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Life & Times Transcript

1/04/07

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

Is horseracing in California a clean sport? Don't bet on it.

Scott Reid>> You've got to go out there just knowing that it's a given, that there's probably going to be a drugged horse in the race that you're betting on.

Richard Shapiro>> I'm not going to say that there aren't people who will try to beat the system. There are people who try to beat the system in everything.

Val Zavala>> And then, do you have a fear of frying? Are you cautious about carbs? One expert says to sit back and enjoy your food.

It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val Zavala>> They use meth, speed and cocaine to enhance their performance and increase their speed. No, I'm not talking about marathon runners or cyclists. I'm talking about racehorses. Some racehorse owners are doping their animals to boost their chances of crossing the finish line first and it's happening more often at California racetracks than in any other state. Roger Cooper has our story based on an investigative series from The Orange County Register.

[Film Clip]

Roger Cooper>> Horseracing is a four billion dollar a year business in California.

[Film Clip]

Roger Cooper>> Passionate fans place their bets at fourteen tracks up and down the state and excitedly watch to see how the horses finish. But questions are being raised about how horseracing is run in California and how often horse performance is given an artificial boost from drugs, drugs that can damage a horse's heart and muscles or allow them to run even when they're injured. The Orange County Register spent a year investigating the number of racehorses that failed drug tests in this state.

Scott Reid>> If you look at our numbers, basically every other day at the races in California, there's a drugged horse running.

Roger Cooper>> The three-part investigation called "Bad Bets" is the work of lead reporter, Scott Reid, along with Tony Saavedra and Robert Kuwada. The Register concluded that the number of horses failing drug tests in California has doubled since 2000. Compare that to other horseracing states where drug violations have dropped significantly.

Scott Reid>> California horses are four times as likely to be drugged as they are in New York and New Jersey, which is another top state. California horses are seven times more likely to be drugged.

Richard Shapiro>> I think the articles failed to understand the methodology and the technology that's involved in testing these horses.

Roger Cooper>> But the chairman of the California Horseracing Board is critical of their findings. Richard Shapiro says the reporters failed to consider that California might have a better detection system that identifies drug positives others might miss.

Richard Shapiro>> In California, we use the UC Davis Maddy Laboratory which is the finest laboratory in the country. It makes sense that we're going to be much more attuned to picking up more things than other jurisdictions. The statistics look bad, but the truth is that we're doing a much better job.

Roger Cooper>> Reporter Scott Reid stands by his story.

Scott Reid>> This is not the case. New York has a similar testing system. Last year, they ran fifty-nine thousand tests, almost sixty thousand tests. California ran thirty-one thousand tests. New York had fifty-three violations. California had over a hundred forty violations. So I just don't see that argument as holding.

Roger Cooper>> The Register also found there's a non-human toll in racehorse abuse. It harms horses like L.B. Starlet. After winning a race, L.B. Starlet tested positive for methamphetamine, an illegal drug with no accepted medical use in horses. The animal was injured and coming apart, but today has found a home in Long Beach, giving rides to young people in a 4H group. Not every drugged racehorse is so lucky.

Scott Reid>> These horses are drugged and drugged and drugged and they finally just kind of break down and basically forgotten and they end up in a slaughter house. It's a pretty miserable existence.

Richard Shapiro>> It is only when you get into the Class 1 drugs that have no therapeutic benefit that I have a real serious problem. Anybody that chooses to use a Class 1 drug on a horse, you know, I'm all for throwing the book at them.

Roger Cooper>> But most violations in California don't involve illegal drugs. Racing Board Chairman Shapiro says that most of the positive tests pick up legal therapeutic drugs. Legal, that is, if not given to a horse right before a race.

Richard Shapiro>> What we have is permitted medication that may exceed permitted levels and that's what is called a positive in most cases, and it's not altering the horse's performance.

Scott Reid>> The rest of the country doesn't see it that way. A lot of these excessive therapeutic induces in other states are going to get a suspension. If you've done it a number of times, a lot stiffer fines because it is a competitive advantage.

Roger Cooper>> In fact, The Register investigation found that drug violators in California routinely receive lighter penalties than in other racing states. It says from 2000 to 2005, California suspended five percent of the trainers whose horses failed drug tests, while fifty-seven percent were suspended in New York and the other eastern racing states.

Scott Reid>> People we talked to around the country seem to think that the major reason for the drop in other states is that the penalties are a lot harder than they are in California, that California has these relaxed penalties. Trainers and owners who dope their horses are rarely suspended. They get fines that are actually small compared to other states.

Roger Cooper>> On this point, they agree. Racing Board Chairman Shapiro says he would like to see stronger penalties here.

