New York extends filing deadline for 9/11 rescue workers seeking compensation

New York state has reopened the window for workers and volunteers seeking compensation for lost wages and medical benefits arising from their involvement in the rescue, recovery and clean-up at the World Trade Center after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.

A law signed by the Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo, on Sunday, the 15th anniversary of the attacks that caused the collapse of the twin towers in lower Manhattan, extends the claims filing deadline until 11 September 2018. It lapsed two years ago.

“We still feel the pain and the loss like it was yesterday, and the thousands of brave men and women who stepped up in our darkest hour are still grappling with the after-effects,” Cuomo said at the signing in Manhattan.

The law also authorizes new claims for related injuries and illnesses since the attacks through this year’s anniversary for workers’ compensation, disability and accidental death benefits that were disallowed because of late filing.

This weekend, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) at the time of 9/11, former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman, told the Guardian she was sorry for the agency’s advice in the aftermath of the attacks that the air around Ground Zero in New York was safe to breathe.

“Whatever we got wrong, we should acknowledge and people should be helped,” she said, adding that she still “feels awful” about the tragedy and its aftermath.

“I’m very sorry that people are sick,” she said. “I’m very sorry that people are dying and if the EPA and I in any way contributed to that, I’m sorry. We did the very best we could at the time with the knowledge we had.”

Dr Jim Melius, a member of the advocacy group 9/11 Health Watch, said: “Within the next five years we will be at the point where more people have died from World Trade Center-related illnesses than died from the immediate impact of the attacks.”

Almost 3,000 people were killed on 9/11 in attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon outside Washington, and in the crash of a fourth hijacked airliner in a field in Pennsylvania.

Melius, who is also a doctor at the New York State Laborers Union, an adviser to the White House on worker health and chair of the steering committee overseeing the government health program for 9/11 responders, added: “There are a lot of people who are very, very ill with lung disease who will see at least 10 years taken from their normal life span.

“We are already seeing many more premature deaths occurring, and among younger people, from the cancers. There is going to be a new generation of widows and widowers.”

At the bill signing on Sunday, Sal Turturici, who attended in a wheelchair, said of the extension: “It’s going to help a lot of people who are in harm’s way right now. They’re on the end of losing their benefits because they’re running out of time or running out of any grants or any kind of time to get to extend their pay, so they’re falling off the payroll.”

Turturici’s wife, a fire department paramedic like her husband, said he was diagnosed on 4 October with terminal cancer. Wendi Turturici said Cuomo had given her hope that she can take care of their three young children and give her husband peace.

Thousands of people who aided in the rescue and recovery effort were found to have respiratory ailments and other health problems in the years after the attacks. Cancer has remained the biggest fear for people exposed to the gritty soot at the site.

New York extends filing deadline for 9/11 rescue workers seeking compensation

9/11 health crisis continues: New York cleaner fights cancer 15 years later

On September 11 2001, Merita Zejnuni began her shift at 7am, cleaning offices at Goldman Sachs on Maiden Lane in lower Manhattan. At 8.46am, she was in an internal stairwell. She didn’t hear a hijacked passenger jet slamming into the nearby north tower of the World Trade Center.

At 9.03am, though, she was on the 31st floor of her building. She saw a large plane speed past the window. It was the second hijacked jet, and it crashed into the south tower. Soon after, with sickening roars, the twin towers came down. Outside the Goldman Sachs office, the sky went dark.

“I was screaming,” she said, “screaming ‘We are going to die,’ the stuff was crashing on the window, probably it was pieces of bodies and planes and building, and so many papers, papers …”

Terrified office workers came pouring into the building, many covered in ash and soot. Zejnuni, who is now 52, handed out small towels and paper face masks and helped people clean themselves up. Then all the bankers began trying to make their way home.

“In one hour, the building was empty,” she said.

The boss of her cleaning company asked her and a few others to stay, to clean up. She did not sleep or go home for two and a half days, after which she was reunited with her 12-year-old son at their apartment in Queens.

In the days and nights she cleaned, she said, she had no masks left to use herself and no access to a shower or clean clothes. Soldiers stationed on the street outside gave her food. She was covered in dust; it filled her mouth and throat.

“It was disgusting,” she said. “I looked like a ghost. I was gray from head to foot.”

She took a day off, then came back to work.

Two months ago, despite an excellent health history and no record of cancer in her family, Zejnuni was found to have breast cancer. She has never smoked, but the doctors told her she also had a spot on her lung.

Two weeks before she sat down in Central Park to talk to the Guardian on Thursday night, she had a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction using flesh from her abdomen. She was already back at work.

‘I would cough so violently, like an old lady’

Smoke and ash engulf lower Manhattan on September 11 2001. Photograph: Greg Semendinger/AP

Zejnuni is one of many ordinary workers who dealt with the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks but who have never been publicly hailed as heroes like the firefighters, cops and workers who cleared the wreckage itself.

Certified as sick by the federal World Trade Center Health Program, created by the federal government in 2011, she sometimes still wheezes.

“In 2003, I got a painful cough,” she said. “I would cough so violently, like an old lady.”

Thousands are suffering in a post-9/11 health crisis. Many have died or are dying, despite government officials insisting in 2001 that the air in lower Manhattan was safe.

