, who predicted that other communities would follow suit.
Trans fats are the chemically modified food ingredients that raise levels of a particularly unhealthy form of cholesterol and have been squarely linked to heart disease. Long used as a substitute for saturated fats in baked goods, fried foods, salad dressings, margarine and other foods, trans fats also have a longer shelf life than other alternatives.
While the trans fat regulation captured the most attention, the Board of Health approved a separate measure — also the first of its kind in the country — requiring some restaurants, mostly fast food outlets, to prominently display the caloric content of each menu item on menu boards or near cash registers.
Health officials said displaying calorie counts was meant to address what is widely regarded as a nationwide epidemic of obesity.
The city’s prohibition on trans fats, which would be phased in starting in July, was a victory for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, an outspoken health advocate, and his activist health commissioner, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden.
After the city’s aggressive campaign to ban smoking in restaurants and in public places that goes back more than a decade, the regulation governing trans fats has again thrust New York to the forefront of a significant public health issue.
Experts say eliminating trans fats need not change the taste of foods, but chefs and restaurant owners say it is hard to replicate the taste and texture of some items without them.
Both the trans fat and calorie regulations would be enforced by the health department’s restaurant inspectors. Inspectors would check the packaging of ingredients used in restaurant kitchens for the amount of trans fats they contain, but prepared food would not be routinely tested. Violators would face fines of at least $200.
Both measures have come under fire as impractical and unwanted intrusions by the government into free enterprise and civil liberties.
“This is a misguided attempt at social engineering by a group of physicians who don’t understand the restaurant industry,” said Dan Flesher, a National Restaurant Association spokesman. He said one or both measures could be challenged legally.
Mayor Bloomberg said the city is “not going to take away anybody’s ability to go out and have the kind of food they want, in the quantities they want.”
“We are just trying to make food safer,” he added.
Still, some restaurant workers said the trans fat ban would represent a challenge.
“This will be better for people’s health, but we’d like to know where to go from here,” said O’Neil Whyte, a baker at Sweet Chef Southern Styles Bakery in Harlem. “Things without trans fat are harder to get and more expensive.”
With artificial trans fat increasingly seen as a health risk, many city restaurants had begun seeking alternative ingredients long before the new regulations were proposed.
Most packaged food manufacturers began removing them on a large scale in 2004, in anticipation of federal rules that trans fat content be disclosed in nutritional labeling. The rule took effect in January.
Some restaurant chains are following suit. Wendy’s has switched to a soy-corn blend cooking oil in its 6,300 restaurants in the United States and Canada, and KFC says it will eliminate trans fat in its food by April.
New York Bans Most Trans Fats in Restaurants
By THOMAS J. LUECK and KIM SEVERSON
The New York City Board of Health voted yesterday to adopt the nation’s first major municipal ban on the use of all but tiny amounts of artificial trans fats in restaurant cooking, a move that would radically transform the way food is prepared in thousands of restaurants, from McDonald’s to fashionable bistros to Chinese take-outs.
Some experts said the measure, which is widely opposed by the restaurant industry, would be a model for other cities. Chicago is considering a similar prohibition that would affect restaurants with more than $20 million in annual sales.
“New York City has set a national standard,” said Harold Goldstein, executive director of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, who predicted that other communities would follow suit.
Trans fats are the chemically modified food ingredients that raise levels of a particularly unhealthy form of cholesterol and have been squarely linked to heart disease. Long used as a substitute for saturated fats in baked goods, fried foods, salad dressings, margarine and other foods, trans fats also have a longer shelf life than other alternatives.
While the trans fat regulation captured the most attention, the Board of Health approved a separate measure — also the first of its kind in the country — requiring some restaurants, mostly fast food outlets, to prominently display the caloric content of each menu item on menu boards or near cash registers.
Health officials said displaying calorie counts was meant to address what is widely regarded as a nationwide epidemic of obesity.
The city’s prohibition on trans fats, which would be phased in starting in July, was a victory for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, an outspoken health advocate, and his activist health commissioner, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden.
After the city’s aggressive campaign to ban smoking in restaurants and in public places that goes back more than a decade, the regulation governing trans fats has again thrust New York to the forefront of a significant public health issue.
Experts say eliminating trans fats need not change the taste of foods, but chefs and restaurant owners say it is hard to replicate the taste and texture of some items without them.
Both the trans fat and calorie regulations would be enforced by the health department’s restaurant inspectors. Inspectors would check the packaging of ingredients used in restaurant kitchens for the amount of trans fats they contain, but prepared food would not be routinely tested. Violators would face fines of at least $200.
Both measures have come under fire as impractical and unwanted intrusions by the government into free enterprise and civil liberties.
“This is a misguided attempt at social engineering by a group of physicians who don’t understand the restaurant industry,” said Dan Flesher, a National Restaurant Association spokesman. He said one or both measures could be challenged legally.
Mayor Bloomberg said the city is “not going to take away anybody’s ability to go out and have the kind of food they want, in the quantities they want.”
“We are just trying to make food safer,” he added.
Still, some restaurant workers said the trans fat ban would represent a challenge.
“This will be better for people’s health, but we’d like to know where to go from here,” said O’Neil Whyte, a baker at Sweet Chef Southern Styles Bakery in Harlem. “Things without trans fat are harder to get and more expensive.”
With artificial trans fat increasingly seen as a health risk, many city restaurants had begun seeking alternative ingredients long before the new regulations were proposed.
Most packaged food manufacturers began removing them on a large scale in 2004, in anticipation of federal rules that trans fat content be disclosed in nutritional labeling. The rule took effect in January.
Some restaurant chains are following suit. Wendy’s has switched to a soy-corn blend cooking oil in its 6,300 restaurants in the United States and Canada, and KFC says it will eliminate trans fat in its food by April.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Barmen
November 29, 2006
Knock It, Then Try It
By PETE WELLS
NOBODY likes my Pernod and pomegranate Cosmopolitan, but I do.
The name is a part of the problem. In its “Sex and the City” heyday, the Cosmopolitan implied the promise of fresh romance. Now that its promises have been exhausted, it has the bruised and slightly dented air of an ex-husband.
When I offer to make my drink for friends, they act as if I’ve reminded them of something they were trying to forget. When I reassure them it’s not really a Cosmopolitan and tell them what’s in it, things get worse.
“I just don’t see how that could be any good,” one said.
Just after I came up with the recipe, I submitted it along with four others to a magazine. The four others appeared in print. My Cosmopolitan didn’t even make it to the test kitchen.
It is my position that the test kitchen would have loved my drink, given the chance. Its lush dose of pomegranate makes the regular Cosmopolitan seem vapid, but the grown-up element, the thing that makes my drink as cosmopolitan as the Cosmopolitan aspires to be, is the Pernod. It gets along beautifully with the pomegranate juice. For some reason, though, nobody can picture them together.
I am starting to feel a little sorry for my drink. It’s like a lost mutt who has been at the pound for 29 days. So I was relieved to hear that many bartenders — real bartenders, who make a living at this — occasionally invent cocktails that their customers would rather not try.
The trouble may be personal, an aversion rooted in an unhappy memory. “People are scared of gin,” said Scott Beattie, who mixes drinks almost entirely from Sonoma County ingredients at Cyrus restaurant in Healdsburg, Calif. “Brandy, too. They hear brandy and they think of Grandma and her Korbel on ice.” Or the stumbling block may be a partnership of ingredients that sounds doomed. Ryan Magarian, a bar consultant in Seattle, developed a cocktail he calls the Love Unit for the Hyde Lounge in West Hollywood. His clients were deeply skeptical when he told them the Love Unit contains vanilla rum, grapefruit juice, basil leaves and red bell peppers. “Everybody kind of went, ‘No way,’ ” Mr. Magarian recalled.
According to every bartender I know, the quickest way to scare off thirsty customers turns out to be using one of the most common ingredients of all: the egg. Customers seem to think raw eggs are slimy, or unhealthy, or something consumed in liquid form only by boxers in B movies. Jose Miranda, a mixologist at WD-50 on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, gets puzzled looks whenever he drops an egg yolk into his Malta Fizz. “That’s the part people don’t understand,” Mr. Miranda said. “It’s like, ‘Egg yolk in a cocktail?’ ” (Those puzzled looks don’t always go away when Mr. Miranda explains that the Malta Fizz is named for another ingredient, malta, a dark brown beverage that is brewed from barley and hops but contains no alcohol.)
And yet the Love Unit and the Malta Fizz have found loyal followings. In each case all it took was some persuasion from the man behind the bar and a little trust from the people in front of it. I am very encouraged by this news. If there are customers out there who will drink cocktails with egg yolks and bell peppers, there must be someone who will try my Pernod and pomegranate Cosmopolitan, which I’ve renamed the Stray Dog. I offer the recipe here, free to a good home.
Monday, November 20, 2006
November 20, 2006
A New Strategy to Discourage Driving Drunk
By MATTHEW L. WALD
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 — The threat of arrest and punishment, for decades the primary tactic against drunken drivers, is no longer working in the struggle to reduce the death toll, officials say, and they are proposing turning to technology — alcohol detection devices in every vehicle — to address the problem.
In the first phase of the plan, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, backed by a national association of state highway officials and car manufacturers, will announce here on Monday a campaign to change drunken driving laws in 49 states to require that even first offenders install a device that tests drivers and shuts down the car if it detects alcohol.
Many states already require the devices, known as ignition interlocks, for people who have been convicted several times. Last year New Mexico became the first to make them mandatory after a first offense. With that tactic and others, the state saw an 11.3 percent drop in alcohol-related fatalities last year.
New Mexico was not the only state to record a decline in alcohol-related motoring deaths, and several states showed even bigger drops. For example, from 2004 to 2005, Maryland showed a decrease to 235 from 286, or 17.8 percent. In New Mexico, which has had a chronic problem with drunken driving, state officials cited the new rule on interlocks as a significant factor in their campaign to cut the fatality rate. The rule did not take effect until June 17, 2005.
“It is an integral part of our success,” said Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who thinks others should follow his state’s lead.
Advocates for interlocks acknowledge that they are not foolproof. They can be easily circumvented if a sober person blows into the Breathalyzer tube, for instance.
Officials say interlocks for first offenders are not a panacea but will reduce repeat offenses. They say the next step will be a program to develop devices to unobtrusively test every driver for alcohol and disable the vehicle. The automaker Saab and a medical equipment company already have devices that may be adapted for that job.
Statistics show that about 13,000 people die each year in car crashes in which a driver was legally drunk.
“We’ve seen no progress in 10 years; we’re completely stalled,” said Susan A. Ferguson, a researcher at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Ms. Ferguson said the most promising technologies would work automatically, like air bags. “We don’t want the soccer mom dropping kids off, going to the grocery store and the preschool, and having to blow into something every time,” she said.
