Avoiding Cancer

First, the good news: You probably won’t get cancer.

That is, if you have a healthy lifestyle.

As many as 70% of known causes of cancers are avoidable and related to lifestyle.

Still, since cancer is one of the top five killers, taking steps to eat a healthy diet, increase exercise, and avoid tobacco products is key; however, recent research has uncovered many small, surprising ways you can weave even more disease prevention into your everyday  life.

Try these novel strategies and your risk of cancer could dwindle even more.

1. Filter Your Tap Water

You’ll reduce your exposure to known or suspected carcinogens and hormone-disrupting chemicals. A new report from the President’s Cancer Panel on how to reduce exposure to carcinogens suggests that home-filtered tap water is a safer bet than bottled water, whose quality often is not higher—and in some cases is worse—than that of municipal sources, according to a study by the Environmental Working Group. (Consumer Reports’ top picks for faucet-mounted filters: Culligan, Pur Vertical, and the Brita OPFF-100.)

Store water in stainless steel or glass to avoid chemical contaminants such as BPA that can leach from plastic bottles.

2. Stop Topping Your Gas Tank

So say the EPA and the President’s Cancer Panel: Pumping one last squirt of gas into your car after the nozzle clicks off can spill fuel and foil the pump’s vapor recovery system, designed to keep toxic chemicals such as cancer-causing benzene out of the air, where they can come in contact with your skin  or get into your lungs.

3. Marinate Meat Before Grilling

Processed, charred, and well-done meats can contain cancer-causing heterocyclic amines, which form when meat is seared at high temperatures, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which get into food when it’s charcoal broiled.

The recommendation to cut down on grilled meat has really solid scientific evidence behind it. If you do grill, add rosemary and thyme to your favorite marinade and soak meat for at least an hour before cooking. The antioxidant-rich spices can cut HCAs by as much as 87%, according to research at Kansas State University.

4. Caffeinate Every Day

Java lovers who drank 5 or more cups of caffeinated coffee a day had a 40% decreased risk of brain cancer, compared with people who drank the least, in a 2010 British study. A 5-cup-a-day coffee habit reduces risks of oral and throat cancer almost as much. Researchers credit the caffeine: Decaf had no comparable effect. But coffee was a more potent protector against these cancers than tea, which the British researchers said also offered protection against brain cancer.

5. Water Down Your Cancer Risk

Drinking plenty of water and other liquids may reduce the risk of bladder cancer by diluting the concentration of cancer-causing agents in urine and helping to flush them through the bladder faster.

Drink at least 8 cups of liquid a day, suggests the American Cancer Society.

6. Load Up On Really Green Greens

Next time you’re choosing salad fixings, reach for the darkest varieties. The chlorophyll that gives them their color is loaded with magnesium, which some large studies have found lowers the risk of colon cancer in women.

Magnesium affects signaling in cells, and without the right amount, cells may do things like divide and replicate when they shouldn’t.

Just 1/2 cup of cooked spinach provides 75 mg of magnesium, 20% of the daily value.

7. Snack On Brazil Nuts

They’re a stellar source of selenium, an antioxidant that lowers the risk of bladder cancer in women, according to research from Dartmouth Medical School.

People with high blood levels of selenium have lower rates of dying of lung cancer and colorectal cancer.

Researchers think selenium not only protects cells from free radical damage but also may enhance immune function and suppress formation of blood vessels that nourish tumors.

8. Burn Off Your Breast Cancer Risk

Moderate exercise such as brisk walking 2 hours a week cuts risk of breast cancer 18%.

Regular workouts may lower your risks by helping you burn fat, which otherwise produces its own estrogen, a known contributor to breast cancer.

9. Skip the Dry Cleaner

A solvent known as perc (short for perchloroethylene) that’s used in traditional dry cleaning may cause liver and kidney cancers and leukemia, according to an EPA finding backed in early 2010 by the National Academies of Science.

The main dangers are to workers who handle chemicals or treated clothes using older machines, although experts have not concluded that consumers are also at increased cancer risk. Less toxic alternatives: Hand-wash clothes with mild soap and air-dry them, spot cleaning if necessary with white vinegar.

10. Ask Your Doc About Breast Density

Women whose mammograms have revealed breast density readings of 75% or more have a breast cancer risk 4 to 5 times higher than that of women with low density scores, according to recent research.

One theory is that denser breasts result from higher levels of estrogen—making exercise particularly important (see #8).

Shrinking your body fat also changes growth factors, signaling proteins such as adipokines and hormones like insulin in ways that tend to turn off cancer-promoting processes in cells.

11. Head Off Cell Phone Risks

Use your cell phone only for short calls or texts, or use a hands-free device that keeps the phone—and the radio frequency energy it emits—away from your head.

The point is more to preempt any risk than to protect against a proven danger: Evidence that cell phones increase brain cancer risk is “neither consistent nor conclusive,” says the President’s Cancer Panel report.

But a number of review studies suggest there’s a link.

12. Block Skin Cancer With Color

Choosing your outdoor outfit wisely may help protect against skin cancer.

Blue and red fabrics offer significantly better protection against the sun’s UV rays than white and yellow ones did. Don’t forget to put on a hat:

Though melanoma can appear anywhere on the body, it’s more common in areas the sun hits.

