2 AWP Brooklyn Paper • www.BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 260-2500 November 1–7, 2019
Fix comes slow after fi re
NYCHA rushes to meet Senator’s ‘hell to pay’ demands
Sen. Myrie’s office
Assemblyman’s offi ce scandal
Pol’s staffer pleads guilty to embezzling campaign funds
When memory fades,
our commitment endures.
Sunnyside Community Services’
CARE NYC Program helps people
cope with the stress of caring
for someone with Alzheimer’s or
dementia. We provide caregivers with
counseling, education, and
so much more.
Lessons Learned
While On The Beat By Aidan Graham
Our wrap-around
services, including
assistance with
enrollment in long-term
Medicaid coverage and
obtaining a home health
aide, ensure we can
support caregivers at
many stages. If someone
you know is a caregiver
in need of support,
please have them call
877-577-9337or email
carenyc@scsny.org.
CARE NYC is supported in part by a grant from the New York State Department of Health
By Eric L. Adams, Jennifer Gunter, and Dr. David L. Katz
When It Comes to the Health
Dangers of Processed Meats,
the Science is Settled
Nutrition: why does it confuse
us when the truth is simple and
straightforward?
We are living in an age of
information overload, where the
has become increasingly blurry.
The whirlwind of trendy nutrition
claims can make us believe we
don’t know anything about healthexcept,
we do.
The most recent entry in the socalled
debate around nutrition is
the series of systematic reviews
and meta-analyses on red meat
consumption, just published in
Annals of Internal Medicine.
These papers conclude that there
is “no need to reduce red and
processed meat consumption for
improved health outcomes.”
We believe the inaccurate
interpretation of these study
findings will set back many of
the gains we have made in public
health.
The researchers have not
performed any new studies.
Despite the fanfare, there is no
new information, and no newfound
incongruences. These red
meat reports simply re-evaluated
studies that have already been
peer-reviewed and published. But
critically, they evaluated these
studies using tools designed for
pharmaceutical trials, which
typically prioritize randomized
control trials that tend to be
very difficult and unethical as
lifestyle medicine interventions.
Observational, cohort and
longitudinal studies better
measure lifestyle interventions,
because they can study longer
time periods, adherence and
patterns.
As one of us has personally
as medicine, we understand the
risks that come from reports
designed to confound us. In the
end, we are made to believe that
the science is unsteady and the
experts disagree.
This is simply not true.
True Health Initiative, a global
coalition of world-leading health
specialists, includes experts from
paleo to vegan who all agree on the
fundamentals of healthy eating.
There is pretty much unanimous
community.
The recommendations put
forth by these reports are in direct
contradiction to the data reported
by the reports themselves. These
studies provide no compelling
reason to update guidelines, and
they do not address the health
detriments associated with eating
red and processed meat in large
quantities.
The problem isn’t that we don’t
know what to eat. The problem
is that we are constantly being
fed a narrative that the jury is
still deliberating on a number of
health matters, when in many
cases the verdict has already been
rendered. And this is a very, very
big problem.
And let’s be clear: we have
made a lot of progress. In New
Eric L. Adams
York, there has been a sea
change in our approach to
healthy eating. Responding
to the Borough President’s
advocacy on meat reduction,
New York City announced their
visionary document, OneNYC
this past April, committing to
move away from processed meats
and towards healthier options.
In that document, branded as
NYC’s Green New Deal, the City
committed to a 50% decrease in
beef purchasing via city contracts.
Meatless Mondays began in
towards meat reduction and
quickly expanded beyond schools,
expanding to hospitals; other
City agencies are considering
implementing this policy as well.
These decisions were not made
haphazardly; they were made
consensus supporting them.
Reports like the Annals’ metaanalyses
on red meat irresponsibly
undermine nutrition science.
We often hear that shifting
away from processed meats
would be unpalatable to the
broader public. But there is a clear
appetite for plant-based eating.
The borough president recently
took the lead on creating a plantbased
nutrition clinic at Bellevue
Hospital. In January 2018, the CEO
of New York Health + Hospitals
announced a $400,000 investment
into this clinic. There is now a
wait list of 650 people. We need
more plant-based options, not
fewer.
