Watching the World

Tobacco-Using Toddlers

The addiction to smokeless tobacco by many students in junior and senior high school has long been known by researchers. Until recently, however, no information was available on the tobacco habits of elementary school students and preschoolers. A survey of 5,000 children by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has revealed that children as young as three years of age are addicted to tobacco products. Seventeen percent of the five-year-old girls surveyed and 10 percent of the boys within the same age bracket were found to have been using products like snuff for a year or more. According to Health Letter, published in Washington, D.C., “extensive advertising and distribution of free samples have made smokeless tobacco products” attractive and available to young users, many of whom cannot read warning labels required on all packaging. Smaller children have likely been introduced to such products by friends, older siblings, or even their parents.

Unemployed Graduates

“A university degree does not guarantee a job.” That was the conclusion drawn from a survey of the 1985 spring graduates from more than 15 universities in Ontario, Canada. These graduates had a 7.3-percent unemployment rate, essentially the same as the rest of the labor force in the province. They fared only slightly better than other workers in the same 20- to 24-year age group, whose rate of unemployment was 10.6 percent. Additionally, the survey showed that a degree is also no guarantee of equal pay for work.

Mountain Gorillas in Peril

“Unless we come to the aid of the mountain gorillas now,” warns the WWF (World Wildlife Fund), “these defenseless creatures may actually be wiped out within the very century they were discovered.” Why? Miners and loggers, reports the WWF, continue to destroy the Impenetrable Forest of southwestern Uganda​—home of almost one third of all mountain gorillas in the world. Furthermore, poachers are killing gorillas to supply the black market in live infants “and grotesque products like gorilla-hand paperweights.” During the last 20 years, almost half the entire mountain gorilla population has disappeared. Today, only about 400 of these shy and gentle African apes survive in the wild.

Alcohol Use Costly

Although some politicians believe that taxation on the sale of alcoholic products provides a net gain in government revenue, information now available argues otherwise. Barbara Coultes of the Addiction Research Foundation in Toronto, Canada, says that in Canada in one year “alcohol caused an extra $2-billion in health-care costs, . . . raised social welfare costs by $1.4-billion, [and] cost an extra $652-million in law enforcement.” It also “cut productivity on the job by an estimated $1.2-billion,” an aspect of costs not to be overlooked. Is all of that cost covered by alcohol tax revenues? In just the province of Ontario, costs ($1.6 billion) outstripped revenues ($678 million) by almost $1 billion in a recent year.

Solution Found

In Bethlehem, the annual general cleaning of the Church of the Nativity, which is said to stand over the site of Jesus’ birth, has finally been accomplished peacefully. In past years, fistfights and violent arguments erupted between the rival groups of priests, as the right to clean is regarded as a sign of ownership. How was it resolved? The press service of the World Council of Churches reports: “Following delicate negotiations by Israeli officials that lasted late into the night the two major parties in the dispute​—Greek (Eastern Orthodox) and Armenian (Oriental Orthodox) agreed to leave a disputed section high above the entrance to the Grotto of the Nativity uncleaned by either side.”

Name Choice

A new law on family names went into effect in Finland at the beginning of 1986. A wife was allowed to keep her maiden name when marrying, or both could adopt the wife’s surname. The results? According to the Population Register Center, almost 24,000 of the 26,000 couples wed last year chose the traditional way of using the husband’s last name. In almost 1,950 marriages, each partner kept his or her own surname. Only 116 couples chose the wife’s maiden name as their common name.

“Internal Jogging”

“Mirth and laughter affect most of the major physical systems of the body,” claims Dr. William Fry, an authority on the physiology of laughter. He told the New York Daily News that the muscle activity involved in laughing is the same as in exercising. Fry labeled laughing “internal jogging” that is beneficial even when faked. He explained that it doubles the heart rate for three to five minutes and works out the chest, neck, face, shoulder, abdomen, and scalp muscles. Fry claims that a hearty laugh reduces muscle tension and helps the body get rid of greater amounts of accumulated carbon dioxide. Other beneficial side effects are said to include the stimulation of the nervous system, the deadening of pain through the secretion of endorphins (the body’s natural analgesics), and the sharpening of the mental processes. “You can get really a good workout from it,” says Fry.

Coffee the Culprit?

The claim that coffee drinking increases the chances of getting heart disease is being challenged by Dr. Katsuhiko Yano of the Honolulu Heart Program. The research involved a 15-year study of 7,194 Japanese men, 6,055 of whom were coffee drinkers. According to Yano, increased coffee intake should have raised the risk of heart trouble. However, researchers in the program found that when other risk factors, such as tobacco smoking, were taken into consideration, the link between heart disorders and coffee consumption disappeared. The researchers conclude that heart disease among some coffee lovers could very well be the result of their tobacco use, not their coffee drinking.