Health: Rating Real Risks
Thanks for your Dec. 15 cover package “Health 2003: The Top Ten.” The loss of some 3,000 plus lives in the World Trade Center bombing is dwarfed by the far, far greater losses of human life due to known medical conditions like strokes, which kill 5 million people a year. In the 15 years that I lived in Africa as an agricultural researcher from 1970 onward, I noticed that it was common for the national presidents of that continent to repeatedly raise the specter of “the enemy” that was just waiting to invade or sabotage their country, in order to distract the population from problems on the home front. George W. Bush’s rhetoric closely mimics that of those African presidents. Your article helps us regain a more realistic view of the real problems facing humanity. Richard Vernon Suva, Fiji
NEWSWEEK’s survey of last year’s top 10 health stories neglects the No. 1 cause of death worldwide: hunger. According to a study released by the World Health Organization in 2003, hunger and malnutrition are the world’s biggest killers, claiming more lives than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. Some 25,000 people perish every day from hunger-related diseases; most of them are very young children. That’s the equivalent of a jumbo jet’s crashing every 30 minutes. While your article rightly notes the risks associated with obesity, which affects 300 million adults worldwide, it makes no mention of the 800 million people who don’t know where their next meal will come from. Tragically, a recent U.N. report confirmed that this number is rising again, after an initial drop in the early 1990s. Billions of dollars are currently directed at preventing and finding a cure for the other top 10 health risks, such as tobacco, obesity and high cholesterol. Why is hunger being neglected? Clearly, there is a double standard. After all, hunger is an affliction of the poor. If hunger were perceived as the emergency it truly is, we would surely make more progress on halving the number of hungry people by 2015, as world leaders pledged to do in Monterrey in 2000. John M. Powell Assistant Executive Director World Food Programme Rome, Italy
Before Marxism
Your “comrade of the east” stereotype is as pig-headed as America’s foreign policy (“China Breaks Out,” Dec. 15). The Chinese had an advanced, cultured, sophisticated society long before Marxism descended upon them, or “the Cowboy of the West” learned table manners. Andres T. Stepkowski Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Dutch, Not Flemish
As a Flemish doctor living and working in the Netherlands, I was pleasantly surprised to read that Johannes Vermeer (1635-1675), the painter born in Delft, and living and working there during the Dutch Republic, was Flemish (“The Face Behind the Painting,” Dec. 15). Sure, I feel grateful for the international attention given to all things Flemish, but Vermeer was Dutch, like Rembrandt; it’s Rubens and Van Dyke who were Flemish. Of course, these are tiny neighboring countries that were once united in what were called the Low Countries. But they do cherish their little differences just as much as their similarities. Pieter-Jan Carpentier Vught, the Netherlands
Of Wines and Wars
Considering the chaos George W. Bush has created in Iraq and the quagmire U.S. troops are in, the media’s coverage of the Iraq war could never be too negative (“Who’s the Most Biased?” Dec. 15). However negative the German media’s coverage of the Iraq war may have been, it can’t match NEWSWEEK’s negative coverage of Germany. The only positive report in 2003 was about a Rhineland winery. Walter Deller via internet
Cautious Europe
As a U.S. citizen, I’m shocked that European governments would dare to test chemicals used to make furniture (“The Battle Over Caution,” Dec. 15). Or that they’d tell consumers if any were carcinogenic and that they’d be extra cautious about importing foods with unprecedented genetic traits. They consider risks to public health more important than costs and inconvenience to the chemical and food industries? And goodness–the EU would like a toxin-free society in 20 years? I’m moving to Europe. Nancy Myers Oak Park, Illinois
The corn-clad protester in the photo accompanying your article on genetically modified crops perpetuates a myth that haunts Europeans–the incorporation of genes from transformed DNA into the genome of humans consuming GM products. For 50 years, everything from sweet tomatoes to hybrid corn has come through classical plant-breeding methods, transforming the crops’ genetic characteristics and hence their DNA. Consumption of these genetically modified crops has not resulted in the incorporation of their DNA into our genome. For anti-GM protesters, the DNA of crops produced through biotechnology is something mythic. But for a geneticist, a DNA altered through classical plant-breeding methods does not differ from a DNA altered through biotechnology. And let’s not blame Brussels’s technocrats for strict anti-GM regulations. They’re trying to implement the texts coming out of Strasbourg where they [governments] convene misinformed EU lawmakers, oppressed by misinformed EU voters, and by Europe’s profoundly anti-GM mass media. Dr. Lefteris E. G. Sideris Research Director, Institute of Biology National Research Center Demokritos Athens, Greece
The ‘98 Nobel Peace Prize
I was shocked to see that you attributed the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize to Gerry Adams (“Taking the Hard Line,” Periscope, Dec. 8). Adams neither received nor shared the Nobel Peace Prize. John Hume (who for many years had been the driving force for a peace settlement and engaged Adams in talks) won it and shared it with David Trimble, the official Unionist Party leader at the time of the signing of the Good Friday agreement. I thought NEWSWEEK had fact checkers. Frank Horisk Irvinestown, Ireland