Chuck Hurley, the chief executive of MADD, said that automatic sensors might be used first in fleets, and that eventually insurance companies might give discounts on coverage to drivers who had them.
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers helped a New Mexico task force appointed by Mr. Richardson, a Democrat, to develop its program, and supports early use of ignition interlocks, a spokesman said. So does the Governors Highway Safety Association, said its chairman, Christopher J. Murphy.
Mr. Murphy said the typical penalty, revoking a drunken driver’s license, did not work because offenders continued to drive anyway; California alone has about one million people driving with suspended or revoked licenses, he said.
He also supports unobtrusive alcohol sensing in all cars. “When 40 percent of all our crashes are alcohol-involved,” he said, “I don’t think it’s going to be that difficult of a sell.”
On Monday, the groups and the Department of Transportation also plan to announce an enforcement campaign aimed at drunken drivers.
Even the Century Council, a trade association of liquor distillers, says it favors the New Mexico approach for first offenders, but only those caught with blood-alcohol levels far above the legal threshold.
Bush administration officials will also endorse research into the use of passive devices for alcohol detection, other participants in the announcement said, but have not decided whether to push for wider adoption of the New Mexico approach.
Two companies have introduced products that hint at future strategies. Saab, which is owned by General Motors, is testing in Sweden a Breathalyzer that attaches to a key chain and will prevent a car from starting if it senses too much alcohol. Taxi companies and other fleet owners are the target market, the company said.
A New Mexico company, TruTouch Technologies, is modifying a technique developed for measuring blood chemistry in diabetics and using it to measure alcohol instead. The appliance shines a light through the skin on the forearm and analyzes what bounces back.
Future devices may read alcohol content when a driver’s palm touches the steering wheel or the gear shift lever, said Jim McNally, the chief executive of TruTouch.
A national campaign against drunken driving began a quarter-century ago with President Ronald Reagan, and the death toll was cut by about 40 percent through a change in public attitudes and an increase in the legal drinking age. But over the past decade, the number of deaths has not changed.
“We have to begin looking at some new, innovative ways to begin to bring this terrible number down,” said Mark V. Rosenker, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.
The board has not studied the question of installing interlocks after a first offense, but using them more widely may be more useful than traditional penalties, Mr. Rosenker said. “I’ve always been of the belief we’re looking for a result,” he said. “What is the best way to achieve that result? Punishment doesn’t always do it.”
Troy W. Prichard, a lawyer in Albuquerque who defends people arrested on drunken driving charges, said interlocks for first offenders could be appropriate, or could be excessive.
“There could be the responsible guy that just lapses that one time,” Mr. Prichard said. “Getting the handcuffs put on him might be all that guy needed to know not to do it again.” But, he said, “another guy, it may be his first and he’s on the road to 12.”
MADD’s first step is modeled in part on the approach taken in Canada beginning in 1991, where licenses were taken from drivers convicted of driving drunk but given back sooner if they agreed to the ignition interlock. The objective, said Andrew Murie, the chief executive of MADD Canada, is to “keep them in the licensing system, so you know who they are and where they are, keep them insured and stop them from drinking and driving.”
“The interlock does all three of those things,” Mr. Murie said.
In the United States, drivers required to have ignition interlocks get new licenses that mention the restriction in big letters. The interlocks are rented from contractors who install them and charge about $2 a day. The devices can be set up to transmit reports to probation officers, but to the dismay of some safety experts, not all jurisdictions use that data.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
November 7, 2006
From Out of Nowhere, to the Leader of the Pack
By FRANK LITSKY
When the major fall marathons in New York, Chicago and Berlin started lining up their fields this year, there was no rush to sign a 29-year-old Brazilian named Marilson Gomes dos Santos.
Gomes had run only four marathons and had not won. His fastest time was 2 hours 8 minutes 48 seconds, in 2004 in Chicago, and he finished a half-mile behind the winner. Instead of running a spring marathon this year, he ran track races to improve his speed.
For officials of the New York City Marathon, Gomes was almost an afterthought.
“Early in our recruiting process, four to six months ago, I said maybe we needed a Brazilian to add flavor to our international field,” Mary Wittenberg, the race director, said. “We recruited him with absolutely no expectation that he might win.”
Gomes, his coach and his agent debated whether to run in Chicago two weeks ago for a fast time or in New York on Sunday for wider exposure and perhaps a better chance to win. Only weeks ago, they decided on New York. By then, flights from Brazil were booked and he could not get a return trip the day after the race.
Just as well, because Gomes won the race in 2:09:58. Instead of going home yesterday, he spoke at a news conference, posed for photographs with other marathon runners, rang the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange, taped an appearance on “Late Show With David Letterman” and had dinner at the Brazilian consulate.
By then, he knew he would be secure financially. Like most other elite runners, he was paid an appearance fee. While runners like Paul Tergat and Deena Kastor received six-figure fees, Gomes was on the low end, at about $10,000 to $15,000. By winning, he earned $130,000, $25,000 as a time bonus and a Smart car worth $11,000. (Jelena Prokopcuka of Latvia, the women’s winner, earned the same.)
Endorsements and commercial appearances await Gomes in Brazil. And as Guy L. Morse III, the executive director of the Boston Marathon, said: “He becomes another major player. He’s a hot commodity. By winning New York, he’ll make six figures a race up front forever.”
Gomes seemed overwhelmed by his acceptance in New York. With his agent, Luis Filipe Posso, translating from Portuguese, Gomes spoke at the news conference yesterday.
“It’s great,” he said. “New York is the best marathon, and this is the best victory I’ve ever had. The crowds were wonderful. When you feel fatigue and tired, the people really help.”
The affection and appreciation was not limited to the race course. On Sunday night, when Gomes arrived at a postrace party for 3,000 at the Copacabana, he was mobbed by admirers, including many of the 241 other Brazilian runners in the race and 682 runners from other South American nations.
Posso said he talked to Gomes’s parents in Brazil yesterday morning. They told him that by 6 o’clock there were reporters and television crews at their door.
Gomes is 5-foot-8½ and 128 pounds. He comes from a small town outside Brasília where his father was a construction worker. At 15, Gomes started running because his brother ran. A club team saw how good he was, recruited him and gave him room and board, he said. He still runs for the club.
He has won the São Silvestre 15-kilometer road race five times. His latest victory there came on New Year’s Eve, when he beat Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya, who won the Chicago Marathon two weeks ago.
Now Gomes is well known, too, and he seems confident he can continue his success.
“You train well and you can do anything,” he said. “I don’t know if the other runners knew who I was. Now they should all know me. I like this a lot. I enjoy running long races.”
And the aches and pains that go with it?
“Yes,” he said, laughing.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Tame your brain to keep your cool
28 October 2006
Visual basic helper required to detect Flash Player ActiveX control version information
IT SEEMS that emotional self-control really does come from within.
Previous studies have shown that people can learn to control the activity levels of specific brain regions to alter, for example, pain levels, when shown real-time "neurofeedback" from fMRI brain images. Now a similar approach may help psychopathic criminals increase their emotional fluency.
Niels Birbaumer and Ranganatha Sitaram from the University of Tübingen in Germany found that by showing healthy volunteers the activity levels of the insula, a brain region important in emotional processing, represented in real time as a thermometer bar on a screen, the volunteers could control their emotional responses.
After four training sessions they had learned to raise and lower their insula activity levels, in turn changing how they rated the emotional quality of disturbing or neutral images.
Three psychopathic prison inmates who lacked a normal insula response trained the same way. After four days, one appeared to have learned to raise his insula activity towards more normal levels. It opens a potential avenue for treating emotional disorders such as psychopathy or social phobia, the team told a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Atlanta, Georgia, last week.
28 October 2006
Visual basic helper required to detect Flash Player ActiveX control version information
IT SEEMS that emotional self-control really does come from within.
Previous studies have shown that people can learn to control the activity levels of specific brain regions to alter, for example, pain levels, when shown real-time "neurofeedback" from fMRI brain images. Now a similar approach may help psychopathic criminals increase their emotional fluency.
Niels Birbaumer and Ranganatha Sitaram from the University of Tübingen in Germany found that by showing healthy volunteers the activity levels of the insula, a brain region important in emotional processing, represented in real time as a thermometer bar on a screen, the volunteers could control their emotional responses.
After four training sessions they had learned to raise and lower their insula activity levels, in turn changing how they rated the emotional quality of disturbing or neutral images.
Three psychopathic prison inmates who lacked a normal insula response trained the same way. After four days, one appeared to have learned to raise his insula activity towards more normal levels. It opens a potential avenue for treating emotional disorders such as psychopathy or social phobia, the team told a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Atlanta, Georgia, last week.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Think Twice
Cosmetic surgery special:
When looks can kill
19 October 2006
Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Rachel Nowak
Last year, 291,000 American women had bags implanted in their breasts, 324,000 Americans had fat vacuumed out of their bodies, and 231,000 had fat, skin and muscle cut from around their eyes. Add less common operations such as buttock lifts, pectoral implants and vaginal rejuvenations, as well as "minimally invasive" procedures such as Botox injections, and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons estimates that Americans underwent at least 10.2 million cosmetic surgery procedures last year. Cosmetic surgery has gone mainstream.
Like any other surgical procedure, cosmetic operations can never be completely free of risk. Although anyone contemplating cosmetic surgery is likely to have talked over with their surgeon the risks to their physical health, there are some forms of ill health associated with the procedures that are far less likely to be mentioned. In particular, people who go under the knife in the quest for a more attractive body or face are more likely than the average person to be suffering from psychiatric problems. There is mounting evidence that those who choose to undergo cosmetic surgery are more likely to commit suicide. What isn't known is just how much people's mental health is being placed at risk by the burgeoning nip and tuck culture.
A related question is whether cosmetic surgery brings any long-term mental health benefits. After all, implicit in the advertisements and promotional TV shows is the promise not merely of bigger breasts or flatter stomachs, but also the idea of a psychological lift. "We have to believe that cosmetic surgery will improve our self-esteem and body image, and make us feel better about ourselves. If not, we're wasting an awful lot of time, effort and money," says David Sarwer of the Center forHuman Appearance and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia. Yet while cosmetic surgery is booming, research into the mental well-being of recipients has not kept pace, says Katharine Phillips, a psychiatrist at Brown Medical School in Providence, Rhode Island.
The results of the few quality studies that have been done are equivocal. Perhaps unsurprisingly, cosmetic surgery patients are more likely than average to have a poor body image. More striking is Sarwer's finding that 18 per cent of a sample of patients having cosmetic surgery were taking drugs to treat a psychiatric condition, typically an antidepressant (Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, vol 114, p 1927). Only 5 per cent of patients undergoing non-cosmetic plastic surgery were taking similar drugs.
