Watching the World
Smiting Smoking
● The United States surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, has now proclaimed smoking to be “the most important health issue of our time.” At a press conference called to release a new report on smoking, he also stressed: “Cigarette smoking is clearly identified as the chief preventable cause of death in our society.” Almost a third of all cancer deaths were said to be the result of smoking. Though the Tobacco Institute countered that “the question is still open” as to whether smoking causes cancer, Dr. Koop insisted that “the evidence is strong and scientific and we stand by it.”
The surgeon general’s report cited the longest list yet of cancers related to smoking, mentioning stomach cancer for the first time. Some other major items in the report were: (1) smoking is responsible for 85 percent of all lung-cancer deaths, (2) three times as many pack-or-more-a-day smokers die of cancer as do nonsmokers, (3) 95 percent of people who quit smoking did so unaided by special programs, and (4) the “cold turkey” method (sudden complete abstention) was found to be more effective than gradual withdrawal.
Third World Cancer
● Cancer is commonly thought to be a disease of the industrialized nations. But, according to the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO), of the estimated thirty-seven million cases of the disease worldwide, more than half are to be found among the less-developed (third world) nations. The magazine World Health reports that three common cancers—mouth, cervix and liver—chiefly affect the developing world, with each claiming a million victims annually. And, according to an expert group’s report, lung cancer will rapidly become a major health problem for these nations, “unless the current increases in the sale of manufactured cigarettes are slowed or reversed.” Similarly, World Health says: “Mouth cancer, a significant problem among populations on the Indian sub-continent, is also avoidable—through education programmes to discourage chewing of betel nut, and to encourage oral hygiene.”
Nigerian Church “Ferment”
● Ray Ekpu, editor of the Sunday Times of Lagos, commented on recent squabbling over leadership and other problems in a number of Nigerian churches: “One must say, generally, churches are in a state of ferment in this country now. You can find a church or more in virtually every street; and churches are pervaded by a new wave of moral turpitude. . . . Satan appears to be the only one on duty in our churches and nation; a moment when the devil appears to be building its chapel in many churches; a moment when many Christians are attempting to create Christianity in their own twisted image . . .
“When Jesus drove the gamblers and extortionists away from the church saying that his Father’s house was the house of prayer, little did he know that they would resurface in Nigeria. Thus the church in Nigeria is the greatest money-spinning industry, which is why so many churches are mushrooming all over the place, and so many battles are fought for their leadership. The church is supposed to be a source of redemption for sinners, and if the church is more sinning than sinned against, who will redeem the church?”
Missionaries’ “Track Record”
● How are Christendom’s missionary efforts viewed in many parts of the less developed world? One example comes from Zimbabwe, where deputy mayor Mabassa Chipandambira of Gwelo addressed a conference of Churches of Christ, declaring that the “track record of Christian missionaries in Zimbabwe is not all that impressive and clean.” The official, a Catholic lay preacher, explained that Christendom’s missionaries came “with a pious face, wielding a large Bible in one hand and the colonialist’s political propaganda pamphlet in the other” and thus “played the dirty and nauseating role of paving the way for colonialism and imperialism.”
Pesticides for Dinner
● India’s people are consuming dangerous amounts of pesticides in “virtually everything that is consumed: cereals, pulses, flour, oil, vegetables, fruits, milk, butter, eggs, fish and meat,” reports The Hindu of India. Additionally, “studies at the Indian Toxicological Research Centre (ITRC) in Lucknow have revealed the presence of DDT residues not only in circulating blood but also in breast milk of mothers and in cord blood collected after child birth, suggesting the passage of DDT to the foetus.” The ITRC analyzed food products from various parts of India and found pesticide residues in most of them. “Most alarming is the situation with milk and milk products,” observes The Hindu. “In 90 per cent of the samples the amount of DDT exceeded the tolerance limits set by the World Health Organisation.”
Nuclear Misgivings
● Hyman G. Rickover, often called the “father of America’s nuclear navy,” recently retired. During a final speech in Congress, the long-time military man recommended the abolishment of the Department of Defense and warned that nuclear war is probable. “I think we’ll probably destroy ourselves,” he stated. “I’m not proud of the part I played.”