After the towers fell, Zejnuni managed to get a call through to her sister. “I told her, if anything happened to me, to look after my son,” she said.

Some time after 9/11, her company put her on night shifts, working virtually alone. Zejnuni said she asked her union if they could arrange for her to work days, as she was traumatized by her experiences after the attacks.

“A guy there told me, ‘Oh, that 9/11 bullshit – you’re lucky to have a job,’” she said. “I had to carry on working nights.”

Zejnuni moved to the US from her native Albania in 1997 and earned US citizenship. On 9/11, when she was asked to stay in lower Manhattan and work while most fled, she agreed because, she said: “I saw the army outside and I thought, ‘Let’s clean up in this country that opened its doors for me and gave me opportunity. I would give my life for this country.’”

For six years, her chronic cough was barely treated. Her chest was so painful, and her post-9/11 anxiety so acute, that although she never stopped working, she became depressed, drank too much and even contemplated suicide, she said.

Finally, she saw a poster on the train about specialist healthcare for 9/11 survivors. In 2009, she began receiving treatment at Mount Sinai hospital, one of the main centers looking after those affected by the attacks of 15 years ago.

“The doctors and nurses treated me like a human being,” she said. She stopped drinking and her self-confidence began to return. In October, she will consult with her doctors again, to assess the state of her cancer.

“I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me,” she said. “I just want to work, but sometimes my body makes it difficult. I think back to those soldiers standing outside in the debris. They were so young and they would smile and say, ‘Hello, ladies.’ I wonder if they are even still alive.”

9/11 health crisis continues: New York cleaner fights cancer 15 years later

Brains and bone saws: a day with the chief medical examiner of New York City

The smell in the autopsy room is indescribable. It lingers on your clothes and in your hair long after you leave. Staff are constantly cleaning the linoleum floors and wiping down every surface with harsh disinfectants. But if anything, it adds to the uniquely acrid odor.

You never get used to the smell, says Jennifer Hammers, deputy chief medical examiner for Kings County, New York – but you do get beyond it.

I’ve been allowed a privileged glimpse at a regular Wednesday in the Brooklyn office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York City. The office is one of the busiest of its kind in the country.

Around 70,000 people die in New York City each year, and about 8,000-9,000 of them end up at the medical examiner, requiring further investigation. Of those, 5,000 are autopsied.

Barbara Sampson, Chief Medical Examiner of New York City Photograph: Ben Zucker for the Guardian

Only the lonely

In the basement, the staff are hard at work in the autopsy suite, carefully examining the bodies and photographing relevant organs for their reports.

Most cases brought to the medical examiner are not crime related. In a city of over 8 million people, with many immigrants and transplants from other parts of the country, there is no shortage of the lonely.

Of the seven bodies brought in today, three have died alone in their apartments. In the summer, without air conditioning, it can take as little as two days before the smell of a body causes neighbors to make a call.

One gentleman found alone in his home is now lying before me on a steel gurney. James Daniels, a lead forensic mortuary technician, is carefully removing the scalp before cutting the skull with a bone saw so the brain can be examined for any signs of aneurysm, stroke or other potential causes of death.

An examination table in the “decomposition room” Photograph: Ben Zucker for the Guardian

Over 60 forensic mortuary technicians like Daniels work in New York City. While the 31 medical examiners in New York City are all highly trained physicians who completed special fellowships, technicians don’t have any educational requirements.

Typically, technicians join when they are young and only have a high school education. They learn the intricacies of their job on site. Without them, the office would cease to function. They are the ones dispatched to collect the bodies for autopsy. They are often the first people from the office a family encounters when grieving.

Being the doctor’s doctor

In addition to the medical examiners, there are x-ray technicians who scan for bullets and broken bones; DNA and toxicology laboratory staff; consulting dentists for matching dental records for identification; anthropologists who specialize in discovering the race, age and height of skeletal remains and figuring out what tools caused blunt force traumas; mortuary technicians who assist with autopsies; a variety of administrators; death scene investigators; and professional photographers who take careful photos of every autopsy for detailed record keeping.

One of the photographers on staff also takes professional photos of food, Hammers tells me with a smile.

While the doctors examine the body and determine the cause of death, the technicians do a lot of careful and very skilled cutting to assist them. They also clean the bodies after the autopsy is completed, making sure that it is in a pristine state when handed over to a funeral director.

For Daniels, who started with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner as a young man in 1989, it was an unexpected career choice, as he hated the idea of being around dead bodies and avoided funerals entirely.

Most of the medical examiners, on the other hand, said they always loved the idea of solving a mystery, of being “the doctor’s doctor”. They wanted to be the ones to determine the real cause of a death or diagnose a pathology.

Nadia Bissette-Dolor, who works in the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York City, stands by a window used by families to identify bodies of the deceased. She says family members rarely ask to view the body, but a small number do. Photograph: Ben Zucker for the Guardian

Daniels had a more pragmatic reason for joining the office: he needed a job, and working for the city meant stable employment. When he first started, he dreaded touching bodies and entering strangers’ homes. It was fear of the unknown, he explains. But these days, working as a lead technician, there is little left unknown when it comes to the dead.

Daniels was on the job during 9/11. He also responded to Flight 587, which crashed in Queens in November 2011, killing everyone on board. That time created his worst memories of the job. But it also gave him the greatest sense of the work’s importance: none of those families would otherwise have had closure. He now “loves the job”, he says.