That in itself doesn't mean cosmetic surgery is a bad idea, says Sarwer. These patients also invest more than others in their appearance, fitness and health, and the greater use of psychiatric medicines may be a sign that they pay equal attention to their mental health.
Short-term satisfaction
Numerous studies have found that most patients seem satisfied with their procedures, at least in the short term, and surgery might even improve body image. A 2002 study led by Thomas Cash of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, found a woman's perception of her body image improves for at least two years after she has had breast implants, while a 2005 study of general cosmetic procedures by Sarwer's team found it improves for at least one year (Aesthetic Surgery Journal, vol 25, p 263). Whether such improvements in body image last longer than a few years is not known, and studies of patients' self esteem, depression rates and perceived quality of life are inconclusive.
However, findings from epidemiological studies of a link between cosmetic surgery and suicide are firmer and more disturbing. Five recent studies, including a US study of over 13,000 women who received breast implants and another from Canada of 24,000 (American Journal of Epidemiology, vol 164, p 334), set out to investigate the alleged link between silicone breast implants and cancers, autoimmune diseases and other disorders. Though they failed to confirm any such connection, another striking link did emerge: women who have received breast implants are two to three times as likely to kill themselves as those who have not. "The only consistent finding from all the studies has been the unexpected one of suicide," says Joseph K. McLaughlin, director of the International Epidemiology Institute in Rockville, Maryland, who ran some of the studies.
The suicide risk revealed by these studies could turn out to be an underestimate, as deaths due to suicides are frequently attributed to other causes. For example, an update to the US study this year found that women with breast implants also have a higher risk of suffering a fatal road accident and some of those deaths could be suicides, suggests study leader Louise Brinton of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland (Epidemiology, vol 17, p 162). Meanwhile, McLaughlin has been re-examining death notices of Swedish women with implants. He says that early indications suggest that suicide may turn out to be even more common than reported in these women (BMJ, vol 326, p 527).
Other surgical cosmetic procedures may also be associated with a suicide risk, although it has yet to be quantified for most of them. The largest mortality study, conducted in Canada, found the suicide risk was almost doubled for the 25,000 women who received breast implants and 16,000 women who underwent other cosmetic procedures. A Danish study also found a moderate increase in suicide risk in breast reduction patients (Archives of Internal Medicine, vol 164, p 2450).
There is also anecdotal evidence to suggest that it's not just women who are at risk. According to Leroy Young, a plastic surgeon in private practice in St Louis, Missouri, the patients most prone to violence against themselves, and their surgeons, are young, narcissistic males who have had nose or penis surgery. "There's a plastic surgery aphorism - don't operate on the male mid-line," he says.
Trying to get at the reasons behind this increased risk of suicide is difficult. Some commentators even argue that the findings so far may not be relevant to women currently considering breast implants, as most of the women in the studies got their implants decades ago. "It's a very different world now," says James Wells, a plastic surgeon in private practice in Long Beach, California. "The implants are better, how we assess the patients is better, and implant failure rate is lower." This does not reassure epidemiologists such as Brinton and McLaughlin, who have continued to search for clues to what is behind the increased risk of suicide.
One possibility - admittedly very remote, but not yet ruled out - is that leaks from implants can alter women's brain chemistry, triggering suicide in some. Another idea is that women with breast implants commit suicide more often because they are also more likely to use drugs or alcohol. The findings of the US study are consistent with that hypothesis, as it found that women who had breast implants were more likely than other women to die for reasons related to drug and alcohol use.
A more plausible explanation is that women who receive implants have personality traits or psychiatric disorders that go undetected by surgeons or are ignored by them, and that these put the women at risk of suicide. This view is backed up by the Danish study, which discovered that 8 per cent of women who had breast implants had earlier been admitted to a psychiatric hospital, the most common diagnoses including "neurosis and personality disorders" and "substance or alcohol abuse". Half the women with breast implants who committed suicide had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital before their surgery. It is unclear whether these women were predisposed to suicide and were tipped over the edge by a poor response to cosmetic surgery. "There are some who contend that patients who receive implants demonstrate a host of psychological problems that put them at risk for eventual suicide," says Brinton. "Whether this is the sole explanation or whether patient dissatisfaction after the operation is also involved is not yet clarified."
Another condition that is common among people having cosmetic surgery is body dysmorphic disorder or "imagined ugliness".
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Marriage
Married couples, whose numbers have been declining for decades as a proportion of American households, have finally slipped into a minority, according to an analysis of new census figures by The New York Times.
Lisa Weiss, a social worker, and Jonathan Bander, an accountant, are living together in New York City and are planning to marry in May.
The American Community Survey, released this month by the Census Bureau, found that 49.7 percent, or 55.2 million, of the nation’s 111.1 million households in 2005 were made up of married couples — with and without children — just shy of a majority and down from more than 52 percent five years earlier.
The numbers by no means suggests marriage is dead or necessarily that a tipping point has been reached. The total number of married couples is higher than ever, and most Americans eventually marry. But marriage has been facing more competition. A growing number of adults are spending more of their lives single or living unmarried with partners, and the potential social and economic implications are profound.
“It just changes the social weight of marriage in the economy, in the work force, in sales of homes and rentals, and who manufacturers advertise to,” said Stephanie Coontz, director of public education for the Council on Contemporary Families, a nonprofit research group. “It certainly challenges the way we set up our work policies.”
While the number of single young adults and elderly widows are both growing, Professor Coontz said, “we have an anachronistic view as to what extent you can use marriage to organize the distribution and redistribution of benefits.”
Couples decide to live together for many reasons, but real estate can be as compelling as romance.
“Owning three toothbrushes and finding that they are always at the wrong house when you are getting ready to go to bed wears on you,” said Amanda Hawn, a 28-year-old writer who set up housekeeping near San Francisco with her boyfriend, Nate Larsen, a real estate analyst, after shuttling between his apartment and one she shared with a friend. “Moving in together has simplified life,” Ms. Hawn said.
The census survey estimated that 5.2 million couples, a little more than 5 percent of households, were unmarried opposite-sex partners. An additional 413,000 households were male couples, and 363,000 were female couples. In all, nearly one in 10 couples were unmarried. (One in 20 households consisted of people living alone).
And the numbers of unmarried couples are growing. Since 2000, those identifying themselves as unmarried opposite-sex couples rose by about 14 percent, male couples by 24 percent and female couples by 12 percent.
Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said gay couples were undercounted because many gay people were reluctant to disclose their sexual orientation. But he said that inhibition seemed to be fading.
“I would say the increase is due to people feeling more comfortable disclosing that they are gay or lesbian and living with a partner,” he said.
The survey did not ask about sexual orientation, but its questionnaire was designed to distinguish partners from roommates. A partner was defined as “an adult who is unrelated to the householder, but shares living quarters and has a close personal relationship with the householder.”
Some of the biggest gains in unmarried couples were recorded in unexpected places. In the rural Midwest, the number of households made up of male partners rose 77 percent since 2000.
The survey revealed wide disparities in household composition by place. The proportion of married couples ranged from more than 69 percent in Utah County, Utah, which includes Provo, to 26 percent in Manhattan, which has a smaller share of married couples than almost anyplace in the country. But Manhattan registered a 1.2 percent increase in married couples since 2000, in contrast to the rest of New York City and many other places.
Among counties, the highest proportion of unmarried opposite-sex partners was in Mendocino, Calif., where they made up nearly 11 percent of all households.
The highest share of male couples was in San Francisco, where, according to the census, they accounted for nearly 2 percent of all households. In Manhattan, they made up 1 percent of households. Hampshire County, Mass., home to Northampton, had the highest proportion of female couples, at 1.7 percent. Some of the highest numbers of unmarried couples were recorded in the South, which as defined by the census, has the largest population of any region.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Dieting
October 7, 2006
No More Mystery Meat
By MARCELLE S. FISCHLER
I miss the cookies and the fries,” Max Gold-Landzberg said.
Sitting in the cafeteria at John Jay High School in Cross River, N.Y., Max, 17, a senior, chomped on a roast beef and cheese sandwich on a whole wheat roll.
Last year he would have had the sandwich on a regular roll, Max said, but white-bread products are no longer sold in this Westchester County school, which has introduced some of the most sweeping menu changes in the region. Even the pizza now has a whole wheat crust. And instead of Max’s favorite potato chips, there is white cheddar popcorn.
“It’s a good idea because obesity and all that is a serious problem,” Max said. He wasn’t enticed, though, by the healthier choices on the hot food line like herb-roasted chicken and stir-fried veggies.
Neither were his table mates, who were grumbling about the new higher prices — to $3 from $1.75 for a hot lunch and to $4.75 from $3.95 for a roast beef sandwich — as well as the revamped menu.
Across the table from Max, Alex Magid, 16, who was brown-bagging it, polished off a salami, pepperoni and Parmesan sandwich on a white roll, a few Double Stuf Oreos and some pretzels, washed down with a Snapple Iced Tea.
Last year Alex bought lunch at school, at least sometimes. Now he brown-bags it daily. “I have loved the French fries ever since freshman year, and now they are gone for my senior year,” he said.
Faced with a new federal law requiring school districts to outline nutrition goals this year, schools across the region have been scrambling to eliminate trans fats, toss their deep fryers and reduce the overall sugar content in food, while still keeping their pickiest clients — the students — on board.
The federal law, which took effect on July 1, required public school districts around the country that receive government subsidies for meals to develop “wellness policies” outlining nutrition and exercise goals before classes began this fall. Connecticut has taken further steps by banning sugary drinks from cafeterias and vending machines in kindergarten to grade-12 school buildings. New Jersey will do the same by next fall, along with forbidding schools to sell anything that lists sugar in any form as a principal ingredient. New York has been slower to adopt such legislation, but some school districts, under pressure from parents to revamp their menus, are not waiting for state regulations.
In many lunchrooms, school food directors have taken up the challenge. French fries are baked, if they haven’t disappeared entirely. Vending machines are being restocked with bottled water and juice instead of Gatorade. Snacks like baked soy and fruit chips are replacing deep-fried potato chips. Soft pretzels are shrinking; frozen-fruit bars fill the Chipwich racks.
John Jay and other schools in the Katonah-Lewisboro district have gone so far as to substitute vegetable frittatas and whole wheat vegetable lasagna for hamburgers and French fries. John Jay’s cafeteria this year also eliminated processed foods, trans fats and high-fructose corn syrup, and stocked the salad bar with beans, nuts and low-fat dressings. (After trying to add tofu, however, the school had to drop it when it went uneaten.)
“The federal policy date gave us a goal post,” said Mary Ann Petrilena, a member of the district’s food committee, made up of teachers, administrators, parents and students. The committee sent out a districtwide survey last winter and received more than 2,200 responses.
