'Scarborough Country' for Jan. 4 - Transcripts

'Scarborough Country' for Jan. 4

Read the transcript to the 10 p.m. ET show

Guest: Tim LaHaye, Anne Graham Lotz, Dave Silverman, Shmuley Boteach, Jennifer Giroux Robert Lahita

JOE SCARBOROUGH, HOST:  Tonight‘s top headline, the very laagsdhfgdf from the countries hardest hit by the tsunami. 

And later, the religious aftershocks caused by the massive waves in Asia.  Is humanity standing on the edge of an abyss and is God punishing humanity for their sins, as some religious leaders in America are suggesting? 

Welcome to SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY, where no passport is required and only common sense is allowed. 

Is the tsunami the first sign that we‘re in the end times as predicted in the Book of Revelations?  Is it our Armageddon or are we being punished for our sins and facing the end of human existence as we know it?  Or are these just accidents that a hiccup of nature?  What do Christians, Jews, Muslims and atheists belief?  Is it Mother Nature or God‘s will?  Find out tonight when we debate it on SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY. 

ANNOUNCER:  From the press room, to the courtroom, to the halls of Congress, Joe Scarborough has seen it all.  Welcome to SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY.

SCARBOROUGH:  Hey, welcome to SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY.  Hope you‘re having a great night. 

You know, I remember back in college speaking to a professor I had great respect for.  And for some reason, the topic turned to religion.  And this professor that, again, I had tremendous respect for started talking about how he was an atheist.  I said, well, how can you be an atheist?  And he said to me, well, Joe, how could you believe in God?  You look at the natural disasters that are out there.  You look at all of the people that are killed in tidal waves and earthquakes in the Third World and it just leads you to ask that question. 

Well, we had our talk back and forth and we had a debate, but a lot of people are talking about that again this week, a lot of discussion in religious chat rooms on the Internet and preachers and rabbis.  And we‘re going to be talking about that coming up.  It is an absolutely fascinating conversation.  We have been talking about it all day in the newsroom.  And you‘re going to enjoy that a great deal. 

And we‘re going to want you to e-mail us in your thoughts at Joe. . 

But, first, with recovery operations throughout Southeast Asia in full gear�"and, man, they are really in full gear�" partner ITN has been following the story of America‘s role in the tsunami relief effort. 

John Irvine is there and he gives us this report. 

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN IRVINE, ITN REPORTER (voice-over):  She may have been built to project American power abroad, but of course the USS Abraham Lincoln sped here not to intimidate, but to help.  The warplanes that bombed Iraq are redundant on this one.  It‘s the helicopters that matter.  They are the pack horses of the relief effort on Sumatra.  The admiral who brought them here said he was lost for words to describe the devastation. 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  I am not articulate enough to really explain it.  I tried to explain it to my son the other day.  But in the low-lying areas where many of the villages were that met the sea, it‘s just pancaked. 

IRVINE:  The chopper crews make this run several times a day.  But it‘s a view that never ceases to shock.  What was a verdant coastline is now desolate and barren.  They‘re still not sure they‘ve reached all the remote communities yet.  But certainly the people of the village that we dropped in on seemed extremely grateful. 

(on camera):  These helicopters are providing a lifeline for communities isolated by torn-down bridges and torn-up roads.  These survivors weren‘t just battered and bereaved by the tsunami.  They were also left marooned. 

(voice-over):  The Americans bring in supplies and take out those in need of medical attention.  There wasn‘t room for us on the return journey and we picked up a ride on another helicopter.  It raises the question, should journalists be taking up space in them at all?  But then there‘s the hope that seeing this up close will encourage the world to help. 

As for the Americans, they‘re often criticized, but it is difficult to find fault with what they are doing here.  No cargo flights could land today because a stricken airliner blocked the runway.  It struck a water buffalo.  Bizarre, but, right now, it‘s that sort of place. 

John Irvine, ITV News, Banda Aceh, Indonesia. 

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCARBOROUGH:  Thank you so much, John. 

And as aid arrives in the devastated tsunami zone, international efforts face a new challenge from some of the worst-hit areas, the violence of desperation.  There are even reports of looting right now in that area. 

And ITN‘s Dan Rivers brings us a report on that. 

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN RIVERS, ITN REPORTER (voice-over):  They‘ve waited a week for this and now their patience is exhausted.   Hunger and desperation turning this rice distribution point into an ugly scrum.  The aid is now arriving, but more is needed as Banda Aceh City starts to turn from the horror of the dead to the plight of the living.  But there is still chaos here�"just look at this extraordinary scene.  Looters that tried to steal gas from this troller, a subsequent fire finished off what remained of the mosque.  The airport is now the nexus of the multinational aid operation, food and medicine arriving from all over the world. 

ADMIRAL DOUG CROWDER, U.S. NAVY:  We‘re going fly wherever we‘re needed to get supplies to people back and forth to the people most affected by this. 

RIVERS:  But in rural Aceh, it‘s a difference story. 

Chanfo (ph) was a town of just 20,000, but now it has 6,000 refugees living in its midst.  Villages have donated clothes for the survivors of the tsunami.  This poor inland community happy to help their devastated coastal neighbors.  Hamid Ali (ph) spent four days walking here after losing his wife and children.  He‘s staying here with his brother who‘s opened the doors to his tiny house. 

(on camera):  Like many homes in this village, this house has just two rooms that‘s home to 20 refugees relying on the charity of distant relatives. 

RIVERS (voice-over):  Mothers sing their babies to sleep, but this nightmare will not be ended by simple lullaby. 

Dan Rivers, ITV News, Aceh. 

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCARBOROUGH:  So haunting, so haunting.  Now, we appreciate that report. 

But there are so many problems over there.  And right now, disease and a lack of clean water are some of the main challenges facing the victims and the survivors.  But some of the youngest survivors have to overcome a lifelong challenge, the loss of their parents. 

NBC‘s John Seigenthaler has this report about the children who are the real victims in this tsunami. 

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN SEIGENTHALER, NBC CORRESPONDENT (voice-over):  They‘re called the lost generation, tens of thousands of children across South Asia killed in the tsunami.  Thousands more at still risk from disease and shortages of food and water. 

You can see the fear in the eyes of a child old enough to know what is happening, but too young to understand why.  As more relief supplies and workers trickle into Sri Lanka, UNICEF now estimates 12,000 of the 30,000 tsunami victims in that country are children. 

CAROL BELLAMY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UNICEF:  I suppose what has most gotten to me is the number of children who have lost parents and also the number of parent whose are still standing at the edge of the waves waiting for their children to come back. 

SEIGENTHALER:  This 12-year-old Sri Lanka boy named Sandaran (ph) was picking flute in a mango tree when a neighbor warned him about the tsunami. 

(on camera):  And what happened to your house? 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  He says, it‘s not to be seen even. 

SEIGENTHALER:  It‘s gone? 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  It‘s gone. 

SEIGENTHALER (voice-over):  He climbed higher to escape the tidal wave, while his parents drowned in the surf below.  Sandaran will join hundreds of thousands of other children staying in makeshift camps now turning into temporary orphanages. 

And that‘s creating another problem for relief workers.  Some parents, trying to deal with the grief of losing their own children, are taking in orphans from the aid centers without saying a word to authorities.  Meanwhile, some of the young survivors of the tsunami are trying their best to get back to a normal life, a chance to be with friends and remember what it‘s like to be a kid again. 

John Seigenthaler, NBC News, Galle, Sri Lanka. 

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCARBOROUGH:  I‘ll tell you, I know, for all of us, that‘s so heartbreaking.  But for those of us with children that‘s�"the age of those children that we‘re watching there, it‘s just�"it‘s so awful. 

Now, for the children of the tsunami, one of the biggest challenges facing the entire region is disease. 

And here to tell us if disease could actually double the death toll in that region is Dr. Robert Lahita.  He is the chief of medicine at Jersey City Medical Center. 

Doctor, thanks for being back with us again. 

DR. ROBERT LAHITA, JERSEY CITY MEDICAL CENTER:  Thank you, Joe.  

SCARBOROUGH:  We heard John Seigenthaler talking about a lost generation.  You and I have been talking for the past week since the initial tsunami hit and the tidal wave killed, well, probably close to 150,000 now.  We have been talking about the possible threat of a doubling of that death toll because of disease. 

Give us the laagsdhfgdf medical update over there.  What is going on?  Are we still as risk of maybe losing 100,000 to 150,000 more people because of disease?

LAHITA:  Yes, Joe.  We‘re only nine days into the disaster and that‘s a bit early to tell how the things are going to play out here. 

We‘re worried about waterborne diseases like cholera and typhoid, which typically affect large stressed populations such as that which we see now in Southeast Asia and in Sri Lanka.  We have a problem here in that there‘s no refrigeration.  We are flying antibiotics in that are powdered form.  Then we rehydrate those with good water, sterile water, to give to people.

We also have to have sterile water, a special mineral containing sterile water, to give to those who are suffering from diseases like cholera.  Once there‘s a major outbreak, we are going to have a major problem and we could lose as much as three times what the death toll already is�"Joe.

SCARBOROUGH:  So, you‘re saying that the death toll, let‘s say it stops at 150,000, which I think most experts believe it is going to go even higher.  You‘re saying that that could possibly triple.  We could see as many as half-a-million people die from the initial waves that came ashore and disease? 

LAHITA:  Yes, that‘s correct. 

Luckily, the response of the world has been so incredible that we‘re able to get materials to some of the more populated areas that have airports.  But it‘s getting sterile water and antibiotics and the medical equipment and medical personnel out to the rural areas, where there are hundreds of thousands of people without refrigeration, without adequate medical care.  That‘s the challenge, Joe. 

SCARBOROUGH:  Doctor, you have talked at cholera.  You have talked at typhoid.  I understand also that measles and hepatitis also is a concern.  Why is that?

LAHITA:  Well, the ground water is contaminated.  There have been so many dead bodies.  There has been so much contamination with fecal bacteria and probably�"this is an area that is endemic for hepatitis like hepatitis-A. 