People with melanomas on the scalp or neck die at almost twice the rate of people with the cancer on other areas of the body.

13. Pick a Doc With A Past

Experience—lots of it—is critical when it comes to accurately reading mammograms.

Doctors with at least 25 years’ experience are more accurate at interpreting images and less likely to give false positives. Ask about your radiologist’s track record. If she is freshly minted or doesn’t check a high volume of mammograms, get a second read from someone with more mileage.

14. Eat Clean Foods

The President’s Cancer Panel recommends buying meat free of antibiotics and added hormones, which are suspected of causing endocrine problems, including cancer.

The report also advises that you purchase produce grown without pesticides and wash conventionally grown food thoroughly to remove residues. (The foods with the most pesticides: celery, peaches, strawberries, apples, and blueberries.)

At least 40 known carcinogens are found in pesticides and we should absolutely try to reduce exposure.

15. Read Food Labels For Folic Acid

The B vitamin, essential for women who may become or are pregnant to prevent birth defects, is a double-edged sword when it comes to cancer risk.

Consuming too much of the synthetic form (not folate, found in leafy green veggies, orange juice, and other foods) has been linked to increased colon cancer risk, as well as higher lung cancer and prostate cancer risks.

Rethink your multivitamin, especially if you eat a lot of cereal and fortified foods.

A recent CDC study discovered that half of supplement users who took supplements with more than 400 mcg of folic acid exceeded 1,000 mcg per day of folic acid.

Most supplements pack 400 mcg. Individual supplements (of vitamin D and calcium, for instance) may be a smarter choice for most women who aren’t thinking of having kids.

16. Up Your Calcium Intake

Milk’s main claim to fame may also help protect you from colon cancer.

Those who took calcium faithfully for 4 years had a 36% reduction in the development of new precancerous colon polyps 5 years after one study had ended. (They tracked 822 people who took either 1,200 mg of calcium every day or a placebo.) Though the study was not on milk itself, you can get the same amount of calcium in three 8-ounce glasses of fat-free milk, along with an 8-ounce serving of  yogurt or a 2- to 3-ounce serving of low-fat cheese daily.

17. Commit To Whole Grains

You know whole wheat is better for you than white bread.

Here’s more proof why you should switch once and for all: If you eat a lot of things with a high glycemic load—a measurement of how quickly food raises your blood sugar—you may run a higher risk of colorectal cancer than women who eat low-glycemic-load foods.

The low-glycemic-load stuff comes with fiber.

18. Pay Attention To Pain

If you’re experiencing a bloated belly, pelvic pain, and an urgent need to urinate, see your doctor. These symptoms may signal ovarian cancer, particularly if they’re severe and frequent.

Women and physicians often ignore these symptoms, and that’s the very reason that this disease can be deadly. When caught early, before cancer has spread outside the ovary, the relative 5-year survival rate for ovarian cancer is a jaw-dropping 90 to 95%.

19. Avoid Unnecessary Scans

CT scans are a great diagnostic tool, but they deliver much more radiation than x-rays and may be overused.

In fact, researchers suggest that one-third of CT scans could be unnecessary.

High doses of radiation can trigger leukemia, so make sure scans are not repeated if you see multiple doctors, and ask if another test, such as an ultrasound or MRI, could substitute.

20. Drop 10 Pounds

Being overweight or obese accounts for 20% of all cancer deaths among women and 14% among men, notes the American Cancer Society. (You’re overweight if your body mass index is between 25 and 29.9; you’re obese if it’s 30 or more.)

Plus, losing excess pounds reduces the body’s production of female hormones, which may protect against breast cancer, endometrial cancer, and ovarian cancer.

Even if you’re not technically overweight, gaining just 10 pounds after the age of 30 increases your risk of developing breast, pancreatic, and cervical, among other cancers.

Pakistanis Should Preserve & Conserve Their Heritage

There can be little doubt that whatever else we may be, preservers of heritage we are not. It is not in our blood stream. This actually explains many things such as chopping down fully grown trees. The very sight of an upright, well-spread tree with a green canopy, home to hundreds of birds and a refuge on hot days for all people, induces only one emotion in the Pakistani. Cut it. It explains the wanton destruction of trees everywhere – the avowed mission in life of all governments as also everything we have that needs protection. Our museums are falling apart, primitively administered, our monuments are decaying, the symbols of our past, are all crashing down one after another. The government does not care and neither do the people.

The 200 years of the British – arguably amongst the world’s most outstanding conservationists didn’t teach us anything. While they painstakingly documented everything and saved glorious examples of our heritage, we simply stood around bored out of our skulls. It is a pity we picked up so many of their habits and not this!

In Lahorealone, the great hotels and restaurants have fallen and are gone. No effort to save and refurbish them has entered our minds. How difficult is it to restore Falettis to its former glory? Here is a property on its last legs. It was once beautiful and classy. In later years, Mr Bhutto often stayed here. Mr Jinnah loved the hotel as did his sister.

When ‘Bowani Junction’ was shot in Lahore, that gloriously beautiful woman, ‘the barefoot contessa’, Ava Gardner stayed in one of the suites. Yes we put up a plaque there but as my late brother wrote, spending the night in the suite was a disaster. Infested with cat size rodents and other creepy crawlies, the suite was unfit for man or beast. Justice Cornelius lived for years in Falettis.

