Watching the World

Nuclear Club Growing?

● The number of nations capable of building their own nuclear weapons may soon grow from 5 to 13, say two recent reports. (It is believed that presently only five nations are nuclear-armed: Britain, China, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States.) A study by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace found that in the last year Libya, South Africa, Pakistan, India, Israel, Iraq, Argentina, and Brazil “took important steps toward building or expanding” nuclear-weapons capabilities. The report from the United States Library of Congress grimly adds: “Many non-nuclear-weapons states today have more of a nuclear industrial base to produce atom bombs than the U.S. had in the early days of the Manhattan Project, which produced [the first] U.S. atom bombs.”

Terrorism in Business

● Terrorism is increasing in the business world. Executives as well as corporations are being targeted by political terrorist organizations for acts and threats of violence​—kidnappings, extortion, and bombings. According to Industry Week, terrorism against businesses is growing, particularly in the Middle East and Latin America. Risks International Inc., a corporate-security consulting firm, recorded 2,838 terrorist incidents worldwide in 1983, and of these, 690 involved businesses. But the level of violence is more severe than the figures indicate, because many businesses are reluctant to report terrorist incidents openly. William Niehous, a corporate executive who was held hostage by terrorists, advises: “Don’t flaunt your wealth or importance. . . . Don’t wear a vest. In South America, vests are conspicuous. Wear a sport shirt. Keep a low profile.”

German Baptists “Ashamed”

● At the European Baptists Federation convention held in Hamburg, Germany, this past year, German Baptists for the first time spoke out against the failure of their church to resist Hitler and his Third Reich more strongly, says The German Tribune. The head of their national section confessed: “We are ashamed that our German section succumbed to the ideological temptation of the day and did not demonstrate greater courage to fight for truth and justice.”

Cancer​—Third World Curse

● Contrary to popular belief, cancer is not confined to industrialized nations. It is a Third World problem too. Based on the World Health Organization’s statistics, there are an estimated 5.9 million new cancer cases in the world annually. The developed countries account for 2.9 million of that number, but in the developing countries the grim figure reaches 3 million. “After the first five years of life,” says the UN Chronicle, “cancer, along with cardio-vascular diseases and accidents, is one of the three main causes of death worldwide.”

“Cluster Suicides”

● The United States has been hit by a tidal wave of teenage suicides​—many of them coming in clusters in which one youth’s suicide triggers another in the same neighborhood. Suicide claims the lives of 6,000 adolescents and young adults each year. It is the fastest-growing cause of death among 15- to 24-year-olds​—triple the rate of the 1950’s—​and it is the second-largest killer for that age group, according to a recent television drama about suicide, Silence of the Heart. In addition, U.S.News & World Report states that “since 1970, the suicide rate for youths age 15 to 19 has risen 44 percent, compared with a 2.6 percent increase for the nation as a whole.”

Seat-Belt Laws Ignored

● Seat-belt laws are “considerably less” effective in saving lives than “everybody had anticipated,” says Brian Jonah, a Transport Canada official. Why? Jonah stated that those who ignore traffic laws also ignore the seat-belt law, and those who are “law-abiding, low-risk drivers” are the ones who are moved to comply with the seat-belt law. At a recent news conference sponsored by the American Psychological Association in Toronto, Jonah noted that when seat-belt laws first went into effect, belt use rose from 20 percent to 70 percent, but about a year later, use declined to 50 percent. Professor Gerald Wilde of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, added this observation: “Mandatory seat belts do not increase the desire for safety; it increases the desire to avoid a fine.”

Haitians Unfairly Stigmatized

● According to the Toronto Star, Haitians have an unfair stigma attached to their nationality due to the way that cases of AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) are reported. In an article entitled “Haitians and AIDS: The facts and fictions,” the Star stated that “Haitians have found themselves humiliated, ignored and rejected because of a tenuous link.” Kevin Orr of the AIDS Committee of Toronto, Canada, put the problem in focus when he said: “People seem to think that most Haitians get AIDS and that is absolutely not true.” He added: “We’re afraid there are a lot of people acting against Haitians out of misinformation without bothering to check on the real facts.”