When the water supply is contaminated, when people have no place to go to drink and eat clean food, drink clean water, hepatitis is a major problem.  We have got that.  If a measles outbreak occurs�"and I have heard from some reports that that is happening�"that will go like wildfire through the children, who already will probably have diarrheal diseases from the contaminated water.  And then we have the waterborne diseases which are carried by mosquitoes such as malaria and dengue fever, which is also endemic in this area.  So, we‘ve got a lot of problems ahead.  It‘s a big challenge for all of us.

SCARBOROUGH:  All right, Dr. Bob Lahita, thank you so much for being with us again and helping us understand the scope of this disaster from a medical standpoint.  And it doesn‘t sound like we‘re going to really know the outcome for some time to come.  So we ask, if you will, to please come back later this week and give us your update. 

Now, coming up next, many are wondering whether a tragedy of this magnitude is an act of nature or a sign that we may be in the end times.  Is the apocalypse near?  Is this God punishing us for our sins?  Well, that‘s what some pastors in America are saying.  Others hotly debate it. 

We are going to be talking about that when SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY returns. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCARBOROUGH:  You know, the massive devastation in the wake of tsunami has a lot of people examining their faith and their purpose.  What does this disaster mean and could it be a sign that the end times are near?  That debate is coming up next. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCARBOROUGH:  Welcome back to SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY. 

God and the tsunami.  With some 175,000 people dead and vast stretches of Asia ripped apart, a lot of people are asking, how can a merciful God allow such disaster and suffering?  And should we interpret this as a sign from above? 

With me now to talk about this is Anne Graham Lotz.  She is the daughter of Reverend Billy Graham and the author of “Visions of His Glory,” a book about the Revelation.  We also have Dr. Tim LaHaye.  He is co-author of the best-selling “Left Behind” series.  We also have Dave Silverman.  He is of American Atheists.  We have got Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, author of “Face Your Fear.”  And we have Jennifer Giroux of Women Influencing the Nation. 

I want to welcome everybody. 

And, Anne, let me begin with you.  I know that there are tens of thousands of people out there that are asking this question.  If we are God‘s children and our God is a loving God, as you say he is, then how could God allow such suffering and death in Asia, 150,000 of his children right now killed?  Some estimates, that maybe three, four times as many may be dead by the time they finish counting all the bodies.  Is that a loving God that would allow that to happen?

ANNE GRAHAM LOTZ, ANGEL MINISTRIES:  Joe, I know that God is a loving God.  I don‘t look at the tsunami and what has happened at Asia.  I look at the cross. 

And when I look at the cross of Jesus Christ, when God sent his own son to die to take away my sin, I know that God loves me.  So, I don‘t know the love of God is in question when this happens.  Why he has allowed it to happen, I don‘t know.  I can‘t answer that question.  But I think one of the things that we need to do when there‘s a disaster like that is to look up and ask God, are you trying to get our attention?  Is there something we can learn from this?  Is there something you‘re trying to say to us? 

And, Joe, what is interesting about this, that this tsunami did not increase death.  All of those people who died were going to die anyway.  And I don‘t mean to sign cold.  And we desperately don‘t desire to see them suffer in such a horrific way.  But, at the same time, every single one of us is going to die.  And the critical thing is to determine what is going to happen to us the moment after we die.  Where are we going to spend eternity? 

And that‘s why God, who does love you, and he sent his own son to die on the cross, that, when I place my faith in him, I can be forgiven of my sin and I can know for sure that, when something happens to me�"and I can die on the highway. I can die as a result of a disease.  It doesn‘t have to be a tsunami.  But one day, I‘m going to die.  And I know when I do, I am going to be ushered into my father‘s home into heaven because I have placed my faith in Jesus. 

So, this is a tragedy and it‘s a disaster, but it‘s not a reflection on the fact that God doesn‘t love us, because God loves us and the proof of that is the cross. 

SCARBOROUGH:  Now, Jennifer Giroux, you believe that this may be a sign from God and this may be God punishing people because of their sins.  Explain.

JENNIFER GIROUX, DIRECTOR, WOMEN INFLUENCING THE NATION:  Well, you know, throughout history and reported early in the Bible, God has always used plagues, floods and natural disasters as a source of punishment. 

Now, something that jumps out from that first segment to me, Joe, is you talk about a sad lost generation over there in the disaster going on in Asia.  We have a lost generation of 40 million aborted babies in this country that is being ignored by so many people.  I believe that this situation that happens makes all of us look inward, realize God is ultimately in control of life and death. 

Look at what we‘re looking with just in this country with cloning, homosexuality, trying to make homosexual marriages, abortion, lack of God in the schools, taking Jesus out of Christmas.  I can‘t pretend to know the mind of God.  But, historically, there have been warnings.  And God, who is all-loving and all-good, and he will not be mocked.

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH:  So, are you saying, Jennifer, that God may be killing people in Asia because of the sins that Americans are committing here? 

GIROUX:  No, I‘m not saying that at all, Joe.

What I‘m saying is that God does allow natural disasters to happen. 

He always brings good out of bad.  You know, there is sin in this country.  There is sin around the world.  There‘s no way anybody could look over there and say they are more deserving than anybody else to have this disaster.  We all look with horror. 

And I think one thing that really has made all of us think is, we all know in the Bible it says death comes like a thief in the night and we know not the day or the hour.  And it makes all of us look inward and say, am I ready to meet my maker?  And am I ready, if this were to happen right now when I‘m sitting in the studio or while the viewers are watching your show tonight, if a disaster hits, where is my life?  Am I doing what God wants me to do?  And am I living a moral life? 

And we as individuals and as a country need to turn to God again, ask for forgiveness and mend our ways. 

SCARBOROUGH:  Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, there are some out there that are saying that, like Jennifer just did, that God has used plagues, floods, earthquakes, natural disasters to punish people for sins.  What is your take on that? 

RABBI SHMULEY BOTEACH, AUTHOR, “FACE YOUR FEAR”:  You know, Joe, Jennifer Giroux is guilty of colossal blasphemy and even more colossal arrogance, blasphemy, because even Jesus on the cross says in Matthew 27 and Mark 15, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 

He wanted to live.  He was challenging God.  He was saying life is precious, unlike Anne Graham Lotz, who just said only the afterlife matters.  Jesus says, you‘ve forsaken me.  He challenged God.  It‘s what Abraham also does when God says, I‘m going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.  And they were more sinful than any American or people living in Sri Lanka or Indonesia.

Abraham says, are there 40 righteous people?  Aren‘t there 30 innocent people?  And you are going to kill the good people, the children?  Moses says to God when God says I‘ll destroy the Israelite for worshiping a golden calf, Moses says, do it, but take my name out of the Bible.  I want nothing to do with you, God.  That‘s in Exodus, before Abraham‘s words are in Genesis.  This is absolute arrogance and blasphemy. 

(CROSSTALK)

GIROUX:  Rabbi, you have a selective memory of the Bible. 

(CROSSTALK)

BOTEACH:  Jennifer, God is not a terrorist.  You sound like Osama bin Laden. 

GIROUX:  Absolutely not.

BOTEACH:  God is not a terrorist.

GIROUX:  Rabbi, you can stop yelling and realize that your selective memory of the Bible is inaccurate.  God is all-loving and God is all-forgiving and God will bring good out of all of this. 

But we are all accountable for him as individuals, as a country and as mankind in general.  And he will not be mocked. 

(CROSSTALK)

BOTEACH:  Jennifer, how dare you say that 150,000 people that you have never met who are probably more righteous than you, more innocent than you, poor people who just worked hard to feed their kids, how dare you say they were punished by God?  You don‘t know those people.

(CROSSTALK)

GIROUX:  That not what I said, Rabbi.  That not what I said.

(CROSSTALK)

BOTEACH:  If God is just�"and I believe he is�"then he ought to swallow Saddam Hussein alive and leave the 150,000 innocent people alone.  Let him swallow the janjaweed militias of the Sudan.  Let him kill Kim Jong-il of North Korea, a mass murderer.

GIROUX:  Rabbi, do you believe...

SCARBOROUGH:  All right, Jennifer, respond.

GIROUX:  Do you believe God has ever sent natural disaster in the Old Testament?  Has God ever sent natural disaster or plague as punishment to the people? 

BOTEACH:  What it says in the Old Testament is that...

(CROSSTALK)

GIROUX:  Yes or no. 

BOTEACH:  Is that prophets can say that.  You‘re not a prophet, Jennifer.  You barely know the Bible, unfortunately. 

GIROUX:  I didn‘t hear an answer, though. 

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH:  Now, as they said in “Monty Python,” now for something completely different, let‘s go to David Silverman.  He is the head of American Atheists. 

David, a college professor told me once that he had become an atheist after a similar natural disaster struck in the 1960s, suggesting to me that a loving God would never allow such horrors to occur.  Do you agree with that assessment? 

(CROSSTALK)

DAVE SILVERMAN, AMERICAN ATHEISTS:  Well, yes, I do. 

Before I get into that, Joe, I would like to thank you for having me on the show.  American Atheists extends its condolences and its support to all of the mourners of this global natural disaster.  And I would like to just take a moment to urge the people to continue to do their secular, humanistic giving to get money and aid to those who need it and to not bury your head in the sand and stare at the cross or to argue about abortion or anything like that. 

Let‘s talk about this, for example.  Would a loving God allow this to happen?  Of course not.  A loving God doesn‘t allow torture.  If a loving God is all-powerful�"think about this�"if a loving God is all-powerful, he can do whatever he wants without killing children, without killing babies, without AIDS or without tidal waves or without...

GIROUX:  You know a lot about God for that you don‘t believe in him. 

SILVERMAN:  That‘s right.  That‘s right, Jennifer.  I do know a heck of a lot more than you about this�"about God.  I‘m not getting into an argument with you again, Jen. 

(CROSSTALK)

GIROUX:  I don‘t want to argue.