Any nation worth the name would have preserved those rooms, nay the very hotel, but what have we done with Falettis? The yahoos have finished it off. It’s a derelict, run down eye sore, the 148 trees fighting hard for survival as rapacious, illiterate real estate vermin are determined to pull it down and build, yes what else, but another temple to the worship of cheap goods from Thailand. Some litigation seems to be going about as the hotel gasps and chokes, its existence precarious, its lifeline ebbing. It won’t survive.

In Rawalpindi, Flashman’s is but a parody of its great past and elsewhere, hotels, nightclubs, restaurants have all fallen by the wayside. Our great specialty, building ugly and concrete structures, grows astronomically, thriving in a society where money is all that matters.

There were three names in Lahore when it came to photography. I have a negative-holder now yellowing with age. On it reads the legend, M Bhatti, Photographer, 7 Dinga Singh Building, The Mall, Lahore. Phone 3288. Mr Bhatti died many years ago, as did his studio where people were transformed under his magical touch. I don’t know what garbage they sell there now. And then there is Zaidis, opposite the High Court, the elegant studio run by a generation of fine gentlemen who carried on a family tradition and gave portraiture a new meaning. At the turn of the century, two brothers Syed Wazir Ali Zaidi and Syed Nazir Ali Zaidi, young artists who had studied at the Mayo School of Arts, Lahore set up shop in Benares and Allahabad, specialising in portrait painting and photography. This is where Zaidis took root. Their second generation spread all across the sub-continent opening studios in places like Ooticomand, Conoor, Calcutta, Dacca, Chittagong, Khulna, Murree, Rawalpindi, Karachi, Abbottabad and Peshawar.

In 1938, Syed Mohammad Ali Zaidi the oldest of the second generation migrated back to Lahore and established his studio on The Mall where it still stands like a landmark. In its seventh decade it has created over two million portraits, the most prized being that of Quaid-e-Azam, who bestowed this singular honour upon the Zaidis by coming to the studio for a sitting. Pakistan’s leading figures like Fatima Jinnah, Liaquat Ali Khan and many others were photographed here. No wedding or grand family reunions were possible without a ‘sitting’ at Zaidis.

In 1962, Shahid Zaidi representing the third generation took over the family business from his father. Since then the studio has seen a lot of changes, from the black & white era to colour portraiture. A second studio was added but now things are changing for the worse. A highly charged LDA imposes all kinds of exorbitant taxes in violation of laid down procedures. Zaidis, having paid all taxes that it considers legitimate, cannot pay LDA’s escalating demands. It has no option but to close its doors. With Zaidis Gulberg gone, there will just be the solitary business on The Mall left to keep the tradition alive.

The glorious Mall institution, Rollos, devoted to the fine art of portraiture photography closed years ago after Sandy Rollo died. A small kind of branch struggles on in some nook of Gulberg, a mere shadow of its former glory when like Zaidis it was the toast of civil society. But what are we complaining about? When there is no civil society left how can anything remotely resembling the finer things of life find nourishment?

It was actually a news item that I read that triggered this off. Odeon Cinema in Rawalpindi Saddar is now ready to be pulled down to make way for, guess what – another infernal shopping plaza! This too on a space marked in 1948 as a public utility area. Where do people find the money to throng these plazas you ask and any one wise about Pakistan will tell you that it is the perfect conduit for spending all that black money, garnered through shady deals, corruption and embezzlement now rampant in the citadel of Islam. Being thrice the formal economy, wise people say that it is what keeps the country running and explains among many other things the proliferation of obscene sized real estate and limousines where behind darkened windows sit the baboons who have a finger – and often a full hand, in every pie that’s baked here.

The demise of Odeon is sad – like the Plaza which is just about dead too. These two could have been preserved and refurbished but why should we do that?

Restoration is hard work and boring. Demolition is swift and surgical and in the end, more profitable. Ciros built in 1948, survives as does Capitol, Bank Road. Khurshid in Lalkurti and Rex in Westridge are gone as was New Landsdowne in Murree, closed down in 1981 since Zia ul Haq could not tolerate any entertainment. The generations which thronged these places are gone or ready to go – on the dance floors of Sams in Murree, Chicken Tikkas and other ‘delicacies’ are gobbled up by moneyed and ravenous hordes. The ‘new’ Lintotts has not heard of its famous sandwiches of yesteryear and are more intent to serve the dopey-eyed scrap dealers who gobble entire chickens and casually toss away the leftovers. This is Pakistan’s new civil society.

Yes, the decline is every where and the soul of Pakistan that flourished through its learned, educated and cultured people, is dead and gone. All that remains is the rotting carcass.

Derogatory SMS About the Thai Queen Lands Arkong 20 Years in Prison

The latest conviction and sentence of a person inThailandfor a crime of freedom of expression is tragic.

On 23 November 2011, in Black Case No. 311/2554, Ampon Tangnoppakul (also known as ‘Arkong’), a 61-year-old man, was sentenced to twenty years in prison for four violations of Article 112 of the Thai Criminal Code and the 2007 Computer Crimes Act.

Ampon’s crime was to send four SMS messages to Somkiat Klongwattanasak, personal secretary of the former PM, Abhisit Vejjajiva.

iLaw, a Thai legal NGO, reported that the four SMS messages were alleged by the authorities to contain vulgar language and to defame the Thai queen and to insult the honor of the monarchy. 

