Hasta La Gadget!

Heart disease is a leading cause of death for women, and yet women are more likely than men to dismiss pain or symptoms of heart problems, and to delay seeking medical help — a “dangerous game” that experts say may have serious health implications.

Though heart symptoms are similar for both men and women, the way that people perceive their symptoms and the point at which they are moved to seek medical help can vary widely.

Women may be more likely than men to exhibit an ‘optimism bias’ — a cognitive bias that causes them to believe they are less at risk for negative outcomes than they actually are — than men, which can keep them from seeking medical assistance and could worsen their condition, according to new research from the Harvard School of Public Health.

“The main danger is that when someone comes to the hospital with a more severe or advanced stage of heart disease, there are simply fewer treatment options available,” epidemiologist Dr. Catherine Kreatsoulas, Heart and Stroke Foundation research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health and lead author of the study, said in a statement.

Kreatsoulas and colleagues conducted their research on patients with suspected coronary artery disease who were about to undergo their first coronary angiogram test. In the first part of the study, researchers interviewed cardiac patients about their experience of angina (chest pain caused by reduced blood flow to the heart) and their decision to seek medical care. Angina is a sign that the organ isn’t getting as much blood and oxygen as it needs, which can be experienced as pressure and tightness in the chest or a burning sensation, and is a warning sign of elevated risk for heart attack or cardiac arrest.

The second part of the study brought in a new group of patients and documented, by gender, when and why patients sought care. Kreatsoulas noted that it was difficult to determine exactly how long patients waited, due to human error in recalling time of events.

“While we do have time estimates from the patients in our study, we are weary of hinging too much weight on them,” Kreatsoulas said in an email to the Huffington Post. “What we do observe consistently across studies is that women with heart disease, come to hospital with more advance stages of disease, supporting the denial stage hypothesis.”

The researchers identified six characteristic stages in the transition from first experiencing cardiac symptoms like angina to seeking medical help, which they refer to as the symptomatic tipping point:

1. A period of uncertainty (patient attributes their symptoms to another health condition)
2. Denial or dismissal of symptom
3. Seeking help or guidance from a third party such as a friend of family member
4. Recognition of severity of symptoms with feelings of defeat
5. Seeking medical attention
6. Acceptance of situation

Women, they found, spent longer in the denial phase than men did — among the second group, researchers found that women were one and half times more likely than men to wait for symptoms to become more severe and more frequent before seeking medical help. When women experienced even a small improvement of symptoms, they then dismissed the problem for a longer period of time, according to Kreatsoulas.

So why might this be the case? Kreatsoulas explains that women may prioritize their concern for others and focus on care-taking over concern for their own well-being, or could be attributed to the false perception of heart disease as being a “man’s disease.”

But the reality is that heart disease is very much a women’s disease as well. Recent research found that women comprise around one-quarter of heart attack sufferers among people under 55, but that women fare worse after heart attack than men, as they stay longer in the hospital on average and have a higher risk of dying in the hospital.

“Heart disease is a leading cause of death and can strike anyone,” Heart and Stroke Foundation spokesperson Dr. Beth Abramson said in a statement. “Making healthy choices is an important part of prevention, but understanding the symptoms and acting on them without delay can also save lives.”

Kreatsoulas added, “We urge women and men alike to be proactive and attuned with their bodies.”

The findings were presented at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress.

Important trading powers, such as Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea and Brazil, are failing to enforce national laws that call for criminal prosecution of companies from their countries that bribe foreign government officials and politicians.

Indeed, only four countries, which between them represent almost one-quarter of global exports, are fully enforcing their own laws to curb corporate corruption — the United States, Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom — according to a new report, “Exporting Corruption,” published by Transparency International.

The widespread failure by many important exporting countries to curb business corruption can only be explained by their belief that boosting exports is far more important than reducing corruption. By turning a blind eye to the bribe paying by companies from their countries, these governments expect their enterprises will win trade deals that bring profits home and create jobs as well.

The current situation is scandalous. The non-enforcement of corporate anti-corruption laws encourages foreign government politicians and officials to seek bribes when negotiating government contracts with multinational enterprises. The corporate bribery, of course, distorts global market business competition.

No major trading nation takes a tougher line on corporations paying bribes to foreign officials than the United States, but this may well place U.S. companies at a competitive disadvantage in world trade.

