Connecticut Towns Hear Peace Delegates (WILPF-WIDF disarmament seminar)

=== [PDF page 1] === DAILY WORLD Heollh 6 Security Friday, May 16, 1975 Page 9 MITCHELL-LAMA DEMONSTRATION No fringe benefits for San Juan aged By JULIA BARNES SAN JUAN, P. R. — There is no fare reduction on San Juan’s bus lines for the elderly in this Puerto Rican capi tal. The San Juan city fathers op erate a two level bus system — modem, air-conditioned buses with a 25-cent fare and old, nonair conditioned buses following the same route and charging 10 cents. Poverty forces most of the elderly to ride the 10-cent fare hot boxes. In Philadelphia, the elderly ride free during certain hours. In New York City, they pay half-fare dur ing equally limited hours. RETIREMENT HELD MAN-MADE DISEASE CHICAGO, Ill. — “Mandatory retirement of workers can be harmful to their health,” accord ing to the American Medical Asso ciation. Although premature re tirement is rarely forced upon AMA members, they nevertheless made this prognosis in announcing they were joining a lawsuit seek ing to make forced retirement un constitutional. The AMA says further, “Consid erable evidence is available to in dicate that the sudden cessation of productive work and earning pow er of an individual, caused by compulsory retirement at the chronological age of 65, often leads to... premature death.” The suit which the AMA will join involved Martin 0. Weisbrod, 70, an attorney with the Chicago office of the Department of Hous ing and Urban Development. He was being forced to retire despite the government’s acknowledg ment that he is exceptionally com petent and physically capable of continuing on the job. U.S. AND USSR ALLIED IN FIGHT AGAINST ARTHRITIS MOSCOW — The agreement oncooperation between the USSR and the USA in promoting public health, which was signed in 1972, continues to yield positive results. The two countries are about to be gin joint research in rheumatol ogy. Their first focus in this field is rheumatoid arthritis. This serious disease is typically contracted by persons 30-40 years of age who become progressively disabled. The hypothesis which Moscow scientists have begun to prove is that a virus or group of viruses are causative factors of rheumatoid arthritis. They are also studying the immunological research of their U.S. colleagues. VACATIONING GOVERNOR PLOTS WELFARE CUTS DISNEY WORLD, Fla.—Massa chusetts Governor Michael S. Du kakis and his family were vaca tioning at this amusement park while plans were afoot to slash even more than he had proposed from the stale s welfare budget. James A. Kelly Jr. < D-Oxford), chairman of the State SenateWays and Means Committee, late in Ap ril proposed a slash of anticipated welfare spending by some $400 million. The proposed cuts would be partially achieved through an ticipated reduction of the welfare caseload in improving economic conditions. Part of this “improve ment” is his proposed cutting of about 12 percent of the state’s work force. The proposed cuts would affect mental health and public health programs as well as welfare. The only office for which Kelly propos es increased funds is that of Elder Affairs—from $3.4 million to $4.3 million. X-RAY EXAMS SOMETIMES INADVISABLE WASHINGTON-”Why didn’t the orthopedist order an x-ray before telling me what to do about my backache?” my friend wanted to know. She felt that the doctor, al though he had examined her care fully, should not have omitted the x-ray as a diagnostic tool. A publication of the Food and Drug Administration, “Radiation; Benefit vs. Risk,” warns “Don’t insist on an x-ray when you visit your doctor or dentist. Let him be the judge of whether you need one. A doctor or dentist, to satisfy your insistence, may agree with your request for an x-ray examination, even when he doesn’t think you need one.” The publication also advises against mobile units for detecting tuberculosis. A special warning is given to women who are or may be preg nant. Radiation may affect the fetus. Men and boys undergoing x-ray examinations of the lower abdo men, lower back or hip may re quire a lead shield to protect the reproductive organs. WELFARE OFFICIALS LEARN FACT OF LIFE MINEOLA, N Y.-It took a rul ing from a New York State Su preme Court justice to convince the Nassau County Social Services Department recently that they could assume that a woman who gives birth had been pregnant. The department had been with holding the benefits due a mother from the fourth month of pregnan cy because she had not filed a phy sician’s verification of the preg nancy until the day before the child was bom, last Jan. 3. She had notified them of her pregnan cy before the fourth month but claims she was not informed until much later of the need for offi cial verification. Justice Bertram Harnett has di rected the department to obey the •state law which “mandates retro active payments to correct under payments to current (welfare) re cipients.” When the couple was first de nied unborn-child benefits, they requested and received a Social Services Department hearing, but •they were not represented there by counsel. In their second, suc cessful attempt to secure their rights, they were represented by the Nassau Law Services Commit tee. Dance tomorrow in N.Y. for the Vietnam victory NEW YORK, May 15-The social club, Casa de Las Americas, is holding a dance party this Saturday at 9 p.m. to celebrate the victory of the Vietnamese people and to commemorate the birthday of Ho Chi Minh. The event will be held at 104 