LAHITA:  No, no, it‘s just not worth it, because this is a time when the world is grieving.  And we‘re not here to talk about abortion and we‘re not here to talk about cloning. 

We‘re here to talk about people helping other people.  That‘s the secular, humanistic way. 

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH:  I want to go�"let me go quickly to Anne. 

And I have got Tim LaHaye that I have just got to ask some questions to.

But I want to go back to Anne Graham Lotz, because, Anne, I believe you have written a book about why, people asking the question, why God allows terrible things to happen.  And I know you talked about�"you focus on the afterlife, that we‘re all going to die, obvious�"that‘s obvious to all of us tonight.

But, again what do you say to my college professor?  What do you say to a parent who has lost a child in this?  What do you say to a father that has lost his entire family, his entire life savings when he says, God, why have you forsaken me?  Why have you left me here to die without a family, without a single possession? 

LOTZ:  Joe, I don‘t think there are answers to a question like that. 

And I know this, that God sent his son to the cross.  And we can say not to focus on the cross, but if we don‘t focus on the cross, we have no hope.  And the cross tells us that God came to Earth and he understands our pain.  He feel our pain.  He entered into our suffering. 

And in Bethany, when Lazarus died and Jesus went to the tomb with Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, Jesus knew he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead, but he wept and he entered into their suffering.  And so, I think if we could see God‘s face now, if such a thing were possible, we would see tears coming down his cheeks.  And he uses us.  And I appreciate Dave‘s challenge to us to help these people.  And that‘s a right challenge, because we can be the arms, in a sense, the voice of God reaching out to these people to love them in their suffering. 

I don‘t know why God allows this, but I know he has a purpose.  And this is something for the atheist, too, because an atheist was saying�"when he says there is no God, that he is saying he came from nowhere, he is going nowhere, his life has no purpose, he is a cosmic accident.  And the Bible says that God has a divine purpose for every single one of us.  And this life is just part of it. 

And our purpose in this life is to bring glory to God and to know him in a personal relationship through Jesus Christ.  And when this life is over, where we go next is crucial. 

SCARBOROUGH:  All right.  We will be talking more about this.  We will talk to Dave and also Tim LaHaye when we return in SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCARBOROUGH:  We have all talked about daring rescues, amazing survival, disease and destruction, but tonight we are taking a look at how different religions are reacting to the tsunami and if this could be the end times. 

More of that straight ahead, but, first, let‘s get the laagsdhfgdf headlines from the News Desk. 

(NEWS BREAK)

ANNOUNCER:  From the press room, to the courtroom, to the halls of Congress, Joe Scarborough has seen it all.  Welcome back to SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY.

SCARBOROUGH:  Hey, welcome back. 

We‘re talking about the tsunami, suffering and God.  I‘m here with my panel, Anne Graham Lotz, Tim LaHaye, Dave Silverman, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, and Jennifer Giroux. 

Let‘s go to you first, Tim LaHaye. 

I want to tell our audience something about your book sales, which I find absolutely fascinating.  The first 11 “Left Behind” books have sold more than 40 million copies, making you and your co-author, Jerry Jenkins, bigger sellers than John Grisham.  And, of course, the subject of these books have to do with the end of times. 

There have been a lot of people that have said since the millennium this was all Bible prophesy, that all of the earthquakes, the tsunamis, that all the natural disasters are leading us to the end times.  Do you think that‘s what we may be looking at here? 

TIM LAHAYE, CO-AUTHOR, “LEFT BEHIND”:  I think that‘s a legitimate assumption.  God has�"you know, Bible prophesy is history written in advance.  And it doesn‘t mean that God is arranging all these activities. 

I think the God of the Bible is a God of love, as Anne has portrayed.  But in order to understand what he does in an isolated situation like this, we have to come back and understand who he is.  And although it‘s true as, I think the rabbi said, that Jesus prayed, “Why have you forsaken me?” the fact is, that‘s not the end of the story.  If you go on, three days later, Jesus was raised from the dead and God raised him up from the dead, proving that his sacrifice for sin was acceptable. 

But the point is, we‘re looking through a glass darkly.  We don‘t see the end from the beginning.  Bible prophesy tells us that, as we get closer to the end of the age, there will be more and more of these natural phenomenon.  And that‘s one of the things that I resent, people trying to say that this is the judgment of God.  No, this is just the natural result of the phenomenon of nature. 

As the Earth changes and shifts on its plates, you have earthquakes caused and such tidal waves that are just unbelievable and you have death and so on.  I don‘t believe God is picking on these people.  But we‘re approaching a time when people have to make sure that they are right before God, because all of these uncertainties�"and certainly death is an uncertainty�"when it comes, it‘s an uncertainty.  It points out to us that we have to be ready at all times to understand not the God that man sees just in an isolated event, but the God of the Bible. 

God is love, the Bible tells us.  He doesn‘t put on mankind evil.  God can‘t be tempted with evil.  Neither tempts he any man.  Therefore, we can be assured that he has a purpose in this.  We may never know what the total purpose is, but be sure of this.  There‘s a good purpose for it. 

SCARBOROUGH:  You know, somebody on our staff brought up Matthew Chapter 24 talking about the end of times, and this is what Jesus said. 

He said: “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars.  But see that you shouldn‘t be alarmed.  Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.   Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.  There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.  All these things are the beginning of birth pains.”

Tim, would you say that Jesus is talking about such times as these? 

LAHAYE:  Well, I think he is talking about the increase in all of these activities. 

And the amazing thing about it is, if you go to the U.S. Geological Society, you will find that they chart earthquakes and they have been increasing.  For the past five decades, every decade has increased the number of earthquakes, killer earthquakes we‘re talking about.  And this is one of the granddaddy of all earthquakes, and it has taken so much life.  And the good thing about all of this is, it points out that man really has to get right before God, because the time is short. 

Things are happening so rapidly today.  Even unsaved secular scientists say they see no hope for this world beyond 25 or 50 years.  What should our response be?

(CROSSTALK)

BOTEACH:  Joe, can I just say to Tim LaHaye that to speak about any good coming from the death of 150,000 innocent people, maybe 50,000 children, is just not religious.  It‘s deeply blasphemous. 

I have to differ with my Christian colleagues in their quintessential belief that suffering is redemptive, that someone needs to die in order for sin to be forgiven.  It‘s simply not true.  God is omnipotent and God is all powerful.  And he can bring about the end of days without earthquakes and killing people.  We as human beings have a right to challenge God.  We have a mandatory obligation to challenge God. 

GIROUX:  Rabbi, you obviously have you have...

(CROSSTALK)

BOTEACH:  One second, Jennifer. 

God said, do not kill.  He said, life is precious.  So we have to come before him.  And the word Israel means to fight with God, to wrestle with God and say, how do you allow this kind of thing?  We are not cosmic chaff.  We have a right to be angry.  It‘s an honest religious relationship. 

(CROSSTALK)

GIROUX:  Rabbi, you obviously have a few issues that you need to work through, but you cannot pretend to know the mind of God, nor can I. 

And I would like to clarify, after your attack, that I did not say that those people on the other side of the world in Asia deserved this, by any means.  We cannot understand something of this magnitude, of this disaster.  You cannot watch that show, as Joe pointed out, and not be in tears.  Imagine yourself having your children slip from your arms.

Having said that, it disturbs people like Dave that cannot figure out where the hope is in all this, because they don‘t want to recognize that God is in this. 

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH:  One at a time.  Hold on a second.  One at a time. 

Go, Dave. 

(CROSSTALK)

SILVERMAN:  I have been attacked.  I did not say I have no hope.  I have a lot of hope.  Why? 

Because, outside of religion, outside of all of this rhetoric, outside of all this screaming that you guys are doing, billions and billions is heading into the affected area without religious impetus.  Listen...

(CROSSTALK)

GIROUX:  And thank God for that. 

(CROSSTALK)

SILVERMAN:  This is my turn to talk, Jennifer.  This is my turn to

talk,

Rabbi, first of all, thank you for besting Jen on her knowledge.  You have done it.  And, by the way, I think you‘re more my colleague than you are of theirs. 

(CROSSTALK)

SILVERMAN:  And I would also like to thank you, Rabbi, one more time for being the only other person on this show other than myself who didn‘t come in here to capitalize on the tragedy to hock a book.  Shame on the rest of you.  Everybody, don‘t buy books. 

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH:  OK, hold on a second.  Hold on a second.

I have got to stop for a second.  Nobody came on the show to hock their book.  We called people that have been recognized as leaders in their communities, in their communities of faith, to come on this show.  They did it as a favor to us.  And we greatly appreciate it.  Nobody has come on this show to hock their books.  We are honored to have everybody on, because each of you represent a distinct, different area of faith. 

And of speaking of a distinct, different area of faith, I want to go to what I think right now is the central focal point of this debate.  And that is, does God use suffering to forward his will?  I want to read for all of you what the head of the Federation of the Islamic Council has said regarding what the Koran teaches. 

He says that the Koran teaches that natural disasters are a part of human actions.  And this is what he says�"quote�"“We need to go and seek for answers.  Why did this happen?  What have I done?  What have we done for this to happen?  We can‘t brush off and blame somebody else.”

Rabbi, it sounds like not only are there some Christians that believe that God uses suffering or God punishes people for their actions.  It‘s sounds also like this leader of this Islamic Council is arguing the same thing. 

BOTEACH:  Yes.  And they also said�"think about the perversity of this�"that because women walk around in bikinis on the shores of Thailand, that‘s why it was hit by a tsunami, as if screaming (SPEAKING ARABIC) while you chop off someone‘s head is not more blasphemous. 

I would advise my Islamic colleagues to stop trying to understand the mind of God and maybe encourage your skinflint Arab countries to start giving money to this effort, because most of the people affected were Muslims in Indonesia.  There is not one Arab oil-rich country that is even in the top 10 of donors.  Denmark has given more money than Saudi Arabia.

Iceland is almost giving more money.  This is embarrassing.  Islam dare not go down the path of trying to say that God is Osama bin Laden waiting in the heavens to strike people with thunderbolts because they happen to wear bikinis on beaches.  We have to stop condemning mankind for sinfulness, as if human beings are terrible. 

