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ll b ^ C-e -J //v.i HZflffl/j-i The Asbestos Mess v -JVoiv\ some \< , ~ removing thefiber can be worse than leaving it. Far left: Irving Selikoff, In his office recently, examining chest X-rays. His work In the 1960's led to sweeping regulation of the asbestos industry. Left: Removing asbestos at a Philadelphia school. Insmctlons have' fotlnbeasily :ti crumbled asbestos in ,45,000 gjchpol buildings. BY JOSEPH HOOPER R. IRVING J. SELIKOFF is short, he is round, he is old. Normally these attri D butes combine unpreposessmgly in one man, but not in Irving Selikoff. He has the aura of a savant of the previous century, someone who might have been sculp tured by Rodin. There is the cane, for one thing, and the fluent cFrriemnicnha,l has been exposed; the only when that's necessary, and,thaintgtlheeft to figure out is the magnitude core, the sheer dignifying weight of of the crime. Case closed. Selikoff says: accomplishment. "There is no issue, no debate about Selikoff is America's most promi asbestos." nent researcher in the field of asbes If only it were so. A fierce contro tos disease. In the 1960's, he and his versy has gathered around the ques colleagues at Mount Sinai Medical tion of "in place" asbestos -- the mil School in New York City documented lions of tons of asbestos pipe insula asbestos-related lung disease and tion, fireproofing, floor and ceiling cancer among industrial workers. tiles, and acoustical plaster that lie Their findings prompted the Occupa embedded in 733,000, or one-fifth, of tional Safety and Health Administra America's public and commercial tion to impose regulations in the 70's buildings. limitingworker.exposure to asbestos For most of the last decade, the fiber: m the 80's, the Environmental work of Selikoff and his colleagues Protection Agency banned asbestos pointed to a seemingly unassailable production altogether. conclusion: Asbestos, a tragedy for Today, Selikoff. the 75-year-old for industrial workers, posed a grave mer director of Mount Sinai's Environ threat to the general public as well. mental and Occupational Health Divi Countless articles and television pro sion. continues the research that has grams hammered this simple mes taken him to most of America's indus sage home. trial regions, searching out workers In the last year and a half, however, who have been exposed to asbestos and the old certainties have gone out the analyzing what now must number hun window. In June 1989, The New Eng dreds of thousands of chest X-rays. He land Journal of Medicine published a is a detective of sorts, following a trail comprehensive review of recent as of industrial mortality. The mineral bestos research, including a number of Canadian and European studies josepn Hooper has written on public from the past five years that chal health tor 7 Days and M Inc. lenge the conventional thinking about asbestos. The studies undercut the argument that chrysotile asbestos, which accounts for more than 90 per cent of all the asbestos in the United States, is a potent environmental car cinogen. Seven months later, a simi lar article appeared in Science. The shock waves are still reverber ating through the field -- colleagues who hold opposing views about the articles often do not speak to each other. Indignant letters from scien tists have appeared in both scholarly and popular journals. "We have no proof that removing asbestos ever saved a life," said Brooke Mossman, below, the principal author of two articles that redefined the health threat posed by asbestos. The heat has generated a certain amount of light, and not only on the risk posed by asbestos. For the lay public, the controversy has provided a rare glimpse into the workings of American science, and the alliances -- holy and unholy -- it forms with government, labor and business. The principal author of both asbes tos articles was Dr. Brooke T. Mossman, a -13-year-old research patholo gist at the University of Vermont. She and her team of four co-authors ar gued that the health threat posed by HWBUI0004055 New studies suggest that curly, pliable chrysotile fibers, right, which account for almost all of the asbestos in the United States, are far less dangerous than the needlelike amphiboles, left. in-place chrysotile asbestos has been grossly overstated, and that the usual solution to the problem -- ripping and scraping the asbestos out -- is probably more dangerous than the problem itself. As bestos fibers are harmless unless breathed, and even good removal jobs temporar ily raise fiber levels in the air, placing removal workers and, to a lesser extent, build ing occupants at risk. In the past, the removal industry has compounded the problem by taking a cavalier attitude toward safety. Mainstream publications found Mossman's revisionist theory irresistible. Spinoff articles appeared in maga zines as diverse as Forbes and Reader's Digest. In a kind of trickle-down