THE CROOKED MAN!
Dr. Ferdinando dos Reis Falcão, Jebel Ali, U.A.E.

I fail to understand why there is so much of hue and cry regarding the helmet rule in Goa. Is the helmet not going to protect your brain from getting damaged? And if your brain is not damaged, are you not going to elect these same bunch of jokers as your representatives to enact laws that are non-conducive of safety if not detrimental? And even if you skid on your vehicle and crash head-on to a tree or a pole and break your neck; your brain will still be intact. You may be paralysed for life and unable to come out on the streets to protest, but you will still be able to exercise your franchise.

The roads deteriorate every year. If your vehicle is damaged in an accident, you are promoting the business of the insurance companies, auto workshops, traffic police, etc. Otherwise, business will go down, and annual/monthly hafta will not materialise.

We need to have accidents to become part of statistics at the Government Hospitals, where otherwise people are reluctant to go. The doctors there, have to show and give talks onhead injuries. Never mind if they have never seen people loosing their limbs. Of course, they have never seen people die on the roads itself; that’s the undertaker’s problem.

And now we hear our beloved and honoured freedom fighters demanding Government jobs. What’s the need to make a demand? Have they not sacrificed their lives to attain freedom? Due to their sacrifice everybody has the freedom to commit atrocities, robberies, murders, dacoities, vandalism, riots, and you name it; which was almost not heard of during the pre-liberation period. So why don’t they just send their children to the Government offices of their choice and make them sit there (chairs are invariably empty) and work? After all they were not paid to be freedom fighters, or were they??

This brings to my mind a story from the books of my primary school days. The story was somewhat like this: ‘There was once a crooked man who lived in a crooked house, he had a cooked chair and …….’. In short, everything concerned with the crooked man was crooked. And there was a picture drawn depicting the story. Little did I realise that five decades later I would see plenty of them in Goa.

Fascist regime
Anthony Fernandes, Cobra Vado, Calangute.

It was very shocking to read that senior freedom fighters were mercilessly kept in police custody till evening, on 10/08/04 only because they protested against the government. For such an act of the Government, there is only one term - fascism’.

These freedom fighters who fought for the liberation of our Goa, who sacrificed their earning and livelihood, their family and above all their entire life, against the fight for freedom from Portuguese, now have to fight against our very own ‘Fascist’ government.

There is two per cent reservation for the wards of freedom fighters, but rarely we see any advertisements appear in the newspapers advertising vacancies reserved for them. There is no doubt because of the large scale unemployment prevailing in Goa, the children of freedom fighters are the worst victims of it. There are 239 unemployed children of freedom fighters, among them 20 are post-graduates and another 61 are graduates. From these figures its clear beyond any doubt that there is large scale unemployment among these children.

The current government of Manohar Parrikar, has crushed under its feet, the rightful and lawful demand for employment in Government services of the children of freedom fighters. The government has miserably failed or rather it is proper to say that, it has deliberately ignored to safeguard the rights of these great men.

This ‘Fascist’ act of the government needs to be criticized by all citizens of Goa. The prominent citizens and opposition leaders should protest against this illegal act and should also agitate against the Government to give Justice to these great freedom fighters, who fought in their yesteryears, and because of them we all are living in a liberated Goa. Those who against the foreigners, now again have to fight against their own government to get justice.

A  Private Nursing  Home,
iibpnjsc@rediffmail.com.

YOUR ISSUE on  nursing homes  has  tried  to  some  extent project us  as  fleecing  the  public. Indeed most  of  the  private  hospitals have incurred heavy  expenses  installing sophisticated  machines  for  the benefit  of   patients    who  visit  private hospitals  in  view  of the negligence  and  unhygienic conditions prevailing in  Sstate  government  hospitals. 

It  would  have  been  nice  if you  had  to  atleast  found  out  the  difficulties  faced  by  private hospitals, apart  from  the  issue  of  shortage  of  blood.   Nevertheless, some  hospitals  have  their  own reasons,  including  sentimental,  for starting or  are  still  in this  line,  which    you  could  have  highlighted, keeping  in  mind  that in the  past  almost  all  government  hospital services  were  free  and  still  continue  to  have the best  doctors courtesy funding    their  studies  and  services  by  the  State  government.

Needless  to  say  private hospitals   have  their   own problems but  they try and  give  valued   services,  it is therefore  wrong  to  grade  them  as  done  by  you. This  is  to  also  remind    you that    many  private  hospitals  have   excellent  services  and   reputation,  not  forgetting  that  in  some  genuine  cases  hospitalization  and  consulting   fees   are  drastically  reduced or  waived   fully  at  times. 

Soy and health
Dr Francisco Colaco, Margao.

I was delighted to read in the last Goan Observer Tara’s interesting article “The New Taste of Health” and what she had to say therein about soy and soy products. It is heartening to note that, while she waxes eloquent about the other aspects of soy and derivatives - knowledgeable and well informed that the writer is known to be - she conscientiously, and dutifully too, chooses to remain reticent about the so-called medicinal value of soy. Here is one more reason why I consider Godrej Industries extremely lucky to have found a platform, as distinguished as is the Indian Medical Association, to launch their new brand Sofit soya milk. Bravo! Granted that most remarks at the meet seem to have been made in a lighter vein, I am disturbed though with the thought that soybean milk may henceforth “be recommended by doctors like a prescription”.

Soy is as old as the hills and nothing that is being said about it today makes for something we didn’t know about it in the previous ten years or so. Periods of intense hype around soy products, from time to time, are purely the result of commercial propaganda. Pooled data from 38 scientific studies reveal that 47 grams of soy protein per day (lesser amounts bring about only negligible cholesterol reductions) are necessary to decrease the blood cholesterol by an average of 9 per cent; this obviously is a huge amount to be swallowed in terms of soy protein ( pitifully several times more in terms of total weight of soy-based foods).

Even considering the fact that many Asian populations have a soy-based tradition, it is said, all they manage to do despite a voracious appetite is to ingest in their staple diet, only as much as 20 grams a day of soy protein (a paltry fraction of what is necessary to prevent heart attacks). Even if we argue that Godrej’s brand is a concentrated product (6.3 gm/200 ml) wouldn’t that mean a lot of money down the drain every day for the common man (and the wealthy too!) to achieve dubious results?

When my patients, for instance, obsessed with soy, ask me for advice about the same, I make it a point to remind them “soy is only so-so” and nothing more! When we have at present at our disposal excellent pharmacological means that achieve much greater cholesterol reductions, any undue preoccupation with soybeans and processed products seems unjustified, no matter if the promo adds would have us believe the contrary.

Drug combinations, like the recently marketed atorvastatin plus ezetimibe duo, for instance (available in a single tablet) have proved to be cost-effective and relatively devoid of side effects. Also, it must be noted, much greater blood cholesterol reductions (averaging 53 %) can be achieved over relatively shorter spans. As Tara rightly points out, one must remember additionally, soy equations hold good only when soymilk is adopted as a substitute (not additive) to the daily dairy milk intake. Soy, moreover, has a dark side too. Soy protein has now been shown in many studies to increase the levels of Lp (a), an important risk marker (prevalent in the Indian population) that, through some unknown mechanisms, makes us all more susceptible to heart attacks compared to Western populations.

To sum up - I would like to reiterate - as far as soy products are concerned I would do like the writer so prudently does: tread a cautious approach. The very fact that U.S. FDA has used the word “may” (reduce the risk of heart disease) is, to my thinking, a poor recommendation for soy protein at least as far as coronary heart prevention is concerned.

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