And what bothers me the most, Joe, is that Jennifer Giroux has some hatred of America.  She keeps on talking about how much abortion there is here.  We are a beautiful country.  Our soldiers are risking their lives to give people freedom in Iraq.  Our soldiers are flying missions to feed the people in Sri Lanka, Indonesia.  God blesses America.  He does not curse it with suffering. 

SCARBOROUGH:  All right, we will have Jennifer respond when we come back. 

You talked about the fact that Saudi Arabia not giving as much as a lot of other countries.  I will tell you who else is not giving, China.  Compare China‘s giving to America‘s giving.  And isn‘t it interesting that China always talks how America needs to stay out of Asia, that Asia is now their territory, that their dominant theater.  And yet, when a disaster comes, who does China turn to for help?  You, the American taxpayers.  You talk about hypocrisy. 

Well, we need take a quick break.  But we have got a lot more with my panel when SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY returns. 

ANNOUNCER:  Tonight‘s SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY challenge:  What natural disaster produced the loudest sound ever recorded?  Was it, A, an earthquake, B, a volcano eruption or, C, a tornado?  The answer coming up. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER:  In tonight‘s SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY challenge, we asked: 

What natural disaster produced the loudest sound ever recorded?  The answer is B.  A volcano eruption on August 26, 1883 in Indonesia, was heard over 2,000 miles away in Australia and is the loudest noise on record. 

Now back to Joe. 

SCARBOROUGH:  That‘s a surprise, because I thought, when they wheeled me in to the emergency room at the Cleveland Clinic back in October with my back injury, I thought that was the loudest scream recorded. 

In fact, you know, with my panel here, I really should�"I should ask my panel to pray to their respective gods, actually, all the gods of Abraham, except for Dave...

(LAUGHTER)

SCARBOROUGH:  Pray for my back.

And, Dave, maybe you can get me a good acupuncturist or a New Age specialist.

SILVERMAN:  Hey, medical science, babe, medical science. 

SCARBOROUGH:  Exactly. 

And you know that medical science says that the power of prayer actually helps people. 

I want to go right now back to Jennifer Giroux. 

Because, Jennifer, the rabbi accused you of hating America and, again, blaming America‘s sin on disaster overseas.  I will have you respond and then I want to go around and let Tim and Anne and Dave respond. 

Go ahead.

GIROUX:  Joe, that‘s an absurd charge once again made by the rabbi and very off point.

I love America.  My heart aches for the state that America is in at times regarding abortion, cloning, promiscuity, absence of God in the schools.  I love America.  And I, like many other mothers in this country, are trying to pray our country back to God. 

I think it‘s important to recognize that there have been prophesies predicted disasters.  The biggest recorded miracle in the 20th century, reported in “The New York Times,” was the apparition at Fatima, where it was�"the prediction of the end of the World War I, the prediction World War II would come, and prediction that, if people didn‘t turn away from sins and their evil ways, that entire nations would be annihilated. 

So, the reality that prophesies, biblical warnings and all these things have been a part of history is a reality.  And God always brings good out of it, draws us to him. 

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH:  Hole on.  I need to go to Tim LaHaye. 

Tim LaHaye, I want to ask you, does God use suffering to promote his will? 

LAHAYE:  God uses all things.  The ways of God are past finding out. 

Listen, let‘s understood that God is so superior to us that, if we could understand the mind of God, we would be God.  Naturally, we don‘t understand all the things that God does.  But, in time, you begin to see his hand revealed. 

And remember this.  God is not only interested in our physical time-space existence.  He is also interested in our eternity.  And he has an eternity perspective in all that he does.  But, again, don‘t blame God for this isolated event.  Mother Nature, perhaps, the way the world conditions, air flows and so on, but don‘t blame God as casting judgment on some people out on the beach somewhere for some surmised sin they have committed.  The truth is, God loves mankind.

(CROSSTALK)

BOTEACH:  Mr. LaHaye, with all due respect, you sound like a heretic.  Blame Mother Nature?  Are you suddenly a pantheist?  Are you suddenly a pagan?  Mother Nature? 

LAHAYE:  I don‘t worship�"well, isn‘t Mother Nature...

BOTEACH:  God controls everything. 

You know, there‘s no such thing as believing that some day we will know why these terrible things happened.  They should not happen.  God said life is precious.

LAHAYE:  How do you know that?  How can you be so absolute?

BOTEACH:  I know it from the Bible. 

(CROSSTALK)

BOTEACH:  Because I believe in the Bible that you believe in.

LAHAYE:  All right, so prove it for me.

BOTEACH:  God says in the Bible that life is precious.  He says do not murder.  He says he is long-suffering.

LAHAYE:  That‘s right. 

(CROSSTALK)

BOTEACH:  He says that he has compassion for orphans and for widows.

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH:  We are going to have to carry this over. 

GIROUX:  Free will, Rabbi.  Free will.

SCARBOROUGH:  You all stay with us.  See, they are very loud.

We‘ll be right back in just one second. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCARBOROUGH:  John Kerry talks to “Newsweek” about how he lost the presidential election.  We will have “Newsweek”‘s Howard Fineman here tomorrow night in SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCARBOROUGH:  Anne Graham Lotz, I agree with Tim LaHaye.  I don‘t blame this disaster on God, but there are so many that ask the question the rabbi asks.  Well, if God is all-powerful, then whose fault is it? 

LOTZ:  I don‘t think it‘s anybody‘s fault. 

I know what this is not, Joe.  And the tsunami is not punishment for sin.  The Bible says the wages of sin is death, meaning spiritual death, separation from God now and an eternity which is hell, which is why God so loved you and me that he sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross, that, when place my faith in him, then I am born again into his family. 

And part of my birth, my spiritual birth, has the right of a heavenly home.  And so I know, in this life, there can be suffering and pain and things we don‘t understand, but one day, the Bible says, for those of us who have been born again into God‘s family through faith in Jesus, we are going to go to heaven.  And God himself will wipe the tears from our face.  There will be no more crying or suffering or pain.  There will be no more back surgeries.  There will be no more tsunamis. 

SCARBOROUGH:  Amen. 

(LAUGHTER)

LOTZ:  There will be no more cancers.  And it will be a wonderful place that will be problem-free and pain-free. 

SCARBOROUGH:  All right.  Thanks so much, Anne. 

Thank you, Tim LaHaye, Dave Silverman.

Rabbi Shmuley, Jennifer Giroux, again, I am going to take you two on the road with me.  You are just great. 

Tune in tomorrow for “Imus.”  At 7:15, he is going to be talking to Brian Williams, who is covering this disaster from Indonesia.

We will see you tomorrow night in SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY. 

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

END   

Copy: Content and programming copyright 2005 .  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  Transcription Copyright 2005 FDCH e-Media, Inc. (f/k/a/ Federal Document Clearing House Inc., eMediaMillWorks, Inc.), ALL RIGHTS  RESERVED. No license is granted to the user of this material other than for research. User may not reproduce or redistribute the material except for user‘s personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon and FDCH e-Media, Inc.‘s copyright or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.

When Less Is More - Health For Life

When Less Is More

A cardiologist says exercise and diet�"not EKGs and angioplasties�"are the way to keep hearts healthy
Allan Penn for Newsweek
Thomas Lee: Control your risk factors

Newsweek

Dec. 6 issue - As part of our Health for Life series, we give you the chance to ask a top medical expert about some of your most pressing health concerns. In November, we asked you to submit questions about heart disease and other cardiovascular problems. We handed them over to Dr. Thomas H. Lee, who is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and CEO of Partners Community HealthCare, as well as the editor in chief of The Harvard Heart Letter. Here are his responses to several of your questions, including those excerpted in the Dec. 6 edition of NEWSWEEK.

Reno, Nev.: I have seen a cardiologist and even had an angiogram done, and everything was OK. But at least once or twice a day, it feels like my heart skips a beat or pumps funny. I'm 33 years old. Should I worried about this?
If the only symptom you are having is your heart occasionally "skipping a beat," you can relax. From time to time, everyone has premature heart beats. What you are feeling is the pause that follows as the heart resets itself and resumes its normal rhythm. If the palpitations lasted for several minutes or hours at a time, I would wonder if your heart was having longer lasting heart-rhythm abnormalities, like atrial fibrillation. This condition is common among older people, and carries an increased risk of a stroke. I would be even more worried if you also had episodes of fainting, which might indicate a heart-rhythm abnormality that was serious enough to cause your blood pressure to fall. But your symptoms do not sound like these more serious problems, so I would just encourage you to perhaps cut down on the caffeine.

MOST-POPULAR ARTICLES•Are You Working Yourself to Death?•A Jesuit Bioethicist on Schiavo’s Right to Die�">•Catholicism: Inside the Secretive Opus Dei•Jesus: The Epic Story of a Great Faith •Vote: Should Terri Schiavo have the right to die?Marlton, N.J.: I have a stress agsdhfgdf scheduled in two weeks because I have had chest pains twice.  I had no other symptoms, but it did not feel like any other pain I have had.  A blood agsdhfgdf shows I have high cholesterol�"a new thing.  I am taking Zocor and  I also take Wellbutrin XL and Claritin each day.  Should I take an aspirin to thin my blood?
I have a low threshold for getting exercise agsdhfgdfs in patients of mine who have chest-pain episodes, even if their symptoms do not sound “classic” for heart disease�"as is true of yours. The fact that you have high cholesterol strengthens the case for getting this agsdhfgdf. There is a pretty good chance that this agsdhfgdf will be “negative”�"that is, show no evidence for heart disease. That will be a signal to you that it is safe for you to really begin exercising, losing weight, and adopting other lifestyle changes that can lower your cholesterol and heart disease risk.  Should you take aspirin as well?  This is an issue that you should go over with your doctor, as it will be influenced by your age, gender and other medical issues.  If you want to read more about this, you can get a free booklet from the Food and Drug Administration online (www.fda.gov/cder/consumerinfo/dailyasp_brochure_hi.pdf ).

