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Between You and Me

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Talk about mixed emotions. That’s what we feel when we are driving along and suddenly see a deer running out from among the trees. They are beautiful and graceful animals, and we stop the car and point them out to our small children in the back seat, who are thrilled at the sighting, perhaps recalling Bambi. But there is a lot more to the deer story here in suburbia. 

Long Island is home to more than 20,000 white-tailed deer, and that number has been exploding because there haven’t been many threats — until now. As long as they could find enough food and survive particularly harsh winters, the occasional highway collision and the short hunting season, they were largely untroubled. 

However, they have been a nuisance to residents because they devour flowers and vegetable gardens. And while they can be the innocent carriers of an infected tick, whose bite causes the miserable Lyme disease, they are gentle enough souls who leap out of sight as humans approach.

Now it turns out that they may be a more serious problem to us. A new study in Iowa found that the deer seem to be contracting the coronavirus from humans and spreading it to one another. This means the deer could become a reservoir for deadly mutations of the virus that could then possibly be passed back to humans. In that event, another vaccine would have to be developed to target the new variant in much the same way as flu shots are modified from year to year. 

Researchers were astonished at how widespread the infection was among the deer population there, estimated at 80%. Deer hunters and others who handle deer (as road kill) are being urged to take precautions to avoid transmission, like wearing rubber gloves and a mask.

Researchers don’t know exactly how the deer get infected by humans, but they suggest it might occur when people in Iowa feed deer in their backyards, or through sewage discharges or anything partially chewed by an infected human, like a “splotch of chewing tobacco” that then might be licked by a deer. 

The study of the deer was led by veterinary microbiologists from Penn State, according to an article in The New York Times on November 9, and they were able to make their analysis by examining the lymph nodes of dead deer. But they have not yet been able to determine whether the animals were sickened by the pathogen. They also are going to examine other wild animals, especially mice, that live in close proximity to humans, to see if they too might carry the virus. 

There is well established research that shows some pathogens do move back and forth between animals and humans, including those that cause yellow fever and West Nile. And we do know our dogs and cats can get COVID-19.

Also in the news is something called epizootic hemorrhagic disease, transmitted by the EHD virus that can kill deer within 36 hours of infection. This often-fatal disease is transmitted by biting midges. We call them “no-see-ums.” Deer do not catch it from each other, nor can humans be infected by either deer or midges. But stricken deer bleed to death, especially in late summer and early fall when midges are abundant.

While there is no treatment for EHD, the first frost kills the midges, ending the outbreak. The virus was first confirmed in New York in 2007 with small outbreaks in the state’s northern counties, according to Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. By 2020, the affected deer were found in the lower Hudson Valley, in other states along the eastern United States, and also in zoos.

“The dead deer do not serve as a source of infection for other animals because the virus is not long lived in dead animals,” according to the Cornell Wildlife Health Lab. Suffolk County has 139 cases reported and 8 confirmed as of last week.

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METRO photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

One hundred years ago, it was the “Roaring Twenties.”

The Flappers were the icons then. They were women who shortened their skirts and shortened their hair. They wore makeup and looser clothing, smoked cigarettes in public, drank alcohol, drove cars, and otherwise reveled in what would have been considered unacceptable behavior in the past.

Oh, and then there was a more liberal attitude toward sexual behavior. It was, in a couple of words, more relaxed. Or so they say.

It seemed that after the carnage and sacrifices of World War I, the goal was to have fun. The Great War had dramatically changed lives, bringing women for the first time into the factories to replace the men, forcing them to manage the farms, making them the breadwinners on a national scale. They won the right to vote. When the men returned, they carried with them from across the Atlantic some of European culture and broader horizons.