The case that hits home

No matter how long they have been working at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and how many bodies they have seen, everyone has a case that hits home.

For Barbara Sampson, the chief medical examiner for New York City, it was a 9/11 case. The terror attack on 9/11, which Sampson refers to as the biggest homicide in US history, was a difficult time for all of the staff at the office. They worked round the clock to identify bodies, and the images they saw still haunt most of them fifteen years later.

Identification often had to be done from DNA analysis of fragments of remains and is still ongoing as new DNA techniques are discovered.

One particular case sticks out for Sampson: a Belgian man who died during the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. His parents were elderly, and while they knew that he had died, without official scientific confirmation, they could not get closure. His remains had not been identified. They were afraid they would pass away never having his death confirmed.

Two years ago, Sampson’s office was able to identify the Belgian man’s remains through DNA analysis. “I had the honor of telling them we had found their son. That was one of the most incredible experiences of my life,” she says. Thirteen years after 9/11, the parents could finally put their son to rest.

The desk of the Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Photograph: Ben Zucker for the Guardian

For Aglae Charlot, an elegant senior medical examiner with a pronounced French accent who has worked at the office since 1987, it was a teenage girl who came in a few years back. The girl died in the hospital of an unusual illness, from which her mother also suffered. The illness can be idiopathic or caused by Aids. The hospital had assumed it was idiopathic since the mother had the same illness.

When Charlot investigated, she found the teenager did actually have Aids, which she must have been suffering from for five or six years.

Upon further investigation, she discovered the mother’s boyfriend had died of Aids.

Infecting a child and causing her death is murder, she explains to me, her jaw tensing. Charlot knew she could probably trace the particular strain of Aids back to the boyfriend, but what would it change? He was dead, so could not be charged, and it would only cause more pain for the living. She put Aids as the cause of death on the certificate, and left it at that.

Seeing the lighter side

“We all have an odd sense of humor,” says Christopher Brock, a bearded young medical examiner sitting in front of a file cabinet covered by photos of his wife and two young children. “We are often smiling, and I think you have to when you are surrounded by this every day.”

In Hammers’s office, her crooked playfulness is on display in a framed, fake blood-spattered sign above her desk that reads: “Braainns.”

Humor can provide a release in an environment that is fraught with stress. “One of the things a lot of people don’t realize is that we deal with the living just as much as we deal with the dead,” says Brock. “We provide answers to families.”

Check out station at the morgue Photograph: Ben Zucker for the Guardian

Much of the week is spent performing autopsies, and the rest of it filling out paperwork, testifying in court and speaking with the families of the dead.

At a time when primary care physicians rarely have more than two minutes to speak with a living patient, it’s strange somehow that the medical examiners can spend hours explaining their findings to the families, comforting them and helping them deal with their grief.

“Every family really wants to know what happened to their loved one and have their questions answered in order to have closure,” says Hammers. “Even if it is a hard answer like in the case of a suicide, it wouldn’t be what they prefer to hear but it allows them to have an answer and then work their grief around that and move through it.”

As Brock puts it, when it comes to the deceased: “We are their last physicians.”

Brains and bone saws: a day with the chief medical examiner of New York City

First case of baby born with Zika-related microcephaly reported in New York City

New York City has reported its first case of a baby born with the birth defect microcephaly related to exposure to the Zika virus, health officials said on Friday.

New York City department of health officials said the baby’s mother was infected after traveling to an area with ongoing Zika transmission. They declined to provide further details about the mother or child.

So far, the city has reported 346 cases of Zika infections, all related to travel. Of these, four have been linked to sexual transmission, including the first case ever of a woman transmitting the virus to a male partner.

US health officials have concluded that Zika infections in pregnant women can cause microcephaly, a birth defect marked by small head size that can lead to severe developmental problems in babies.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have now been 12 confirmed cases of babies born with microcephaly in the United States, and more than 400 pregnant woman in the continental US have evidence of Zika infection.

Health officials in Florida have been working with the CDC to determine if Zika has arrived in the United States after two residents who have not traveled to areas infected with Zika tested positive for the mosquito-borne virus.

It was also announced on Friday that a civilian contract worker has become the first person with a confirmed case of Zika on the US base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, following a trip to Jamaica.

Related: Zika transmission to Utah man’s caregiver sparks medical mystery

The worker became infected while off the base and remains under medical supervision but now shows no symptoms of the illness, the US navy said in a statement.

The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last fall in Brazil, which has now confirmed more than 1,600 cases of microcephaly that it considers to be related to Zika infections in the mothers.

So far, 1,404 people in 46 US states have contracted Zika, including 15 cases that were sexually acquired. CDC is also investigating one possible case of person-to-person transmission of Zika in Utah.

First case of baby born with Zika-related microcephaly reported in New York City

Historic New York City hotel located as supply of Legionnaires’ illness outbreak

New York City’s historic Opera House Hotel, identified as the source of a deadly spate of Legionnaires’ disease, said it will go beyond newly imposed regulations in testing its cooling method even as officials declared an finish to the outbreak.