Richard Shapiro>> I am an advocate for stronger penalties and I would like to see that we were able to deal justice swifter than we do. But the way that we work out here, we afford everybody the process of due process, so everyone gets their day in court.

Roger Cooper>> Some racing observers told The Register that part of California's problem is that members of the Racing Board have close ties to the industry, giving at least an appearance of conflict of interest.

Scott Reid>> Board members of California who own racehorses can race those horses in California and, to people around the country, that's a major conflict of interest.

Roger Cooper>> But Shapiro says Board members need to have racing knowledge.

Richard Shapiro>> A good Board member needs to understand all of the nuances and the complexities of all of the stakeholders and the participants in the game. I think that would be a tall order for somebody that didn't have some familiarity with the sport.

Roger Cooper>> The Register has calculated that, over the last six years, two hundred sixty-eight million dollars was bet on California races in which a horse failed a drug test. But Racing Board Chairman Shapiro maintains that's a misleading figure and he says that race fans can have confidence in the sport.

Richard Shapiro>> Absolutely, and if anything, I believe that in California if you look at the types of positives there are and if you understand it, I think that you would see that we're very vigilant. We test a lot of horses and we make sure that these horses are not being harmed and that they're not getting performance-enhancing drugs.

Roger Cooper>> But reporter Scott Reid says what the investigation turned up should give pause to anyone going to a California track.

Scott Reid>> You just got to go out there knowing that it's a given, that there's probably going to be a drugged horse in one of the races you're betting on.

Richard Shapiro>> I'm not going to say that there aren't people who will try to beat the system. There are people who try to beat the system in everything. But the few bad apples are very few.

Roger Cooper>> The State Horseracing Board will consider tougher penalties for drug violations at its meeting this month. In cooperation with The Orange County Register, I'm Roger Cooper for Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> If you'd like to read the entire series on doping racehorses, you can go to The Orange County Register's website at ocregister.com. The series was called "Bad Bets".

Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".

Val Zavala>> It seems like every few weeks, there's a headline in the paper about food. Trans fats are now outlawed in New York. For a while, we couldn't eat spinach and, of course, fast food makes us obese. But what do we really know about our food? Well, now we have some answers in a book called "The Gospel of Food". It's by USC Sociologist, Barry Glassner. Glassner argues that Americans take their concern over healthy eating to unnecessarily extreme levels.

Barry Glassner>> I was really surprised when I did the research for this book at how many myths we have about food and about how uncertain really a lot of the knowledge is. You know, if you notice, one year, one food will be on the positive list and the next year will be on the negative list. I think a lot of what we think we know, we just don't really know.

One that we believed for a long time was that, if you ate eggs, it was going to raise your cholesterol. It might for some people, and eggs were off the list for a long time, but eggs are incredibly nutritious. If you look over about the last twenty years, we've gone from relatively low egg consumption because everybody was afraid of it to now a pretty normal kind of level and treating eggs as normal, even good for you.

Val Zavala>> So that's not a problem in your estimation?

Barry Glassner>> I think that's one where we got completely off balance by some advice which, by the way, at the time was not backed up very well by scientific evidence.

Val Zavala>> Now another belief is connecting fast food with this epidemic of obesity that we have going. Is that not a correct connection?

Barry Glassner>> Fast food may have something to do with the obesity epidemic, but it certainly is not the explanation for it. You can see that very easily. Just look at what happened when. You know, we have this notion that we've heard from some supposed experts that the two things happened at the same time. The obesity epidemic occurred as fast food was taking off. That's not true. The signs outside of McDonalds Restaurants read "2 billion" way before the obesity epidemic started.

Val Zavala>> Meaning two billion hamburgers sold.

Barry Glassner>> Meaning two billion hamburgers sold, in the 1960s. The obesity epidemic began in the 1980s and really took off in the 1990s. By that point, fast food restaurants were everywhere. They've been everywhere for a long time. There were tens of thousands of them, so that can't really be the main explanation. Simple explanations for any of these kinds of outcomes like the obesity epidemic are bound to be wrong. It's pretty clear that it's much more complex than that.

Val Zavala>> Complex meaning there are issues of exercise and there are other factors besides fast food, which isn't good for you. You're not saying it's good for you and it's not to blame.

Barry Glassner>> Well, there certainly are issues about the quality of fast food in some cases, although an occasional meal of fast food is not going to hurt very many people unless you have a special condition. The obesity epidemic, when I looked at what's really causing it, there were a lot of surprises. For example, the anti-smoking campaigns.

Now those are good things, don't misunderstand me, but if you look at what happens when people give up smoking, typically they gain ten to twenty pounds. Well, what happens very effectively in this country at the time that obesity and weight in general went up, there was a big anti-smoking campaign that was very effective. We're fortunate it was effective, but we sociologists have a phrase called The Law of Unintended Consequences, and this was an example of one of those.