“The feedback was overwhelmingly, ‘yes, the community would like to see healthier foods in the cafeteria, and yes, the community would be willing to pay more for healthier food,’ ” Ms. Petrilena said.
Few districts have done as much as Katonah-Lewisboro. Local school boards vary enormously in how they are interpreting the federal mandate, said Dr. Susan Rubin, founder of the Westchester Coalition for Better School Food.
“Some school districts have taken this to heart and made some significant changes, and other school districts have done nothing but a little window dressing,” Dr. Rubin said.
On Long Island, there are also wide variations, said Josephine Connolly-Schoonen, a registered dietitian and assistant clinical professor of family medicine at Stony Brook University, who is working with 93 schools to add substance to their wellness policies.
“Each school district develops its own policy; that is only a general statement,” Ms. Connolly-Schoonen said. The Heart Links program, financed by the New York State Health Department, helps districts make it work — for example, by suggesting that a school limit the amount of sugar in snacks to 15 grams per serving, about the amount in three Pepperidge Farm Double Chocolate Milano cookies.
Some districts are easing into the transition by offering baked chicken nuggets and turkey tacos in elementary and middle schools, but tiptoeing around rules in high schools, where students are more likely to balk.
At the high schools in Norwalk, Conn., where a new food service, Whitson’s Culinary Group, was hired to improve nutrition in line with a new policy passed by the school board last spring, themed food stations were introduced, with soup and salad, deli wraps, pizza, Mexican dishes and hot dishes like eggplant rollatini and double beef hot dogs with a side of Tater Tots. White bread is still on the menu, but being phased out.
In New Jersey, where school menus, starting next September, will be among the most tightly regulated in the nation.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Brazil´s Elections
October 3, 2006
News Analysis
In Brazil Balloting, Leader Finds His Base May Turn to Sand
By LARRY ROHTER
RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct. 2 — Until the very end, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil was predicting victory in the first round in his campaign for re-election.
He was wrong, and now he faces what promises to be the most draining, potentially dangerous campaign of his long career, against an opponent he and many others had discounted.
Mr. da Silva, a 60-year-old former factory worker and labor leader who has been beleaguered by one scandal after another for nearly two years, polled 48.65 percent of the vote in the presidential election on Sunday, short of the majority he needed to avoid a runoff on Oct. 29.
That outcome assured a second chance for Geraldo Alckmin of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party, who won 41.6 percent of the vote.
“This is going to be an interesting second round — clarifying, I hope,” a chastened Mr. da Silva said Monday afternoon at a news conference in Brasília. “I have to convince the people.”
Mr. da Silva had appeared to be on his way to a resounding victory until mid-September, when the police caught operatives of his leftist Workers Party trying to buy a contrived dossier they apparently thought would incriminate Mr. Alckmin’s party in a kickback scandal. That skullduggery, which Mr. da Silva says supporters carried out without his approval or knowledge, put him on the defensive, where he remains.
“This second round is starting with Lula declining and Alckmin rising, which could lead to even more surprises if it continues,” said Rubens Figueiredo, a political analyst and consultant in São Paulo. “Public opinion has shifted in a short time because of the dossier case, which still hasn’t run its course.”
As a result, the second round that Mr. da Silva neither wanted nor expected promises to be extraordinarily hard-fought and full of contrasts. The differences are not so much of ideas — both parties have been fighting for the same space left of center since Mr. da Silva tacked toward the center in order to win in 2002 — but of personality and political style.
Mr. da Silva, who has been a candidate in all five of Brazil’s presidential elections since a military dictatorship ended in 1985, is excitable, voluble and charismatic, the poor peasant lad who has made good and wants everyone to know it.
Mr. Alckmin, a mild-mannered 53-year-old anesthesiologist, is none of that, which was originally considered a liability but now looks attractive to voters who say they yearn for honesty and competence.
“Put a cassock on Alckmin and he’d look just like a priest from a small-town parish,” said Jairo Nicolau, a political science professor at Candido Mendes University, in Rio de Janeiro.
“Or to put it another way, he talks like that brilliant but boring professor that everyone remembers from school, the kind of guy who knows the price of a square meter of asphalt and really likes the details of administration.”
This is the third time that Mr. da Silva is competing in a second round, but the first time as the incumbent. In contrast with the outcome in 2002, when he won nearly everywhere and ended up with more than 60 percent of the vote, he faces a situation in which 11 of the country’s 27 states voted in favor of his rival in the first round, including all the states in the industrialized, more prosperous south.
The most unpredictable factor in the vote, however, is what Tereza Cruvinel, a columnist for the daily O Globo, calls “the police dimension” of the campaign. The federal police are still investigating the case, and every day seems to bring another round of headlines that further incriminate operatives of Mr. da Silva’s party and damage his image.
“The longer this drags on, the more the opposition has a banner to exploit,” Mr. Nicolau said. “Lula needs to bring the campaign to his strong area, what he has achieved, and he can’t do that right now. This needs to be resolved as quickly as possible, because if it goes on for another 10 or 15 days, it is going to be devastating for him, or even lethal.”
Mr. Alckmin knows that, and has already begun hammering away at Mr. da Silva and his entourage, saying his own victory would mean “ethics defeating corruption.” In an interview published Monday, he also insinuated that a cover-up was under way to protect Mr. da Silva and others close to him until after the election.
“The problem is not just the purchase of the dossier, which is itself extremely grave,” Mr. Alckmin said in the interview, in O Estado de São Paulo. “It is lamentable that 15 days later, the origins of the money, the origins of the dollars, the holders of the bank accounts are not known. Nothing has been explained.”
The image of piles of neatly wrapped American dollars and Brazilian reals stacked on a table, published in newspapers one day before the vote, resonated powerfully throughout Brazil.
As one newspaper columnist pointed out, the $792,000 involved would be enough to feed for a month 28,000 of the families enrolled in the Family Allowance program, the backbone of Mr. da Silva’s efforts to aid the poor.
“If the electoral tribunal permits it, you’re going to see that image over and over again in Alckmin’s television advertisements,” said Mr. Figueiredo, the political analyst.
Mr. da Silva’s campaign advisers say they hope to shift the focus away from the dossier, which the president compared in his news conference on Monday to shooting himself in the foot. They want to focus on the economy, which is stable, if growing slowly; inflation, which has been contained; the minimum wage, which has risen, and social welfare programs like the Family Allowance.
“The president’s orientation is to continue showing what we’ve done and to compare that with the previous government,” Tarso Genro, one of the few remaining close advisers to Mr. da Silva who has not been forced to resign, indicted, expelled from Congress or investigated by the police, told reporters in Brasília on Sunday night. “There’s going to be a lot of debate now that it’s not an unequal debate of three against one.”
At the last minute, Mr. da Silva pulled out of a debate with his three main opponents last week.
This time, though, Mr. da Silva has to take part in debates, “no matter what the dangers,” Mr. Figueiredo said. “The risks are higher for him and the situation favors Alckmin, because he’s not carrying the ethical burden that Lula is, but Lula has to show he does not disrespect voters.”
News Analysis
In Brazil Balloting, Leader Finds His Base May Turn to Sand
By LARRY ROHTER
RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct. 2 — Until the very end, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil was predicting victory in the first round in his campaign for re-election.
He was wrong, and now he faces what promises to be the most draining, potentially dangerous campaign of his long career, against an opponent he and many others had discounted.
Mr. da Silva, a 60-year-old former factory worker and labor leader who has been beleaguered by one scandal after another for nearly two years, polled 48.65 percent of the vote in the presidential election on Sunday, short of the majority he needed to avoid a runoff on Oct. 29.
That outcome assured a second chance for Geraldo Alckmin of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party, who won 41.6 percent of the vote.
“This is going to be an interesting second round — clarifying, I hope,” a chastened Mr. da Silva said Monday afternoon at a news conference in Brasília. “I have to convince the people.”
Mr. da Silva had appeared to be on his way to a resounding victory until mid-September, when the police caught operatives of his leftist Workers Party trying to buy a contrived dossier they apparently thought would incriminate Mr. Alckmin’s party in a kickback scandal. That skullduggery, which Mr. da Silva says supporters carried out without his approval or knowledge, put him on the defensive, where he remains.
“This second round is starting with Lula declining and Alckmin rising, which could lead to even more surprises if it continues,” said Rubens Figueiredo, a political analyst and consultant in São Paulo. “Public opinion has shifted in a short time because of the dossier case, which still hasn’t run its course.”
As a result, the second round that Mr. da Silva neither wanted nor expected promises to be extraordinarily hard-fought and full of contrasts. The differences are not so much of ideas — both parties have been fighting for the same space left of center since Mr. da Silva tacked toward the center in order to win in 2002 — but of personality and political style.
Mr. da Silva, who has been a candidate in all five of Brazil’s presidential elections since a military dictatorship ended in 1985, is excitable, voluble and charismatic, the poor peasant lad who has made good and wants everyone to know it.
Mr. Alckmin, a mild-mannered 53-year-old anesthesiologist, is none of that, which was originally considered a liability but now looks attractive to voters who say they yearn for honesty and competence.
“Put a cassock on Alckmin and he’d look just like a priest from a small-town parish,” said Jairo Nicolau, a political science professor at Candido Mendes University, in Rio de Janeiro.
“Or to put it another way, he talks like that brilliant but boring professor that everyone remembers from school, the kind of guy who knows the price of a square meter of asphalt and really likes the details of administration.”
This is the third time that Mr. da Silva is competing in a second round, but the first time as the incumbent. In contrast with the outcome in 2002, when he won nearly everywhere and ended up with more than 60 percent of the vote, he faces a situation in which 11 of the country’s 27 states voted in favor of his rival in the first round, including all the states in the industrialized, more prosperous south.
The most unpredictable factor in the vote, however, is what Tereza Cruvinel, a columnist for the daily O Globo, calls “the police dimension” of the campaign. The federal police are still investigating the case, and every day seems to bring another round of headlines that further incriminate operatives of Mr. da Silva’s party and damage his image.
“The longer this drags on, the more the opposition has a banner to exploit,” Mr. Nicolau said. “Lula needs to bring the campaign to his strong area, what he has achieved, and he can’t do that right now. This needs to be resolved as quickly as possible, because if it goes on for another 10 or 15 days, it is going to be devastating for him, or even lethal.”
Mr. Alckmin knows that, and has already begun hammering away at Mr. da Silva and his entourage, saying his own victory would mean “ethics defeating corruption.” In an interview published Monday, he also insinuated that a cover-up was under way to protect Mr. da Silva and others close to him until after the election.