City officials on Thursday announced an finish to the outbreak, which killed 12 people and sickened 128 men and women. Of these, two had been guests of the South Bronx hotel, in accordance to the New York City Division of Overall health and Mental Hygiene.

Health officials matched the strain of Legionella bacteria located in the hotel cooling tower with the strain discovered in Legionnaires’ patients, the department said.

The hotel’s cooling tower and all other cooling towers in the impacted area were disinfected, and no new individuals have contracted Legionnaires’ because 3 August, city officials mentioned. Well being specialists are nonetheless locating and testing all cooling towers in the city, they extra.

Associated: Legionnaires’ disease in New York: what is it and how does it spread?

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio this week signed an unprecedented law regulating cooling towers during the city, requiring building owners to examine all towers quarterly and to report and disinfect towers with dangerous levels of bacteria.

The Opera Property Hotel mentioned as an added precaution, it will test its cooling tower each and every 30 days when the tower is in operation.

Legionnaires’ disease, a serious form of pneumonia, is triggered by inhaling mist infected with the bacteria Legionella. Symptoms consist of fever, cough, chills and muscle aches.

“Given latest events, we have made the decision to be especially cautious going forward,” the hotel explained in a statement on Thursday, adding that new tests completed this week confirmed the hotel’s tower is clear of the bacteria.

“It’s particularly disappointing simply because our technique is two years old, has the most up-to-date engineering accessible and our servicing prepare has been steady with the rules that each the city and the state are putting in spot,” the hotel explained.

The hotel was formerly the Bronx Opera House, which opened in 1913 and hosted entertainers, including the Marx Brothers comedians and illusionist Harry Houdini.

Historic New York City hotel located as supply of Legionnaires’ illness outbreak

The New York Occasions Revisits The "Debate" In excess of Electromagnetic Fields, Reviving Baseless Fears, While Ignoring What Has Been Learned

Yesterday, in its Science Occasions section, the New York Times published a piece by Kenneth Chang titled “Debate Continues on Hazards of Electromagnetic Waves.”   The report appears below a new heading “Time Travel,” an occasional column that “explores subjects covered in the Science Times 25 many years ago to see what has altered – and what has not.”

To match the new format, Chang referred to a Science Occasions post from 1989 that talked about the achievable adverse overall health effects from electromagnetic fields (EMF) produced by power lines, electrical appliances and machinery, and wiring in the home.

Even so, in actuality this situation came to prominence 10 many years earlier, when an post was published claiming that young children who lived near electrical power lines were twice as probably to die of cancer as children who had been not exposed.

This research was the catalyst for many additional scientific studies above the following three decades, and many assessments by scientific organizations and wellness agencies.  As a outcome we have actually discovered anything about EMF.

Buddies meet and chat, utilizing a cell cellphone to say hi, Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico (Photograph credit score: Wonderlane)

But Chang interviewed a professor of public well being David O. Carpenter, because he had been interviewed 25 many years in the past for the Science Instances article.  Carpenter has lengthy been voicing his concern about EMF, and he tells Chang, “The whole thing is very worrisome.  We see the guidelines of the iceberg, but we have no idea how large the iceberg is.  It ought to concern us all.”

According to Carpenter, “Almost absolutely nothing has altered in 25 many years in terms of the controversy, even though the evidence for biological effects of electromagnetic fields continues to increase stronger.”

As the report indicates, a lot of the concern has shifted away from the incredibly-minimal frequency EMF (ELF-EMF) from energy lines and appliances to the higher frequency radiofrequency (RF) waves utilised by cellular telephones and Wi-Fi.

By acquiring his update from Professor Carpenter, Chang is receiving a very skewed see of the pertinent proof that has accumulated in excess of the past decades.  Carpenter is related with the Bioinitiative Working Group, a fringe group whose members are convinced that the two varieties of waves (ELF-EMF and RF) are probably dangerous.

This view contrasts with that of any number of specialist organizations and well being agencies that have assessed the wellness results of ELF-EMF and radiofrequency power and found no steady or credible proof of a threat.  These incorporate: the American Bodily Society, the Nationwide Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society American Cancer Society, the Nationwide Academy of Sciences, and the Global Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection.

People who look to have a vested interest in believing that EMF/RF are hazardous at the levels at which people are exposed in everyday life have a tendency to cite evidence that suits their argument.

Exactly where cell phones are concerned, they tend to cite a minority of epidemiologic research by a single study group in Sweden that seem to link use of mobile phones to enhanced threat of certain brain cancers.  But they ignore the significantly more substantial entire body of studies from all in excess of the globe which demonstrate no this kind of association.

They also disregard the fact that, in spite of the dramatic growth of cell mobile phone use over the past two decades, there has been no improve in brain cancers, either in the U.S., in Scandinavia, or elsewhere.

The believers also are quick to point to experimental studies that appear to show damaging results on cells.  However, it is usually difficult to know how the final results of this kind of studies – if appropriate – apply to complete organisms, and specifically to humans.

In 2011, the International Company for Analysis on Cancer assessed the evidence with regards to cell phones and basically located no experimental evidence supporting a role of this sort of vitality in the cancer method.  However, in an extra of caution, the agency labeled radiofrequency radiation a “possible carcinogen.”

As the Occasions article indicated, technology is evolving, and properly-created scientific studies ought to be conducted to check the results of its use.  But that is quite different from the mindset of these who select isolated, and probably anomalous, benefits in support of their conviction that power lines or cell phones are creating adverse well being effects.

