Letters

How to Keep the Doctor Away

"As we teach children to read and add at a young age, so should we teach them the values and methods of a healthy lifestyle." JOE HERZOG Fresno, Calif.

Kudos for your special report [STAYING HEALTHY, Jan. 21]. As a certified pediatric nurse practitioner, I am constantly preaching to families that the real trick to not getting sick is eating healthy, getting vaccinated and exercising. If we can get more kids and their families to follow this advice, the next generation of adults will be healthier. KATHY FERTIG Santa Fe, N.M.

There is no shortcut to a healthy life. Each of us already possesses the most effective health and fitness device available--the brain--and needs only the good sense and will power to use it. Our health is our vehicle to the future. Mistreated, it gets us there with flat tires and dents--or not at all. DAVID A. LEGGOE Barrington, N.J.

How many people are going to seek out healthy foods when they are not prevalent in our most visible eateries, the fast-food joints? SARA D. HAUBER Chicago

Americans should wake up to the frightening level of risk at which we have placed our children. The best solution is to require every schoolchild in the country to be enrolled in a physical education class. As we teach children to read and add at a young age, so should we teach them the values and methods of a healthy lifestyle. Just as we have upgraded literacy programs in our schools, let us improve our physical education classes. JOE HERZOG Fresno, Calif.

--The woman with the healthy glow on our cover caused quite a stir among you. Not all the comment she inspired was complimentary. "Good health is not about being pretty," declared a Californian. "It means being fit and empowered, qualities that stereotypically pretty women do not necessarily embody." The majority of readers, however, were enthusiastic fans. "If Helen of Troy was blessed with such a face," wrote a Floridian, "then I sympathize completely with the behavior of Paris." Allowed an Alabaman: "She may be the healthiest person I've ever seen." Office workers in Indiana asked, "We're racking our brains--who is she? How can we call her?" Our cover girl is model Deirdre Seltzer, but her phone number we're keeping private.

A Hopeful Sign

Your article "Vaccines Stage A Comeback" [STAYING HEALTHY, Jan. 21] summed it up perfectly: "Vaccines are the great prevention success story of modern medicine." Rather than a fading technology, vaccines are a present wonder and, with new biotechnology developments, will help conquer a wider range of infectious diseases. A recent renewal of interest in the benefits of vaccines is a hopeful sign that researchers who are continuing to investigate the potential of new vaccines will receive public support and the investment needed to fuel their work and inspire even greater developments. DON L. DOUGLAS, PRESIDENT SABIN VACCINE INSTITUTE Washington

Long Life? It's Not So Good

In his story "Can We Learn To Beat The Reaper?" [STAYING HEALTHY, Jan. 21], Jeffrey Kluger wrote, "You're born, you grow up, you produce some young, then you get out of the way and leave room for the generation coming along." Kluger has struck on a profound law of senescence. The awesome force of evolution would long ago have selected for a longer human life-span if this strategy provided a better means to secure the success of our progeny. In fact, the reality is exactly the opposite: if we were to live substantially longer than we are useful in producing and protecting offspring, we would rapidly consume the resources needed for the survival of our children. The goal of medicine should be to increase life expectancy in countries where it is far too short and to enhance the quality of life. A wholesale extension of the maximum human life-span would accelerate overpopulation and, ultimately, overwhelm the biosphere. JONATHAN A. FRIEDMAN Rochester, Minn.

Power Chow

Your article "10 Foods That Pack A Wallop" illustrated the benefits of a vegetarian diet [STAYING HEALTHY, Jan. 21]. With the exception of salmon, all the foods listed that have powers to prevent ailments are from the plant kingdom. And, by the way, organic flaxseeds are a rich vegetarian source of the healthy fat omega-3, without the possible contaminants from pollution that can be present in fish. Science is finally learning what vegetarians have known for years. STACEY I. JEMISON Lauderdale, Miss.

Unabashed Borrowing

As a magazine editor, I wasn't all that surprised to read Roger Rosenblatt's take on historian Stephen Ambrose's brush with plagiarism [VIEWPOINT, Jan. 21]. The vast amounts of information available on the Internet provide endless opportunities for free "cut-and-paste" material. In one year, my publication caught three writers who had lifted--almost directly--Internet information for use in their stories. One rather well-known writer had the audacity to appropriate an exquisite passage from the works of Isak Dinesen and weave it into his own story--unattributed, of course. Plagiarism never fails to induce a feeling of shock and deep disappointment. Fellow writers, editors and teachers, please continue to preach the word: plagiarism is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong! JACKSON MAHANEY Lebanon, Ind.

While recognizing the importance of diligent attribution, the nation should also honor and respect Ambrose's contribution to our understanding of the 20th century. He told the story well and has put the heroes and near heroes of World War II into clear focus before they vanished into the mists of history. FREDERIC E. MOHS Madison, Wis.

The printed word will remain one of the indelible markers for our life and times. It is essential to maintaining a modicum of integrity that we acknowledge, honor and respect the contributions of individuals. The failure to do so by an author as esteemed and talented as Ambrose is disappointing to say the least. JACLYN NELSON Los Angeles

The Collapse of Enron

Well-paid enron executives sold their inflated stock for millions, while low-level employees were prevented from selling theirs [NATION, Jan. 21]. This would be criminal if the executives knew the company was hiding huge debt. The problem is, we have seen this before. When it becomes routine for corporations to donate big bucks to both political parties and then seek bailouts, when workers get fleeced, while CEOs make more than an entire nation's GNP, our system has become horribly corrupt. Perhaps it is time for the kind of patriotism that inspires citizens finally to say Enough is enough. LANCE MOORE Monroeville, Ala.

The hardworking american middle class should not tolerate or condone behavior like Enron's. If things like this are allowed to continue, it will be our hard-earned savings that will next end up in the CEOs' pockets. LYNN A. MALDONADO North Branch, Minn.

Live and Let Live

Your article on Michael Jordan's comeback mentioned his pending divorce from his wife Juanita [SPORT, Jan. 21]. You included a bird's-eye photographic view of their sprawling 25,000-sq.-ft. home. Juanita could easily let Michael live in some obscure, out-of-the-way 10,000-sq.-ft. corner of the complex, and would never even notice he was around. Still, that might not be fair, as she would be left to make ends meet with just a few hundred million dollars. What is the world coming to! IVAN PAGANACCI Plantation, Fla.

Jordan is a basketball player, nothing more. So, he's getting divorced. Who cares? And gee, it's nice to see that he's got enough cash to live in something that looks like the Mall of America. Fire fighters, police officers, surgeons, garbagemen and anybody else useful to society are more interesting than Jordan and his league of overpaid, ungrateful cronies. JACK REGAN Hamburg, N.Y.

Corrections

In the story "Walk, Don't Run," on the benefits of walking as exercise [STAYING HEALTHY, Jan. 21], we referred to a Harvard School of Public Health study that found "those who walked the most--20 hours or more per week" have a 40% decreased risk of a stroke caused by a clot. The correct figure is six hours or more.

Our "For The Record" item on radioactive nuclear waste that will be buried in Yucca Mountain, Nev. [NOTEBOOK, Jan. 21], referred to the Energy Secretary as Abraham Spencer. The correct name is Spencer Abraham. In the same item, we said the buried waste will remain radioactive for 10,000 years. Instead, the figure 10,000 is the number of years of storage the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Environmental Protection Agency require to meet radiation-protection standards.