effect, the scholarship eventually reached The National Exam iner, a supermarket tabloid, which announced its interpre tation of the findings in a screaming headline: "After spending billions taking it out of our schools, experts discover ... ASBESTOS IS SAFE!" Asbestos is not safe. But not all types, it now appears, are equally unsafe. This dis tinction might not have been front-page news except for the money involved. Farreaching Federal legislation enacted over the last 20 years has stimulated an asbestosremoval industry with annual revenues of about $3 billion. Yet, according to Mossman, "we have no proof that re moving asbestos ever saved a life." The public now has good reason to be confused. Does a single asbestos fiber floating in the basement air mean cancer 20 years down the road -- and a $30,000 abate ment job next week? Or does it pose less of a threat than cigarette smoke drifting over from the next table? Govern ment officials, too, are per plexed. Will tough inspection laws protect the public or simply make matters worse by promoting unnecessary removals? At the mention of the Mossman articles, Selikoff gives a look both hurt and accusato ry. "Do you have the right to decide how much risk some one else should be exposed to?" he asks sharply. The no tion is put forward that per haps society cannot afford to guarantee complete safety for everybody. "Then say it!" Selikoff explodes. "Don't say to those who are exposed to asbestos, `You are going to be safe.' Say, `I can't help you because I don't have the money.' '' THE ATTEMPT TO CONtrol asbestos is a compara tively recent phenomenon, but the mineral itself has al ways been with us. The Ro mans wove asbestos into ta blecloths that could be tossed into the fire for clean ing. In one of Genghis Khan's northern provinces, Marco Polo saw inhabitants weav ing an indestructible cloth out of fibers dug from the earth. Asbestos commonly refers to six distinct types of silicate minerals, one of which, chrysotile, belongs to the ser pentine family, meaning that its fibers are curly and pli able; the others, known as amphiboles, all have needle like fibers. By the beginning of the 20th century, asbestos's useful ness as a fire retardant and thermal insulator was being exploited on an industrial scale -- and over the next several decades, its effects on the lungs of industrial workers became obvious to anyone who cared to look. Asbestosis, an impairment of lung function caused by as bestos scarring, was first di agnosed around the turn of the century. By the 1960's, epidemiological studies, no tably those of Irving Selikoff, had established that certain groups of workers -- asbes tos textile weavers, pipe insu lators, shipyard workers -- were suffering unusually high rates of cancers. They usually contracted lung can cer or mesothelioma, a can cer of the lining of the lung or the abdominal cavity that was virtually unknown be fore the turn of the century. In the 1970's and 80's, the Government took action, through the Occupational Safety and Health Adminis tration and the Environmen tal Protection Agency. The new regulations were not controversial. Industry bore the cost, and most people re garded the measures as hu mane and overdue. The seeds of the current turmoil were planted when the scientists at Mount Sinai decided that the evidence warranted an as sault on the asbestos already in place. In the early 1980's, Selikoff testified several times before a Congressional subcommit tee that in-place asbestos only low-level exposures to posed an intolerable health asbestos. Asbestosis, on the threat to the nation's 15 mil other hand, requires inten lion schoolchildren. Gregory sive exposure, rare these Lawler, then the subcommit days even in industry. Lung tee's chief counsel, recalls: cancer, by far the most com "Half the experts said we mon cancer among asbestos needed to do something, half workers, is still a concern: said we didn't" With expert studies suggest that chryso opinion split, Selikoff and tile asbestos, the most com Mount Sinai carried the day: mon type, has induced lung In 1986, the subcommittee cancer in industrial workers chairman, Representative (the vast majority of them James J. Florio of New Jer smokers) as efficiently as the sey (now Governor), won amphiboles. It is conceivable, passage of his Asbestos Haz therefore, though so far im ard Emergency Response provable, that low-level expo Act (Ahera) over token oppo sure could increase the inci- sition. deiice of lung cancer in smok The act was the first clear ers. But most experts believe signal from the Government that, for the general public, that asbestos was believed to smokers and nonsmokers pose a serious threat to the alike, this risk pales before general population, not just the risk of mesothelioma. selected categories of work Like asbestosis and lung ers. Schoolchildren were a cancer, mesothelioma is special concern, since most thought to follow a dose-re of their