W. 14th St., Sixth Avenue. Donations for admission will be accepted. Some 6,000 tenants of Mitchell-Loma Coops from New York City rallied in Albany Tuesday to demand re lief from the spiraling cost of rent. Among the demands were a reduction of the mortgage interest rate on the projects to 4 percent, the elimination of the State's supervisory fee and the sales tax on utilities, and cheaper electrical power rates. State Senate minority leader Manfred Ohrenstein, above, addressed the roily* UPi photo Saigonese bask happily in the revolutionary sun By ALAN DAWSON SAIGON (UPD-The peo ple of Saigon are accepting and even enjoying their new life. The possibility of an instant bloodbath has been dispelled and while there is still uncertainty over the future there is no fear of the present. The soldiers and cadres who have entered Saigon these past 10 days pf peace have gone out of their way to be pleasant. Saigonese who huddled in their homes 10 days ago while tanks rumbled down the main streets in victory pafades now stop soldiers on the street to chat. “They really are very nice,” one citizen said. “They talk very gently, not like the old soldiers” of the Thieu government. There has not yet been, for ex ample, a brawl involving soldiers in Saigon during the past 10 days. Nor has there been a case of drunken troops walking out of bars or restaurants and refusing to pay their tabs. Scnipvkws in paying On the contrary, the Saigon gar rison and troops being brought to Saigon for what apparently is rest, recreation and sightseeing are scrupulous in the payment of their bills. If a Saigonese or even a foreign er joins a soldier of the new re gime at his table for a Coca Cola or a beer, there is no way he can pay. The soldier digs his piasters out of a slim wallet or a plastic bag and calls for the tab. About 40 Provisional Revolu tionary Government soldiers en tered a Saigon suburb a few days after the April 30 takeover and asked for space to sleep on the floors and something to eat. Residents cooked up some rice and fish. In the morning the sol diers left and the residents figured the bit of food they had given was lost. About two hours later a jeep drove up to the neighborhood and officials handed 200-kilo sacks of rice to the surprised—and grate ful-residents. Little things like that mean a lot in Vietnam, particularly no when unemployment is rampant and even those with money in the banks cannot get it out pending a government audit. The scrupulousness in dealing with the people has always been a part of guerrilla warfare teaching over the past 30 years and there are few troops more scrupulous. “Do not take from the people so much as a needle or a piece of thread,” says one of the rules that are required memory work for ev ery man, woman and child in the Vietnamese revolution. An outsider could not fail to be impressed by how well the lesson has been learned. For this reason, life in Saigon has returned to normal, with shops open, markets bustling and restaurants beginning to function again. There has not been a single re port of a reprisal killing anywhere in the Saigon area. Stories related by American of ficials about bloodbaths in some provincial cities now are being de nied by travelers who have no rea son to lie. There is a rejoicing in Saigon that peace has come to Vietnam. Connecticut towns hear peace delegates By ROSE ALLISON STAMFORD. May 15 — Several Connecticut towns had the privilege of hearing four international delegates to the U.V Disarmament Seminar sponsored by the Wom en's International League for Peace and Freedom and the Women’s International Democratic Federation. The four, two Soviet women, a Cypriot citizen and a British woman married to an Indonesian, talked to audiences in Bridge port. Westport and Stamford on the conference and the roles of women in their respective countries. The U.S.S.R’s continued efforts for peace and disarmament were set forth by Inessa Ivanova of the Moscow Institute of World Econ omy & International Relations, and Valeria Troitskaya, a geo physicist and member of a number of Soviet scientific institu tions who has taught in a number of Soviet scientific institutions who has taught in American uni versities. The stones told by the Cypriot and Indonesian delegates were drastically different Sophia Tsimilli told of the upheaval in Cy prus with thousands of her coun trymen driven from their homes and living in tents as a result of the invasion by Turkish armies last July. She pointed out that in the U N sessions she and other delegates not officially represent ing their countries were not per mitted to mention by name the country committing aggressions (i.e. she could not say the “Turk ish” army invaded Cyprus but that a “foreign” force invaded). Mrs. Carmel Budiardjo, a Bri tish woman, was living and working in Djakarta in 1965 when the anti-government coup look place and both she and her hus band were imprisoned. Although through a technicality she was re leased after 3 years, her husband is still incarcerated after 10 years She described vividly the terrible carnage committed by the anti communist, anti-liberal, anti-everything but imperialist, forces when they took over. The estimate of those killed during that period is over a million, Mrs. Budiardjo stated. Now living in London, she and others have now set up a de fense organization to bring atten tion to the horrible and hopeless condition of the thousands of Indo nesian prisoners. The delegation left for Phila. and other cities.