Taste for Poison
● A bacterium has been developed that eats Agent Orange, the infamous herbicide used to defoliate parts of Vietnam. Microbiologist Ananda Chakrabarty of the University of Illinois Medical School asserted that even at very high levels, “this bacterium removes 98 percent of [the main toxic chemical in Agent Orange] in a week.” To produce the new strain of bacterium that can break down such synthetic poisons, scientists gradually modified the diet of a common soil bacterium until its descendants were able to live on the poisonous chemical alone. Strains of bacteria that have a taste for other toxic chemicals are in the works.
TV “Sheepshearers”
● When the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) recently held public hearings on licensing of all-religious TV and radio stations, they heard an earful about American TV evangelists. One witness “spieled off horror stories of heavenly huckstering,” reported the Toronto Star, and also advised the Commission not to “let Yankee-style evangelists set up here to use the gadgetry of the electronic age to ‘fleece’ vulnerable old folks.” The witness explained that, after being stationed in the Middle East for two years, he had returned to find his aging mother flooded by mail “from Oral Roberts, It Is Written, Albert Slaughter, and even Billy Graham.” Declaring that “Rex Humbard’s the worst,” he charged: “All of them wanted her money.” He related a number of computerized schemes that these TV preachers used to pry money out of his mother, after which an Ottawa lawyer spoke. The lawyer called the tactics of American evangelists “unconscionable, bordering on fraud—certainly they’re emotional fraud.”
Japanese and Alcohol
● Japanese doctors recently have discovered what may be the reason why Japanese people seem unusually sensitive to alcohol. Explains Professor Takemitsu Itsumi of Tokyo University: “Compared to the United States and Europe, there are relatively few alcoholics in Japan. And yet we have many more drunks here than probably anywhere else in the world.” He said the reason for this “boils down to a difference in body chemistry that makes the average Japanese highly sensitive to small amounts of liquor in any form.” According to the Asahi Evening News, researchers at nearby Tsukuba University found that “Japanese are not endowed with two special enzymes which enable the western body to break down alcohol into other chemicals which are then absorbed quickly into the system—thus enabling a much larger amount of alcohol to be consumed and processed in any given period.”
Cold Spot
● The world’s tiniest refrigerator reportedly has been built by a physicist at California’s Stanford University. The little gas unit—as small as a microscope slide—is designed to cool heat buildup in computer microcircuits. It was made in the same way as tiny computer chips. “First you draw a picture of the gas lines, the capillaries, the boiler and the other parts,” explains physicist William A. Little. The picture photographically is transferred to a thin piece of glass, “creating a refrigerator ‘print’ on the glass,” which is then etched along the picture lines to form shallow channels. These grooves form “tubes” when another piece of glass is bonded to the etched piece. “And when the gas expands in those tubes, it cools,” says Little. According to Science Digest, “Little’s fridge goes down to –310 degrees Fahrenheit [–190° C], near the temperature of liquid nitrogen.”
“Gay Cancer”
● The headline “Gay Cancer—an Epidemic Among City’s Homosexuals” recently appeared in New York’s Brooklyn Paper. “There is no question that it is an epidemic,” declared Professor Alvin Friedman-Kien of New York University Medical Center when discussing the current prevalence of formerly rare Kaposi’s Sarcoma (K.S.) among homosexuals. “I can’t think of a time when cancer has occurred as an epidemic in such proportions in the history of mankind.”
Why primarily among homosexuals? The newspaper notes that Dr. Friedman-Kien’s data on the victims revealed “a history of using multiple, recreational drugs such as amyl or butyl nitrate, cocaine, amphetamines or marijuana. In addition, they had a history of multiple sexual partners and the frequency of sexual relations was very great.” Medical authorities believe that such contacts open homosexuals to attack from many types of disease at once and may affect their body’s immunity. The doctor advised reevaluation of the modern promiscuous life-style. He declared: “The whole sexual revolution . . . may be the same cause of K.S. because of the loosening and changing of sexual morals in our society.”
Talking Back
● “Oh, shut up!” shouted a Connecticut man jokingly at a box that had just told him, in a feminine voice, the price of his food purchases. The voice boxes—attached to digital cash registers—are being tested at a number of American supermarkets to determine customer response. By means of a small computer, the devices translate cash-register price information into a voice, using a tiny prerecorded sound tape. Many customers like to check each price for accuracy as it is entered, especially from the new fast-operating automatic scanning registers. Computer chips for French, Spanish and German also are said to be available.