New York, N.Y.: After a difficult time in my life, I started smoking in my mid-30s. Will the year I have been smoking negatively impact my health (provided I quit soon)?
First, no matter how long you have been smoking, the right thing to do is to quit. Whether or not you have done yourself permanent damage, the question is how your health will be if you continue smoking compared to how it will be if you quit�"and you know the answer to that. That said, let me offer you some reassurance that a year or two of smoking has not likely done major harm to you if you quit soon.

Land O'Lakes, Fla.: I've read that more than half of all fatal heart attacks might be attributable to the bacteria known as chlamydia pneumonia and that agsdhfgdfing may soon lead to various rounds of antibiotics to counter its effects on the heart. Aspirin therapy and statins (even in those with normal cholesterol levels) were also recommended. I'd like to know what you think about that and about taking folic acid to counter high homocysteine levels in the blood and red yeast rice supplementation as a natural alternative to statins.
A few years ago, there was a lot of excitement about the possibility that antibiotic therapy might reduce heart-attack risk. That theory isn’t completely dead, but the enthusiasm is a lot lower today, mainly because some research trials have now been performed, and so far there isn’t any evidence to encourage optimism. Research trials have tried short and long courses of antibiotics, but so far there is no evidence that patients who get treated this way have better outcomes. Optimism that folic acid might also reduce heart disease risk by lowering the chemical homocysteine has also faded, as research trials have not supported this approach. On the other hand, use of aspirin and statins in patients who have a higher risk of heart disease now has wide acceptance, even if patients have normal cholesterol levels.  

Fenton, Mich.: I am a 47-year-old female. My father currently has heart disease and my cholesterol level is 315. Should I get a agsdhfgdf to see if any of the arteries in my heart are blocked yet?
With a family history of heart disease, and a total cholesterol of 315, you do have reason to be extra concerned about heart disease. But I'm not sure the right next step is an angiogram to look at the arteries of your heart, or even an exercise agsdhfgdf. If you were my patient, I would tell you that we should assume that you have atherosclerosis in your arteries, including the arteries of your heart. We know that we want to do all we can to minimize your risk for worsening of that atherosclerosis. That means controlling your blood pressure and cholesterol, and dealing with other risk factors such as diabetes, smoking, being overweight and a sedentary life style.

TALK TRANSCRIPT| What's Next in Health?•Geoffrey Cowley joined us for a Live Talk on Thursday, Dec. 2, at noon ET to discuss memory-enhancing drugs, drug policies, bone health and more. Click here to read the transcript.Denton, Texas: My husband has been advised that he will have to have surgery for repair or replacement of the mitral valve.  Please describe the least invasive type(s) of surgery. He is 75 years old, has survived aortic aneurysm surgery and hernia repair following that long five-month hospitalization, and he is very concerned that surgery involving opening the chest would be too risky.
He’s right to be worried about the safety of heart surgery at his age, but the risk of not having surgery might be even greater.  If his mitral valve is leaking, the strain on his heart from pumping extra blood is probably taking its toll�"and he runs the risk of developing worse and worse heart failure if the problem is not “fixed.” Someday, we may actually have special catheters that can fix or replace heart valves without opening the chest, but that day is not here yet.  If he can have his valve repaired instead of replaced, that would be nice because he would not have to live with the risk of infection or blood clots that an artificial heart valve might carry.  Having a smaller incision in his chest is also now possible at many medical centers, where surgeons can operate on the mitral valve through “keyholes.” 

Ontario, Calif.: I have been diagnosed with acute coronary artery disease, hyperkolemia and type-2 diabetes. Although I never take the flu shot, should I this year due to my recent diagnosis?
Yes, you absolutely should.  And since you are in Canada, you have a better shot at actually getting a flu shot than most of my patients. Flu shots are beneficial for virtually everyone, but people like you who have heart disease and diabetes have a better chance of surviving the winter if you get a flu shot. The side effects are minimal.  If you are not allergic to eggs, go for it. 

Corpus Christi, Texas: I've been told by a cardiologist that I need a heart valve. Can you tell me which is best�"mechanical or tissue?
It depends. If you already need to take Warfarin, the blood thinner, because of another problem like atrial fibrillation or a history of blood clots, then you should get a mechanical valve.  The mechanical valves usually last a long time, but cause formation of blood clots.  Their plus is durability, but their negative is the need to take a blood thinner. If you already have to take a blood thinner, then you have nothing to lose by going mechanical. If you don’t want to use a blood thinner�"say, because you enjoy doing sports or other activities in which you might get bruised, or you have a history of a bleeding ulcer�"than a tissue valve is better. They do not usually require use of a blood thinner. But they do have a higher risk of wearing out over many years (typically five to eight), so the chances of needing a second operation are a bit higher with a tissue valve. 

Hainesport, N.J.: If your cholesterol levels are in check, and your electrocardiogram and stress-agsdhfgdf results are fine, is there anything else you can do to check for blockage or other heart problems that may fall under the radar?
There is more that you can do, but you have probably done enough. Remember, the key question is: what are you going to do with the information? If you are feeling fine, but you learned that you had some atherosclerotic narrowings in the arteries of your heart, what would you do? You wouldn't undergo an angioplasty or bypass operation�"you would just continue controlling your risk factors. For this reason, I don't recommend that my patients who are free of symptoms of heart disease undergo a CT scan of the heart or any of the newer agsdhfgdfs that are being advertised as screening tools for heart disease. The agsdhfgdfs might give you more information, but they currently don't give you more insight into what to do differently.

Victor, N.Y.: My 15-year-old son has a total cholesterol of 245 (fasting).  His father had a heart attack, triple bypass, and stroke at 34. I've had my son at the pediatric cardiologists many times, but they continue to monitor and try to regulate by diet alone.  What else can I do?
If he hasn't had it done already, he should have a full lipid profile, with measurement of his HDL and his LDL cholesterol.  If his LDL is over 130 mg/dL, that would confirm your fears that he has a high-risk lipid profile.  The first steps to address this issue are already being taken�"he should lose weight if heavy, and I assume you have put him on a low-fat diet (hard for a teenager, I know).  If his LDL is still high, then drug therapy is worth considering.  There is more experience in children with an older cholesterol drug, cholestyramine, but it tastes terrible.  So more and more physicians are using the same statins that they use in adults, except at lower dosages.
 
Health For Life: Dec. 6, 2004 issue•Medicine's Next Level•Welcome to the Stem-Cell States•View From the Lab: Harnessing Stem Cells•Using Genes as Medicine•What You Need to Know About Medical Time Bombs•Risk Factors: In Search of Bone Health•Web MD: When Less is More•Trapping the Superbugs•Bird-Flu Challenge•Battling the Effects of War•To Heal a Shattered Soul•Drug Wars Ahead•Opinion: A Prescription for Controlling Drug Costs•Creating More Paths to Hope•The New Face of AIDS•Talk Transcript: What's Next in Health?

Web Exclusive
AIDS: African Women Bear an Unfair Burden

Santa Cruz, Calif.: I  had an aortic dissection in August 2003, shortly after John Ritter died of a similar condition.  I got a lot of attention after my surgery because I survived such an ordeal. Now I find that it is difficult to find medical advice about this disease and what caused the aortic aneurysm. What steps can I take besides exercise, diet and lowering my blood pressure?
Aortic dissections are not all created equal�"the ones that occur near the beginning of the aorta are especially hazardous. This disease occurs when a small tear develops in the lining of the aorta, and blood surges into the wall itself, pushing the inner and outer layers apart. As the inner layer is "dissected" away from the outer layer, the normal branches of the aorta are choked shut.  Near the beginning of the aorta, there are side-arteries that supply the brain and the heart; blocking off those blood vessels can easily be fatal. You either survived one of these really dangerous ones, or had a dissection of the descending aorta (after it turns and starts heading down toward the abdomen). Those can be serious, too, but are more likely to be detected and successfully treated than the ones that occur in the ascending aorta. You will be happy to know that long-term follow-up of patients who leave the hospital alive after treatment of aortic dissection shows survival not much different from the rest of the population. So you should make sure your blood pressure is under control, and see your doctor right away if you feel chest or back pain.

San Francisco, Calif.: I have had a heart attack (10 years ago), an atherectomy and an angioplasty with two stents inserted in two different arteries two years ago.  I  feel I should have a stress echo agsdhfgdf performed annually. What would you recommend?
You really don't need any type of stress agsdhfgdf (with or without an echocardiogram) as long as you are free of symptoms of heart problems. My recommendation is that you do your best to control your cholesterol and other risk factors and engage in a regular exercise program. If you feel any chest discomfort with exercise, then a stress agsdhfgdf with an echocardiogram or nuclear-imaging technology would be the right thing to do.

Kingston, N.Y.: I am 28 years old. My father has experienced heart palpitations and had a defibrillator inserted about two years ago. My question is whether my risk for developing a condition later in life is reduced by my involvement in exercise and stress reducing activities?
Yes.  I don't know exactly what led to your father having his implantable defibrillator, but the most common reasons are a damaged heart muscle leading to heart-rhythm abnormalities and an increased risk for sudden death.  The best strategy for you is to minimize the chance that you will have damage to your heart muscle. And the most important tactics to do so are to control your cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar and other risk factors for atherosclerosis and to avoid abusing alcohol, which is a common cause of heart damage.

Lakeland, Fla.: During a heart catheterization, the doctor found three blocked arteries�"two 30 percent and one 50 percent blocked, plus several undetermined blockages on the back of the heart. The doctor said to wait and see. But shouldn't something be done now?
Your doctor did the right thing by not going ahead and doing an angioplasty to every one of these narrowings. They are probably not severe enough to cause you angina symptoms by blocking blood flow, and doing an angioplasty to them would not have reduced your risk for a heart attack. Heart attacks usually occur when an atherosclerotic plaque breaks open, causing formation of a blood clot that blocks the artery. You are like most people with atherosclerosis, and you have many such plaques�"too many to attack with an angioplasty. You should control your LDL cholesterol (getting it to 70 to 80), take an aspirin a day and work on the risk factors for atherosclerosis.