The precise content of the SMS messages has not been made public by the authorities and because repetition of alleged lesè majesté content itself constitutes a violation of the law, reporters are unable to report the precise content of the messages without then becoming subject to criminal prosecution themselves.

Compounding the injustice of this sentence, Ampon Tangnoppakul is suffering from laryngeal cancer and had been unable to access proper treatment during detention before and during his trial. There is no reason to believe that this will change now that he has been convicted, and, in fact, depending on what prison he is transferred to, there may be further concerns over his safety and well-being. As has been clear in the case of Daranee Charnchoengskilpakul, currently serving an eighteen-year sentence for alleged lesè majesté and who suffers from severe jaw disease, the authorities have no qualms about denying necessary medical treatment and violating the rights of political prisoners.

On 3 August 2010, a group of 15 police officers raided Ampon Tangnoppakul’s house and arrested him. He was detained for 63 days of pre-charge detention before being granted bail on 4 October 2010. He was then formally charged by the prosecutor on 18 January 2011 with violations of Article 112 and the Computer Crimes Act, and has been incarcerated since then. The court refused bail on the basis of the gravity of his crime and the possibility of flight. His trial took place on 23 and 27-30 September 2011. From the beginning, Ampon maintained his innocence, noting that he did not know to send SMS messages and that the number that sent the message to Somkiat was not his number.  The response of the prosecutor to this was to discount it, and note that as the IMEI number of the cell phone that sent the messages to Somkiat belonged to Ampon, then he was responsible.

In the years since the 19 September 2006 coup, and particularly in the last 2 years, there has been a vast expansion of the use of both Article 112 and the 2007 Computer Crimes Act. iLaw, a Thai legal rights NGO, noted that while Ampon was convicted of violations of Article 112 and the Computer Crimes Act of 2007, he was sentenced under Article 112, as it provides for harsher penalties. Since the passage of the Computer Crimes Act, the two have increasingly been used together to silence dissenting speech and intimidate activists and citizens. Article 112 of the Thai Criminal Code notes that, “Whoever defames, insults or threatens the King, Queen, the Heir-apparent or the Regent, shall be punished with imprisonment of three to fifteen years.”

The relevant section of the Computer Crimes Act in this case is Section 14, Parts 2 and 3, which specify:

“If any person commits any offense of the following acts shall be subject to imprisonment for not more than five years or a fine of not more than one hundred thousand baht or both: (2) that involves import to a computer system of false computer data in a manner than it likely to damage the country’s security or cause a public panic; (3) that involves import to a computer system of any computer data related with an offence against the Kingdom’s security under the Criminal Code.” 

The definition of “computer system” is noted in Section 3 as

“a piece of equipment or set of equipment units, whose function is integrated together, for which sets of instructions and working principles enable it or them to perform the duty of processing data automatically.”

The way in which this law is written, and as this case evidences, means that the Computer Crimes Act of 2007 may be used to target communication and speech using various forms of transmitting technology, not only computers per se.

This conviction sends a clear message to people inThailand: be careful, because your SMS messages may be scrutinized for criminal content and then you will be liable to a long prison sentence.

The lack of a definition of “security” within the law means that there are wide opportunities for abuse as the authorities can define any dissident or otherwise objectionable content to violate the “security” of the nation.

William Nicholas Gomes
Journalist & Human Rights Activist
80/ B Bramon Chiron, Saydabad,
Dhaka-1203, Bangladesh.
Cell: +88 019 7 444 0 666
E-mail:William [at] williamgomes.org,editorbd[at]gmail.com
Skype: William.gomes9
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Web site :www.williamgomes.org

Permissiveness Can Sometimes Be Good

Teen birth rates are eight times higher in the US than in Holland. Abortion rates are twice as high. The American AIDS rate is three times greater than that of the Dutch. What are they doing right that we’re not?

For starters, two-thirds of Dutch parents report allowing their teenage children to have sleepovers with their boyfriend or girlfriend, a situation even the most liberal American parents would rarely permit. Is there something Americans should learn from the Dutch about relaxed attitudes toward sex (and drugs — indeed, the Netherlands has more lenient drug laws than the U.S., but three times lower rates of marijuana use)?

Firstly, the lack of conversation between parents and teens about sexuality, and lack of discomfort around the issue may be one of the major culprits in this respect.

Another is that the birth-control pill was quickly disseminated in the Netherlands, starting in the ’70s; teen pregnancy started to drop. There wasn’t this association between teen sex and danger and lives ruined that we have in America.

There’s also a cultural piece. Coming out of the sexual revolution, the Dutch really decoupled sex from marriage, but they didn’t decouple sex from love. If the first piece is that there weren’t these immediate associations of teen sex with danger, the second is that it remained anchored in the concept of steady relationships and young people being in love.

There’s a strong belief in the Netherlands that youth can be in love — boys as well as girls — that makes sex in many ways seem safer and more contained because it’s embedded in a relationship.

It seems terribly sad to me that we view teenage love as being about “just hormones” and teen boys as incapable of being in love — but then we turn around and bemoan this culture of “hooking up,” when we’ve basically given adolescents no space to actually have loving relationships.