It was a time of positivity, of innovation. A key word was “Modern.” Labor saving devices were invented, like the washing machine and vacuum cleaner. The radio came into its own and into living rooms. Thanks to the Ford Model T at $260 in 1924, cars became affordable, offering more freedoms. Credit became cheap, and the economy surged. Presidents Harding and Coolidge issued tax cuts; the stock market took off; people flocked to the cities where they drank, danced new dances, thrilled to jazz and partied. With prohibition came the bootleggers, making it all more exciting. This also gave birth to organized crime figures like Chicago’s Al Capone. By the end of the decade, it was estimated that three-quarters of Americans went to the movies every week. F. Scott Fitzgerald chronicled the decade in his novels.

Life was not all fun, however. An anti-Communist “Red Scare” gave rise to nativism and anti-immigration movements. Quotas were set that limited Eastern Europeans and Asians in favor of Northern Europeans and Brits. The Great Migration of African Americans from the Southern countryside to Northern cities was seen as a threat and gave a couple of million people impetus to join the Ku Klux Klan by the middle of the decade. Discriminatory hiring and housing practices led to urban ghettos. The horrific Tulsa Race Massacre took place in 1921. The NAACP moved into higher gear. Finally, in 1928, the first African American congressman since Reconstruction was elected to the House from Chicago.

There was what historians call a “cultural Civil War” as well. This consisted of city-dwellers versus small town residents, Protestants versus Catholics, Blacks versus whites and “New Women” versus those with old-fashioned family values.

Many of these themes are repeated a century later. Women, of course, are still working toward a more equitable playing field in the workplace and in politics. Our society has become more liberal, embracing gay marriage, for example, and health care reform. Connectivity, thanks to the internet and social media, defines us in a much more sophisticated, two-way fashion than the radio did. And technology innovation advances at a faster speed than most of us can catch up. Just as the assembly line revolutionized the production of cars, electrically powered self-driving vehicles are taking to the road. While indoor plumbing was replacing outhouses, today’s toilets can be connected to the internet and send up-to-the-minute diagnostic urine samples to physicians.

Just as there were threats then, we see them now. Will artificial intelligence or AI put those with lower skills out of work? There are still outcries against immigrants, attributing fears to them from COVID to taking away jobs. Climate change is a more powerful catalyst for environmental protection than Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir. The stock market and the economy have reached unimaginable heights. And while nationalist groups are longing for the imagined glorious past, activists are working toward national ideals that have never quite been realized.

We are just emerging from a kind of world war a century later, the villainous COVID-19 pandemic. How will our decade be named?

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Elections have ended and the newly elected and reelected officials are going to have to cope with a disturbing fact: people don’t trust government. This change in attitude has been a long time coming. It didn’t just happen suddenly. I know, I have lived through the change.

Trust started to fall apart with the Vietnam War. Maybe it even started earlier than that, with the assassination of President Kennedy.  I was in my early 20s then, just graduated from college, newly married, in my dream job, looking forward to an unbounded future filled with joyful events. The nation was at peace, there was a young and vigorous president talking about making life better with civil rights legislation, women were speaking up for themselves, it was a hopeful time.

Friday afternoon, a sunny day, business lunch in a midtown Manhattan restaurant with a television on over the bar in the distance, a movie playing about a president who had been shot in the head. But wait. Wait! It wasn’t a movie, it was a news broadcast from Dallas interrupting the regular programming, it was our president, everyone standing up, crying, paying their checks, rushing back to their offices, trying to deal with the unthinkable. 

How could this happen? How could Secret Service let this happen? In our country! A president, the President of the United States, could not be protected! Our bubble of safety was bursting, slowly, excruciatingly. Lee Harvey Oswald shot on television while under arrest. In what could you trust?

Who killed Kennedy? All kinds of conspiracy theories, the Warren Commission, an end but never a certainty. Was the government lying to us? Was there a cover-up?

Next came the Vietnam War. First only “advisors,” then military, then body counts, always more Viet Cong than Americans lay on the battlefields. Promises of progress and victory by the government, as casualties and numbers drafted rose. This even as Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara privately expressed doubts of victory as early as 1966. But President Johnson was afraid of losing the 1968 election should the United States withdraw. Instead we lost thousands of young men, all of which eventually was revealed to the public. Protests were the order of the day, and more violence, including the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert Kennedy and the chaos at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. What’s happening to the nation’s authority figures?