� 2006 Newsweek, Inc.

U.S. failed to recall meat after outbreak - More Health News

U.S. failed to recall meat after outbreak

CDC report suggest government could have prevented salmonella cases

WASHINGTON - The government declined to alert the public about suspect ground beef or request a recall after a 2004 salmonella outbreak that sickened at least 31 people nationwide, according to a report by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The report, made public Wednesday by food safety advocates, said the Agriculture Department traced illnesses in nine states -- Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Tennessee and Wisconsin -- and Washington, D.C., to a national supermarket chain and a single meat processing plant.

The department decided no action was needed because the plant was following federal guidelines. The CDC did not name the plant or supermarket chain. A separate report from the Minnesota Department of Health referred to the chain as a member-only warehouse.

Unlike E. coli and listeria, salmonella in raw meat is not an "adulterant" under federal guidelines. That is because people are expected to cook raw meat before they eat it, and cooking kills salmonella.

Department spokesman Steven Cohen said officials did a full investigation and were prepared to act on any problems at the plant. "We didn't find problems," Cohen said.

That's not much comfort for people who got sick, said Carol Tucker Foreman, director of food policy for Consumer Federation of America.

"Nobody died, but 31 people ... got sick from eating this product, and I can tell you, not one of them thought that it was their best day on earth," Foreman said. "This is not just a bellyache."

Salmonella is a bacteria that causes diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps and in some cases requires hospitalization.

It can be deadly unless infected people are treated right away with antibiotics. Of the estimated 1.4 million cases of salmonella each year in the United States, about 400 people die, according to CDC.

Foreman and other food safety advocates called attention Wednesday to the report on the outbreak that was issued by CDC late last month. They said the department could have taken steps to prevent more people from getting sick but chose not to.

"They never announced this outbreak," said Donna Rosenbaum of Safe Tables Our Priority. "I would guess there are a number of cases of this that could have been avoided. It ran from August to October, so this was in people's refrigerators and in their freezers."

She noted that many cases of food poisoning go unreported; CDC estimates there are 39 cases of unreported illness for every one case that is reported.

While the department lacks legal authority to recall meat, it can ask companies to do recalls. No company has ever refused a recall request.

The department has issued alerts involving salmonella before. For example, a news release last year said that several salmonella infections in the Midwest were linked to stuffed and breaded frozen chicken entrees. The announcement pointed out the food needed to be fully cooked to be safe.

Alerts have also been issued about drug-resistant forms of the salmonella bacteria.

"Although salmonella is not considered an adulterant in raw ground beef, we do a great deal of outreach to help consumers understand how to handle and cook their meat and poultry to avoid chances of becoming ill," Cohen said.

Copyright 2006 . .

Reynolds: Killer germs! - Glenn Reynolds

Killer germs!

• March 14, 2006 | 10:27 AM ET

Now we have to worry about killer germs, too.

First there's bird flu, about which the government has this comforting advice:

In a remarkable speech over the weekend, Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt recommended that Americans start storing canned tuna and powdered milk under their beds as the prospect of a deadly bird flu outbreak approaches the United States.

Ready or not, here it comes.

At least they're not overselling the government's ability to handle these things. But natural epidemics aren't the only threat. A new article in Technology Review looks at the threat from biological war and biological terrorism. The danger of artificial pathogens looks even more serious than the danger of naturally occurring epidemics. There's more on this subject here.

Eventually, we'll be good enough at responding to these threats that they won't be terribly dangerous. But that will require the development of new antibiotics, powerful antiviral drugs, and rapid-response vaccine production techniques.  Right now, we're not doing enough to develop these capabilities. But even if avian flu comes to nothing, and the threat of bioterror doesn't materiaize any time soon, the odds are that some nasty bug wil appear in the not too distant future. And when it does, we'll wish we were ready -- in a way that goes beyond canned tuna.

• March 13, 2006 | 12:54 PM ET

Global agsdhfgdf on Islam?

As we look at the war on terror, which the Bush Administration has finally admitted is actually a global war on fundamentalist Islamic terror, two things are happening. Bush is dropping in the polls. But so is Islam.

Jim Geraghty, who blogs from Turkey, worries that we're past a "tipping point" in the West, with many people giving up on the notion of winning over "moderate" Muslims and coming to the conclusion that it's not a problem with Islam, but that Islam is the problem. He writes:

A big part of the war on terror/post-9/11 war on militant Islamism is a religious war; it's militant Islam vs. everybody else. It's more accurately, a war within a religion. Put simply, the world's one billion or so Muslims have to decide which side accurately represents their faith.

On the one side is the vision of Osama bin Laden (and, for that matter, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmedinijad) in a relentless conflict with the West, using terrorism and violence, enforcing Islamic standards on all other cultures, including blasphemy laws on Danish cartoons. This is a vision in which secular democracies are intolerable apostasy, where Western influences must be driven out, and the only acceptable infidel is a dhimmi.

On the other side is Jordan's King Abdullah, who has a hopeful, coherent vision of Islam embracing the West. He's trying to build a country that puts serious effort into secular education, a diverse economy, women's rights, and strong ties to the West. Or you could prefer the Turks' enactment of Ataturk's vision -- a stable, strictly secular parliamentary democracy full of Muslims, where the occasional military coup acts as the "Control-Alt-Delete" in any Islamist effort to overturn the secularism through democratic means.

There are about five billion of us on the outside of this fight, looking in. We have a very vested interest in the outcome of this debate; it determines whether we have a billion enemies or several hundred million allies.

Geraghty thinks that the problem is that Bush has been too mushy -- not enough "for us or against us" rhetoric, rather than, as critics suggest, too much.

Columnist David Warren has related thoughts:

Mr Bush was staking his bet on the assumption that the Islamists were not speaking for Islam; that the world's Muslims long for modernity; that they are themselves repelled by the violence of the terrorists; that, most significantly, Islam is in its nature a religion that can be "internalized", like the world's other great religions, and that the traditional Islamic aspiration to conjoin worldly political with otherworldly spiritual authority had somehow gone away. It didn't help that Mr Bush took for his advisers on the nature of Islam, the paid operatives of Washington's Council on American-Islamic Relations, the happyface pseudo-scholar Karen Armstrong, or the profoundly learned but terminally vain Bernard Lewis. Each, in a different way, assured him that Islam and modernity were potentially compatible.

The question, "But what if they are not?" was never seriously raised, because it could not be raised behind the mud curtain of political correctness that has descended over the Western academy and intelligentsia. The idea that others see the world in a way that is not only incompatible with, but utterly opposed to, the way we see it, is the thorn ever-present in the rose bushes of multiculturalism. "Ideas have consequences", and the idea that Islam imagines itself in a fundamental, physical conflict with everything outside of itself, is an idea with which people in the contemporary West are morally and intellectually incapable of coming to terms. Hence our continuing surprise at everything from bar-bombings in Bali, to riots in France, to the Danish cartoon apoplexy.

My own views on the issue have been aloof. More precisely, they have been infected with cowardice.

If Geraghty is right, that cowardice may be coming to an end. The question is what will come next. Over at Winds of Change, a political military blog, there's this worry:

This isn't about dissing their views; because I don't (another post on that soon), I understand them. But it is a model to consider as we talk about the notion that a sea-change in "the Western Street" could take place which involves a fundamental belief that we can't deal with the Arab world, and that what we need to do is to disengage fast and hard.

In essence, it'd be a position that said "we're washing our hands of you", bulked up border and internal security, and made it a point never to drive through 'those neighborhoods' without locking the doors, and never, under any circumstances, to stop there. It solves that whole messy "war" thing, and makes sure that no one says bad things about us in our hearing. We'd be clean-handed liberals, and feel secure.

And it would be a disaster.

It would first and foremost be a moral disaster, because we'd be condemning billions of people to a battle with a homicidal tyranny that we had a hand in creating (indirectly, through our policies in the Middle east from the 1900's onward). We'd be condemning Israel to become even more of a besieged outpost than it is today. We'd be condemning Europeans to a bitter struggle with an increasingly empowered minority.
...
And it'd be a practical disaster.

It'd be a practical disaster, because the war within the Muslim world would wind up being won by either brutal oligarchs or by homicidal fascists. If the oligarchs win, we'll have trading partners, for a while, until they need an outside enemy to whip up their population against. If the fascists win, we'll have a war right away.

On the other hand, it's not as if everyone in the Arab or Muslim worlds is antimodernity. Take the example of Wafa Sultan, who made her displeasure with Mullahocracy known to the mullahs, on Al Jazeera, no less:

Three weeks ago, Dr. Wafa Sultan was a largely unknown Syrian-American psychiatrist living outside Los Angeles, nursing a deep anger and despair about her fellow Muslims.

Today, thanks to an unusually blunt and provocative interview on Al Jazeera television on Feb. 21, she is an international sensation, hailed as a fresh voice of reason by some, and by others as a heretic and infidel who deserves to die.

In the interview, which has been viewed on the Internet more than a million times and has reached the e-mail of hundreds of thousands around the world, Dr. Sultan bitterly criticized the Muslim clerics, holy warriors and political leaders who she believes have distorted the teachings of Muhammad and the Koran for 14 centuries.

She said the world's Muslims, whom she compares unfavorably with the Jews, have descended into a vortex of self-pity and violence.

Dr. Sultan said the world was not witnessing a clash of religions or cultures, but a battle between modernity and barbarism, a battle that the forces of violent, reactionary Islam are destined to lose.

In response, clerics throughout the Muslim world have condemned her, and her telephone answering machine has filled with dark threats. But Islamic reformers have praised her for saying out loud, in Arabic and on the most widely seen television network in the Arab world, what few Muslims dare to say even in private.

See her on video here.