I do think this is something that resonates with a lot of people. Every culture has those aspects of human nature they celebrate. And theU.S.celebrates individual development and freedom, so there isn’t a good language for talking about social cohesion, whether between two teenagers or whether as society as a whole.

One of the things I really emphasize is the need for a better cultural narrative for talking about relationships and love that isn’t just, Marriage is best. That is not appropriate for teens and we need to validate their connections and give guidance around that.

Instead, we tend to pathologize teen relationships as obsession, co-dependence, addiction.

It’s become more popular to talk about teaching healthy relationships but a lot of that is about avoiding unhealthy relationships. Of course, that’s important. But there’s lots of attention to dating violence and little talk about what it feels like to be in love. One of the things that always surprises people is that one of most popular Dutch sex education curricula is called ‘Long Live Love.’

For boys, our culture devalues their impulse to love. But research shows that in the U.S., boys are quite romantic. Other research finds that for girls, recognition of sexual desire and wishes is taboo, so they have fewer tools to assess what’s right for them. That makes things difficult.

However, underlying the normalization of adolescent sexuality are certain concepts of the person and how people operate, and how to exert social control.

The expectation that a young person can know when he or she is ready for sex and can self-regulate is so contested in theUS. The idea that teens can pace themselves and take protective measures also pertains to the concept in Holland that it’s possible for people to smoke marijuana without becoming heroin addicts.

Whenever we get into the idea that the Netherlands is so liberal and permissive, we should emphasize the aspect of social control as I do in the book. Parents are actually able to check out the boyfriend or girlfriend, and they only permit sleepovers when they like and have gotten to know them.

Many conservatives mistake my findings as being about: ‘These are parents who just want to be friends with their kids, and parents have to be parents.’ But a lot of Dutch parents have homes where dinner is ‘at six and not a minute later.’ They have a strong sense not that certain rules are to be obeyed, but that there are agreements that have to be kept. In theUSwe’re located between the dichotomy of, ‘Either I’m in charge or someone else is.’ We don’t have the concept of a form of control that is more shared and modulated.

The Dutch say, ‘We permit so we can control,’ and that’s also their attitude toward drugs and prostitution. It’s worth pointing out that US teens are more likely to use drugs than the Dutch, even though there are more liberal policies in the Netherlands.

That idea of, ‘It’s actually a form of control,’ is for most people in the U.S.counter-intuitive. But if you expect self-control and give people an opportunity to exercise it, you might get more of it.

Meanwhile, Americans seem to think that if people are left to their own devices, everyone will become alcoholics and addicts.

What’s interesting about that is that there is a certain pessimism that underlies it. Something that did strike me when I came in early ’90s toAmericais that one of the differences in the aftermath of the sexual revolution is that Dutch society became a lot more secular.

What stood out to me was that so often in the US people seemed to think you can only have morality and a strong social fabric if you believe in a higher authority, a God that would otherwise punish people. There isn’t a belief that people are naturally cooperative, which lots of research suggests they are.

American parents also frequently brought up the influence of media, and that is different. In theU.S., portrayals of sex in the media are unrealistic. It’s instrumental — people are using each other. There’s a lot of sexualizing of young people in terms of portraying their bodies, but not portraying positive relationships.

U.S. parents fear that sex is everywhere and they want to protect kids from it. I argue that you want to have a positive vision that you can lay out there, not a vision of keeping sex away from you. Because then, you have two options: either a sensationalized unrealistic scoring type of mentality or no sex until marriage. Those are not two good alternatives.

So what can parents do? I know you talk about A, B, C and D. What does this stand for?

A is autonomy. A lot of times people do realize that adolescents are supposed to develop autonomy during that phase of life, but that doesn’t get applied to sex, or it is interpreted narrowly as ‘Just say no’ or in adversarial terms.

Autonomy is the ability to discern inside what one feels in relation to sexuality to make choices, to exert what sociologists call agency in response to sexuality. Sexuality is a spectrum of behavior; it’s not just one act. To use that sense of self-knowledge, and to develop that capacity for self-regulation and planning, and to be able to prepare for sex acts that require protection — that’s the individual piece.

B is build good, positive relationships. We need more emphasis on healthy teen relationships: what does respect look and feel like, how do you build intimacy so it doesn’t become this huge unrealistic fantasy that’s very difficult to overcome if it doesn’t work out? Research does show that when young people have more intimate positive relationships, they tend to have better first sexual experiences.

C is connectedness. It’s possible to really challenge the assumption that teens and parents have to be at loggerheads. Connectedness between parents and teens is critical for teen well-being, not just sexually.

D is diversity. A lot of sex education doesn’t recognize diversity around sex. I don’t just mean differences in orientation, but differences in the pace at which young people develop and also the diversity in cultural values. It needs to be part of sex education that people have different values around sex and those are to be respected.

D is also disparities. I try to emphasize that sexual health problems are very much correlated with lack of resources and lack of good education and lack of access to health care. One of the reasons that theNetherlands has done so much better is that the poverty rate is a lot lower. The Dutch have scored highest on equity in access to health care, and they do lot better in providing social services. If we want to promote adolescent sex health, we need to provide society with level resources.

Dutch have this concept of gezelligheid: It literally means ‘cozy togetherness.’ Like many words that denote a cultural state, it’s hard to translate because we don’t have a real equivalent. It’s like ‘pleasant togetherness’ or ‘conviviality.’