Anti-Bribery Laws

This was certainly the case from 1978 to 1998 when the U.S. alone had a “Foreign Corrupt Practices Act” (FCPA) that made it a crime for a U.S. company to pay bribes to foreign government officials. The unlevel playing field that U.S. corporations confronted was meant to change, however, in 1998 when the Anti-Bribery Convention of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) came into force. The Convention mostly replicates the details of the FCPA and 41 countries have signed it.

However, there seems to be a major gulf between signing a law and enforcing it when trade deals are in play. The victims are honest companies that refuse to pay bribes. Just as importantly, the victims are also the world’s poor. When government officials see the opportunity for kickbacks from contracts then, all too often, they are willing to overpay for imports and purchase shoddy products. The citizens of their countries suffer as a result.

It is time that the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention was fully enforced. Just how bad matters are is revealed in the “Exporting Corruption” report. It assesses countries in four categories relative to their enforcement of the OECD pact:

• Active Enforcement: just four countries, although they represent fully 23.1 percent of world exports — U.S., Germany, U.K. and Switzerland.
• Moderate Enforcement: five countries with 8.3 percent of world exports — Italy, Canada, Australia, Austria and Finland.
• Limited Enforcement: eight countries with 7.6 percent of world exports –France, Sweden, Norway, Hungary, South Africa, Argentina, Portugal and New Zealand.
• Little or No Enforcement: 22 countries with 27 percent of world exports — Japan, Netherlands, Korea (South), Russia, Spain, Belgium, Mexico, Brazil, Ireland, Poland, Turkey, Denmark, Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Chile, Israel, Slovak Republic, Colombia, Greece, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Estonia.

The U.S. Department of Justice has long been the largest and toughest enforcer of corporate anti-corruption laws. According to the new Transparency International report, between 2010 and 2013 there were at least 99 investigations initiated, 14 cases commenced (12 of which were major cases) and 132 cases concluded (67 were major cases that concluded with substantial sanctions).

For many years the Germans, who pre-1998 allowed corporations to deduct their foreign bribes from their taxes, failed to enforce the OECD Convention. Then prosecutors discovered that Siemens, the largest engineering company in Europe, had a sophisticated global bribe-paying system in place involving vast payments. The Siemens disclosures created a public furor in Germany and encouraged prosecutors to take Germany’s commitments under the OECD treaty seriously. In the last four years they have initiated investigations into 74 companies.

Silver Lining

The U.S. Department of Justice’s ability to bring cases since the OECD Convention came into effect has been increased by the willingness of a growing number of foreign prosecutors from many different countries to cooperate and provide evidence. For example, last year, the U.S. prosecuted four executives from France’s Alstom SA company for paying bribes in a deal with an Indonesian public utility — the case was made in part because of information provided by Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission.

Fritz Heimann, a former lawyer at General Electric and one of the founders of Transparency International, has long been engaged in monitoring the OECD Convention’s enforcement. He argues that it would now be helpful if the OECD collected and published data on mutual legal assistance requests relating to foreign bribery. This would add clarity to which governments are, and are not, cooperating with the U.S. on enforcement actions.

A Level Playing Field

The non-enforcement of corporate anti-corruption laws by many countries dare not be a pretext for watering down U.S. laws, as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce would like to see. In fact, it should instead be an encouragement for even greater prosecuting zeal by the U.S. Justice Department.

This is certainly the way the Obama Administration appears to approach the issue. The number of cases being investigated and prosecuted now by the U.S. authorities is high and the scale of punishments is mounting. The key is that the U.S. authorities have cast a wide net, not just going after U.S. companies, but also foreign firms that have U.S. operations or are listed on U.S. stock exchanges. ​

A comprehensive listing of anti-corruption enforcement actions against multinational companies is constantly being updated by Trace International that plays important roles working with honest businesses to strengthening their anti-corruption compliance systems and approaches.

Graphic courtesy The Nature Conservancy, Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences and LICCRA

Readers of this series ‘Can Long Island Be Saved?’ will recall the flurry of public meetings and forums from this May. Here’s a great link to all the key materials from the three meetings called for by the Governor. Local, state, and federal officials and policy makers and various environmental groups studying Long Island’s groundwater pollution crisis convened for a series of discussions about the collapse of our marine and coastal environments and what could still be done to stem the tide. What is Long Island without fishing, shell fishing, beach going, boating, and swimming? What happens to our coasts when the marshes and sea grass are gone, how much more vulnerable will we be? How do we stem the tide, reverse the precipitous decline, and build a Long Island we would pass on to future generations?