She's right. It's a clash between civilization and barbarians. We need to create a world in which the civilized Wafa Sultans are more willing to speak -- and the barbarous mullahs are more afraid. What is going on is often portrayed as a agsdhfgdf for the West. But it's a agsdhfgdf for the Islamic world, too. And so far it's failing -- unless Wafa Sultan and her like can save it.

mainsectionID = "OP";navsectionID = "OP";oMailbag = new Array();oMailbag.appWidth = 360;oMailbag.appHeader = "Write a letter to Glenn Reynolds";oMailbag.appDeck = "Voice your views";oMailbag.sTBHead = "Your e-mail address will not be published";oMailbag.sSubject = "GlennReynolds.com";oMailbag.sMailTo = "ghreynolds@yahoo.com";oMailbag.bTown = 1;oMailbag.aRetLink = new Array("http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3395977","Return to the blog");MailbagYB(oMailbag);

• March 8, 2006 | 12:54 PM ET

I've spent the last few days on a book tour, promoting my book, An Army of Davids, which officially published on Tuesday. (You can see accounts of some of my touring here and here  and read reviews of the book here, here, and here, plus this from Arianna Huffington:

"You know Reynolds has hit on something when John Podhoretz and I agree that 'Army of Davids' is a must-read.") It's been sort of fun, in a tiring sort of way.
One question a lot of people have asked is "Why write a book when you have a blog?"

There are lots of reasons why�"as is obvious from the fact that so many bloggers are writing books. Kos of DailyKos, along with Jerome Armstrong of MyDD, have a new book, too: It's about "Netroots" politics and it's called Crashing the Gate.

You can read reviews of their book here and here.  I haven't read it all yet, but their suspicions regarding the influence of political consultants seem well-founded to me.

So why write a book when you can blog? For the same reason you might make a movie instead of shooting still pictures. A blog is a collection of isolated points. Readers can connect the dots, but the medium doesn't lend itself to comprehensiveness or to narrative threads. People read a book all the way through in a day or a few days. People read blogs in dribs and drabs as they have time. They miss things, they're distracted, they go on vacation. If you want to paint a big and coherent picture, a book is still better.

Books last, too. Blogs are evanescent: Potentially immortal, in various archives and caches, but not in a way you can count on. (Rule of thumb: Embarrassing stuff will live forever on the Net; stuff you want to last will get accidentally deleted....)

And a book gives you a chance to do a book tour, and go on radio and TV and in print, talking about stuff that's important to you, going well beyond the book itself. A blog lets you do that too, of course, but to a different audience. A book, at least potentially, lets you preach to somone besides the choir of your regular blog readers.

And, as I get ready to board the flight home (thank goodness for airport wireless) I note another advantage: You can read a book on the plane. You can't do that with blogs, yet.

• March 6, 2006 | 12:46 AM ET

Women are at risk for heart disease -- and potentially fatal heart rhythm problems -- to a much greater degree than is often appreciated.  My wife, an athletic 37-year-old woman, had a heart attack and took months to be diagnosed.  She tells the story here.  Excerpt:

Two doctors and an emergency room visit later, I still had no answer to why I was shaking, short of breath and could barely walk at times from weakness.  I thought at times I was having mini strokes.  One emergency room doctor refused to look at my abnormal EKG when I came to the hospital; he was too busy dealing with a female coke addict and decided that I was another example of an anxious woman having a panic attack.

I finally persuaded my regular doctor to quit prescibing me Effexor (an antidepressant) and to look at my heart.  He finally sent me for agsdhfgdfs.  He called back and told me to get to the hospital.  My father was with me at the time and took me to the hospital where the orderlies thought he was the one with heart problems and told him to get in the wheelchair.  I would have laughed myself silly if I had not been so ill.  I had agsdhfgdfs including a heart cath that helps doctors to see inside the heart.  Later, when I was back in my room, the cardiologist came in and told me that I had suffered from a heart attack and also had a ventricular aneurysm (a ballooned out area of the heart) as a result of not resting my heart after the heart attack.  I had been told that I had panic disorder so I thought that exercise would be good.

My wife's heart attack was the result of an arterial spasm -- a rarity that causes heart attacks in the absence of any coronary artery disease.  On the other hand, many women suffer from a type of coronary artery disease that differs from that affecting men, and that is much harder to spot.  Women also tend to get to the emergency room later than men and, as my wife's experience indicates, they're often not diagnosed quickly.

Much of this is a question of awareness.  We tend to think of a fat guy in his fifties as a heart attack candidate -- and he is -- but heart attacks aren't limited to the stereotypical victims.

The good news is that more people are becoming aware of these factors.  We did a podcast on this topic with cardiologist Dr. Wes Fisher, and nurse-practitioner Laurie Anderson of WebMD, on the state of cardiac health for women, and men.  You can listen to it here (no iPod required) or get it via iTunes here.   You can find a dialup version here.

One of the things you'll learn is that for women, the symptoms of a heart attack often differ from men: less chest pain, more nausea, and shortness of breath.  Paying attention to this sort of thing could, as we know all too well, alas, save you a lot of heartache in the future. Literally, and figuratively.

• March 3, 2006 | 10:16 AM ET

The war heats up

The ramifications of the Cartoon Wars continue to reverberate.  My post from last week on "the tipping point" has led to this response from Jim Geraghty, who -- like me -- thinks the weakness of the Bush Administration's response to the cartoon riots is part of the reason why the public is so unhappy about the ports deal.  Geraghty writes (from Turkey):

In the USA Today poll, when asked, "Which comes closer to your view about Arab and Muslim countries that are allies of the United States?" 45 percent of respondents said, "trust the same as any other ally"; 51 percent said they trust these countries "less than other allies."

That's a remarkably honest poll result.  Let's face it, Americans have been told since kindergarten not to judge ethnic and religious groups differently from one another; now slightly more than half are willing to come out and say, "you know, I just don't trust those guys as much as I trust others."

Welcome to Post-Tipping Point politics. There is no upside to doing the right thing �" which is to emphasize, as one blogger put it, that there is a difference between Dubai and Damascus. There is tremendous political upside to doing the wrong thing, boldly declaring, "I don't care what the Muslim world thinks, I'm not allowing any Arab country running ports here in America! I don't care how much President Bush claims these guys are our allies, I don't trust them, and I'm not going to hand them the keys to the vital entries to our country!"

And more and more, I think Glenn Reynolds had it right; the entire Tipping Point phenomenon can be summed up as action and reaction. The Bush Administration's reaction to the cartoon riots was comparably milquetoast. The violence and threats committed over the cartoons shocked, frightened and really, really angered Americans. They want somebody to smack the Muslim world back onto its heels and set them straight: "It doesn't matter how offensive a cartoon is, you're not allowed to riot, burn down embassies and kill people over it."

They're ashamed that Denmark is leading the fight over this.

Geraghty notes that Bush seems not to feel, or understand, this hostility, but predicts that other American politicians in both parties are likely to capitalize on this sentiment, whether it's good for the country (and the world) or not.

Meanwhile, some bloggers and some law schools are asking if Islam is compatible with a free and democratic society.  My guess is "yes" -- but moderate Muslims aren't likely to stand up if the violent thugs are the ones getting all the respect, and even groveling, from Western nations.

That's something that Claire Berlinski noted, too.  It takes a backbone to preserve civilization against the threat of barbarism.  On this front, alas, Bush's backbone has been insufficient, and we're paying a price.

• March 1, 2006 | 10:12 AM ET

Europe, time to stand upThe best lack all conviction; the worst are full of passionate intensity.

That's pretty much the story in Europe. Writing in the London Times, Douglas Murray observes:

"Would you write the name you'd like to use here, and your real name there?" asked the girl at reception. I had just been driven to a hotel in the Hague. An hour earlier I'd been greeted at Amsterdam airport by a man holding a sign with a pre-agreed cipher. I hadn't known where I would be staying, or where I would be speaking. The secrecy was necessary: I had come to Holland to talk about Islam.
...
The event was scholarly, incisive and wide-ranging. There were no ranters or rabble-rousers, just an invited audience of academics, writers, politicians and sombre party members. As yet another example of Islam's violent confrontation with the West (this time caused by cartoons) swept across the globe, we tried to discuss Islam as openly as we could. The Dutch security service in the Hague was among those who considered the threat to us for doing this as particularly high. The security status of the event was put at just one level below "national emergency".

This may seem fantastic to people in Britain. But the story of Holland �" which I have been charting for some years �" should be noted by her allies. Where Holland has gone, Britain and the rest of Europe are following. The silencing happens bit by bit. A student paper in Britain that ran the Danish cartoons got pulped. A London magazine withdrew the cartoons from its website after the British police informed the editor they could not protect him, his staff, or his offices from attack. This happened only days before the police provided 500 officers to protect a "peaceful" Muslim proagsdhfgdf in Trafalgar Square.

It seems the British police �" who regularly provide protection for mosques (as they did after the 7/7 bombs) �" were unable to send even one policeman to protect an organ of free speech. At the notorious London proagsdhfgdfs, Islamists were allowed to incite murder and bloodshed on the streets, but a passer-by objecting to these displays was threatened with detention for making trouble.

It seems to me that the European authorities are afraid to stand up for the principles of tolerance on which their societies are, allegedly, based.

It also seems that way to Claire Berlinski, whose new book Menace in Europe: Why the Continent's Crisis is America's Too examines Europe's intellectual and moral anomie, its inability to either assimilate or deal with a swelling immigrant population, and its resentment of America.

We interviewed Berlinski for a podcast and her take was, if anything, even less positive than that presented in her book.  (You can listen here or, via iTunes, here.)

I hope that Europe will get its act together before it's too late, and there are a few signs of awakening.  But the last time we saw a European nation whose elites lacked the strength or conviction to stand up to rampaging mobs of ignorant thugs, it was Weimar Germany.  That turned out very badly, and I'm afraid that today's Europe -- in which many nations seem to suffer from that problem -- may well turn out badly, too.