What it refers to is the pleasure people are expected to take in each other’s company, parents and children and also teens together in their peer group. There’s a lot of intergenerational gezelligheid. The Dutch celebrate every birthday, whether 8 or 80, and you are expected to show up and enjoy it. The Dutch also devised policies to maintain it. They made part-time work easy for mothers and fathers, so there are policies that support family life.

When people know something is missing, they look for it. Just as we have a lack of language to talk about togetherness, there’s also a desire for more of it, I think. When people see something in another culture that resonates inside, they think, I want that too. They might not have the same support, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t part of who we are or who we want to be.

Blocking the SMSes is Not Going to Do Any Good

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has initiated a mechanism under which mobile phone operators will filter SMS content for black listed keywords to make sure that SMS messages with bad language aren’t delivered to (intended or un-intended) mobile phone users.

A list of almost 1,500 keywords (from both Urdu and English language) has been prepared and sent out to telecom companies to be filtered for any communication over SMS.

For the purpose a letter titled: “Implementation – Content Filtering through SMS” is reportedly on it’s way for telecom companies.

From what it looks like, each and every SMS message will be filtered by mobile companies and will be delivered to other party only if it passes the filter list.

If implemented in true spirit, this action by PTA won’t make cellular companies happy. Just imagine the size of work required in filtering billions of messages a day. There are going to be issues involved including the cost involved in deploying filters, latency, delivery issues and so on.

It is going to result in extremely absurd consequences and one can only hope that mobile companies will take necessary measures for the privacy of SMS communication.

It is also hoped that the government won’t use this regulation/determination to filter anti-government or anti-politicians messages.

TV Discourses Hardly Contributing to Our Intellectual Development

Discourses, discussions, dialogue, conversations and arguments have always been recognised as a means to enhancing knowledge, to know another’s point of view without necessarily agreeing or for that matter, disagreeing.

Even the Greek philosophers considered debate as a useful medium of teaching.

These discourses were meant to be civilised and meaningful exchange of opinions and arguments with agreement on fundamentals but variances on issues related to practice — reconciling and bridging the differences was the main objective for debate.

Tolerance was an essential ingredient that balanced the magnanimity of the argument, upholding the concept of spreading awareness with the grace of respecting a rival’s beliefs.

While much can be argued about the usefulness of debates there are some ugly aspects that could aggravate into minor tiffs, culminating at times into uncontrollable violence, breaking into riots with brutal ferocity resulting in mass murders and arson.

As a character, Levin says in Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina, “The argument is really about the inner self. While we talk of logic on the surface, we are really in conflict because of our ego or some deeply, and emotionally, held position.”

Prominent among the causes of downfall of the Abbasid Rule were disunity amongst the people on sectarian grounds and for holding different beliefs that erupted into volatile discourses mostly based on frivolous issues that it did not take long for the once powerful state to crumble before the Mongolian might.

This could have been the reason why in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there was a shift towards rote method of learning rather than open discourses.

Thus at the lower level of education both in the modern schools and traditional madrassahs, students were forced to be on the receiving end with hardly any opportunities to interact with their counterparts lest such activities resulted in unmanageable episodes of hostility.

Recently in Pakistan, manazaras have taken on a new form.

These can be seen and heard on the innumerable television channels that air live and sometimes recorded programmes where a topic is debated by proponents of conflicting views. As long as these remain within the ambit of civility and knowledgeable themes, they prove a valuable source of information but the moment they transgress the bounds of personal attacks on characters and perky issues, they start taking on a loathsome nature.

Small talk, gossips, scandalous rumours, mud-slinging, innuendos and slander might be appealing to a vast segment of the audience but they certainly cause great harm to the character of the people.

Such behaviour might draw in a lot of money to its patrons or substantially raise the television rating points (TRP) but it bankrupts the entire value system of the society.

History bears witness that once, the national character of a country is damaged, subservience to a foreign and more powerful master, becomes inevitable.

Time is precious, therefore, it should be utilised most productively rather than wasting it in aimless discussions. The war of tongues is extremely dangerous as it has immense potential of getting converted into physical armed warfare.

With falling levels of tolerance such discourses have become the breeding grounds for vested interests who do not let any opportunity go by to create chaos.

These days, the electronic media has become influential in shaping the opinion of the masses. Rapid transmission of information is excellent but if done irresponsibly, could lead to disaster. Within minutes, a piece of news can play havoc with the peace and tranquillity of society besides disrupting the entire system. It is time that we reassess our talk shows where guests are invited to throw light on their views.

They should be instructed to keep themselves within propriety limits, respect other people’s opinions, refrain from uncivil behaviour (interrupting a speaker), abstain from hurling personal accusations (in a world where no one is infallible), differentiate between humour and mockery, remembering that a wrong word from their mouths could cause a jolt in which they, along with their loved ones, would also suffer.

The producers and anchors, keen to keep their jobs intact must also lay down some principles for maintaining decorum in their programmes. Their own attitude and style of conversation should not be aimed at rebuking, antagonising, sensationalising or offending anyone.

In today’s Pakistani media, semblance ofBaghdad’s violent and useless manazaras is quite obvious — one prays it is not the case of history repeating itself because if they continue unabated, we maybe heading towards the inevitable that occurred in Baghdad.