IBM Smarter Cities awarded a $500,000 grant in the form of consulting services to Suffolk County to help in the planning of a major upgrade in waste water treatment and management. How could the various agencies and levels of government all work in coordination? When the main problem we face is 500,000 septic tanks leeching nitrogen into our groundwater, how do we come up with an actionable plan to replace them with sewers and with state of the art on site denitrification systems? How would all that be funded? What can we possibly do to stop the nitrogen fueled algal blooms that have destroyed so much habitat in our bays and ponds? How can we protect our drinking water below us from improperly disposed pharmaceuticals and poisonous household waste, pesticides, toxic plumes, fertilizers and that nitrogen?

To the vast credit of our elected officials, they have together grasped the urgency of the matter — we need to act now and to act boldly and with concerted effort. We have no choice. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation lists all our waters as impaired. Marine and aquatic species are rapidly disappearing, habitats mostly already vanished. In the face of all this, we know what needs to be done, but do we have the political will and the public support to do what needs to be done?

The public release of the collected findings of Governor Cuomo’s task force was released yesterday, and should be required reading for all citizens of Long Island, for the very success of our efforts will depend mightily on how much the public is aware of the problems we face. We need to together make an investment in our collective future, and for that we all need to know what’s at stake, and what our investment will buy — a sustainable Long Island.

Here then is a link to the press release announcing the actions that are to be taken to improve water quality and coastal resiliency on Long Island.

As Founder and Executive Director of Save The Great South Bay a 501(c)3 Non Profit (Find us on Facebook!), I was delighted to see that $383 million will be allotted by New York State to address four major water problems affecting the bay:

1. Forge River Watershed centered around Mastic: An estimated $196 million project would address storm impacts and reduce extensive nitrogen pollution to the Forge River and Great South Bay. The proposed project would connect parcels in the area to a new sewer collection system that will flow to a new wastewater treatment plant (that would include nitrogen treatment) located on municipal property near the Brookhaven Town Airport.

2. Carlls River Watershed centered around North Babylon and West Babylon: An estimated $136 million project would address storm impacts and reduce nitrogen and pathogen pollution in the Carlls River and Great South Bay. The proposed project would connect parcels to the Bergen Point sewer system within the Southwest Sewer District.

3. Connetquot River Watershed centered around Great River: An estimated $33 million would be used to address nitrogen pollution and pathogens in Connetquot River, Nicoll Bay and Great South Bay. The proposed project would connect parcels to the Bergen Point sewer system.

4. Patchogue River Watershed centered around Patchogue: An estimated $18 million would be used to address nitrogen and pathogen pollution in Patchogue River and Great South Bay. The proposed project would connect parcels to the Patchogue sewer system within the Patchogue Sewer District.

These efforts will make a palpable difference in the bay’s health. We still have to contend with the septic tank issue, but champions of The Great South Bay have to feel encouraged by these actions.

The governor is also continuing to look for funding for an ocean outfall pipe to go with a new Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant to replace the antiquated one damaged by Sandy. As the governor put it,

“We are not going to stop until we get the outflow pipe for Bay Park because it is ludicrous to be dumping the treated sewage right there on the coast.”

The science agrees with him. Even highly treated effluent has a nitrogen load that in the confined waters of The Western Bays is toxic to fish, shellfish, and marshes. A pipe run three miles out into the open ocean will transport the water that will be treated at the new $800 mil plant so that it can dissipate in the ocean at a safe level of dilution.

Resting behind the announcement yesterday is The NYSDEC Report, Coastal Resiliency and Water Quality in Nassau and Suffolk Counties.

Many will readily attribute yesterday’s announcement to election year grand standing, but the fact remains that we are engaged in a fight for Long Island’s future. Without clean water, without our bays, what is Long Island? People across the political spectrum, all those who live here and who know the bay and its problems, the 1800+ members of Save The Great South Bay are in agreement: Something large scale and comprehensive needs to be done and quickly for the sake of all our waters. Yesterday was a great day for The Great South Bay. In the weeks months and years ahead we will need much more to happen, but these funds and these actions have pointed the whole effort in the right direction.