We rolled right into Watergate and Nixon’s resignation. Our President accused of being a liar and a crook. What’s left to believe in? President Jimmy Carter held hostage by the Iranians, the Iran-Contra deception of Ronald Reagan’s second term, Bill Clinton making Monica Lewinsky a household name around the globe. Then the Weapons of Mass Destruction lies by the senior administration officials manipulating us into the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Whom to believe? 

Whom to trust? Each lie, each governmental deception blew away more trust, leading to the climax: the disbelief in the COVID-19 vaccine. Even when ex-President Donald Trump urged his audience to get vaccinated on Aug. 21, in Cullman, Alabama, one of the areas struggling to cope with COVID cases and hospitalization, he was booed. “But I recommend take the vaccines,” Trump said. “I did it. It’s good. Take the vaccines.” After that experience, he hasn’t again mentioned vaccination at a rally. But the reaction wasn’t partisan. They were, like Trump, all Republicans who had come to hear him, It was symptomatic of the larger distrust in government.

I was in my early teens when I received the polio vaccination. Polio was a dreaded disease by parents the world over, more so as I remember, than COVID-19. Like today, we were discouraged from assembling in groups or joining crowds. The virus attacks the brain and spinal cord, leaving paralysis and even causing death. When Jonas Salk and his colleagues created the vaccine, we all lined up to take the shot. It was the Eisenhower years. We believed our president.

Those vaccines have eliminated polio from most of the world. That’s what approved vaccinations can do.

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Inside this issue is a treasure trove of first-hand information about the candidates and the issues in the coming election. How do I know? Because we, the different members of the editorial board of Times Beacon Record Newspapers, personally interviewed 25 people running for office across the three towns that we serve: Brookhaven, Smithtown and Huntington. The offices the candidates are running for are all local, which means that these are the officials who will have the most direct effect on our lives. 

The positions range this year from county legislators to town supervisors, town council, town clerk, district attorney and sheriff. We asked them questions without bias, seeking only to understand who they were, what they believed and what we could expect from each of them, should they be elected — or re-elected, as the case might be. The setting in our conference room was relaxed, and we hoped comfortable, with opponents for each office seated together around the table responding to questions put to them by our editors and reporters. 

Sometimes there were four candidates, sometimes only one who might be running unopposed or against a shadow opponent, but mostly there were two during each session. Most of the time, the hour goes by calmly, but occasionally the opponents get testy with each other — they may even become openly hostile.

At one such session some years ago, one of the candidates invited the other out to the back parking lot “to settle things.” When the other began to take off his jacket, we quickly intervened. But there were no such flare-ups this year. 

The answers were timed in an attempt to get to the main ideas without running on too long. There was ample time at the end for each visitor to tell us anything more that perhaps we hadn’t elicited with our questioning. 

We have written up the details of each interview in a separate article for the election section. And we discuss the candidates at the end of each hour and come to a conclusion for the endorsement. 

Most of the time, the editorial group was unanimous because the choices were fairly direct. But for a couple of races, we talked over the pros and cons of each candidate at length before making the selection. These endorsements are based on both the in-depth interviews and the considerable information we know about the incumbents since we have been covering them closely throughout their terms in office. Of course, after reading the stories, you may or may not agree with our conclusions. Our job is to get you thinking.

The many hours that are given to this task, throughout the month of October, are a service for our readers. We are privileged to enjoy an extended face-to-face time with those standing for election, and we feel an obligation to pass along whatever information, facts and impressions we gather during these sessions. We sincerely hope we help in the sometimes-difficult job of casting a responsible vote.

Each year we include in the election section a sample ballot that we are able to procure from the Suffolk County Board of Elections because readers have told us that it is a great advantage for them to receive the ballot at the voting poll already knowing how it is laid out.