The New York Occasions Revisits The "Debate" In excess of Electromagnetic Fields, Reviving Baseless Fears, While Ignoring What Has Been Learned

New York state can end Aids crisis by 2020, says Governor Andrew Cuomo

New York state can finish its three-decade HIV crisis by the year 2020, Governor Andrew Cuomo mentioned on Sunday as he announced an ambitious plan to supply a knockout blow to the epidemic by boosting testing, minimizing new infections and expanding treatment.

The governor explained the state is aiming to decrease new HIV diagnoses to 750 by the end of the decade – about the same number of tuberculosis circumstances noticed in New York City every yr – down from 3,000 expected this yr and 14,000 new cases of the ailment in 1993. If the state is profitable, it would be the initial time the variety of folks residing with HIV has gone down given that the crisis began with the 1st extensively reported cases in 1981.

“Thirty years in the past, New York was the epicenter of the Aids crisis,” Cuomo mentioned. “Nowadays I am proud to announce that we are in a position to be the initial state in the nation committed to ending this epidemic.”

To increase therapy, the state’s department of overall health has negotiated bulk rebates with 3 organizations making HIV medicines. The state is also taking methods to make it easier to get tested, altering how HIV circumstances are tracked to make certain sufferers proceed to obtain therapy, and boosting accessibility to “pre-exposure” medication that can aid substantial-threat men and women keep away from infection.

Cuomo did not supply an estimate of the price of the prepare, but explained it would finish up conserving the state a lot more than $ 300m per 12 months by 2020 by minimizing the volume the state pays for health care care for these with HIV.

Groups that have extended advocated for HIV individuals praised the governor’s announcement, saying it shows that efforts to fight the condition are paying off, and that a scourge that once appeared unbeatable can be efficiently fought.

“We have the tools and know-how to finish the Aids epidemic in New York, the only query is no matter whether we have the political will,” stated Jason Walker, an organiser at Vocal-NY, which advocates for lower-revenue HIV sufferers. “Even with out a vaccine or remedy, Cuomo understands that we can drastically lessen new infections under epidemic levels and make sure all men and women residing with HIV obtain optimum health.”

Although the state’s plan might sound overly optimistic, the number of new HIV circumstances in New York has dropped practically forty% in the last 10 years since of greater, faster exams entry to condoms public outreach campaigns and other initiatives.

Meanwhile, individuals with the disease are living longer thanks to substantially a lot more effective therapies.

The purpose of bringing the disease to beneath epidemic ranges “is ambitious”, stated Mark Harrington, executive director of the anti-HIV organization Therapy Action Group, but “grounded in reality”.

New York state can end Aids crisis by 2020, says Governor Andrew Cuomo

The Finnish "rye-volution" commences in New York, with out wheat or yeast

In downtown Manhattan, a tall blond guy with high cheekbones and hooded blue eyes imitates a drug pusher, grumbling below his breath, “The initial a single is on me.”

It’s not so convincing in a Finnish accent or considering that the guy, Simo Kuusisto, is providing something healthier: bite-size pieces of his specific rye bread, topped with butter, cheddar cheese and a thin slice of cucumber.

“Give a sample and they are hooked,” he says.

Kuusisto is the baker and proprietor of Nordic Breads. He is striving to start what he calls a “rye-volution” the battlefield is at his Union Square Greenmarket stand, the place he is marketing Finnish bread beneath a banner studying, “Discover the Power of Rye!”

Any native New Yorker might regard this effort with skepticism. New York’s heritage involves the huge waves of Jewish immigration to the Reduce East Side, the place rye bread is the selected sheath for Reubens and scorching pastramis. What can a Finn teach New York about rye bread?

A lot, it turns out. New York City could see its collective rye bread belief technique rocked to its really core if Kuusisto’s program pans out.

What New Yorkers feel to be rye bread is typically created with only twenty% rye flour the rest comes from plain white flour.

This fact – sure to convert any wellness-aware New Yorker – gives Kuusisto what he needs to grow to be one thing like the Oprah of bread. As consumers lunge for samples of his rye, Kuusisto manages to engage the steady movement of people with ease, exchanging income for bread, dimples flashing on his face when he smiles. This defies the stereotype of the modest-speak challenged Finn. He eagerly sums up the numerous studies in Finland and Sweden that display rye – Ruis, the Nordic kind– has 4 times more soluble fiber than wheat when diabetics eat it, blood sugar amounts remain regular. It is wheat-free of charge and has no yeast.

Rye bread from Kuusisto’s oven. Photograph: Nina Roberts

He has a touch of the showman. Kuusisto has peppered the Nordic Bread’s internet site with the word “ryevolution” and his iPhone emails finish with “Sent from my ryePhone4” and “Connected with Rye-Fi”. He wears a customized made baseball cap featuring the Superman insignia on the front but with an “R” for Ruis and “NB” on the side for Nordic Breads, or “no bull”, he says proudly.

“Not as well numerous have ever tasted bread like this,” says Kuusisto.

He looks to be in the appropriate historical moment, the place the curiosity in normal food items has grown. The coarse, dark, labor-intensively chewy rye bread has been stealthily muscling its way into the city’s aggressive artisan bread industry.