“The problem is not just the purchase of the dossier, which is itself extremely grave,” Mr. Alckmin said in the interview, in O Estado de São Paulo. “It is lamentable that 15 days later, the origins of the money, the origins of the dollars, the holders of the bank accounts are not known. Nothing has been explained.”
The image of piles of neatly wrapped American dollars and Brazilian reals stacked on a table, published in newspapers one day before the vote, resonated powerfully throughout Brazil.
As one newspaper columnist pointed out, the $792,000 involved would be enough to feed for a month 28,000 of the families enrolled in the Family Allowance program, the backbone of Mr. da Silva’s efforts to aid the poor.
“If the electoral tribunal permits it, you’re going to see that image over and over again in Alckmin’s television advertisements,” said Mr. Figueiredo, the political analyst.
Mr. da Silva’s campaign advisers say they hope to shift the focus away from the dossier, which the president compared in his news conference on Monday to shooting himself in the foot. They want to focus on the economy, which is stable, if growing slowly; inflation, which has been contained; the minimum wage, which has risen, and social welfare programs like the Family Allowance.
“The president’s orientation is to continue showing what we’ve done and to compare that with the previous government,” Tarso Genro, one of the few remaining close advisers to Mr. da Silva who has not been forced to resign, indicted, expelled from Congress or investigated by the police, told reporters in Brasília on Sunday night. “There’s going to be a lot of debate now that it’s not an unequal debate of three against one.”
At the last minute, Mr. da Silva pulled out of a debate with his three main opponents last week.
This time, though, Mr. da Silva has to take part in debates, “no matter what the dangers,” Mr. Figueiredo said. “The risks are higher for him and the situation favors Alckmin, because he’s not carrying the ethical burden that Lula is, but Lula has to show he does not disrespect voters.”
Brazil´s Plane Crash
October 3, 2006
On the Road
Colliding With Death at 37,000 Feet, and Living
By JOE SHARKEY
SÃO JOSE DOS CAMPOS, Brazil, Oct. 1 — It had been an uneventful, comfortable flight.
With the window shade drawn, I was relaxing in my leather seat aboard a $25 million corporate jet that was flying 37,000 feet above the vast Amazon rainforest. The 7 of us on board the 13-passenger jet were keeping to ourselves.
Without warning, I felt a terrific jolt and heard a loud bang, followed by an eerie silence, save for the hum of the engines.
And then the three words I will never forget. “We’ve been hit,” said Henry Yandle, a fellow passenger standing in the aisle near the cockpit of the Embraer Legacy 600 jet.
“Hit? By what?” I wondered. I lifted the shade. The sky was clear; the sun low in the sky. The rainforest went on forever. But there, at the end of the wing, was a jagged ridge, perhaps a foot high, where the five-foot-tall winglet was supposed to be.
And so began the most harrowing 30 minutes of my life. I would be told time and again in the next few days that nobody ever survives a midair collision. I was lucky to be alive — and only later would I learn that the 155 people aboard the Boeing 737 on a domestic flight that seems to have clipped us were not.
Investigators are still trying to sort out what happened, and how — our smaller jet managed to stay aloft while a 737 that is longer, wider and more than three times as heavy, fell from the sky nose first.
But at 3:59 last Friday afternoon, all I could see, all I knew, was that part of the wing was gone. And it was clear that the situation was worsening in a hurry. The leading edge of the wing was losing rivets, and starting to peel back.
Amazingly, no one panicked. The pilots calmly starting scanning their controls and maps for signs of a nearby airport, or, out their window, a place to come down.
But as the minutes passed, the plane kept losing speed. By now we all knew how bad this was. I wondered how badly ditching — an optimistic term for crashing — was going to hurt.
I thought of my family. There was no point reaching for my cellphone to try a call — there was no signal. And as our hopes sank with the sun, some of us jotted notes to spouses and loved ones and placed them in our wallets, hoping the notes would later be found.
I was focused on a different set of notes when the flight began. I’ve contributed the “On the Road”column for The New York Times business-travel section every week for the last seven years. But I was on the Embraer 600 for a freelance assignment for Business Jet Traveler magazine.
My fellow passengers included executives from Embraer and a charter company called ExcelAire, the new owner of the jet. David Rimmer, the senior vice president of Excel Aire, had invited me to ride home on the jet his company had just taken possession of at Embraer’s headquarters here.
And it had been a nice ride. Minutes before we were hit, I had wandered up to the cockpit to chat with the pilots, who said the plane was flying beautifully. I saw the readout that showed our altitude: 37,000 feet.
I returned to my seat. Minutes later came the strike (it sheared off part of the plane’s tail, too, we later learned).
Immediately afterward, there wasn’t much conversation.
Mr. Rimmer, a large man, was hunched in the aisle in front of me staring out the window at the newly damaged wing.
“How bad is it?” I asked.
He fixed me with a steady look and said, "I don’t know."
I saw the body language of the two pilots. They were like infantrymen working together in a jam, just as they had been trained to do.
For the next 25 minutes, the pilots, Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino, were scanning their instruments, looking for an airport. Nothing turned up.
They sent out a Mayday signal, which was acknowledged by a cargo plane somewhere in the region. There had been no contact with any other plane, and certainly not with a 737 in the same airspace.
Mr. Lepore then spotted a runway through the darkening canopy of trees.
“I can see an airport,” he said.
They tried to contact the control tower at what turned out to be a military base hidden deep in the Amazon. They steered the plane through a big wide sweep to avoid putting too much stress on the wing.
As they approached the runway, they had the first contact with air traffic control.
“We didn’t know how much runway we had or what was on it,” Mr. Paladino would say later that night at the base in the jungle at Cachimbo.
We came down hard and fast. I watched the pilots wrestle the aircraft because so many of their automatic controls were blown. They brought us to a halt with plenty of runway left. We staggered to the exit.
“Nice flying,” I told the pilots as I passed them. Actually, I inserted an unprintable word between “nice” and “flying.”
“Any time,” Mr. Paladino, said with an anxious smile.
Later that night they gave us cold beer and food at the military base. We speculated endlessly about what had caused the impact. A wayward weather balloon? A hot-dogging military fighter jet whose pilot had bailed? An airliner somewhere nearby that had blown up, and rained debris on us?
Whatever the cause, it had become clear that we had been involved in an actual midair crash that none of us should have survived.
In a moment of gallows humor at the dormlike barracks where we were to sleep, I said, “Maybe we are all actually dead, and this is hell — reliving college bull sessions with a can of beer for eternity.”
About 7.30 p.m. Dan Bachmann, an Embraer executive and the only one among us who spoke Portuguese, came to the table in the mess hall with news from the commander’s office. A Boeing 737 with 155 people on board was reported missing right where we had been hit.
Before that moment, we had all been bonding, joking about our close call. We were the Amazon Seven, living now on precious time that no longer belonged to us but somehow we had acquired. We would have a reunion each year and report on how we used our time.
Instead we now bowed our heads in a long moment of silence, with the sound of muffled tears.
On the Road
Colliding With Death at 37,000 Feet, and Living
By JOE SHARKEY
SÃO JOSE DOS CAMPOS, Brazil, Oct. 1 — It had been an uneventful, comfortable flight.
With the window shade drawn, I was relaxing in my leather seat aboard a $25 million corporate jet that was flying 37,000 feet above the vast Amazon rainforest. The 7 of us on board the 13-passenger jet were keeping to ourselves.
Without warning, I felt a terrific jolt and heard a loud bang, followed by an eerie silence, save for the hum of the engines.
And then the three words I will never forget. “We’ve been hit,” said Henry Yandle, a fellow passenger standing in the aisle near the cockpit of the Embraer Legacy 600 jet.
“Hit? By what?” I wondered. I lifted the shade. The sky was clear; the sun low in the sky. The rainforest went on forever. But there, at the end of the wing, was a jagged ridge, perhaps a foot high, where the five-foot-tall winglet was supposed to be.
And so began the most harrowing 30 minutes of my life. I would be told time and again in the next few days that nobody ever survives a midair collision. I was lucky to be alive — and only later would I learn that the 155 people aboard the Boeing 737 on a domestic flight that seems to have clipped us were not.
Investigators are still trying to sort out what happened, and how — our smaller jet managed to stay aloft while a 737 that is longer, wider and more than three times as heavy, fell from the sky nose first.
But at 3:59 last Friday afternoon, all I could see, all I knew, was that part of the wing was gone. And it was clear that the situation was worsening in a hurry. The leading edge of the wing was losing rivets, and starting to peel back.
Amazingly, no one panicked. The pilots calmly starting scanning their controls and maps for signs of a nearby airport, or, out their window, a place to come down.
But as the minutes passed, the plane kept losing speed. By now we all knew how bad this was. I wondered how badly ditching — an optimistic term for crashing — was going to hurt.
I thought of my family. There was no point reaching for my cellphone to try a call — there was no signal. And as our hopes sank with the sun, some of us jotted notes to spouses and loved ones and placed them in our wallets, hoping the notes would later be found.
I was focused on a different set of notes when the flight began. I’ve contributed the “On the Road”column for The New York Times business-travel section every week for the last seven years. But I was on the Embraer 600 for a freelance assignment for Business Jet Traveler magazine.
My fellow passengers included executives from Embraer and a charter company called ExcelAire, the new owner of the jet. David Rimmer, the senior vice president of Excel Aire, had invited me to ride home on the jet his company had just taken possession of at Embraer’s headquarters here.
And it had been a nice ride. Minutes before we were hit, I had wandered up to the cockpit to chat with the pilots, who said the plane was flying beautifully. I saw the readout that showed our altitude: 37,000 feet.
I returned to my seat. Minutes later came the strike (it sheared off part of the plane’s tail, too, we later learned).
Immediately afterward, there wasn’t much conversation.
Mr. Rimmer, a large man, was hunched in the aisle in front of me staring out the window at the newly damaged wing.
“How bad is it?” I asked.
He fixed me with a steady look and said, "I don’t know."
I saw the body language of the two pilots. They were like infantrymen working together in a jam, just as they had been trained to do.
For the next 25 minutes, the pilots, Joe Lepore and Jan Paladino, were scanning their instruments, looking for an airport. Nothing turned up.
They sent out a Mayday signal, which was acknowledged by a cargo plane somewhere in the region. There had been no contact with any other plane, and certainly not with a 737 in the same airspace.
Mr. Lepore then spotted a runway through the darkening canopy of trees.
“I can see an airport,” he said.
They tried to contact the control tower at what turned out to be a military base hidden deep in the Amazon. They steered the plane through a big wide sweep to avoid putting too much stress on the wing.
As they approached the runway, they had the first contact with air traffic control.
“We didn’t know how much runway we had or what was on it,” Mr. Paladino would say later that night at the base in the jungle at Cachimbo.