Our editorial board is made up of staffers with different political leanings, but when we put our journalists’ hats on, we try to judge each race strictly on the merits of the opposing candidates. And while it is technically possible for me to be tyrannical about the final selections, that is almost never the case. We decide by majority rule.

Sincere thanks to the talented staff who join in this extra work each year. We truly believe that we are watchdogs for the people, and nowhere is that more necessary than in reporting about government and its office holders. We hope we have helped you, whether you read by newspaper and/or online. Now please vote.  

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Pixabay photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

There I was, tapping on my computer keyboard, when what sounded like a pneumatic drill started tapping right outside my window. I jumped up, ran down the hall, out the front door and around the house to be greeted by the sight of an unperturbed woodpecker.

Busily bobbing his beak into my shingles, he ignored me for a few seconds, despite my frantic hand waving and yelling, then cocked his head to see what the fuss was about. We looked at each other but he didn’t leave. I picked up a pine cone that had fallen on my driveway and threw it in his direction, along with a couple of words I wouldn’t repeat in polite company. Slowly, letting me know it was his idea, he flew away.

He left behind three black holes on the side of the house, each the size of a quarter. I went back inside to my computer, and then there he was again, rat-tat-tatting on the shingles. The words, “How much wood could a woodpecker peck if a woodpecker would peck wood?” passed through my mind as I again ran out the door and yelled. This time he moved away more quickly. I made a little pile of pine cones along the side of my driveway and returned to my computer. Not five minutes later, the scene repeated itself. I replenished my arsenal, knowing he would be back, and he was.

Good heavens, what was I to do, stand guard all day? What if I hadn’t been home? From the number and size of the holes, he had clearly been there before.

A truce seemed at hand. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed my neighbor. Yes, he was aware that there was an energetic woodpecker among us. In fact, hadn’t I heard? The neighbor on the other side of my house was having his wood shingles removed and replaced with vinyl that looked like wood but obviously didn’t taste the same. Maybe the culprit had just moved over to my shingles.

Next, I called my trusty neighborhood hardware store. Yes, they had heard of such a problem before and they did have one possible remedy, a roll of reflective tape for $7 that I should cut into 3-foot strips and hang from my house. 

We rushed down to get the tape and also bought a roll of twine.

Back home we did as instructed, knotted the red and silver streamers to the twine at five-foot intervals as if on a clothesline, then hung the entire line high up across the side of the house. We repeated the process for the front of the house where he had also started pecking. I am lucky to have saintly friends who executed these maneuvers on ladders for me. When it was done, we stood back and looked at the handwork. The house looked decorated for Halloween.

As you might expect of me, I researched “woodpeckers” on my computer and found four reasons that woodpeckers would carry on this way. The first was to make a “satisfyingly loud noise and proclaim that this was his territory and attract a mate.” Bully for him.

The other three explanations were less romantic but more practical: to find food in the shingles, especially larvae of carpenter bees, leafcutter bees and grass bagworms; to store food; for nesting.

I further found some good news, or at least some consolation. It seems that ancient cultures associated woodpeckers with luck, prosperity and spiritual healing. To other cultures they represented hard work, perseverance, strength and determination.  Woodpeckers are, apparently, among the most intelligent and smartest birds in the world.

More good news in the form of fortune cookie messages: When they appear, it is time to unleash one’s potential and change any situation to one’s best advantage. From woodpeckers one can imbibe the skills of being resourceful and determined. They encourage the power to unshackle ingenuity and creativity in those around them.

Well, now you know. Whatever success ensues, I will owe it to my woodpecker.

P.S. After one more short visit, he has not come back.

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Pixabay photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Who typically thinks about inflation?

Inflation is one of those words that cuts both ways. Low inflation is considered a desirable thing by borrowers and the Federal Reserve. A lot of inflation can be a disaster for the financial markets and for everyone’s pocketbook. 