As a responsible fourth pillar of State, it is the collective duty of media to refrain from undesirable manazaras that are detrimental to the entire society.

Too Little Salt May Not Be Good For Your Heart

Cutting back on salt is a key recommendation in the government’s latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) and has been a part of good health advice for decades. But, increasingly, the evidence suggests that that guidance may be too simplistic, and that there is a limit to the benefitsof salt reduction on the heart.

For people at risk of heart disease, a new study finds, lowering sodium can actually harm their health. Researchers have found that both those who consumed too much sodium and those who consumed too little had increased risks of heart disease and heart-related death.

The government currently advises adults to eat no more than 2,300 mg of sodium a day, and recommends that children, older Americans and those at risk of heart disease cut their sodium to 1,500 mg a day.

The WHO advises eating less than 2,000 mg a day.

When researchers compared the heart risks in the highest consumers (7,000 mg to 8,000 mg a day) to those at a baseline 4,000 mg per day, they found that high salt consumption led to a 9.7% increased risk of dying from a heart event and a 7% increased risk of having a heart attack.

But people who excreted far lower amounts of sodium in their urine — between 2,000 mg and 3,000 mg a day — also raised their risk of dying from a heart event by 8.6% and their risk of being hospitalized for congestive heart failure by 5%.

The lesson is that the relationship between sodium and heart disease may not be the linear, as most of the public and public health officials have been led to believe. Instead of assuming that increasing sodium increases heart disease and heart-related deaths, the association may follow more of a J shape, in which very low levels of sodium also raise the risk of heart trouble — not as much as too-high levels of sodium do, but it results in a spike nonetheless.

Until now, the contention has been that the amount of sodium the body requires from the diet is very small. But the study and others published this year raise the issue that perhaps the amount the body requires for adequate physiological processing may actually be far higher than that.

Recent research also hints that some people may be more sensitive to the effects of sodium than others, and that some may be able to take in higher levels of salt in their diet without experiencing negative health effects. Yet the public health message remains focused on lowering our sodium intake, since the bulk of the evidence still suggests that too much sodium leads to hypertension and may accelerate atherosclerosis and diabetes.

What does it mean for the average person who isn’t overconsuming salt — is lower still better?

We need to understand whether reduction of moderate-to-low levels of sodium intake translate to long-term effects in preventing heart-related events. We believe that is still an open question. We need to further understand how some populations are vulnerable to extremes of sodium.

Of course, the average American is probably eating too much salt — maybe without realizing it, since salt is added to nearly every processed or prepared food that we buy.

A good first step to controlling sodium intake, nutritionists say, is to take the salt shaker off the table. Then start paying attention to food labels, which indicate how much sodium is in the packaged foods you buy.

Adding more fresh fruits and vegetables to your diet can also naturally help you reduce consumption of high-sodium foods and curb your cravings for salt.

Ending Child Labor Or a Business for the NGOs?

Campaigning on behalf of destitute children inPakistancan earn millions for NGOs in the west. However, those millions are often spent to support lavish lifestyles of a few in the west while the destitute inPakistancontinue to suffer.

Each year, Canadians donate millions of dollars to not-for-profit organisations who are helping impoverished children in low-income countries. While many organisations receiving millions in donations for the poor in Pakistan help the needy, others have used the money to build small real estate fortunes while subsidising extravagant lifestyle of their founders.

One such organisation is Free the Children, a not-for-profit started inToronto by Craig and Marc Kielburger while they were only teenagers.  Free the Children and its sister organisations campaign against child labour and create opportunities for the youth to help other youths in need.

While Kielburgers’ hard work and commitment is commendable, one is dismayed at the way Free the Children has been using a false story about the murder of a child labourer inPakistanto further its cause over the past 16 years.

It all started in April 1995 when Craig Kielburger reportedly read a story in The Toronto Star about Iqbal Masih, a child labourer who was sold into bonded labour by his parents. According to the story, Iqbal worked for years as a slave labourer until he was freed with the help of Ehsanullah Khan, who then headed the Bonded Labour Liberation Front (BLLF) inPakistan. The Toronto Star story claimed that the “carpet mafia” inPakistanorchestrated Masih’s murder.

After reading the story in The Toronto Star Craig Kielburger sprang into action and started Free the Children, which now has a worldwide reach. Since 1995, Craig and Marc Kielburger have run campaigns to build schools and assist communities in Asia, Africa, andLatin America. However, Kielburgers’ campaign against child labour inPakistanhas cost millions of dollars in lost export contracts that forced the very same workers they intended to help into abject poverty and a life of begging and misery.

The news story in the Toronto Star was reported by Kathy Gannon of the Associated Press on April 18, 1995. Ms. Gannon quoted Ehsanullah Khan (BLLF) who claimed that Iqbal Masih’s was murdered at the behest of the “carpet mafia”. Mr. Khan misrepresented the facts about Masih’s tragic death and used it audaciously to advance his campaign against the carpet manufacturers. Ms. Gannon, a seasoned reporter, quickly caught on after interviews with the witnesses and Iqbal’s family revealed a different picture. She filed another story the very next day that explained how and why Iqbal Masih died.

