Universal Pain

To the Editors:

As I lay in bed suffering from a backache, my son tossed me your magazine with its cover story on backaches [July 14]. I found myself in your article--slightly overweight, engaging in physical activity only in spurts, then overdoing it, and unwilling to do the exercises recommended by my doctor.

Paul E. Kindig

Endwell, N. Y.

Murray Goldstein's comment that there is no evidence that spinal manipulation to relieve back pain is any better than singing Dixie is typical of the blinders-on approach the medical profession has toward chiropractors. After six years of pain and discomfort and four weeks out of work, I went to a chiropractor and am happy today to be able to sing Dixie and praise chiropractic care.

John Comins

Rochester

How interesting that Dr. Bachrach's female patients use back pain as an excuse for avoiding sex. Perhaps the reason why many middle-aged men have coronary artery disease is so they can say, "Oh, I can't have sex with my wife because I may have a heart attack."

Katherine Rubin

Watertown, Mass.

Thanks for telling us that 80% of all backaches are psychological in origin. I've been through the back problem twice in ten years, and if there's a third time (I do my exercises faithfully), I'm going to save myself a lot of aggravation and tell everyone I'm a manic-depressive, paranoid-schizo fetish freak with klepto-frigid tendencies, and be done with it.

Dana Tueth Motley

Champaign, Ill.

Why didn't you mention yoga as a preventive measure for back ailments? Examine some of the ancient asanas and you will find these movements remarkably similar to the exercises recommended in your article.

Cyndi Heller

Alameda, Calif.

After 17 years of intermittent backache from a herniated disc, I have found swimming to be the only form of therapy that has kept me pain free and able to function comfortably.

Judy McCormick

Walnut Creek, Calif.

When your back is out, you are now apparently In.

Paul M. Lin

Wichita, Kans.

The Abortion Decision

The Supreme Court's decision to limit federal funding for abortions [July 14] is a step in the right direction. What is needed now is a constitutional amendment that would outlaw abortions for the middle-class and wealthy women as well. They are the largest destroyers of life.

Carolyn Keogh

Chicago

So the Hyde Amendment allows federally funded abortions in case of rape or incest. Does Hyde recognize just a little that motherhood should be by choice?

Dan Wharton

Pelham, N. Y.

Not-So-Private Lives

In answer to the question in Frank Trippett's Essay [July 14], why the recent eruption in print of so-called intimacies? Perhaps it's because real intimacy between two people is so much harder to come by these days.

Albert Perry

Westport, Conn.

Intimacy--so longed for, so precious. Do we really believe we can purchase it outright from each other with a few tawdry tales of personal passion and angst?

Eleanor Dougherty

Amherst, N. Y.

Our seamy personal behavior results from secrecy. If truth and knowledge replace Victorian guilt and ignorance, perhaps we can then learn how to treat each other decently.

Roy Alexander

Larchmont, N. Y.

The Forgotten Dead

It is not surprising that the establishment of a national memorial honoring our Viet Nam War dead [July 14] has been left to a single citizen, Jan Scruggs, rather than to the Government under whose direction they fought and died. That the fate of those 57,000 men has faded from congressional minds is all too evident in the recent hasty renewal of draft registration.

Carol Adams

West Des Moines, Iowa

Etzioni's Miracle Drug

Economist William Nordhaus is maligning my "miracle drug," reindustrialization, when he says it "basically calls for reinforcing sick industries" [July 14]. Nothing is further from my thesis. It calls for favoring investment in basic sectors essential for a vigorous and free economy, such as energy development, improved transportation, more R. and D. and larger investment in human capital, all via incentives, not Government control or selection of "winner" industries.

Amitai Etzioni, Director

Center for Policy Research Inc.

Washington, D.C.

Reindustrialization? Broad Government incentives? The only incentive we need is less Government.

Dick Newick

Vineyard Haven, Mass.

No Truck with Deregulation

I was dismayed by your article on the passage of the so-called trucking deregulation bill [July 14]. Although the bill does take some very small steps forward in the direction of deregulation, they are certainly not adequate. You mentioned that the ICC has produced some startlingly ludicrous anomalies, and you further implied that the recently passed legislation corrected this situation. Not so; milk is still exempt and yogurt is not. The article also stated that the American Trucking Associations fought against the bill; they did not. What they did do was to fight for a bill they found acceptable, and that is exactly what they got. Those forces in our society working for the consumer have been fooled into thinking that the trucking industry was deregulated in 1980. It was not.

Millicent Fenwick, Representative

Fifth District, New Jersey

Washington, D.C.

I expect that after scattered reports of lower truck rates, the industry will settle down to shaking out the independent truckers and the small operators, leaving a relatively few well-financed, efficiently operated truck corporations in substantial control of one of the nation's major businesses. I predict that within 20 years we will hear cries for regulation of the truck industry in order to "protect" the American consumer. I hope I'm wrong.

Charles Hanlon, State Senator

Salem, Ore.

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