Those who deal with money and work in finance keep an eye on inflation. After all, inflation refers to a general increase in the price of goods and services in the economy over time that corresponds with a decrease in what you can buy with the same amount of money. And if your money is going to be devalued, best keep that eye. 

Years ago, I learned a simple definition for inflation: too many dollars chasing too few goods. Because of disruptions in the supply of goods, demand has currently outstripped supply. You can tell that from some of the empty shelves at the stores. Consequently, when products or services are scarce, we pay more for what we can still get.

When that happens suddenly, we all pay attention to inflation. Pull up at the gas pump and fill your tank. What do you know? The price for the exact same gas that you used last month has gone up. Go into a restaurant and order your favorite dish. It now costs a little more. The proprietor has no choice but to charge more because he or she had to pay more for the ingredients, due to disruption in delivery. That’s inflation. The government tracks inflation with the Consumer Price Index, or CPI. They leave gas and food out of the Core Index because those tend to be more volatile from one month to the next. But we can’t leave them out. We have to pay for them.

So how are we doing with inflation now?

Initially, rising prices were thought of as transitory, the result of pent-up demand that was suddenly released with the drop in COVID cases and the increase in vaccinations, that would even itself out before long. But prices of goods and services are still up while supply continues to be disrupted. Additionally, people have had more money to spend on those goods and services as a result of the billions in government aid.

As of this week, the CPI was up 5.4%. That’s how much prices have increased in a year. This is well above the Fed’s targeted rate of two percent, but so far there seems little interest on their part to raise rates and slow inflation. Social security checks, which are intended to keep pace with inflation, will be up 5.9% next year, the most in four decades. When rates are raised, it costs more money to borrow, whether for business expansion or mortgages, and that works to slow down inflation and growth. It seems the Fed still believes present inflation will diminish when current disruptions fade. President Joe Biden (D) has announced plans to keep ports open 24/7 to try and ameliorate the supply delays. But trucks and truckers are also insufficient.

There are other, less obvious signs of inflation. I attended the New York Press Conference two weeks ago and stayed for three nights at a hotel in the center of Troy. For the same room rate, we had no room service, no one cleaned the bathroom or made the beds. Clean towels were left in a bag outside our door. Breakfast was included, but there was only coffee, some wrapped Danish and small containers of yogurt. When we asked for bread, we were told there had been no delivery for many days. So in essence, we were paying the same money but getting less, like the old trick of getting candy for the usual price but in a smaller box. That’s inflation, too.

What actions should we take?

We probably should do our holiday shopping now, while some of the gifts we want are still available and at current prices. We might want to nail down a mortgage rate soon if we are in the market. As for our investments, who ever knows?

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Pixabay photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

A good idea during this later stage of the pandemic is to have an at-home rapid COVID test, which indicates a result in 15 minutes. Sometimes you just don’t know whether it’s a simple cold that’s arrived and is making your throat sore, or if the situation is more dire and you need to seek help. Or perhaps you find that you have been exposed to someone who has now tested positive, and you want to check yourself accordingly. Or you are about to visit grandma and you want to be sure you are not carrying the pathogen to her. 

Besides the personal value, the tests can be an important public health tool, although for the moment demand is high and they are hard to find. I was able to locate two tests at a local drug store by calling around. They can be purchased at pharmacies for anywhere from $10 to $40 a test. The following are available without a prescription, according to The New York Times article, “At-Home COVID Tests: Valuable if Used Right,” in the issue of Oct. 5, and written by Emily Anthes: Abbott BinaxNOW, the Ellume COVID-19 Home Test (although there was some issue with this one yesterday), and the Quidel QuickVue At-Home COVID-19 Test. The tests “detect small viral proteins, called antigens,” and they “require rubbing a shallow nasal swab inside your nostrils, and then exposing the swab to a few drops of chemicals,” as described by the article. OraSure also makes them, among many other companies rushing their products to market.