Tahir Ikram of Reuters inPakistanalso reported on the story after visiting Iqbal Masih’s family. Based on the eye witness accounts and police reports Ikram reported that Iqbal Masih, while riding a bike in the fields with his cousins Liaquat Masih (10) and Faryab Masih (17), ran into a man having sex with a donkey. The man panicked and fired shots at the boys killing Iqbal, while injuring his cousins.

An inquiry by the HRCP also concluded that the carpet industry inPakistanwas not behind Iqbal Masih’s murder. Inayat Bibi, Iqbal Masih’s mother, also told Reuters that she did not believe her son was murdered by the carpet industry.

Since then, the story of Iqbal Masih’s death has taken a life of its own. Millions of dollars have been raised in his name to free children from bonded labour, to build schools, to dedicate daycares in his honour, and to stage plays against child labour. Every time Iqbal Masih is remembered, a false account of his death is reiterated creating more hardships for the struggling carpet weavers in Pakistan.

While millions have been raised in Iqbal Masih’s name, not a penny reached his destitute family. The Friday Times, a Lahore-based weekly, reported after Iqbal Masih’s death that his family had no knowledge of the thousands of dollars awarded to him in 1994 when he visited theUnited Statesto receive the Reebock’s Human Rights award.

Kielburgers have also run with Iqbal Masih’s story and have repeated ad nauseam the false version even when the true accounts were reportedly almost immediately after Masih’s tragic death. Writing in The Toronto Star in May 2007, the brothers again narrated the false account accusing the carpet manufacturers of Iqbal’s death. They wrote that “Iqbal Masih, a Pakistani child labourer turned child-rights activist … was killed for speaking out against the carpet industry that had him working in shackles at the age of 4.”

Free the Children website repeats the same false story about the carpet manufacturers threatening Iqbal Masih and his family. According to the website Iqbal Masih “travelled to Sweden and theUS to speak out against child labour. When he returned toPakistan in April 1995, Iqbal was shot and killed.”

It is difficult to comprehend why Kielburgers and the Canadian news media continue to portray a false account of Iqbal Masih’s death. Does the false account of his death make a better news story or help invoke the kind of response from potential donors that would generate millions in charity? The Kielburgers generated $23 million in donations in 2009 alone. According to the Globe and Mail, their not-for-profit real estate holdings in downtown Toronto exceed $11 million.

While Kielburgers have been generating millions in charity, the carpet weavers inPakistanhave been struggling. The damage done by Keilburgers to the already struggling economy ofPakistanis huge. Kielburgers refuse to realise that their well-intended, yet misguided, efforts  have prevented carpet weaving from growing inPakistanat a very opportune time.

Pakistanwas set to become a leading exporter of hand woven carpets in the mid-90s. After the Taliban took overAfghanistanin 1994, thousands of Afghan artisans fled toPakistan, including master carpet weavers.Pakistan’s carpet weavers were no match for the Afghans and over the years had lost to the competition from Afghanistan, Iran, and India. The arrival of Afghan carpet weavers inPakistanstarted a cottage industry and the craft started to expand from the Frontier Province to neighbouring Punjab.

The boom in carpet exports never materialised. Kielburgers’ campaign against child labour inPakistanand the news coverage of Iqbal Masih’s death at the hands of carpet manufacturers killed the very dream of a vibrant carpet weaving industry inPakistan, which could have provided millions of destitute households with food and shelter.

In April 1995 alone, export contracts worth $10 million were cancelled.Pakistanexported $205 million of carpets and rugs during 1995/96. A loss of $10 million for the carpet weaving industry was substantial. Exports of carpets fell in the next two years even when the prospects for growth had never been better; all this occurred because of a false story told thousands of times that painted an evil image of the carpet industry in Pakistan.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan through the Bonded Labour (Abolition) Act in 1992 declared bonded labour illegal and cancelled all obligations (debts) of bonded labourers to their employers. The implementation of the act though left much to be desired.

The Federal Bureau of Statistics in 1999 estimated 3.5 million child workers in Pakistan.

UNICEF and other government agencies estimate a large number of children are employed in carpet weaving in Pakistan. Most such children work alongside their parents on looms installed in their homes. A small per centage of looms are installed in factories. While child labour laws could be enforced in factories, the same could not be done for child workers employed in their homes.

Abject poverty forces parents to put their young children to work rather than sending them to schools. Working alongside their adult relatives, child workers in Pakistan weave carpets, stitch soccer balls, create embroidery, or work in the fields. They are the ‘fortunate’ ones because they remain under their parent’s watch while they work.

Banning child labour or boycotting products fromPakistanwould only make the lives of these children even harder. Out of work, these children will be forced into begging, prostitution, and now terrorism. A large number of suicide bombers inPakistanare young children who were handed over to the extremists by their parents who could not afford to even feed their children.

It would be foolhardy to push countries like Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan to enforce child labour laws. It would be even more misguided to boycott products from these countries. By doing so, the consumers and governments in the West would only perpetuate misery. A better option is to engage these countries in trade so that the parents of child labourers could find gainful employment. If the parents earn enough to feed and clothe their children, they would be more inclined to send their children to school rather than having them work.

Murtaza Haider, Ph.D. is the Associate Dean of research and graduate programs at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University in Toronto.  He can be reached by email at murtaza.haider@ryerson.ca