Smoking Linked to Heart Disease

● After reviewing the results of 40 years of worldwide research, the evidence that cigarette smoking causes heart disease is overwhelming. So concludes an extensive report, The Health Consequences of Smoking, by U.S. Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop. Smoking-related heart diseases take lives at a rate of 170,000 persons each year in the United States. “Unless smoking habits of the American population change,” predicts the report, “perhaps 10 percent of all persons now alive may die prematurely of heart disease attributable to their smoking behavior.”

However, the good news is, says Koop, that if “one quits smoking, the risk of dying from heart disease begins to recede almost immediately and eventually becomes no greater than that experienced by someone who has never smoked at all.”

● A report in a November issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, by Dr. Arthur J. Hartz of the Medical College of Wisconsin, strongly points to cigarette smoking as the cause of a rare but lethal heart disease named cardiomyopathy. This disease weakens the whole heart muscle, thereby inhibiting proper blood circulation. The result is one form of heart failure.

Astrology​—‘Laughable’?

● The number of believers in astrology is growing, said Dr. Jeremy Cherfas in a recent address in England. A Gallup poll taken in 1951 showed that only 6 percent believed in astrology. Today the figure has shot up to 80 percent. However, London’s Daily Telegraph reports that recent scientific discoveries have destroyed the astronomical basis for astrology. It is now known that the earth is not the center of the solar system, and the discovery of an extra star has further complicated traditional thinking about constellations. Astrology is, according to Dr. Cherfas, “so fraught with inconsistencies as to make its claims to be a science [laughable].”

Extramarital Affairs

● What causes many women to have extramarital affairs? Lynn Atwater, associate professor of sociology at Seton Hall University, New Jersey, says that lack of conversation with their husbands is the main cause. According to New York’s Daily News, she claims that “75% of the women confessed that the reason they entered into an extramarital affair was not for sex, but communication.” Atwater said: “They felt the men they were having affairs with were able to listen to their feelings and understand them.” Twenty years ago, one out of four American women had an affair, she said, but today, it is one in every two.

“Breathtaking” Mexico City

● On a pollution scale of 1 to 100, Rome, New York, and Tokyo score 5 points, but Mexico City registers a literally breathtaking 97 points, reported the Mexican Ecologic Movement, a master organization that represents 63 Mexican environmental groups. “Mexico City runs the great risk of becoming an ‘ecologic Hiroshima,’” warns the movement’s chairman. He predicts that if pollution is not restrained immediately, within four years 25,000 pollution victims (half of them children) will die each year. The Ministry of Health announced last year, according to the Dutch magazine Internationale Samenwerking, that “taking a walk through Mexico City” is more damaging to health than smoking “two packs of cigarettes a day.”

Dry-Cleaning Solvent Suspect

● The chemical solvent used in dry-cleaning clothes may pose a health risk to workers at dry-cleaning establishments, according to the health magazine Prevention. While PCE (perchloroethylene) is said to have produced cancer in mice, the United States National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health allows its use, though telling those handling it to treat it “as if it were a carcinogen,” says the report. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration sets the maximum worker exposure to the chemical at 100 ppm (parts per million). Those who handle garments at the dry-cleaning vats are said to be exposed to “about 35 or 40 ppm,” pressers to about 10 ppm, and cashiers to about one ppm. The International Fabricare Institute “advises workers to minimize their contact” with PCE.

Athletics for Everyone?

● Athletics are not for everyone​—at least, not everyone should participate without medical supervision—​according to Gershon Lesser, M.D., University of Southern California clinical instructor of medicine and host of a television health show in Los Angeles. Who especially need supervision? “Athletic recreation is a questionable option for the pathological hurrier, the type of person who rushes to work, rushes through lunch, and rushes home during the rush hour to rush through chores before rushing to bed,” says cardiologist-internist Lesser. “That type of person is very liable to use exercise as just another avenue of rushing to the grave.”