f.

This column, by Daily World
international affairs writer, Tom
Foley, appeared in that paper
April 25.

I want to pay tribute to the
memory of a man who saved my
life — and the lives of possibly 45
million other diabetics like me. I
mean Dr. Charles Herbert Best,
Canadian biochemist,  co-
discoverer of insulin in 1921. Dr.
Best died March 31 in Toronto at
a;

Diabetes is a condition in which
the body fails to produce the
natural hormone, insulin. Your
body transforms the food you eat
into sugar (glucose), but for this
sugar to be converted into
energy, insulin is necessary. A
body without insulin is like a car
without a carburetor.

There are two forms of
diabetes. One is called maturity-
onset diabetes and generally
affects overweight people past
the age of 40; it can usually be
controlled by diet alone, without
insulin. The other form, juvenile
diabetes, shows up in children
and young people when there is
no natural insulin in their bodies
that they can use.

Before the discovery of insulin
\in 1921, juvenile diabetics could

An American pays tribute
to a pioneering Canadian

expect to survive only a few
months or years at most. Dr.
Best and Dr. Frederick Banting
succeeded in isolating and
identifying the hormone in their
laboratory at the University of
Toronto. Preceding them by a
few months was Dr. N. Paulescu
of Bucharest University in
Romania, whose work was
largely ignored until a few years
ago.

It is a curious fact that Dr.
Banting, an M.D., and Dr. J.J.R.
Macleod, physiology professor at
Toronto, were awarded the Nobel
Prize in 1923. Macleod’s con-
tribution was in lending Banting
and Best some laboratory space.
But Best and Paulescu remain
ignored by the Nobel Committee
down to this day. To Banting’s
credit, he shared his Nobel Prize
money with Best, and always
insisted that the discovery was a
joint one. The Nobel Committee
should have given the prize to
Banting, Best and Paulescu.

Diabetes affects 10 million
people in the U.S., only five
million of whom are aware they
have diabetes. It is the third-
leading cause of death (after
heart disease and cancer) in this
country, responsible for 300,000
deaths annually.

Diabetes is also the No. 1 cause
of new cases of blindness in the
U.S., and No. 2 cause of blindness
in general. The incidence . of
diabetes has increased 50 percent
in the last decade — which may
represent better reporting or
increased awareness of it. But
diabetes certainly can be
described. as a major social

problem as well as a medical one. °

The first reported case of
diabetes is contained in an an-
cient Egyptian papyrus, dated
around 1500 B.C. ‘And yet, even
today, nobody really knows what
it is or what causes it. Insulin,
taken by injection, brings it
under control but does not

“Cure’”’ it. A disease has some
causative agent (virus,.bacteria,
or other) ; diabetes seems to have
none, so it cannot properly be
called a disease. That nebulous
term, ‘‘heredity,”’ is often used,
without explanation, much as
physicists use the term ‘‘gravity”’
without being able to explain
what it is. If pressed, I prefer to
describe it as a “malfunction.”

It irritates me to no end that
this capitalist society largely
ignores something that is killing
300,000 people per year in the
U.S., while it is eager to spend
billions to build mass ex-
termination weapons capable of
killing 300,000 people in two
minutes of “enhanced
radiation’’.

That I would live better as a
diabetic in a socialist country I
can prove by cold, hard statistics.

In the U.S., the average life-
span of a diabetic is one-third less

than that of non-diabetics. In the)
German Democratic Republic,
both diabetics and non-diabetics
have exactly the same average
life-span (which is quite long,
comparable to Sweden, Norway
and other capitalist countries).
Life expectancy in the GDR is 74
for women and 69 for men; the
GDR has about 460,000 diabetics
out of a total population of 17
million. GDR medical scientists
at Humbolt University strongly
dispute U.S. claims that the
shorter life-span of diabetics is
something ‘‘natural’’ and
“unavoidable.”’

One of the many crimes of
which U.S. imperialism is guilty
is the murder of many diabetics
in Cuba with the sudden im-
position of the-U.S. blockade —
against insulin among other
things — in 1961. Socialist Cuba in
1970 b jan a ten-year national
program to develop a system of
integrated medical care for
Cuba’s 45,000 diabetics, which
has been amazingly successful
and has been written up in many
U.S. specialized journals. Among
other things, Cuba has cut cases
of diabetic acidosis by. 50 per-
cent; acidosis or diabetic coma
remains a major killer in the U.S.
Cuba, the ‘‘sugar island’’, would |
be safer for me than the capitalist
US.!

Although the 1980 Moscow’ Olympics are still two years away, “Topa,” the Olympic mascot bear, has
hroughout the USSR. Here, he shakes hands with construction
. —Tass photo

already begun his public relations tours t

workers on a building site in Minsk.

