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June 6-12, 2002 mailbag Letters to the Editor
I’ll See Your Au Pair…I am writing about the article "The Nanny Chronicles" by Trish Boppert (Cover story, May 30). I wish to correct one misstatement about husbands hitting on the nannies. I did indeed say that I have heard about some instances of same, but never said that I heard about it many times. Within our agency, America's Nannies, we have had only one incident since 1984. I also wish to comment about the few words said about the au pair program in America. The concluding sentence said that it could be a very nice experience for both family and au pair. And, indeed it can. Unfortunately, most au pairs come here to see the country, go to school and do a bit of child-care work in exchange for living with a family. That is indeed how the program is marketed in Europe and elsewhere where the au pairs come from. Unfortunately, in the states, the program is marketed as "alternative child care" with child care -- not the exchange program -- being the critical issue. Hence, you have apples and oranges in expectations, causing serious problems in hundreds of situations each year. Au pairs are NOT required to speak fluent English; they are required to have a very limited amount (40 hours) of baby-sitting experience. They drive on international driver's licenses -- a very dangerous situation unless they get a state license within 30 days. Au pairs are limited to 45 hours of work, which is an impossible number if parents work and commute more than 15 minutes to the job each way. Of course, most employers of au pairs are not interested in the rules, they simply hire au pairs because they believe them to be less costly. Ask the parents of the child who burned alive when his au pair couldn't speak enough English to call the fire department if the savings was worth it. We all know, of course, about Louise Woodward, and there are sadly many more cases to speak of. Au pairs are limited in the age of the children they can care for. They may not stay on the job for more than one year. Boppert left out one very important statement I made. The most important part in finding a quality nanny and making a solid match with a family is absolute 100 percent honesty on both sides. Those families who practice 100 percent honesty and keep to a very accurate implementation of that description are virtually assured of a good match and a mutually beneficial relationship with their nanny. Bob Mark Wrong Again, VinnyState Sen. Vince Fumo says Councilman Michael Nutter's anti-college-student bill (News, "Political Notebook," "College Down," Mary Patel, May 30) is not unconstitutional "as long as it regulates all students and is applied uniformly." The bill as it was passed only applies to students in Nutter's district, so it has to be unconstitutional. It's nutty stuff like this that drives college graduates from Philadelphia (80 percent leave). Bill Deane Trickle-Down DavidI was reading Dan Brook's "Hall Monitor" column over breakfast today when I came upon Councilman David Cohen's comments regarding his bill to cut the wage tax for the city's poor ("Scrooged," May 30). His contention is that the tax cut would be positive because "if residents of blighted neighborhoods got a tax break, they would spend their money locally and boost struggling neighborhood businesses." Did I read that right? Is well-known liberal Councilman David Cohen actually proposing a Reagan-style supply-side tax cut? I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks. Councilman Cohen, if a tax cut will help businesses by giving the poor more to spend, how about helping all neighborhood business by supporting a broad-based tax cut for everyone? Jonathan Goldstein Republican Candidate, 182nd District Pennsylvania General Assembly Planet MercuryPlease give an A+ to Juliet Fletcher for her excellent article titled "Biting Back" (Cover story, May 23). My health would have been different if my mother had heard the "M" word 40 years ago. If our old family dentist told my mother that he was putting mercury fillings into my mouth, she would not have allowed a poison in my mouth. Our old family dentist used the phrase "silver amalgam," so my mother thought that dental fillings were safe. You have shared more honest information about dental fillings than the majority of dentists and the American Dental Association by using the "M" word: MERCURY. You did a wonderful thing by sharing the truth about mercury dental fillings with your readers -- THANK YOU! Mary Ann Newell In his response to your courageous cover story "Biting Back," the "facts" presented by Dr. Richard Tananis are without basis in truth (Mailbag, May 30). He, like the majority of American dentists, has been duped by his own organization, the American Dental Association (ADA), which has claimed for 150 years that the 50 percent mercury used in "silver" amalgam fillings is safe and has no ill effects on health. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has never tested the safety of mercury amalgam, which was grandfathered in as the standard of practice. Yet numerous studies prove mercury leaches from amalgam: the 1999 mercury report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR; order from 888-422-8737); the 1991 World Health Organization's report documenting that "dental amalgams constitute the major human exposure to mercury"; and a 1998 National Institutes of Health study of 1,127 military personnel, published in the Journal of Dental Research, showed the major contributor to mercury body burden was dental amalgams. A German study of aborted fetuses correlated the level of mercury in the fetal brain with the number of amalgams in the mother's teeth. An amalgam-filled tooth thrown into a pond could poison everything in it. Research linking mercury fillings to Alzheimer's disease and other autoimmune diseases is irrefutable. Consumers trust that the FDA and the ADA have tested it for safety. They haven't. The standard reply of most dentists when questioned is "there are no studies." They just haven't read them. Why has Norway recently joined Sweden in stopping the use of amalgam? Why the global concern for mercury in fish and air pollution but not in fillings? Besides deceiving the public for 150 years, the American Medical Association, accepting the ADA's stance, does not train physicians to recognize the complexity of symptoms of mercury poisoning from autoimmune diseases to birth defects. Few doctors look into a patient's mouth when diagnosing. Yet dentists who tell patients the truth about the dangers of amalgams risk losing their licenses. Just as the tobacco industry lied for years about the safety of cigarettes, so has the ADA lied to consumers about amalgam. "Biting Back" is an important step in stopping this dental genocide. For further information, contact Dental Amalgam Mercury Syndrome (DAMS, 800-311-6265, www.amalgam.org), Consumers for Dental Choice (610-649-2606 www.toxicteeth.org) as wells as these Web pages: www.altcorp.com/amalgampage.htm, www.bioprobe.com. Freya Koss Regarding your article on dental amalgam and the dentist's letter in response, I appreciate the article, but the dentist should have provided some documentation if he was going to make claims. It is well-documented in the medical/dental literature (peer-reviewed studies) that dental amalgam is the largest source of mercury in most people who have amalgam dental fillings, and amalgam is the largest source of both inorganic and methyl mercury. Studies and clinical tests find that inorganic mercury and mercury vapor are methylated in the mouth and intestines by bacteria and yeast, to methyl mercury, which is extremely toxic. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) drinking-water standard is 2 parts per billion due to mercury's extreme toxicity -- but it's documented that people with amalgam get much higher levels of exposure, often over 100 times the EPA and FDA and ATSDR and Occupational Safey and Health Administration health guidelines for mercury. Hundreds of thousands of medical-lab tests confirm the results of peer-reviewed studies that those with amalgam get 10 times as much exposure on average as those with no amalgam. And peer-reviewed studies and thousands of clinical cases confirm that adverse effects from amalgam are very common and widespread. And tens of thousands are confirmed to have recovered from chronic conditions after amalgam replacement. For documentation, see www.home.earthlink.net/~berniew1/indexd.html Bernie Windham Tallahassee, Fla. | ||||||||||||||||||