Val Zavala>> Now the latest villain on our eating table is trans fats. In fact, New York banned them from restaurants. What are they and is this just progress or are we going to find out later that, oh, it's not that much of a problem anyway?

Barry Glassner>> Well, there's certainly nothing wrong with banning trans fats in general. They're not good for you.

Val Zavala>> Okay, that much we know. They aren't good for you.

Barry Glassner>> Right, but will it do much? The answer is no. It's been advertised as saving lots of lives. The evidence just isn't clear for that. It will have some effect, but we have to take into account what the flip side of the coin is. Who will this mostly affect? The ban in New York City, for example, will mostly affect the operators of small restaurants, mom and pop operations, because they can't switch as easily.

Who will be affected by it? People who go to inexpensive restaurants, low end customers, which is mostly where these are used. So highly saturated fats, expensive animals fats, for example, will still be used in the expensive high-end restaurants. So you see, for example, now in some high-end restaurants, french fries prepared in duck fat, okay? You know, it's not like it affects everybody the same way and that's typically what happens when we legislate what people should eat.

Val Zavala>> If we follow all the rules -- which unfortunately are changing all the time -- but if we do really pay attention to our diet, won't we live longer?

Barry Glassner>> You'll probably live a little bit longer if you could figure out which ones to follow.

Val Zavala>> Oh, okay (laughter).

Barry Glassner>> There are many conflicting types of advice, right? Are carbs good or bad? Which fats are good or bad? How much of each one? You can drive yourself crazy trying to follow all these to the letter. If you succeed, from what I've been able to determine in this research, unless you have certain medical conditions where you do have to be very careful, it probably will make very little difference in the long run and there's a cost. We know that enjoyment of a meal also contributes to health.

Many nutritional experts around the world, if you look at the dietary guidelines of countries in Europe, for example, specifically say that foods plus enjoyment equals health. One country comes right out and says that. But in America, we're true to our puritan roots, so we think that being abstainers, being very careful, will result in a long life, not the enjoyment itself.

Val Zavala>> Although Americans are indulging these days with, you know, cookies and ice cream and these big portions. I mean, a lot of people would say, no, we should be more puritan. We should have more discipline.

Barry Glassner>> One brilliant thing that the food industry does is it sells us both sides of everything, okay? So it will sell us foods that make us feel virtuous, what I call the doctrine of not, right? If it has less of something, it's better. The less sugar, the less salt, the less fat, the less carbs. Then if we follow that really well, then we can treat ourselves to something else and then they can sell us those, the really indulgent foods. So they went both ways. It's really quite brilliant and we pay the price.

Val Zavala>> So after researching "The Gospel of Food", did you change any of your diet or eating habits?

Barry Glassner>> Well, I have to admit that I wasn't really into very many of these kinds of fads I talk about in the first place, but, yes, I've become much more skeptical about all kinds of food products that are promoted to me and all kinds of diets that come down the pike than I was before. Now also, I see some of what I was eating before in a very different light. For example, I routinely ate blueberries at breakfast, but that's because I like them.

Val Zavala>> An antioxidant.

Barry Glassner>> Yes, but now I think, oh, wow, they're selling them to me as antioxidants. Maybe I'm getting an added benefit anyway, but I'm going to eat them because I like the taste (laughter).

Val Zavala>> Barry Glassner is giving a talk about "The Gospel of Food" sponsored by the Skeptics Society. For more information, you can go to their website at skeptic.com. The free talk is this Sunday at two o'clock at Caltech.

Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:

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Larry Mantle>> Welcome to FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC. Our first film this week, "Freedom Writers" -- that's with a T -- is set in Long Beach here in southern California and stars Hilary Swank as a teacher who's challenged by the school environment and what her kids face every day. The film is written and directed by Richard LaGravenese.

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> I'm joined this week by critics Andy Klein of City Beat, and Henry Sheehan of henrysheehan.com. Andy, what did you think of "Freedom Writers"?

Andy Klein>> Well, I was actually pleasantly surprised. This is a kind of film I don't like and I thought it was better than it had any business being. Hilary Swank plays a teacher who obviously had sort of a coddled upbringing and she's just started as a teacher at a really tough high school in Long Beach. The kids don't pay attention, they're all in gangs, you know, classic terrible environment.

She manages to inspire them, having them read "Diary of Anne Frank" and finding the connections between their lives and Anne Frank's life and the connections among their own lives where the different races and ethnic groups are at each other's throats all the time. It's based on a true story. It's kind of your inspirational school film along the lines of "Stand and Deliver". On some level, I wasn't buying it, but on another level, I was really enjoying it quite a bit.