That’s why Kuusisto, 47, appears like he is living an entrepreneur’s dream, avoiding most “obstacle programs”, as he says, on his way to greenmarket glory. Kuusisto arrived in New York City in 1987 to attend the French Culinary Institute then cooked at esteemed eating places like Swedish Aquavit, followed by two everlasting missions to the UN. While a staff chef, Kuusisto periodically baked Finnish rye basically due to the fact he missed the taste. Kuusisto kept his employees chef work although expanding Nordic Breads right up until 2013 he was confident Nordic breads was a viable enterprise and resigned.

Was he scared to walk away from a steady paycheck? “Yes”, Kuusisto states, lapsing into Finnish minimalism.

A clerk in the bread department of a Entire Foods. Photograph: Stephen Chernin/Getty Photographs

Thanks to his pushing at greenmarkets, his bread located its way to Entire Meals, and Dean &amp DeLuca takes four goods from the 200 samples they obtain per month according to Amina Cush, the retail advertising manager.

But trend only goes so far. Andy White, the Complete Food items bread buyer at the Tribeca location describes Kuusisto’s Ruis, which sells 4 modest rounds for $ four.95, as obtaining a cult following.

“It’s not a huge income maker,” says White and adds it’s a “pain in the butt” to carry since its short shelf lifestyle. “The rye consumers are equivalent to vegan clients – they are extremely vocal with demand but not with the wallet,” says White in a slightly resigned tone.

There are, naturally, nevertheless developing pains. Americans, even sophisticated ones, look to be mystified by the concept of actual bread, not optimized for shipping and giant markets.

His biggest challenge so far has been to persuade buyers that bread is allowed to be somewhat hard and have a short shelf daily life due to lack of preservatives.

“Some men and women consider bread need to be soft like Wonder Bread or Italian bread,” says Kuusisto.

He will get annoyed when likely consumers quiz him about how lengthy Ruis stays fresh.

“What type of fucking question is that?” Kuusisto asks rhetorically, likening it to asking how extended a tomato stays fresh, “Until it goes bad, so eat it ahead of!”

Ruis bread at Nordic Breads. Photograph: Nina Roberts

Certainly, Americans are Finnish rye novices. Sasu Laukkonen, the chef and proprietor of Chef &amp Sommelier, a Michelin-starred Helsinki restaurant who’s heard about Kuusisto’s Ruis says Finnish rye is ideal on it’s 2nd of third day.

“It has to be a bit … going type of gnarly to eat it,” explains Laukkonen, “Because if it’s also fresh, it is too moist, it has to dry a minor.”

Kuusisto does have a sense of humor, even though it just may well not be recognized as this kind of for the uninitiated. When the umpteenth green market consumer asks Kuusisto if there are seeds in the Ruis, he’ll sometimes feign ignorance: “What are you speaking about?” That prompts the client to earnestly make clear New York deli rye to the stone-faced foreigner, who ultimately smiles and laughs.

For all that most of his mail-purchase consumers have Scandinavian names, Kuusisto’s overhead is low. He rents area at Entrepreneur Area, a communal kitchen located on an industrial Lengthy Island City street and bakes at night.

Amid the smell of baking rye from the massive ovens and top 40 Latin pop blasting from a radio, flour dusted workers in hairnets, some American born, other folks Latin American immigrants, load rye rounds in and out of the ovens. The mood is critical and targeted. Clipboard in hand, Kuusisto intensely monitors the baking, cooling, slicing and packaging, providing guidelines in a minimum of phrases.

Nordic Breads has evolved in a regular, powerful, measured way. “One can bump one particular, two million into a business and build a factory, that’s another route. But who can do that?” muses Kuusisto.

Nordic Bread’s slow, non-flashy growth is very like “sisu”, the effectively-identified Finnish characteristic which approximately translates to determination and perseverance.

“It implies that if a Finnish man needs to go through a mountain, he will,” explains Kuusisto, noting with a laugh that right after all, they have been consuming rye bread all those many years.

The Finnish "rye-volution" commences in New York, with out wheat or yeast

The New York Occasions Meals Author Who Is Always Out To Lunch

Does New York Occasions meals writer Mark Bittman get anything right?  I doubt it.  I after tried his recipe for challenging-boiled eggs and the yolks have been runny.

I ate the eggs anyway, but Bittman’s pronouncements about policy are significantly less palatable, and I’m afraid that some credulous readers really swallow them.  His latest commentary, “Leave Natural Out of It,” is yet another hash of uninformed opinions and misinformation.

It is tedious to deconstruct a Bittman column simply because there is constantly so much incorrect with it, but let’s deal with a number of misapprehensions and misrepresentations.

O  Bittman does seem to be to have backed down from his rabid antagonism toward crops genetically engineered with the most present day, precise and predictable tactics.  He now concedes grudgingly that they “are probably harmless” and that “the engineering itself is not even a little bit nervous making.”  (This building, from a skilled wordsmith?)  In reality, right after far more than four billion acres planted around the world and far more than 3 trillion meals containing genetically engineered substances consumed in North America alone, there has not been a single ecosystem disrupted or a tummy ache confirmed.  (Couldn’t we get rid of the probably, Mark?)