The Annals of Internal
Medicine red meat meta-analyses
and systematic reviews are not a
revolution in dietary guidelines,
they are simply a series of papers
unfounded claims the papers
make threaten to delay change
with confusion. We are standing at
a crossroads. Let us rely on sense
before nonsense, and continue to
evolve our communities towards
better nutrition, sustainability
and a culture that makes health
the norm and not the exception.
Eric Adams is Brooklyn borough
president.
Dr. David L. Katz and Jennifer
Lutz are Founder and Director of
True Health Initiative.
Brooklyn Paper
City housing honchos were
hard at work on Thursday as
they rushed to meet State Sen.
Zellnor Myrie’s 24-hour deadline
to clean up the fire-ravaged
housing projects in East
Flatbush.
Myrie, a first term legislator,
had threatened “hell to
pay” if city officials failed to
quickly remedy the decrepit
conditions inside the William
Reid Apartments, which were
partially engulfed in a fire in
late August.
“No one should be living
in these conditions,” said Myrie
in a late Wednesday tweetstorm
. “If you do not give us
a satisfactory response in 24
hours, you will have hell to
pay.”
Myrie — speaking on camera
from the second floor of
the Maple Street building
between Troy and Alabany
avenues — pointed to the
remnants of an inferno that
ravaged the housing complex
seven weeks earlier, and demanded
immediate action
to clean up the ash-covered
hallways.
“There was a fire here a
couple of weeks ago, and nothing
has been done. Look at the
conditions that they have our
seniors living in,” he said. “We
don’t know what type of air
State legislator Zellnor Myrie threatened “hell to
pay” if the city’s housing agency failed to clean up
the Reid Houses in East Flatbush Gardens after a
fire in late August.
they’re breathing in.”
Despite nearly two months
elapsing, the New York City
Housing Authority — which
oversees the city’s public
housing stockpile — had done
seemingly little to clean up
the aftermath.
“These are our most vulnerable
constituents and we
will not accept this treatment,”
wrote Myrie.
On Thursday morning,
hours after Myrie’s social media
tirade, the Housing Authority
dispatched a team of
maintenance workers to comply
with the legislators demands.
“Staff are washing and repairing
the damaged space
and will be done painting tomorrow.
We are looking into
the delays and will take appropriate
action,” said agency
spokeswoman Barbra Brancaccio.
In a separate statement ,
the spokeswoman took an
apparent shot at the public
forum which the freshman
senator chose to make his
demands.
“We hope moving forward,
the senator will contact
us directly about issues
concerning his community to
ensure that residents receive
accurate information,” said
Brancaccio.
Myrie, after returning to
the housing projects on Thursday
to watch the repair work
first-hand, fired off another
tweet thread , again criticizing
housing officials for waiting
to act until they were publicly
called out.
“This would not be acceptable
in any other community.
We had to put the Housing
Authority on blast to get
a response,” he wrote. “We
are glad to see a crew working
here today, but this is just
a first step. We are going to
continue monitoring the situation,
so please keep us informed.”
By Ben Verde
Brooklyn Paper
A high-ranking staffer for
Brooklyn Assemblyman Félix
Ortiz pled guilty in federal
court on Wednesday to
stealing more than $80,000
from the legislator’s campaign
bank account.
Maruf Alam, 29, entered his
guilty plea on Oct. 23, in the
Eastern District of New York
before Judge Ann Donnelly. He
faces up to 20 years behind bars
when he is sentenced.
Alam had served in various
roles in Ortiz’s office — including
chief of staff — from
2008 until he was arrested
in August for the wire fraud
scheme, according to federal
prosecutors.
“Alam was caught with his
hand in the till, and now he
must face the consequences,”
said United States Attorney
Richard Donoghue.
Between 2012 and 2019,
Alam cut several checks from
the campaign to his personal
bank account, and filed multiple
falsified disclosure forms
with the New York State Board
of Elections to cover his tracks,
prosecutors said.
When his employee was
arrested, Ortiz denied any
knowledge of Alam’s embezzlement
scheme.
The Assemblyman’s office
did not immediately respond
to request for comment following
Wednesday’s guilty
plea.
Félix Ortiz staffer Maruf
Alam after his arraignment
in August.
Photo by Aidan Graham
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