Larry Mantle>> What did you think, Henry?

Henry Sheehan>> Well, this is indeed a very restrictive genre, the story of the heroic teacher that goes into a poor school and somehow gets all the kids together and lifts them up. The problem with these films is when the teacher becomes the oppressed character. That is, goes up against an unfeeling administration usually personified by an evil principal or, in this case, an evil department head played by Imelda Staunton fairly well.

This film, I thought, was getting away from that for fifty or sixty minutes when it showed the kids living their lives in Long Beach, especially this one Latino girl named Eva, and the gunfire and the violence that these kids have to deal with on a daily basis. I thought that made this movie really tough and very absorbing. Unfortunately, in the second half -- the movie is a little over two hours -- it does switch back to the more heroic put-upon teacher mode.

Larry Mantle>> There's no question they have the talent to put on an acting clinic: Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett. The pair costar in the film "Notes on a Scandal". It's directed by Richard Eyre and has a screenplay by playwright and screenwriter, Patrick Marber.

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> Andy, what did you think of "Notes on a Scandal"? Certainly a prestigious cast.

Andy Klein>> This is a completely different approach to being a teacher than in "Freedom Writers" (laughter). It's really, really different. Judi Dench is the sort of point of view character here. She's this older, frumpy teacher at this not very good school somewhere in London. Cate Blanchett is the hot new teacher who comes in and Cate Blanchett really comes across very hot in this film.

The Judi Dench character wants to be her friend, but she catches her having sex with a fifteen year old student and she decides to use that essentially to blackmail her to do what she wants. It turns out that Judi Dench herself is also interested in sex with Cate Blanchett. I thought this was wickedly funny. I mean, the tension between what Judi Dench tells us is happening and what we see happening, and that creates a lot of humor.

Larry Mantle>> Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor costar in "Miss Potter", which tells the story of Beatrix Potter, the noted creator of children's fiction.

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> In your opinion, was "Miss Potter" successful, Henry?

Henry Sheehan>> I think on one level, it certainly was. Renee Zellweger plays Beatrix Potter, the Edwardian woman who, you know, created "Peter Rabbit" and "Peter Cottontail", all those wonderful stories we all grew up with. The film is about her difficulty getting these stories published, her romance with the publisher and even brings up the issue of what it's like to be a single woman in London in those times as a member of that class.

It does some very nice things with the creation of the animals. She draws them and they come to life on the paper sometimes. Chris Noonan directed it. He directed the first "Babe". He's very good at incorporating this little bit of fantasy into a real world.

The movie becomes a romance. Renee Zellweger as Miss Potter becomes the lover, you know, platonic lover -- this is Edwardian years (laughter) -- with her young publisher played by Ewan McGregor. These bits of them together are very good. I think the movie doesn't go as far as it should in terms of her consciousness and things like that. Renee Zellweger gets moist, but it's okay.

Larry Mantle>> And finally this week, a movie that combines a little girl's real world with her fantasy world. Guillermo del Toro, the Mexican director, directs the film that's set in Spain, "Pan's Labyrinth".

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> "Pan's Labyrinth", Henry?

Henry Sheehan>> This is the Mexican director, Guillermo del Toro, working in Spain again with issues of the Spanish Civil War as he did in "Devil's Backbone" in the same mix of reality and fantasy. This is about a little girl who lives in two or three separate worlds really.

It's 1946, there are a few loyalists left, Fascists are hunting them down, small guerilla groups in remote areas. She's been brought out to this remote area because her mother is marrying a Fascist captain because she feels she has to. The captain is marrying just to get a son.

Meanwhile, she witnesses the other world of fighting and violence and, mentally and spiritually and emotionally, she begins to live in this fantasy world where a fawn encounters her after walking through this real labyrinth. At the end of it, she encounters this fawn who says that, if she completes certain tasks, she'll become a princess of this secret world. It does justice, let's say, to every idea and every world. Very emotionally profound film. Sounds artificial, but it's very, very real.

Larry Mantle>> What did you think of it, Andy?

Andy Klein>> Absolute agreement. I mean, this is one of the best films of the year handily. Having these really two worlds that shouldn't be able to integrate and integrating them by the end is really amazing. Del Toro, this may be his most accomplished film so far. As much as I'm very fond of his first film, "Cronos", and I liked "Hellboy" and "Blade II", this is really, as Henry said, a profound piece of work.

Larry Mantle>> Thanks for joining us for another FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC with critics Henry Sheehan of henrysheehan.com, and Andy Klein of City Beat. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you again next week on the next FilmWeek on Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> For the hour version of FilmWeek, tune in to KPCC public radio Friday mornings at eleven a.m. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Sponsored in part by:


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