We came down hard and fast. I watched the pilots wrestle the aircraft because so many of their automatic controls were blown. They brought us to a halt with plenty of runway left. We staggered to the exit.
“Nice flying,” I told the pilots as I passed them. Actually, I inserted an unprintable word between “nice” and “flying.”
“Any time,” Mr. Paladino, said with an anxious smile.
Later that night they gave us cold beer and food at the military base. We speculated endlessly about what had caused the impact. A wayward weather balloon? A hot-dogging military fighter jet whose pilot had bailed? An airliner somewhere nearby that had blown up, and rained debris on us?
Whatever the cause, it had become clear that we had been involved in an actual midair crash that none of us should have survived.
In a moment of gallows humor at the dormlike barracks where we were to sleep, I said, “Maybe we are all actually dead, and this is hell — reliving college bull sessions with a can of beer for eternity.”
About 7.30 p.m. Dan Bachmann, an Embraer executive and the only one among us who spoke Portuguese, came to the table in the mess hall with news from the commander’s office. A Boeing 737 with 155 people on board was reported missing right where we had been hit.
Before that moment, we had all been bonding, joking about our close call. We were the Amazon Seven, living now on precious time that no longer belonged to us but somehow we had acquired. We would have a reunion each year and report on how we used our time.
Instead we now bowed our heads in a long moment of silence, with the sound of muffled tears.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
COMUNICADOS IMPORTANTES
RESERVA DE HORÁRIOS - FÉRIAS E AUSÊNCIA PROFISSIONAL / PESSOAL
Prezados (as) Srs (as),
Comunicamos que desde 01/12/2005, está disponível o Serviço de Reserva de Horários para períodos de férias e/ou ausências justificadas.
Será cobrado antecipadamente, 50% do valor das aulas não freqüentadas por motivo de férias ou ausências justificadas , a titulo de reserva de horário.
A reserva de horário deve ser comunicada e efetivada mediante ao pagamento do valor, 10 dias antes da paralisação.
Existem duas grandes vantagens para o aluno que optar pela reserva; ele terá disponível o seu horário quando retornar as aulas e ainda terá a certeza de continuar pagando os mesmos valores de hora/aula da época em que saiu, portanto, não será enquadrado na tabela de "Valores Para Novos Alunos" a qual pode ou não contemplar aumentos. (vide http://ifsc.blogspot.com/2006/09/ateno-valores-para-novos-aluno.html)
Periodo máximo de reserva de 01 mês/ano em caso de férias + 15 dias para eventos extraordinários (profissionais e pessoais)
OBS: Válido também para o período de final de ano, quando a IFS , fecha as suas portas para um merecido descanso de sua equipe.
Atenciosamente
IFS Ensino de Idiomas Ltda.
Coordenação Administrativa e Didática dos Cursos.
---------------------------------------------------------------
COMUNICADO - CANCELAMENTO DE AULAS
Campinas 01 de Setembro de 2006
Prezados Senhores (as)
No intuito de melhorarmos a organização e o atendimento a todos os que se utilizam de nossa estrutura, comunicamos que desde o dia 01 de novembro/2005, deixaram de existir os cancelamentos de aula por quaisquer motivos, mesmo que previamente avisados.
As aulas perdidas não serão descontadas do valor devido pelo aluno, conforme já é de conhecimento de todos (vide informativo inicial, assinado por Vsa.), mas serão repostas conforme cirtérios abaixo.
Reposição de aulas perdidas - Critérios
1. Reposição máxima de 01 aula perdida por mês para alunos que contrataram uma aula por semana.
2. Reposição máxima de 02 aulas perdidas por mês para alunos que contrataram duas ou mais aulas por semana.
3. Alunos com aulas em duplas e trios não têm direito a reposição ( somente na ocasião da falta de todo o grupo, observando-se os demais critérios )
4. Somente terá direito a aula de reposição (respeitando os critérios do item 1 e 2) o aluno que avisar do não comparecimento, com antecedencia minima de 24 horas.
5. A reposição deve ser feita no máximo em até 15 dias após a data da aula perdida.
6. A reposição não poderá ser feita em hipótese alguma no horário normal do aluno. O agendamento da aula de reposição, ficará subordinado à disponibilidade de horário do professor, sempre procurando atender a conveniencia do aluno e respeitado o prazo de 15 dias (vide item 5)
Certos de seu entendimento, colocamo-nos para eventuais esclarecimentos que por ventura sejam necessários.
Boas Aulas
IFS Comunicação Ltda
Coordenação Administrativa e Didática dos Cursos.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday, September 18, 2006
Brazilian Day
Weekend in New York
The Last Samba of Summer
By SETH KUGEL
ACCORDING to the latest figures, there are some 10 million Brazilians living in New York City. Well, not really.
But you’d be excused for thinking so should you travel to the city for the Labor Day weekend. With many residents gratefully scattered, Brazilians from near and far will repopulate Manhattan and take over a broad swath of Midtown for the 22nd (and ever-growing) Brazilian Day.
That is just on Sunday afternoon, Sept. 3. Combine the celebration with the more than a dozen Brazilian restaurants in Manhattan and the more down-home restaurants, shops, salons and night life in New York’s primary Brazilian neighborhood, the Astoria section of Queens, and there’s enough going on to transform the long weekend into New York São Paulo style. (City records placed about 14,000 Brazilians in New York in 2000, the most recent figures available, but many Brazilians say the number is higher.)
In the mid-1980’s, Brazilian Day was just another ethnic-pride block party, taking over 46th Street between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas, part of what since 1995 has officially been Little Brazil Street. But now, it attracts more than a million people, according to João de Matos, the president of the event and a partner in several Brazilian businesses in New York, including what is probably the city’s most popular Brazilian restaurant, Churrascaria Plataforma.
The day’s centerpiece will be a continuing concert that is scheduled to feature well-known Brazilian acts, two of which, Babado Novo and Banda Calypso, will be making a DVD at the festival. Babado Novo is a band from Bahia that plays axé, a popular dance music, and Banda Calypso is a duo from the state of Pará that plays a modern mix of rhythms, including the country music popular in northeast Brazil known as forró. The other performers include the country singer Leonardo, the youth-oriented pop duet Sandy & Junior and the singer-songwriter Fagner, who will sing Brazil’s national anthem. The festival coincides with Brazil’s independence day, which is Sept. 7.
There will, of course, be food, though if the last few years are any indication, you’ll have to sift through the standard New York City fair fare to get to the deep Brazilian stuff. Look for the women in traditional Bahian white dresses who make acarajé, a black-eyed pea fritter spread with a sauce made from chilies and dried shrimp.
The rest of the weekend, you could eat yourself silly in Manhattan: Brazilian rodízio-style restaurants abound, including Churrascaria Plataforma and its downtown cousin, Churrascaria Riodizio TriBeCa, as well as less expensive choices like Brazil Grill. More standard Brazilian restaurants populate 46th Street, like Emporium Brasil and Ipanema, as well as the upscale West Village spot, Casa. The regular Samba Saturdays at SOB’s, the popular nightclub that most people forget stands for Sounds of Brazil, is sure to be packed, as is its postfestival party.
But the pulse of true Brazil is in Astoria, where every day is Brazilian Day. The fancy churrascarias may be few, but the variety is greater and Portuguese spills into the streets. What used to be the nightclub Ilusiones is now Churrascaria Pontal, where the typical rounds of meat are available for $23.99 (cheaper on weekdays). But the real entertainment comes late on Friday and Saturday nights.
Last month, Rabeka do Forró, the country band that previously played at Made in Brazil (a bar that serves a mean caipirinha), took over Pontal on Friday nights, and plans are to keep it going. It’s complemented by D.J.’s. on Saturday nights for Samba Astoria. But the act scheduled for Sept. 2 is an axé band, Pimenta Malagueta.
For an experience just as Brazilian but far less well known to Americans than are churrascarias, try one of the self-service restaurants where you pay by the pound, making it possible to stuff yourself on most of the same meats as in a churrascaria and spend less than $10.
One classic spot, the once tiny Copacabana, has expanded to half the block and is newly painted in a soothing orange. Also new is Sabor de Minas, the neighborhood’s only restaurant dedicated to food from the state of Minas Gerais, where many Brazilian immigrants are from; it is also self-service. For a more traditional setting, try the family-owned Malagueta.
Wherever you go on Labor Day or any other time, you should find that Brazilians, who seem genetically friendly, are a good group to share a weekend with — as long as you steer clear of difficult topics like, say, that recently concluded soccer tournament in Germany.
DETAILS
BRAZILIAN DAY
The festival runs from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 3, on 46th Street between Fifth Avenue and Broadway and on Avenue of the Americas from 43rd Street to 57th Street. Standard dress: anything green and yellow.
The main stage is set to be at the intersection of Avenue of the Americas and 43rd Street; expect the next few blocks to be packed, so arrive early. The music should start around 1 p.m. A smaller stage for performances will be set up at 46th Street and Avenue of the Americas.
More information is at www.brazilianday.com.
The Last Samba of Summer
By SETH KUGEL
ACCORDING to the latest figures, there are some 10 million Brazilians living in New York City. Well, not really.
But you’d be excused for thinking so should you travel to the city for the Labor Day weekend. With many residents gratefully scattered, Brazilians from near and far will repopulate Manhattan and take over a broad swath of Midtown for the 22nd (and ever-growing) Brazilian Day.
That is just on Sunday afternoon, Sept. 3. Combine the celebration with the more than a dozen Brazilian restaurants in Manhattan and the more down-home restaurants, shops, salons and night life in New York’s primary Brazilian neighborhood, the Astoria section of Queens, and there’s enough going on to transform the long weekend into New York São Paulo style. (City records placed about 14,000 Brazilians in New York in 2000, the most recent figures available, but many Brazilians say the number is higher.)
In the mid-1980’s, Brazilian Day was just another ethnic-pride block party, taking over 46th Street between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas, part of what since 1995 has officially been Little Brazil Street. But now, it attracts more than a million people, according to João de Matos, the president of the event and a partner in several Brazilian businesses in New York, including what is probably the city’s most popular Brazilian restaurant, Churrascaria Plataforma.
The day’s centerpiece will be a continuing concert that is scheduled to feature well-known Brazilian acts, two of which, Babado Novo and Banda Calypso, will be making a DVD at the festival. Babado Novo is a band from Bahia that plays axé, a popular dance music, and Banda Calypso is a duo from the state of Pará that plays a modern mix of rhythms, including the country music popular in northeast Brazil known as forró. The other performers include the country singer Leonardo, the youth-oriented pop duet Sandy & Junior and the singer-songwriter Fagner, who will sing Brazil’s national anthem. The festival coincides with Brazil’s independence day, which is Sept. 7.