schools were built in sponse model -- the bigger the 1950's and the 1960's, the the dose, the more likely the heyday of liberal asbestos us disease. But no reputable sci age. The Government direct entist has ever arrived at a ed the E.P.A. to compel every threshold for safe exposure school district in the country to asbestos. On the one hand, to inspect for asbestos and, if the risk posed by relatively any was found in deteriorat few fibers would seem to be ing condition, to draw up very low: city dwellers, for plans for remedying the situ example, breathe in thou ation. sands of fibers from shedding The remedy could turn out car brakes. On the other to be prohibitively expensive. hand, in approximately one- Ahera-mandated inspections third of the known cases, me have turned up friable, or sothelioma patients could re easily crumbled, asbestos in call no industrial exposure to 45,000 of the nation's school asbestos. buildings. Based on the initial Why they should have con burst of removals, the Na tracted the disease remains a tional School Boards Associa mystery. However, since as tion has estimated that it will bestos exposure is the only cost $6 billion to carry out the significant cause of mesothe full Ahera program. lioma, American society had Critics complain that the to face the possibility that ev act declared war on asbestos eryday exposure to an every without telling the soldiers day material could kill. In how they were supposed to 1960, mesothelioma was kill fight it. The E.P.A. left school ing an estimated two dozen districts to the mercy of Americans every year; by the hired consultants. All too of 80's, the figure was 1,000 to ten the result was unneces 3,000 (the estimates vary, be sary removals. Consequent cause the disease is difficult ly, the E.P.A. is now review to diagnose). Some experts ing the entire Ahera pro were predicting that meso gram. thelioma would overtake lung Even its staunchest advo cancer as a mass killer by the cates will admit that Ahera end of the century. has had problems, but they But so far, it hasn't hap contend that doing nothing pened. Rates have risen al would result in hundreds, per most exclusively among old haps thousands, of future er men who suffered occupa cancer cases -- specifically tional exposure to asbestos in mesothelioma. the days before regulation. But among women, whose as oday, when scien- bestos exposure has primari Ttists talk, or argue, about the risk posed by environmental exposure to ly been environmental, the mesothelioma rate has been flat for the last 20 years. The asbestos, they are mainly cancer remains, relatively talking about mesothelioma, speaking, rare. a fatal tumor that can crush Mossman and her col the lungs or push its way out leagues say they think they of the torso like some grue know why: recent European some cinematic special ef studies have convinced them fect. It appears to have that chrysotile is not very struck significant numbers of good at causing mesothelio people who may have had ma, even at the highest indus- HWBUI0004056 FOR BEST RESULTS, TAKE DAILY. NOW, YOU CAN HAVE THE NEW YORK TIMES DELIVERED TO YOUR HOME EVERY DAY Call Toll Free 1-800-631-2500 trial concentrations. The tamed or encapsulated in a lungs wash the fibers out be bonding material or enclosed fore they can cause serious i in an airtight chamber, so harm. Only the amphiboles. that fibers do not reach the they say, have been shown to i air. Even the much-castigat be so highly carcinogenic : ed E.P.A. has come out with a that we need to worry about l new manual for building own them at low-level, environ- , ers entitled "Managing As mental concentrations. With 1 bestos in Place." But building the exception of the United i owners generally opt for re States and South Africa, the i moval anyway, to defend industrial nations have ac themselves from lawsuits or cepted this so-called "amphi- i to shore up the market value bole hypothesis" and regulate i of their property. Even so. chrysolite less stringently. Dr. Morton Com, one of American public-health l Mossman's co-authors and a scientists usually insist that i former head of OSHA, says the jury is still out on chryso- . he believes that the inspec tile's ability to cause meso- i tion approach is worth trying thelioma. Dr. Stephen Levin. | -- in-place management a Mount Sinai researcher, t can't work without inspec points out that the asbestos i tions to locate the asbestos. installed in schools in the 50's j In her two articles, Moss- and 60's did not begin to dete- 1 man was less interested in norate until a decade later. I sorting out the policy options Since mesothelioma has a 40- i than in exposing the absurdi year latency period, the epi- j ty of spending billions on re demiological bad news could | moval. She argues that the still be on its way. ``It's like i nation would get more bang the joke about the man failing | for its public-health buck if it out the building," Levin