While the manufacturers’ tests are fairly simple, their directions have to be followed carefully in order to provide a correct answer. And while their results are correct 85% of the time, the tests can give a false negative if taken too soon after exposure. Further, the tests are more sensitive to people with symptoms, especially during the first week, and when people are most infectious and can be actively transmitting the virus, according to Anthes.

The successful detection rate goes up to 98% when the tests are used repeatedly, say every three days for screening. But again, those with symptoms may test immediately, while those who have been exposed to the virus should wait 3-5 days to let the antigens accumulate in the nose, if they are there, before testing. In the event of a positive result, people should take the usual precautions: isolation, monitoring symptoms and calling for medical help if necessary. They should also get a second test to confirm the result.

Rapid COVID-19 tests are for sale in grocery stores for one euro (a bit more than a dollar) in Germany, and in Britain a pack of seven are free. Policymakers around the world realized that rapid tests were a valuable public health aide. We here in the United States must make them available and more cheaply so that we can know who is infected, who is a carrier and where the outbreaks are. President Joe Biden (D) has recognized this need and is working to make the tests accessible and more affordable. He needs to make the rapid tests official public health tools rather than medical devices. That would only take an executive order. And it would allow global manufacturers of COVID-19 tests to enter our market and immediately increase our supply.

According to a piece on the Opinion page of The New York Times in the Oct. 2 issue, written by experts Michael Mina and Steven Phillips, “Past economic analyses predicted that a major government-funded rapid testing program that reached every American could add as much as $50 billion to the gross domestic product and save tens of thousands of lives or more,”

There is, happily, bipartisan support for making all this happen. Vaccination plus rapid testing would mean no more unnecessary isolations, no more missed holidays with families, no more randomly closed schools or businesses. We would, in effect, be able to live with the bug.

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Help wanted sign in window

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Here is a possible answer to a couple of current questions. How to deal with the thousands of Afghans we have brought to our country ahead of the Taliban takeover and also those refugees from Central and South America who have massed at our border? That is one question. Another is how to respond to the ever-widening gap between the rising need for home health care workers and hospital aides, and the aging of the current United States population who will need such services?  And there are other such industries that urgently need workers, where there are not enough Americans to fill them.

Some of the immigrants may be well-educated or have needed skills. Those can probably be settled readily into American locations after they have been vetted and vaccinated. For those without obvious skills, the government will need to offer training, including English classes. The newcomers could be given a choice of what work they would want to do. Some may be or would like to be farmers, and we certainly need more workers in agriculture. Some may already be carpenters or landscapers or roofers or mechanics. If they can drive, we might be able to prepare them to drive trucks or buses, jobs that are going begging today. Perhaps they could help moving companies, which are understaffed and leaving customers stranded in their new homes waiting for their furniture to arrive. Some could help veterinarians, who are hugely overworked now by the many new pet owners who wanted companionship during the pandemic and acquired dogs, cats and other domestic creatures. 

Child care is a field that needs more workers. Mental health practitioners, overwhelmed by those experiencing anxiety, depression and stress could certainly use non-managerial help. So could both be teaching and non-teaching educational services, and sawmills turning out lumber for new construction and renovation, and textile mills trying to meet the sudden demand for back-to-school and back-to-work clothing places to welcome help. We have a desperate shortage of nurses in our country, both PNs and RNs. Hospitals, now newly reduced in their staffing because of the vaccine mandates, probably need help with basic services.

All of these positions, of course, would need varying degrees of training, and that in turn would offer new teaching jobs to the currently unemployed. Such programs would be no small task to organize, but it was doable during the Great Depression almost a century ago, and we can surely again put people to work where they are needed. Some of the jobs would be easier to prepare for than others. All could improve our economy, especially in areas with stagnant growth, and perhaps meet urgent needs.