� 2007

Fixing America's Hospitals - Health For Life

Fixing America's Hospitals

No institution is doing everything right. But we found 10 that are using innovation, hard work and imagination to improve care, reduce errors and save money. Fresh fruit and digital record-keeping, anyone?
Photo illustration by Fredrik Broden for Newsweek
By By Claudia KalbNewsweek

Oct. 16, 2006 issue - Every day, hospitals across the country care for Americans in need. Babies are born, heart-attack victims are saved, broken bones are healed. But today, as the population ages, medical demands surge and costs rise, America's hospitals are being agsdhfgdfed like never before. Solving the crisis is a formidable task, but innovative hospitals are rising to the challenge�"they're reforming nursing practices, digitizing medical records, transforming end-of-life care.

The most urgent hurdle of all: improving patient safety. In 1999, the Institute of Medicine declared that close to 100,000 Americans die annually from medical errors. This year, more dire news: medication errors harm at least 1.5 million people and cost some $3.5 billion per year. What goes wrong? Missed diagnoses, incorrect drug dosing, failure to treat promptly. Experts agree that doctors, nurses, pharmacists and technicians will always make mistakes�"it's the safety net around them that needs to be fixed. "No matter how good people are, they suffer from being human and they're going to screw up," says Jim Conway, senior vice president at Boston's Institute for Healthcare Improvement. "We have to put systems in place that stop that error from causing harm."

Those systems may be simple or high tech. In 2005, Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, N.Y., launched Rapid Response Teams�"on-call experts to tend to patients in distress. Since then, "codes" for cardiac and respiratory arrests have dropped 22 percent. "This is one of the best interventions I've seen in my entire career," says Kathleen Lynam, chief nurse officer. At Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City, which owns or operates 22 hospitals, the timely use of antibiotics has slashed postoperative infections. And controlling the level of sugar in bloodlevels during open-heart surgery has reduced the death rate from 2.49 percent to 0.18 percent.

Patient tragedies often trigger change. When Southwestern Vermont Medical Center execs heard Dale Micalizzi talk about the death of her 11-year-old son, Justin, after surgery for a swollen ankle at another hospital�"and that hospital's lack of response�"they reached out to her. Now, with Micalizzi's help, Southwestern is adopting a culture of openness after mistakes. "This is an injustice I experienced," she says, "and I can't let another mother go through it." A worthy goal for all.

nwurl = (window.location.href.split("id/")[1]);nwid = nwurl.substring(0,8);urlbegin = 'http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/';urlend = '/site/newsweek/';wburl = urlbegin+nwid+urlend;//document.writeln(wburl);document.writeln(""); document.writeln("");

CONTINUED: Facing Up To Mistakes1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | Next >

Deirdre Imus on Greening America's Hospitals - Newsweek: Tip Sheet Environment

One Child at a Time

Why it’s so important that we provide our children with non-toxic hospitals, schools and homes.
Web-Exclusive CommentaryBy By Deirdre ImusSpecial to Newsweek

Oct. 9, 2006 - In today’s world, where there are many things we cannot control, I have always felt it important to focus on  areas in which I can make a difference. Rather than telling someone to change, I try to show them by example how it can be done.

My interest and commitment to children’s health grew out of concern for my own health.  As a runner in college and high school, I began to learn about food, hoping I could improve my performance on the athletic field by improving my diet. Studying food opened my eyes to the state of the environment.  Understanding the consequences from consuming foods that contained hormones and antibiotics; aware of the toxins used in fertilizers, I made a life choice and adopted a totally organic diet and found myself on an irreversible path towards a healthier and smarter way to live.

Deirdre ImusMy involvement as an advocate for children began about 15 years ago, after I began participating in the annual radiothons that my husband, Don Imus, hosted for the Tomorrow’s Children Fund for children with cancer and the C. J. Foundation for SIDS. The more I worked with these wonderful foundations, the more I wanted to help the children and families trying to cope with unimaginable pain.

Realizing I couldn’t help every child, I was inspired by the example of Mother Teresa. Walking through the impoverished streets of Calcutta, she was once asked how she could pass by so many lepers and not stop to help them. In her humble grace and wisdom Mother Teresa explained, she could not help everyone, but would help one leper and then another … one leper at a time.

Knowing that we could not help every child with cancer or every child who had lost a sibling to SIDS, my husband and I wanted to give something special, and at the same time some sense of normalcy, to these remarkable children. My husband grew up on a ranch. Because of his experiences as a child, we decided to create an authentic working cattle ranch designed to provide the lost adventure of the great American cowboy. The Imus Ranch for Kids with Cancer is located in Ribera, New Mexico and for five months each year we welcome children from around the country to enjoy a fun and unique experience. At the ranch we maintain and provide a healthy diet and a clean environment free of pesticides and toxic cleaning products.

In 2000, still not satisfied that I had done all that I could, I began investigating how toxins in the home and hospital environment affected our children’s health. I was concerned about the number of supposedly safe products used in our everyday living. We are exposed to more than 82,000 chemicals in our environment. Yet the EPA has reviewed fewer than 2 percent for their safety. Environmental hazards are not always obvious and yet they are real and affect us all…especially children. Regrettably, it is our children who are the most vulnerable to many environmental insults. In fact, studies have shown a 30 percent increase in various cancers in children result from exposure to toxins in our environment.

From the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat, numerous toxic substances from a variety of sources are bombarding our children each day. Not enough is known about how all of these toxins, interact with one another and our body chemistry. Taking any step to reduce or eliminate toxins in our environment is simple common sense and is often easy to do.

Working with New Jersey’s Hackensack University Medical Center we established The Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology in 2001. This facility evolved from a lifelong dream about a culture that would truly see children as its most important priority.

The Center represents one of the first hospital-based programs whose specific mission is to identify, control and ultimately prevent environmental factors that may cause adult and, especially, pediatric cancer and other health problems with our children.  The hospital is the first in the nation to undertake a comprehensive “greening” program.

The Center’s mission is twofold: to enhance health by educating our children, their parents and the public-at-large about the carcinogens and other environmental factors that occur all too commonly in our lives … and to serve as a voice that can realistically help shape policy decisions that impact the environment and our well being.

Soon after the Center opened, I began developing the ‘Greening the Cleaning’ institutional program to help eliminate toxic cleaning agents and replace them with safer, non-toxic alternatives. These cleaning products are cost efficient, work as well as the leading industrial cleaning products and 100% of the profits go to charity.

To date, we have greened the cleaning in over 200 facilities including many hospitals, schools, corporations, a major airport, day care centers and health spas. Our retail line is now available in thousands of stores nationwide. 100% of these profits also go to charity.

All of these initiatives have been true labors of love for our children. My motivation is a simple one: Children are our most precious natural resource. Their environment shouldn't harm them. Because children are unable to protect themselves, we must make every effort to diligently and continuously examine how toxins in our environment may be affecting and compromising our children’s health. The key to protecting our children is prevention.

SPECIAL OFFER

Subscribe to Newsweek Now

We may not be able to change the world, but we can change the way we think about children’s health. Each one of us has tremendous potential to make a difference. Switching to a non-toxic cleaning product is a single change that can lead to another and another and ultimately to a cleaner, safer and healthier life.

Deirdre Imus is the founder and president of The Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology at Hackensack University Medical Center. For more information, go to www.dienviro.com.

� 2007 Newsweek, Inc.

Deadly scourge could emerge soon, WHO warns - Infectious Diseases

Deadly scourge could emerge soon, WHO warns

Viruses are spreading faster than ever, getting harder to treat, agency says

GENEVA - Infectious diseases are emerging more quickly around the globe, spreading faster and becoming increasingly difficult to treat, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.

In its annual World Health Report, the United Nations agency warned there was a good possibility that another major scourge like AIDS, SARS or Ebola fever with the potential of killing millions would appear in the coming years.

“Infectious diseases are now spreading geographically much faster than at any time in history,” the WHO said.

It said it was vital to keep watch for new threats like the emergence in 2003 of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which spread from China to 30 countries and killed 800 people.

“It would be extremely naive and complacent to assume that there will not be another disease like AIDS, another Ebola, or another SARS, sooner or later,” the report warned.

Since the 1970s, the WHO said, new threats have been identified at an “unprecedented rate” of one or more every year, meaning that nearly 40 diseases exist today which were unknown just over a generation ago.

Over the last five years alone, WHO experts had verified more than 1,100 epidemics of different diseases.

With more than 2 billion people traveling by air every year, the U.N. agency said: “an outbreak or epidemic in one part of the world is only a few hours away from becoming an imminent threat somewhere else.”

Monitoring vital
The report called for renewed efforts to monitor, prevent and control epidemic-prone ailments such as cholera, yellow fever and meningococcal diseases.

International assistance may be required to help health workers in poorer countries identify and contain outbreaks of emerging viral diseases such as Ebola and Marburg hemorrhagic fever, the WHO said.

It warned that global efforts to control infectious diseases have already been “seriously jeopardized” by widespread drug resistance, a consequence of poor medical treatment and misuse of antibiotics.

This is a particular problem in tuberculosis, where extensively drug-resistant (XDR-TB) strains of the contagious respiratory ailment have emerged worldwide.

“Drug resistance is also evident in diarrheal diseases, hospital-acquired infections, malaria, meningitis, respiratory tract infections, and sexually transmitted infections, and is emerging in HIV,” the report declared.

Click for related content

Deadly Marburg virus discovered in fruit bats
Rise in Lyme cases highlights need for new agsdhfgdfs
CDC warns Texas to keep an eye out for dengue
New TB shot shows promise in animal studies

Although the H5N1 bird flu virus has not mutated into a form that passes easily between humans, as many scientists had feared, the next influenza pandemic was “likely to be of an avian variety” and could affect some 1.5 billion people.

“The question of a pandemic of influenza from this virus or another avian influenza virus is still a matter of when, not if,” the WHO said.

It said all countries must share essential health data, such as virus samples and reports of outbreaks, as required under international health rules, to mitigate such risks.

Accidents involving toxic chemicals, nuclear power and other environmental disasters should also be communicated quickly and clearly to minimize public health threats.

Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.