Leading: Lesser cornstalk borer larvae extensively damaged the leaves of this unprotected peanut plant. (Picture Number K8664-2)-Photograph by Herb Pilcher. Bottom: Following only a number of bites of peanut leaves of this genetically engineered plant (containing the genes of the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) bacteria), this lesser cornstalk borer larva crawled off the leaf and died. (Picture Quantity K8664-1)-Photo by Herb Pilcher. (Photograph credit score: Wikipedia)

O  “[T]o date G.M.O.’s [genetically modified organisms] have been utilized by companies like Monsanto to maximize revenue and more getting rid of [sic] the accumulated knowledge of generations of farmers from agriculture.”  And how, specifically, is this distinct from the organizations that make implements like tractors, combines and farm-management software, that have modernized farming practices and produced them a lot more worthwhile?

O  Large agribusiness companies using the new methods “have not been effective in moving sustainable agriculture forward (which is related since that was their claim).”  The evidence argues otherwise.  By enhancing weed manage and decreasing the want for plowing, genetically engineered herbicide-tolerant crops allow a lot of farmers to adopt and maintain no- or reduced-tillage manufacturing programs, which final results in important reductions in greenhouse gasoline emissions.

According to a current complete examination, “Based on cost savings arising from the quick adoption of no-till/reduced tillage farming systems in North and South America, an further six,706 million kg of soil carbon is estimated to have been sequestered in 2012 (equivalent to 24,613 million tonnes of carbon dioxide that has not been launched into the global atmosphere).”

Equally essential, the higher yields and drought resistance of some genetically engineered crops make them a lot more sustainable than standard crops and, particularly, than organically grown ones.  As discussed under, natural agriculture is the scourge of sustainability.

O  Bittman retreats into the deepest, darkest recesses of his parallel universe with his allusion to the “intensive and nearly unregulated use of…agricultural chemical compounds.”  In reality, agricultural chemical substances are subject to some of the most stultifying, burdensome, expansive and high-priced regulation on the planet, courtesy of the relentlessly risk-averse Environmental Safety Agency.  (Isn’t there an editor who reads Bittman’s copy prior to it’s published?)

Lastly, we come to Bittman’s continuing slavish and uncritical devotion to natural agriculture: “Eating natural meals is unquestionably a greater choice than consuming nonorganic foods at this point, even so, it’s a privilege” [italics in unique].  That is unquestionably nothing at all a lot more than silly, sentimental twaddle, specifically in see of a 2012 research by researchers at Stanford University’s Center for Health Policy published in the Annals of Internal Medication.  They carried out a meta-examination in which outcomes from the scientific literature had been combined.  Data from 237 studies were aggregated and analyzed to figure out whether or not organic foods are safer or more healthy than non-organic meals.  The researchers concluded that fruits and veggies that met the criteria for “organic” have been on regular no much more nutritious than their far less costly traditional counterparts, nor had been people meals much less most likely to be contaminated by pathogenic bacteria like E. coli or Salmonella.  In addition, even though non-natural fruits and veggies did have higher pesticide residues, a lot more than 99 % of the time the amounts were beneath the permissible, extremely conservative safety limits set by federal regulators.

Bittman’s phobia about chemical pesticides in agriculture is so, well, jejune.  The huge bulk of pesticidal substances that we consume occur in our diet plans “naturally,” and they are existing in natural foods as nicely as conventional ones.  In a landmark investigation post published in the Proceedings of the Nationwide Academy of Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, biochemist Bruce Ames and his colleagues discovered that “99.99 % (by excess weight) of the pesticides in the American diet regime are chemical compounds that plants make to defend themselves.  Only 52 natural pesticides have been examined in substantial-dose animal cancer exams, and about half (27) are rodent carcinogens these 27 are shown to be current in many widespread food items.”

The bottom line of Ames’ experiments: “Natural and synthetic chemical compounds are equally very likely to be positive in animal cancer exams.  We also conclude that at the reduced doses of most human exposures the comparative hazards of synthetic pesticide residues are insignificant.”

In other phrases, consumers who purchase overpriced natural meals in buy to steer clear of pesticide publicity are focusing their focus on .01% of the pesticides they consume.

Contrary to Bittman’s views, if you care about the atmosphere, eating organic food is much more of a sacrilege than a privilege.  Natural farms generate far much less foods per unit of land and water than conventional ones.  The reduced yields of organic agriculture — normally 20%-50% lower than conventional agriculture — impose different stresses on farmland and especially on water consumption.

The New York Occasions Meals Author Who Is Always Out To Lunch

Train driver in deadly New York crash had "severe" rest disorder, NTSB says

The driver of a New York commuter train that derailed at substantial pace final 12 months, killing 4 men and women, had a serious rest disorder that interrupted his rest dozens of occasions each evening, federal investigators disclosed on Monday.

The Nationwide Transportation Security Board’s (NTSB) healthcare examination of engineer William Rockefeller uncovered “serious obstructive rest apnea”, in accordance to documents released by the agency.

The paperwork did not say no matter whether the disorder contributed to the one December crash on the Metro-North railroad. The NTSB explained its examination of the details and any determination of the cause would come in a later report.

Rockefeller’s attorney and union leader have suggested the engineer nodded off on the morning of 1 December as his train raced toward a sharp curve in the Bronx, exactly where it derailed. The curve had a 30 mph speed restrict the train was going 82 mph.