There will, of course, be food, though if the last few years are any indication, you’ll have to sift through the standard New York City fair fare to get to the deep Brazilian stuff. Look for the women in traditional Bahian white dresses who make acarajé, a black-eyed pea fritter spread with a sauce made from chilies and dried shrimp.
The rest of the weekend, you could eat yourself silly in Manhattan: Brazilian rodízio-style restaurants abound, including Churrascaria Plataforma and its downtown cousin, Churrascaria Riodizio TriBeCa, as well as less expensive choices like Brazil Grill. More standard Brazilian restaurants populate 46th Street, like Emporium Brasil and Ipanema, as well as the upscale West Village spot, Casa. The regular Samba Saturdays at SOB’s, the popular nightclub that most people forget stands for Sounds of Brazil, is sure to be packed, as is its postfestival party.
But the pulse of true Brazil is in Astoria, where every day is Brazilian Day. The fancy churrascarias may be few, but the variety is greater and Portuguese spills into the streets. What used to be the nightclub Ilusiones is now Churrascaria Pontal, where the typical rounds of meat are available for $23.99 (cheaper on weekdays). But the real entertainment comes late on Friday and Saturday nights.
Last month, Rabeka do Forró, the country band that previously played at Made in Brazil (a bar that serves a mean caipirinha), took over Pontal on Friday nights, and plans are to keep it going. It’s complemented by D.J.’s. on Saturday nights for Samba Astoria. But the act scheduled for Sept. 2 is an axé band, Pimenta Malagueta.
For an experience just as Brazilian but far less well known to Americans than are churrascarias, try one of the self-service restaurants where you pay by the pound, making it possible to stuff yourself on most of the same meats as in a churrascaria and spend less than $10.
One classic spot, the once tiny Copacabana, has expanded to half the block and is newly painted in a soothing orange. Also new is Sabor de Minas, the neighborhood’s only restaurant dedicated to food from the state of Minas Gerais, where many Brazilian immigrants are from; it is also self-service. For a more traditional setting, try the family-owned Malagueta.
Wherever you go on Labor Day or any other time, you should find that Brazilians, who seem genetically friendly, are a good group to share a weekend with — as long as you steer clear of difficult topics like, say, that recently concluded soccer tournament in Germany.
DETAILS
BRAZILIAN DAY
The festival runs from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 3, on 46th Street between Fifth Avenue and Broadway and on Avenue of the Americas from 43rd Street to 57th Street. Standard dress: anything green and yellow.
The main stage is set to be at the intersection of Avenue of the Americas and 43rd Street; expect the next few blocks to be packed, so arrive early. The music should start around 1 p.m. A smaller stage for performances will be set up at 46th Street and Avenue of the Americas.
More information is at www.brazilianday.com.
Friday, September 01, 2006
Breastfeeding
September 1, 2006
On the Job, Nursing Mothers Find a 2-Class System
By JODI KANTOR
When a new mother returns to Starbucks’ corporate headquarters in Seattle after maternity leave, she learns what is behind the doors mysteriously marked “Lactation Room.”
Whenever she likes, she can slip away from her desk and behind those doors, sit in a plush recliner and behind curtains, and leaf through InStyle magazine as she holds a company-supplied pump to her chest, depositing her breast milk in bottles to be toted home later.
But if the mothers who staff the chain’s counters want to do the same, they must barricade themselves in small restrooms intended for customers, counting the minutes left in their breaks.
“Breast milk is supposed to be the best milk, I read it constantly when I was pregnant,” said Brittany Moore, who works at a Starbucks in Manhattan and feeds her 9-month old daughter formula. “I felt bad, I want the best for my child,” she said. “None of the moms here that I know actually breast-feed.”
Doctors firmly believe that breast milk is something of a magic elixir for babies, sharply reducing the rate of infection, and quite possibly reducing the risk of allergies, obesity, and chronic disease later in life.
But as pressure to breast-feed increases, a two-class system is emerging for working mothers. For those with autonomy in their jobs — generally, well-paid professionals — breast-feeding, and the pumping it requires, is a matter of choice. It is usually an inconvenience, and it may be an embarrassing comedy of manners, involving leaky bottles tucked into briefcases and brown paper bags in the office refrigerator. But for lower-income mothers — including many who work in restaurants, factories, call centers and the military — pumping at work is close to impossible, causing many women to decline to breast-feed at all, and others to quit after a short time.
It is a particularly literal case of how well-being tends to beget further well-being, and disadvantage tends to create disadvantage — passed down in a mother’s milk, or lack thereof.
“I feel like I had to choose between feeding my baby the best food and earning a living,” said Jennifer Munoz, a former cashier at Resorts Atlantic City Casino who said she faced obstacles that included irregular breaks and a refrigerator behind a locked door. She said she often dumped her milk into the toilet, knowing that if she did not pump every few hours, her milk supply would soon dwindle.
The casino denies discouraging Ms. Munoz from pumping. “We have policies and procedures in place to accommodate the needs of all of our employees,” Brian Cahill, a Resorts spokesman, said.
Nearly half of new mothers return to work within the first year of their child’s life. But federal law offers no protection to mothers who express milk on the job — despite the efforts of Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, who has introduced such legislation. “I can’t understand why this doesn’t move,” she said. “This is pro-family, pro-health, pro-economy.”
Meanwhile, states are stepping in. Twelve states have passed laws protecting pumping mothers — Oklahoma’s law, the newest, will take effect in November. But like Oklahoma’s, which merely states that an employer “may provide reasonable break time” and “may make a reasonable effort” to provide privacy, most are merely symbolic.
Public health authorities, alarmed at the gap between the breast-feeding haves and have-nots, are now trying to convince businesses that supporting the practice is a sound investment. “The Business Case for Breastfeeding,” an upcoming campaign by the Department of Health and Human Services, will emphasize recent findings that breast-feeding reduces absenteeism and pediatrician bills.
In corporate America, lactation support can be a highly touted benefit, consisting of free or subsidized breast pumps, access to lactation consultants, and special rooms with telephones and Internet connections for employees who want to work as they pump, and CD players and reading material for those who do not. According to the nonprofit Families and Work Institute, a third of large corporations have lactation rooms.
Even without these perks, professional women can usually afford a few months of maternity leave during which to breast-feed. When they return, they can generally find an office for the two or three 20-minute sessions per workday typically necessary. Even bathrooms — the pumping spots of last resort — are more inviting at an accounting firm than in a fast-food restaurant.
Wealthier women can spend their way out of work-versus-pumping dilemmas, overnighting milk home from business trips and buying $300 pumps that extract milk quickly, along with gizmos that allow them, in what seems like a parody of maternal multitasking, to pump while driving to and from work.
In contrast, said Dr. Lori Feldman-Winter, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ committee on breast-feeding, her patients cannot afford a basic $50 breast pump — an investment, she said, that “could prevent a lifetime of diseases.” The academy urges women to breast-feed exclusively for six months and to continue until the child turns 1.
On the Job, Nursing Mothers Find a 2-Class System
By JODI KANTOR
When a new mother returns to Starbucks’ corporate headquarters in Seattle after maternity leave, she learns what is behind the doors mysteriously marked “Lactation Room.”
Whenever she likes, she can slip away from her desk and behind those doors, sit in a plush recliner and behind curtains, and leaf through InStyle magazine as she holds a company-supplied pump to her chest, depositing her breast milk in bottles to be toted home later.
But if the mothers who staff the chain’s counters want to do the same, they must barricade themselves in small restrooms intended for customers, counting the minutes left in their breaks.
“Breast milk is supposed to be the best milk, I read it constantly when I was pregnant,” said Brittany Moore, who works at a Starbucks in Manhattan and feeds her 9-month old daughter formula. “I felt bad, I want the best for my child,” she said. “None of the moms here that I know actually breast-feed.”
Doctors firmly believe that breast milk is something of a magic elixir for babies, sharply reducing the rate of infection, and quite possibly reducing the risk of allergies, obesity, and chronic disease later in life.
But as pressure to breast-feed increases, a two-class system is emerging for working mothers. For those with autonomy in their jobs — generally, well-paid professionals — breast-feeding, and the pumping it requires, is a matter of choice. It is usually an inconvenience, and it may be an embarrassing comedy of manners, involving leaky bottles tucked into briefcases and brown paper bags in the office refrigerator. But for lower-income mothers — including many who work in restaurants, factories, call centers and the military — pumping at work is close to impossible, causing many women to decline to breast-feed at all, and others to quit after a short time.
It is a particularly literal case of how well-being tends to beget further well-being, and disadvantage tends to create disadvantage — passed down in a mother’s milk, or lack thereof.
“I feel like I had to choose between feeding my baby the best food and earning a living,” said Jennifer Munoz, a former cashier at Resorts Atlantic City Casino who said she faced obstacles that included irregular breaks and a refrigerator behind a locked door. She said she often dumped her milk into the toilet, knowing that if she did not pump every few hours, her milk supply would soon dwindle.
The casino denies discouraging Ms. Munoz from pumping. “We have policies and procedures in place to accommodate the needs of all of our employees,” Brian Cahill, a Resorts spokesman, said.
Nearly half of new mothers return to work within the first year of their child’s life. But federal law offers no protection to mothers who express milk on the job — despite the efforts of Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, who has introduced such legislation. “I can’t understand why this doesn’t move,” she said. “This is pro-family, pro-health, pro-economy.”
Meanwhile, states are stepping in. Twelve states have passed laws protecting pumping mothers — Oklahoma’s law, the newest, will take effect in November. But like Oklahoma’s, which merely states that an employer “may provide reasonable break time” and “may make a reasonable effort” to provide privacy, most are merely symbolic.
Public health authorities, alarmed at the gap between the breast-feeding haves and have-nots, are now trying to convince businesses that supporting the practice is a sound investment. “The Business Case for Breastfeeding,” an upcoming campaign by the Department of Health and Human Services, will emphasize recent findings that breast-feeding reduces absenteeism and pediatrician bills.
In corporate America, lactation support can be a highly touted benefit, consisting of free or subsidized breast pumps, access to lactation consultants, and special rooms with telephones and Internet connections for employees who want to work as they pump, and CD players and reading material for those who do not. According to the nonprofit Families and Work Institute, a third of large corporations have lactation rooms.
Even without these perks, professional women can usually afford a few months of maternity leave during which to breast-feed. When they return, they can generally find an office for the two or three 20-minute sessions per workday typically necessary. Even bathrooms — the pumping spots of last resort — are more inviting at an accounting firm than in a fast-food restaurant.
Wealthier women can spend their way out of work-versus-pumping dilemmas, overnighting milk home from business trips and buying $300 pumps that extract milk quickly, along with gizmos that allow them, in what seems like a parody of maternal multitasking, to pump while driving to and from work.