Even if you are not prepared to vote for them next Tuesday, you should take time out to thank our political leadership for getting this one right, and learn what needs to be done in your community and how you can help. Long Island — for future generations.

The next installment of Can Long Island Be Saved? will focus on various 21st Century strategies to restore marine and estuarine habitats as a means of increasing coastal resiliency. The question will be ‘if we had, say, $100 million, what could be done for The Great South Bay given current science.’

I dumped my skinny jeans into the Goodwill bag. I was so freaking tired of them, and to me, they symbolized all the things I did/said/wore in an effort to be like all of the cute girls in carpool line. I mean, everyone was wearing them, so how could I not own a pair — or 10? But every time I wrangled and wiggled my way into them, my legs looked like sausages freshly stuffed into their casings. And then, that critical little voice in my head would tell me that I was too fat, and if only I could lose those 10 pounds, I could look fab in my jeggings. We all have that critical little voice in our brain telling us we’re not good enough, we don’t have enough, we’re not pretty enough. So what if we decided to silence that voice and tried being who we really are instead of who we think we should be? What if we chose to live a life where we weren’t chasing the skinny girls, the popular girls, the girls who like to tell us constantly how great their lives are on Facebook? We’re beautiful, talented and amazing, and actually living our lives like we believe it can start right now. Here’s how to begin:

1. Acknowledge that you are so sick of jeggings. You decide that you want what makes you happy, confident and fabulous. Those skinny jeans just don’t suit you, and clinging to a fad that really should only be worn by 6 ft. tall women will only make that bitchy judge in your head scream louder. Start the process right now — ditch that skin tight denim and take a deep breath. You’re on your way.

2. Get Going. Once you’ve made the decision that you’re tired of trying to be someone else, you have to act on it. The Universe isn’t going to drop a care package of jeans on your lawn–you have to start doing the hard work. Take an objective look at where you are and where you want to go. What’s holding you back? What do you really love, even if it’s not cool or trendy? Get excited and take steps–even baby steps–incorporating things and ideas that make you smile.

3. Ask for help. Don’t try to go through this process alone. You need someone who is further along on this journey and can help you find your own path. You need your mentor to conduct a therapy session in your closet, so that when you’re ready, he can wrestle those MC Hammer pants out of your hands. Making life changes is hard, so lean into your mentor when you start getting discouraged and want to fall back into sweatpants.

4. Do the dirty work. Try on tons of different jeans. We have to try different things to see what works for us and what needs to be thrown onto the sale rack. It may feel like you’re grasping, trying anything and everything that might make you happy. You may even try on some things that your friends have or do, and that’s ok, but you need to remind yourself that while these things may work for them, something even more fabulous is waiting for you.

5. Throw yourself a little party. You ditched the constrictive skinny jeans and the symbols that they represent. No matter how small the achievement, revel in it. Have a cocktail right where you are. Pat yourself on the back and enjoy your moment of realizing that there’s a whole world out there void of skinnies, and you want to experience all of its possibilities. With each discovery of something wonderful, throw yourself a mini celebration. With every faux pas, do the same–not because you fell down, but because you got back up that much wiser.

6. Don’t stop just at jeans. Your whole wardrobe likely has clothes that you’ve kept around “just in case”, but they’re holding you back from realizing the true beauty of your mind, your soul and your backside. How can you shine if you are buried under that oversized crochet Christmas sweater that was the rage in 1989? (We clearly must have been in a national crisis if we thought it was worthy of a rage.) Don’t be scared to junk all of the things that worked in the past but just don’t do it for you anymore. It’s time to branch out and surround yourself with the things you truly adore and the people who see you for who you really are–and love you even more for it. Even in your MC Hammer’s.

Heather Sample Spires is a practicing attorney, wife and mother living in Atlanta who formerly only valued success, hard work and Louboutins. She is currently working on a humorous memoir recounting her rocky yet irreverently funny journey to find balance, love and purpose in her life.

Builder Biczzz has been at making custom cars for about 8 years now and his latest creation is a smooth hot rod named Gold Dust. I really like the stance of the car as it captures that bonkers, touch of chrome, frame rail scraping style that always pisses off the classic car guys.

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