I wonder if the federal government is thinking strategically when they place thousands of refugees in select communities. Currently, some 37,000 Afghans are at military installations in 10 states while other evacuees remain at overseas bases waiting to be processed, according to Nayla Rush, writing for the Center for Immigration Studies on Sept. 23. In total, the Biden administration has reported that over 100,000 Afghans were evacuated.

The top ten states receiving the newcomers, according to the Center, are California (5255), Texas (4481), Oklahoma (1800), Washington (1679), Arizona (1610), Maryland (1348), Michigan (1280), Missouri (1200), North Carolina (1169) and Virginia (1166). To coordinate this mammoth resettlement, President Joe Biden (D) appointed former Delaware Governor Jack Markell. He is also the former chairman of the National Governors Association and has held top positions in the private sector. 

“Nine religious or community-based organizations have contracts with the Department of State to resettle refugees inside the United States,” according to the Center, and they have final say on the distribution. These agencies, in turn, maintain nationwide networks of local affiliates to provide the necessary services. State and local officials are not involved and have no control over the program. Refugees are not resettled in states that do not have any local affiliates, which explains why some areas are skipped. 

Our country has a need of workers. Potential workers are entering the United States in significant numbers. Together that creates opportunity. We need some thoughtful and skilled management here.

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Otto Heinrich Warburg

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

There are two good stories in “Ravenous: Otto Warburg, the Nazis, and the search for the Cancer-Diet Connection.” The newly released book, by Sam Apple, is about the Nazi’s hunt for the cause of cancer and the remarkable support Hitler gave, before and during World War II, to Otto Warburg, a premier scientist, homosexual and Jew.

Hitler’s mother, possibly the only person he loved, died a painful death from breast cancer. Hitler, reportedly a vegetarian and a hypochondriac, periodically thought he was dying of cancer. Otto Warburg, who won the Nobel Prize in 1931 and had been nominated repeatedly for the prize during his career, did in-depth biochemical research on the metabolism of tumors, especially cancer cells. Despite Warburg’s several obvious drawbacks and outspoken criticism of Nazi values — he refused to have Nazi flags in his lab or offer the Nazi salute — Hitler protected him and allowed him to do his work.

Otto Heinrich Warburg, born in 1883 into a prominent family of bankers and scientists, first distinguished himself in the elite cavalry regiment, the Uhlans, during WWI. He won the Iron Cross for bravery and was still fighting at the front in 1918 when Albert Einstein, a close friend of his physicist father, wrote him a letter urging him to come home. Einstein told him that science needed him. That, combined with his breakthrough research before the war on sea urchins, and his aristocratic family, did much to solidify his lifetime arrogance.

He did return home, continued his distinguished work, and was named director of a Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin founded by the Rockefeller Foundation, designed by him in the Rococo style, in 1931. He proceeded with his investigations into the causes of cancer, which had been relatively rare until the 19th century but was exploding in numbers in the early 20th century. The German people, along with people in the United States and elsewhere, were terrified of the disease.

Warburg’s hypothesis was that cancer growth was caused by tumor cells generating energy (to reproduce) mainly by the anaerobic (no oxygen) fermentation of glucose. Healthy cells, by contrast, generate energy mainly from oxidative breakdown with the salt pyruvate in the mitochondria (part of the cell responsible for producing the cell’s energy.)  If you don’t understand those last sentences, it doesn’t matter. The point is that Warburg believed the primary cause of cancer was the replacement of the respiration of oxygen in normal body cells with the fermentation of sugar. Therefore the culprit: SUGAR. 

Today the understanding of the cause of cancer is mutations in oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes that lead to a malignant transformation. The metabolic changes in cells that Warburg observed were not causative, today’s scientists believe, but the result of those mutations.

Warburg’s work offered support for the role of metabolism in the mitochondria in aiding tumor suppression. He oversimplified the complex interactions between the mitochondria and the cell nucleus, between metabolism and mutations.

After the war, Warburg did come to the United States, but his self-important personality, his tyrannical behavior in the lab, his imperiousness with his peers and finally his inability to admit error, all helped to push his research out of sight. He ultimately returned to Switzerland.