says, i concentrated on such health ``He passes the 15th floor and I risks as the passive inhala says, 'So far, so good.' " tion of cigarette smoke, But it is unlikely that the i which by some estimates is near future will bring a dra- i 200 to 400 times more lethal matic increase in environ- I than low-level asbestos expo mental mesotheliomas -- sure. otherwise, epidemiologists i would already have seen an | F THE MOSSMAN ARTI- Iincrease in mesotheliomas | with a shorter-than-average j latency period. Most public- | cles enraged the scien tists at Mount Sinai, they did not go down too well, ei health advocates object to j ther, with the people and the Mossman articles not be- i companies who make their cause they find the argu- j living from asbestos. The ments unreasonable, but out j abatement companies felt of fear that they will be used ] threatened, but no more so as an excuse to ignore com- j than the plaintiff attorneys pletely the problem of in- j who represent injured work place asbestos. They often i ers and building owners in use the term "human experi- j lawsuits against former as mentation" to describe a poli- I bestos manufacturers. They cy of doing nothing. worried that the Mossman In truth, there are several I pieces would provide legal choices that fall between do- j ammunition for their adver ing nothing and decreeing a i saries in court. national emergency. Ten I The Mossman articles months before Congress j threaten a network of inter passed Ahera, New York City | ests that has grown around enacted the nation's most j asbestos for the last quarter stringent asbestos reguia- I of a century. In 1964, Seli- tion. Local Law 76, which | koff's epidemiological study mandated removal of asbes- j of two insulators' union locals tos from buildings facing ren- f set in motion beneficial ovation or demolition. Most i changes in the American experts would agree that | workplace and, at the same these abatements are justi- I time, a redistribution of fied -- releasing great clouds I wealth, from the pockets of of asbestos dust during a de- | asbestos manufacturers to molition is no one's idea of I sick workers and, to a much public health. j greater extent, to the lawyers Currently, the city is con- | on both sides of the lawsuits. sidering further legislation j For plaintiff lawyers, Seiikoff that would require an asbes- j is both a one-man data bank tos inspection for every build- j and a folk hero. ing in the five boroughs. This This past February, ad is a dicier proposition, since it dressing a legal seminar, Se envisions more inspections, iikoff started playing hard which critics assume will ball, casting doubt on the in trigger a host of removals, tegrity of Mossman and her rarely the safest course. The i colleagues. "You should majority of industrial hygien- ) know," he said, "that most of ists now believe that most in- | them have been involved with place asbestos can be mam- j (Continued on Page 48) "HE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 25. 1990 41 HWBUI0004057 A Strange, Yel RemarkaDle Gift. The best nose hair trimmer. Yes. that is exactly what we are suggesting. Think of it. When he first unwraps the gift he will look at you like you are mad. (If he unwraps it in front of others, it will bring a certain merriment to the holiday. > But. when he finally uses it--and he will, we assure you--he will be grateful. He will be truly well-groomed. He will be confident. He will love vou for your daring. The Best Nose Hair Trimmer. 519.95 Hammacher Schlemmer 1 East 5_th Street New York. NY 10022 ' 212)-t21-9()0() STORE HOURS: Mon. tnni Fn. 10AA1 to 8PM. Sat. 10AM to 6PM. 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The same month, was shocked, she says, that j Selikoff's successor at Mount the Mount Sinai group would ! Sinai, Dr. Philip Landrigan, regard her writings as an in ] gave a speech at the New stitutional affront. "When I | York Academy of Sciences came into this field 15 years ) that referred to "industry ago, Selikoff was like God," apologists" and "a very high she says. "Now my whole per ly orchestrated campaign of ception has changed. I am in what the spies would call dis an adversary position, and I information." don't have the political savvy Given the history of asbes of a Selikoff." tos manufacturing in the Dr. Arthur Langer serves United States, terms like "in with Mossman on a panel of dustry consultant" and "apol scientists commissioned by ogist" suggest, however the E.P.A. to produce a defin loosely, behavior that bor itive report on in-place asbes ders on the criminal. It was tos by early next year. Unlike scientists sponsored by the her, he has a combative tem industry who, from the 1930's perament and a particular through the 50's, permitted reason for enjoying the cur the companies to censor or rent dust-up: in 1985, he was suppress the results of asbes let go by Mount Sinai after a tos experiments. At the Sara 20-year collaboration