In contrast, said Dr. Lori Feldman-Winter, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ committee on breast-feeding, her patients cannot afford a basic $50 breast pump — an investment, she said, that “could prevent a lifetime of diseases.” The academy urges women to breast-feed exclusively for six months and to continue until the child turns 1.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Adoption
August 17, 2006
Overcoming Adoption’s Racial Barriers
By LYNETTE CLEMETSON and RON NIXON
When Martina Brockway and Mike Timble, a white couple in Chicago, decided to adopt a child, Ms. Brockway went to an adoption agency presentation at a black church to make it clear they wanted an African-American baby.
Their biological daughter, Rumeur, 3, is accumulating black dolls in preparation for her new brother or sister. Black-themed children’s books like “Please, Baby, Please” by the filmmaker Spike Lee and his wife, Tonya Lewis Lee, share shelf space with Elmo and Dr. Seuss.
But the couple’s decision provoked some uneasy responses. One of Mr. Timble’s white friends asked, “Aren’t there any white kids available?”
Ms. Brockway’s black friends were supportive. “But,” she said, “I also sensed that there was maybe something they weren’t saying.”
Mr. Timble cut in. “Like maybe they were thinking, ‘What do these people think they are doing?’ ”
Ms. Brockway and Mr. Timble are among a growing number of white couples pushing past longtime cultural resistance to adopt black children. In 2004, 26 percent of black children adopted from foster care, about 4,200, were adopted transracially, nearly all by whites. That is up from roughly 14 percent, or 2,200, in 1998, according to a New York Times analysis of data from the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect at Cornell University and from the Department of Health and Human Services.
“It is a significant increase,” said Rita Simon, a sociologist at American University, who has written several books on transracial adoption. “It is getting easier, bureaucratically and socially. With so many people going overseas, people are also increasingly saying, Wait a minute, there are children here who need to be adopted, too.”
The 2000 census — the first in which information on adoptions was collected — showed that just over 16,000 white households included adopted black children. Adoption experts say there has been a notable increase since 2000.
The reasons for the increase are varied. The Multiethnic Placement Act and its amendments prohibited federally financed agencies from denying adoption based on race. The foster care system has sharply changed in recent years and now includes financial incentives for finding more adoptive families.
The combination of legal changes and greater embracing of multicultural families — Americans have adopted more than 200,000 children from overseas in the past 15 years — have lessened resistance from both blacks and whites. The long wait for white children and the high costs of international adoptions — typically $15,000 to $35,000 — also play a role.
And agencies are offering courses to help adoptive parents enter the process with more cultural openness and awareness.
Ms. Brockway and Mr. Timble decided to adopt after a physically and emotionally wrenching first pregnancy — their daughter was delivered at 25 weeks. They did not want to deal with the long wait for a white infant, and adopting from overseas did not appeal to them.
“Some people see Asian or other ethnicities as closer to white, more acceptable, easier,” said Ms. Brockway, a teacher. “That’s just not us. We feel like we have the open arms and minds to be a good match to an African-American child.”
In practice, however, decisions about adoption placements are still influenced by racial considerations, many families say. Since 1994, white prospective parents have filed, and largely won, more than two dozen discrimination lawsuits, according to state and federal court records. Many more disputes have been settled in arbitration.
The loaded jumble of viewpoints and anxieties related to transracial adoptions of black children are complex and often contradictory.
Rhetoric around the issue has softened considerably since the National Association of Black Social Workers, in 1972, likened whites adopting black children to “cultural genocide.” The group removed the genocide reference from its policy statement in 1994, but it still recommends same-race placements. And organizations like the Child Welfare League have argued in recent years that while race need not be the primary consideration in placements, it should not be disregarded.
Many blacks still worry that white families cannot equip black children to navigate the country’s complicated racial landscape.
“Adoption, like everything else in this country, gets filtered through the lens of race,” said Joseph Crumbley, a black social worker in Philadelphia and a consultant on transracial adoptions. “For blacks, it is about how comfortable can whites be in dealing with the issue of race when their race is in conflict with the race of the child.”
Coffee
August 15, 2006
Coffee as a Health Drink? Studies Find Some Benefits
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Coffee is not usually thought of as health food, but a number of recent studies suggest that it can be a highly beneficial drink. Researchers have found strong evidence that coffee reduces the risk of several serious ailments, including diabetes, heart disease and cirrhosis of the liver.
Among them is a systematic review of studies published last year in The Journal of the American Medical Association, which concluded that habitual coffee consumption was consistently associated with a lower risk of Type 2 diabetes. Exactly why is not known, but the authors offered several explanations.
Coffee contains antioxidants that help control the cell damage that can contribute to the development of the disease. It is also a source of chlorogenic acid, which has been shown in animal experiments to reduce glucose concentrations.
Caffeine, perhaps coffee’s most famous component, seems to have little to do with it; studies that looked at decaffeinated coffee alone found the same degree of risk reduction.
Larger quantities of coffee seem to be especially helpful in diabetes prevention. In a report that combined statistical data from many studies, researchers found that people who drank four to six cups of coffee a day had a 28 percent reduced risk compared with people who drank two or fewer. Those who drank more than six had a 35 percent risk reduction.
Some studies show that cardiovascular risk also decreases with coffee consumption. Using data on more than 27,000 women ages 55 to 69 in the Iowa Women’s Health Study who were followed for 15 years, Norwegian researchers found that women who drank one to three cups a day reduced their risk of cardiovascular disease by 24 percent compared with those drinking no coffee at all.
But as the quantity increased, the benefit decreased. At more than six cups a day, the risk was not significantly reduced. Still, after controlling for age, smoking and alcohol consumption, women who drank one to five cups a day — caffeinated or decaffeinated — reduced their risk of death from all causes during the study by 15 to 19 percent compared with those who drank none.
The findings, which appeared in May in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, suggest that antioxidants in coffee may dampen inflammation, reducing the risk of disorders related to it, like cardiovascular disease. Several compounds in coffee may contribute to its antioxidant capacity, including phenols, volatile aroma compounds and oxazoles that are efficiently absorbed.
In another analysis, published in July in the same journal, researchers found that a typical serving of coffee contains more antioxidants than typical servings of grape juice, blueberries, raspberries and oranges.
“We were surprised to learn that coffee quantitatively is the major contributor of antioxidants in the diet both in Norway and in the U.S.A.,” said Rune Blomhoff, the senior author of both studies and a professor of nutrition at the University of Oslo.
These same anti-inflammatory properties may explain why coffee appears to decrease the risk of alcohol-related cirrhosis and liver cancer. This effect was first observed in 1992. Recent studies,published in June in The Archives of Internal Medicine, confirmed the finding.
Still, some experts believe that coffee drinking, and particularly caffeine consumption, can have negative health consequences. A study published in January in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology, for example, suggests that the amount of caffeine in two cups of coffee significantly decreases blood flow to the heart, particularly during exercise at high altitude.
Rob van Dam, a Harvard scientist and the lead author of The Journal of the American Medical Association review, acknowledged that caffeine could increase blood pressure and slightly increase levels of the amino acid homocysteine, possibly raising the risk for heart disease.
“I wouldn’t advise people to increase their consumption of coffee in order to lower their risk of disease,” Dr. van Dam said, “but the evidence is that for most people without specific conditions, coffee is not detrimental to health. If people enjoy drinking it, it’s comforting to know that they don’t have to be afraid of negative health effects.”
Coffee as a Health Drink? Studies Find Some Benefits
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Coffee is not usually thought of as health food, but a number of recent studies suggest that it can be a highly beneficial drink. Researchers have found strong evidence that coffee reduces the risk of several serious ailments, including diabetes, heart disease and cirrhosis of the liver.
Among them is a systematic review of studies published last year in The Journal of the American Medical Association, which concluded that habitual coffee consumption was consistently associated with a lower risk of Type 2 diabetes. Exactly why is not known, but the authors offered several explanations.
Coffee contains antioxidants that help control the cell damage that can contribute to the development of the disease. It is also a source of chlorogenic acid, which has been shown in animal experiments to reduce glucose concentrations.
Caffeine, perhaps coffee’s most famous component, seems to have little to do with it; studies that looked at decaffeinated coffee alone found the same degree of risk reduction.
Larger quantities of coffee seem to be especially helpful in diabetes prevention. In a report that combined statistical data from many studies, researchers found that people who drank four to six cups of coffee a day had a 28 percent reduced risk compared with people who drank two or fewer. Those who drank more than six had a 35 percent risk reduction.
Some studies show that cardiovascular risk also decreases with coffee consumption. Using data on more than 27,000 women ages 55 to 69 in the Iowa Women’s Health Study who were followed for 15 years, Norwegian researchers found that women who drank one to three cups a day reduced their risk of cardiovascular disease by 24 percent compared with those drinking no coffee at all.
But as the quantity increased, the benefit decreased. At more than six cups a day, the risk was not significantly reduced. Still, after controlling for age, smoking and alcohol consumption, women who drank one to five cups a day — caffeinated or decaffeinated — reduced their risk of death from all causes during the study by 15 to 19 percent compared with those who drank none.
The findings, which appeared in May in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, suggest that antioxidants in coffee may dampen inflammation, reducing the risk of disorders related to it, like cardiovascular disease. Several compounds in coffee may contribute to its antioxidant capacity, including phenols, volatile aroma compounds and oxazoles that are efficiently absorbed.
In another analysis, published in July in the same journal, researchers found that a typical serving of coffee contains more antioxidants than typical servings of grape juice, blueberries, raspberries and oranges.
“We were surprised to learn that coffee quantitatively is the major contributor of antioxidants in the diet both in Norway and in the U.S.A.,” said Rune Blomhoff, the senior author of both studies and a professor of nutrition at the University of Oslo.
These same anti-inflammatory properties may explain why coffee appears to decrease the risk of alcohol-related cirrhosis and liver cancer. This effect was first observed in 1992. Recent studies,published in June in The Archives of Internal Medicine, confirmed the finding.
Still, some experts believe that coffee drinking, and particularly caffeine consumption, can have negative health consequences. A study published in January in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology, for example, suggests that the amount of caffeine in two cups of coffee significantly decreases blood flow to the heart, particularly during exercise at high altitude.
Rob van Dam, a Harvard scientist and the lead author of The Journal of the American Medical Association review, acknowledged that caffeine could increase blood pressure and slightly increase levels of the amino acid homocysteine, possibly raising the risk for heart disease.
“I wouldn’t advise people to increase their consumption of coffee in order to lower their risk of disease,” Dr. van Dam said, “but the evidence is that for most people without specific conditions, coffee is not detrimental to health. If people enjoy drinking it, it’s comforting to know that they don’t have to be afraid of negative health effects.”
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