Lawyer Jeffrey Chartier stated a number of days soon after the accident that Rockefeller experienced a nod or “a daze”, nearly like street fatigue or the phenomenon often called highway hypnosis. Anthony Bottalico, leader of the rail staff union, said Rockefeller “essentially nodded”.

The NTSB report explained a rest research was ordered simply because Rockefeller “did not specifically recall events foremost up to the accident”.

The test found that whilst Rockefeller slept, he had about 65 “rest arousals” per hour. Scientists say as handful of as five interruptions an hour can make a person chronically sleepy. The report stated Rockefeller’s apnea apparently was undiagnosed prior to the accident.

The NTSB mentioned that sleep apnea is not described in Metro-North’s healthcare suggestions.

Metro-North spokesman Aaron Donovan explained the railroad was reviewing the paperwork. Chartier did not right away return messages in search of comment on Monday.

The report said Rockefeller’s blood and urine tests right after the accident unveiled small amounts of aspirin and an more than-the-counter antihistamine that carries a warning that it could impair the capacity to drive.

The report notes that Rockefeller’s work routine had recently modified from late evening to early morning shifts.

Apnea is far more frequent in individuals who are overweight, and the health-related report describes Rockefeller, who is five feet eleven inches tall, as obese. Data in the report indicate he was 204 pounds in 2008, 246 pounds in 2011 and 274 pounds in 2013 but down to 261 pounds after the accident.

The report says a rest medication expert prescribed an apnea treatment identified as CPAP, or steady good airway stress, which utilizes a mask and hose to push a regular movement of air pressure into a person’s airway in the course of rest.

Train driver in deadly New York crash had "severe" rest disorder, NTSB says

Duchess of York: "I was drowning in food before 3st excess weight loss"

“That actually frightened me,” explained the 54-12 months-previous Duchess. “Beatrice was an 8lb 8oz baby and I was only 6lb off my total-blown pregnancy excess weight. I determined to make a adjust.”

“I utilized to be so angry – I believed that I had lost management. I couldn’t fit into any of my clothes.

“I was just drowning in consuming, drowning in meals.

“It took courage to go out in public in all the years I have been overweight. Each time there was a ‘Duchess of Pork’ or ‘Fat Frumpy Fergie’ headline, they didn’t have any idea they have been reaching to the depths of my soul.”

She has now been appointed as an ambassador for the Institute of Global Wellness Innovation at Imperial University London. The magazine also guarantees to disclose “how she beat her demons” and “her specific bond with Prince Andrew”.

Last yr, she told The Day-to-day Telegraph: “He’s nonetheless my handsome prince, he’ll constantly be my handsome prince. It is wonderful that we are this kind of a loved ones and the story has a pleased ending all the time.

“We actually respect each other and we honour each other and it’s just pretty to have that sense of integrity, to what we feel is correct to what is great. And that’s the way we are.”

– The full interview is in the most current edition of HELLO! which is out now.

Duchess of York: "I was drowning in food before 3st excess weight loss"

Governor Cuomo Sued To Compel Fracking In New York

by Lengthy Island Attorney Paul A. Lauto, Esq

Hydraulic Fracturing (fracking) is spreading across numerous states in our country like wild fire.  This speedy development is fueled by greed, underneath the veil of becoming the salvation for our country’s power troubles.  Luckily in New York, as a outcome of a public outcry, Governor Cuomo has indefinately stayed the use of fracking pending the results of full evaluations by the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the Division of Wellness (DOH).

The ongoing evaluations by the DEC and the DOH started in 2008 and 2012 respectively, with no any imposition of a completion deadline.  Numerous in New York suspect that Governor Cuomo is intentionally delaying the assessment method until right after he completes his election bid for a 2nd phrase as Governor this November. Fracking opponents in New York feel that no information is very good news, although fracking proponents have lost their patience and have now resorted to litigation to get their way.

The Joint Landowner’s Coalition of New York (JLCNY) has sued Governor Andrew Cuomo and other individuals, to compel resolution of the fracking evaluations so that fracking may begin in New York with out any further delay.  This litigious move by this pro fracking coalition, is successfully subscribing to the belief that we should let the well being and security of New Yorkers be damned and near out the evaluations (complete or not) so that the money producing fracking train could commence rolling.

This court action must come as no shock, as fracking organizations will seemingly quit at practically nothing to safe their income.  This was evidenced and detailed in our November 13, 2013 website entitled, “Fracking Company Sues Homeowner With Flammable Water For Alleged Defamation” (See www.liattorney.com/scales-of-justice.html).  Though many New Yorkers would like to know exactly where Governor Cuomo stands on this situation prior to casting their votes this November, his basis for abstention pending the outcome of the DEC and DOH evaluations is ironclad.

Andrew Cuomo has grow to be a formidable politician who to date, has succeeded in receiving most every thing he desires as Governor.  If Governor Cuomo sides against the fracking business, New York will turn into a battleground as we bare witness to a correct “Clash of the Titans.”  If this comes to pass, hopefully the residents of New York will not become collateral injury.

Lengthy Island Attorney
Paul A. Lauto, Esq.
www.liattorney.com

Governor Cuomo Sued To Compel Fracking In New York