with Se nac Laboratories in upstate likoff. "I'm not saying these New York, 30 years' worth of people were virgins in a industry-financed animal whorehouse," Langer says of studies simply disappeared the Mossman group, "but I from any scientific or corpo don't think they really knew rate record. what they were getting into. I In fact, only two of the five said to Brooke, `You're at authors of the offending arti tacking the icons, the gods cles have any significant con themselves.' " nection to the asbestos indus hanger's hot-and-coid mix try. Dr. Bernard Gee, a pro of outrage and sarcasm fessor of medicine at Yale might make him science's an University, and Morton Com, swer to Lenny Bruce. In the currently director of the Divi asbestos drama, he plays a sion of Environmental Health Luciferian role. Having been Engineering at Johns Hop cast out of Mount Sinai, he kins University, have ap has since done work on fiber peared as paid witnesses in type and mesothelioma at asbestos trials, usually for Brooklyn College that the the defense, but sometimes Mossman group has used to for the plaintiff. This legal buttress its argument. Lang sideline is not unusual in as er contends it is the Mount bestos-research circles, al Sinai group that is going to though some scientists stay hell, taking the path paved out of the courtroom to avoid with good intentions. "They any appearance of compro simply cannot allow certain mising their objectivity. For data to interfere with their the record, Mossman, who public-health policy posi has made her reputation with tions," he says. He describes a steady flow of highly re Selikoff as "a great man" and garded papers on toxicology, "a hero, when there was has lectured to lawyers on something to be a hero both sides; she has also done about" But today, he asserts. some consulting on the toxi Mount Sinai's intransigence cology of man-made fibers on the issue of chrysotile -- in for two former asbestos man particular a study by Dr. Wil ufacturers. liam Nicholson of Sinai that Mossman sounds genuinely helped lead the E.P.A. to im bewildered that her motives pose a total ban on all forms should be impugned, that her of asbestos -- will result in a articles should have occa dependence on synthetic fi sioned rougher rules of the bers whose health effects are game. Of her decision to no less problematic. jump into the asbestos fray, For his part, Nicholson she says: "I simply felt sci says he isn't sure the total ence wasn't driving public ban on asbestos products was policy." necessary, either. But he re Mossman's articles under jects the notion that the cut the scientific foundations Mount Sinai researchers of the asbestos-removal busi have played up the dangers of ness, which Mossman says (Continued on Page 53) HWBUI0004058 said of the science depended l ASBESTOS on what you were looking for. | No new evidence was pre- i sented to demonstrate that i Continued from Page 48 deteriorating asbestos in i schools and public buddings | ohrysotile out of public-policy 1 'wave of Asbestos Disease: j was causing increased can- i paternalism. "Thai's just bal- i Exposure to Asbestos in I cer rates m the general popu- i Jerdash," he says. "I honestly i Place." was intended to "ad- I lation. However, a mountain j believe what I believe/' dress everything the Har- | of papers were presented | vard symposium left out." that detailed the heaith ef- j CIENCE HAS ALWAYS I Sheldon Samuels, treasur- ! S been subject to differ- j er of the Collegium and an I ing interpretations of i A.F.L.-C.I.O. official, con- I lata; moreover, emotioncaeldeI s that the Mossman arti- i fects of asbestos exposure | among workers in the con- i struction, sheet-metal and I petroleum industries and I ;onviction, ego and turf war j cles "added the heat" to the i among school custodians, i ire not unknown to it. But the I Collegium's efforts to put on I Though asbestos may weil | asbestos debate has made I a major asbestos conference, i turn out to be a critical pub- I one original contribution -- He also portrays the amphi- I lie-health problem oniv for j dueling conferences. In the j bole hypothesis as something j workers. Selikoff and compa- i past, scientific conferences i other than the product of dis- j ny showed that there are far I have usually been forums for | interested thought. "The Har- j more workers at risk than l the expression of different | vard symposium, the involve- i previously thought. ' opinions, but the asbestos j ment of the Safe Buildings j Brooke Mossman is aware j partisans have turned them I Alliance -- it all stems from | that the one sentence she de mto public relations vehicles, | the activity of the Canadian voted to the subject of work with each side carefully se- : Government," he says. I ers and asbestos in Science lecting its rosters of speakers i Samuels notes that the Ca- j looks, in retrospect, some to give an appearance of sci- i nadian asbestos industry is en- i