In the 1960s, scientific attention turned to the newly defined DNA and cancer-causing genes. Only with the new century has there been a metabolism revival and attention to the role of insulin and the link with obesity.

The book offers us interesting history, both about the Nazis and scientific research into the causes of cancer. Reading it will certainly make us think about what we eat.

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METRO dinner

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Here are some ways to spice up our lives. I’ve done this all my adult cooking life, and I recommend the concept. I have added store-bought sauces to otherwise bland foods, like eggs, chicken and some fish. Please read on as I explain. 

How did I happen upon this technique, you might wonder? It was a solution born of desperation over 50 years ago. I was to be married in two weeks, and my roommate at the time asked me what I was going to cook for my new husband the first night. Cook? I only knew how to boil water. It hadn’t occurred to me, although tradition at the time had it, that I was to be the cook in this pairing. 

When I panicked, she calmed me down by asking what my fiancé’s favorite meal was. “Breaded veal cutlet,” I remembered, and for the next 10 days, at dinner, she tutored me on the fine art of making that, along with a salad of greens with store-bought dressing, and spaghetti with some bottled red sauce. I then sailed into marriage prepared and duly impressed my groom with my culinary skills. 

Soon enough, we came to the menu for the second night. Again panic. I had to sit down and figure this one out. I was working and didn’t have time to digest the thick book, “Joy of Cooking,” that some kind soul had given us as a wedding present — at least not yet. Prepared foods for takeout were not invented. There were Swanson frozen dinners, but that suggested I was really inadequate.

What to do?

I thought about how I had made that first meal. I used bottled dressing to flavor the salad and also bottled sauce for the spaghetti. I wondered what other sauces might be available on the supermarket shelves. That’s when I found duck sauce. Reading the label, I saw their suggested uses; one was with chicken. Inspired, I rushed to buy a whole chicken that I brought back to our new apartment, poured all the duck sauce over it, and popped it into the oven at 375 degrees as instructed by the amused man behind the supermarket meat counter. I kept checking it, and when it looked like it was done, I served it, along with more salad.

“Wow!” my new husband exclaimed. “I didn’t know you could cook!” I was launched.

I will confess to having learned a few more things about cooking since then, including how to read a recipe, but my affection for bottled sauces continues to this day. To further my repertoire, I have gleaned the following information from a consumer publication called, “Bottom Line,” that has proven its value sufficiently to earn my ongoing subscription dollars. The article, written by Jay Weinstein, a member of the Institute of Culinary Education, is headlined, “Make Mundane Meals Instantly Exotic, with these international bottled sauces,” offers nine suggestions, and pretty much all of them appeal to me.

First, there are some Asian possibilities: banana sauce, “the ketchup of the Philippines, … usually sweet, with subtle tropical flavors,” good on any foods from omelets to whatever comes off the grill. Anther is gochujang, a dark red paste made of red chili peppers, rice powder and fermented soy beans — tangy, spicy, salty & slightly fruity — good added to eggs, noodles, dumplings or ham. Then there is kecap manis, “an excellent marinade or glaze for meat, seafood or vegetables.” Oyster sauce will add “an unmistakable Asian flavor” and will transform hamburger. Ponzu is tangy and bright and offers “a lively citrus note” to dishes. Thai peanut sauce is a particular favorite of mine. It is a good marinade, and I happen to like it on noodles. 

Then there are what the author classifies as European Sauces: aioli, “a Mediterranean mayonnaise with garlic … drizzled over vegetables or seafood”; ajvar (pronounced “aye-var”) of “roasted sweet red peppers, eggplant and … tomato.” Use atop baked potato, meatloaf and pasta or for potato salad; and Maggi seasoning, for noodles or roast chicken “or mix a little into soup.”

There are lots more, but I think I should stop. While I probably have incurred the wrath of gourmet cooks, who make everything from scratch, perhaps I have helped some new brides … or grooms.

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