American Accents Abroad
You reported the case of Judi Roberts of Philadelphia (Perspectives, Dec. 1), a victim of “foreign-accent syndrome,” which has left her speaking with a British accent following a stroke. While I sympathize with Roberts’s plight, this case should be placed in proper perspective. FAS is mercifully rare in the United States, but has reached pandemic proportions in certain parts of Northwestern Europe, with upwards of 90 percent of the population being affected. The United States has reacted with characteristic magnanimity and generosity to this desperate situation by shipping in massive doses of Hollywood movies, soap operas, junk TV and the president himself in an effort to turn the tide. It’s a good start, but much more remains to be done. Mark Davis London, England
Democrats and Labor Unions
It is ironic that organized labor’s biggest political ally, the Democratic Party, has been the primary cause of labor’s decline (“Is Labor Dying, or Being Born?” Nov. 24). Over the years, federal and state governments have passed all manner of worker-benefit and protection legislation so that workers now look to politicians instead of unions to safeguard their well-being. This has been good for Democrats and bad for unions. Had these matters been left largely to the collective-bargaining process, unions would be far stronger and more viable today. John V. Kjellman Henniker, New Hampshire
Jonathan Alter offered the Democratic Party great advice when he said, “Campaign 2004 will be fought less in the air and more on the ground, less on TV and more on GOTV (get out the vote).” The right-wing Christian movement has employed this strategy for a long time. They got Reagan elected twice and the elder Bush once. They also narrowly elected the current Bush by targeting the electoral college rather than the popular vote. The one time they stayed at home was when the senior Bush was running for re-election. That is why the current Bush is working hard to stay in their back pocket. If the Democrats and their supporters do not outnumber the conservative Christians at the polls in 2004, it will not matter who their presidential candidate is. Ed Harshbarger Galloway, New Jersey
On the Line With the 1-124th
Please thank your team in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, for their fine and accurate coverage of the Florida National Guard 1-124’s efforts (“With the Ghost Squad,” Nov. 17). My son is one of those young men. It was good to be informed, from your firsthand reporting, about some of what is going on. People back home do need to know. Meg Dobbins Tallahassee, Florida
I was fascinated by your Nov. 17 piece on the Florida National Guard and the harrowing encounters they’re experiencing in Iraq. Robenson Jean, described as the “last Haitian hero” by his Ghost Squad peers, was a senior high-school student in my British-literature class. In a multicultural school with a flourishing Haitian population, Robenson distinguished himself as a tireless worker in the classroom and on the gridiron, while displaying a chivalric gallantry that impressed all those who came in contact with him. The uplifting letters he sent me from Iraq have described his dreams and aspirations, which are being fulfilled by defending U.S. values and beliefs. Christopher R. Wotton Delray Beach, Florida
A Made-in-U.S.A. Democracy
I just read Fareed Zakaria’s Nov. 10 World View (“Iraqification: A Losing Strategy”). The problem is that the United States, with its arrogance, has painted itself into a corner and it is unlikely to come out clean. Invading a country with such a different culture, with ethnic and religious conflicts that date back several centuries, and expecting it to turn into a Western-style (American?) democracy by way of a constitution and elections, is no less than daydreaming. Societies cannot be changed by mandate–they evolve on their own. They can be helped to grow but they cannot be forced to change overnight. I believe “Iraqification” is more a political tactic for re-election than anything else. I doubt that this administration is too concerned about what happens with the Iraqi people, despite all the rhetoric. Alex Horochowski Cordoba, Argentina
America is mired neck-deep in Iraq and has only itself to blame for that. The administration lied its way into Iraq to stuff down its throat “made in the U.S.A.” democratic, social and mercantilist obsessions but, like all imperialists, it forgot that evolution is specie- and environment-specific. Iraq should be left to evolve on its own, under the aegis of the United Nations. As Fareed Zakaria points out in his Nov. 10 column, President George W. Bush missed the chance to be a hero when the lust for mineral resources prevented him from handing over Iraq to the United Nations after Saddam was booted. The resistance campaign against the occupation in Iraq is supported passively by all and actively by a few–none wave the American flag. The imposition on the long-suffering Iraqis of a puppet government of unelected “exiles” will surely turn Iraqification into disintegration. Handing Iraq over to Kofi Annan and his staff is both the remedy for Iraq and a glorious exit for the beleaguered Bush. Igbo Ene Budapest, Hungary
Basques and Ball Games
“Bridging the Basque Divide With a Ball Game” (Dec. 1) offers no solution. How can we have a dialogue with a mob of undemocratic killers? Is it right to negotiate with Al Qaeda? Many Basque people suffer for their ideas and live with bodyguards. Jose Luis Amat Madrid, Spain