Composer dead at 74

Music world mourns
Aram Khachaturyan

Aram Khachaturyan, the Soviet
Armenian composer whose piano
concerto and dramatic ballet
Spartacus, had won him interna-
tional renown as one of the major
composers of the 20th century, died
Monday after a lengthy illness. He
was 74.

A prolific composer whose works
include concertos, ballets, film
scores, symphonies and chamber
music, Khachaturyan was born in
the Georgian capital of Tbilisi in
1903 and entered the Gnesin School
of Music in Moscow at the age of 19.
He was first a student of the cello
although he soon established

‘ himself as a composer of some note

and by the 1930’s his name was
familiar in Prague, Vienna, Paris
and London.

The famous American pianist
Arthur Rubenstein premiered his

piano concerto in New York at the
end of the 1930’s.

He was probably best known for
his ‘Sabre Dance” from the ballet
“Gayan”’ which, with its pulsating
rhythms and Armenian musical
inflections, has captivated
audiences wherever it has bee!
heard.

“I grew up in an atmosphere of
rich folk music,” Khachaturya?
said in an interview four years ag0
“and the life of the people, theif
festivities and rites, their joys an

sorrows, the vivid soundings of

their national melodies — all thes
impressions were absorbed by my
mind and determined the founda-
tions of my musical thinking.”

A two-time winner of the Stalin

- Prize, Khachaturyan was also the

composer of the anthem of the Ar 3
menian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Labor is the loser in assembly-line flick —

When a film comes along which
revolves around Black and White
workers determined to improve
their lives within a situation where
their union leaders are corrupt, it
is a welcome sight. Such is the
appearance of Blue Collar, but it
certainly isn’t the reality.

The story opens in Detroit, and
centers around three young auto
workers, Zeke (Richard Pryor),
Jerry (Harvey Keitel), and
Smokey (Yaphet Kotto). Zeke and
Smokey are Black, Jerry is white.
The three are found in a bar near
the auto plant complaining about
the foremen, their weak union
leaders and their daily battle with
the job and rising prices.

They aren’t against the union,
and defend it when a suspected
government agent tries to get them
to denounce it because of its
leaders. So far so good.

Zeke and Jerry, both married,

. hold down second jobs. Zeke gets
hit by the Internal Revenue Ser-

vice for $2,000 for falsely claiming.

six children instead of three. Jerry
gets socked with the prospect of
tremendous medical bills when his
teenaged daughter gets braces on
her teeth.

At this point, the story goes off
the deep end. In need of money,
they get their street-wise friend,
Smokey, and decide to hit the local
union office safe. They break into
the union office at night, knock out
a security guard who detects them,
and flee with a measly $600. But
they find a notebook with a record
of union loan sharking on a big
scale and decide to blackmail
union officials.

From here on things get tougher
for the three. The union officials
with their ties to the mob send
goons over to Jerry’s house where
they are intercepted by Smokey
who beats them with a baseball
bat. The union then offers Zeke a
committeeman’s job in exchange
for the notebook, which he turns

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—May 5, 1978—Page 10

over. Smokey gets killed in the
paint shop at the plant, apparently
the victim of the union-mobsters.
Jerry gets chased by two guys in a
car late one night, and feeling
isolated and threatened, turns
himself in to the FBI.

The only progressive aspect of
the film is the friendship of the two
Black workers and the white
worker. However, that is destroyed
by the end, when Jerry and Zeke go
at each other with mechanics’ tools
in the plant as each has felt
betrayed by the other.

Blue Collar is much more than
an adventure film. It-is an ex-
tremely anti-union and anti-labor
film.

It is noteworthy that the union in
the film is not the United Auto
Workers (UAW), but the “AAW,”
according to the sign shown on the
front of the union hall. Yet, we see
a “Ford”’ sign over the auto plant.

BLUE COLLAR; Starring Richard
Pryor, Harvey Keitel, Yaphet

Kotto. Written and directed by
Paul Schrader. A Universal release.

RICHARD PRYOR IN BLUE
COLLAR .. . labor is the target.

Universal Pitures undoubtedly
realized that they risked a gigantic
lawsuit if they used the UAW
initials in such a slanderous anti
union film. Apparently, there are
no complaints anticipated from
Ford Motor Company though.

Blue Collar is presented as 4
hard-hitting statement about life 1?
the U.S. today.

An advertisement for it read-
s: “If you’re rich, you can buy it.
you’re anything else you gotta fight
for it.’’ No complaints there. Bul
the overall message is: You can't
fight the ‘‘system”’ and win, or if
you do fight, be sure to fight
anybody but the company.

And why not. Universal Pictures
is big business too. It has yearly
sales of $60-$75 million and em
ploys 2,000 yonkers of its own.

—Paul Klause?

Je