what skimpy in an article in entific unanimity. gaged in scientific research. I tending to deal with public- The amphibole hypothesis | The industry-financed Asbes- | policy issues as weil as sci got its first American airing at I tos Institute would like to ence. "We didn't have room the Symposium on Health As- I clear chrysotile's name and for everything," she says. "I pects of Exposure to Asbestos | strengthen Canada's lucrative resent being painted as not in Buildings, held at Harvard's i asbestos export markets in the being an advocate for labor. Energy and Environmental | third world. Its media kit in I'm willing to say that it's Policy Center in December I cludes brief statements by five logical that those people will 19S8. Critics at Mount Sinai | prominent scientists, Brooke be exposed." and elsewhere were quick to I Mossman among them, object Clearly, science suffers point out that despite the pres- i ing to the E.P.A.'s total ban on when an investigation into a ugious Harvard name, the ! ehrvsotile. All were solicited crucial health problem turns | symposium had been financed i by the Canadian Government, into a polemical debate, each by grants from several real- j and Samuels sees in this con side spurred on by its cheer estate groups and, most damn- i fluence of beliefs the outline of leaders, be they organized la ing in their eyes, the Safe i an international conspiracy. bor or the Safe Buildings Alli Buildings Alliance. "Mossman is nothing," he i ance. Distinguished scien This Orwellian-sounding | says, "if the Asbestos Institute l tists both, Selikoff and Moss organization usually sticks to i decided to find a better scien- | man resemble the blind men j lobbying against asbestos i fist, she's out. And the Asbes- j who tried to describe the | regulation, like New York's I tos Institute would disappear | shape of an elephant accord proposed inspection law, that I tomorrow if the Canadian Gov- I ing to the part they happened might encourage future dam- i emment would change its poli- j to be holding. Either asbestos age suits against its member j cv." ' is not so bad because the companies, all former manu- j In his opening remarks to threat to building occupants facturers of asbestos prod- I the scientists, lawyers, appears so low, or it is terri ucts. The Harvard sympo- j judges and abatement-indus ble because the threat to slum was a more ambitious j try executives, Selikoff said, blue-collar workers is so undertaking, a prestige dis- i "Science is necessary but not great. play case for recent trends in sufficient." That would ap The polemics are the inev research, all of which hap pear to be so. In the rear of itable residue of the history pened to suit the Safe Build the Holiday inn's conference of asbestos research in ings Alliance. The audience hall, two leaders of the White America. In its first phase, heard one speaker after an Lung Association, a victims- research was a tool used by other warning against wide- rights organization, handed industry to keep workers in scale asbestos removal, em out literature. They were the dark; later, when the phasizing fiber type and size flanked by a portable exhibit, workers acquired a powerful in assessing mesothelioma "Milestones in the Modern ally in Selikoff, it was a weap risk, and noting the low fiber Discovery of Asbestos Dis on with which to fight back. levels being recorded in most ease," featuring photographs But today, it is no longer use public buildings. of asbestos workers and a ful or accurate to divide as The counteroffensive was brief biography of Selikoff. bestos researchers into sav not long in coming: a confer- I By the second day of the iors of labor or lackeys of ence sponsored by the Colle- | conference, a publicity agen industry. If Selikoff and his gium Ramazzini. The Collegi- j cy hired by Sheldon Samuels allies would drop the cudgels um, an occupational and envi- j was providing reporters with of class war, and if Mossman ronmental health group | photocopied articles from and the younger generation founded eight years ago by j that morning's papers. A sci of scientists would, converse Selikoff and four colleagues, j ence writer was even com ly, become shrewder about took over the ballroom of the i missioned to produce a pa the political implications of Holiday Inn in midtown Man- I perback popularization of the their work, perhaps they hattan for three days m June, j conference proceedings. could arrive at a scientific Stephen Levin of Mount Sinai j The partisan packaging of j consensus that would provide says that the 70-speaker con- i the conference was impres- j a blueprint for the asbestos ference. entitled "The Third j stve. Whether that could be ! policy of the future. BREITLI 1884 M5 FIFTH AVENUE - NEW YORK. : TELEPHONE (212)751-480- THE HIGH IDEA A wellspring of t in fact. On the most important t concerns and iss of our times. Every Sunday, i: ^eUr||orkSirm Magazine The Right Space HWBUI0004059