A Correction
East Hampton
May 25, 1998

To The Editor:

It took me a while to decide to write this, since the errors made in quoting me on the Lyme vaccine were clearly due to an honest misunderstanding of what I said.

However, it is important to set the record straight for any of your readers who may be misled by the misquotation. I did not say that the vaccine might lead to arthritis.

Although the antibody to the active agent of the vaccine, Outer Surface Protein A., is characteristically elevated in Lyme arthritis, so are antibodies to other of the bacteria's components. Such elevation does not mean that the antibody causes arthritis: It may simply coincide with it. I assume that the vaccine trials were adequate to rule out any causative relationship.

I did not imply that I would not give a child the vaccine once it is approved for adult use. I do feel that, prior to exposing my child to a trial of the vaccine, I would have to see the results of the adult trial, soon to be published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Knowing Gail Schonfeld, I'm sure she agrees.

Incidentally, I am still medical director at Southampton Hospital and supervise the tick borne disease testing program.

Thank you for the editorial on the East Hampton Medical Building, a plea for the reduction of political wrangling. This project has been hanging fire too long, and the town desperately needs a facility. The details can be worked out by people of good will as the building process progresses.

Sincerely,

STEPHEN J. SIGLER, M.D.

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Snappy Dressers
Amagansett
May 25, 1998

Dear Helen,

Bill Henderson's engaging story about the $300 Dunhill shoes he found at the dump and wore to the "wedding of the decade" at Sudeley Castle in England got me thinking: How true is it as Henderson declared that "people who decorate their outsides are usually empty shells inside"?

Empty shells? I began to put together a list of all the people I could think of who enjoy(ed) clothes - snappy dressers who nevertheless appear(ed) to have substantial inner resources.

Here are only a few of the names I came up with: Oscar Wilde, Pat Riley, Johnny Cochran, Frank Sinatra, Gloria Steinem, Rudolf Nureyev, Scott Fitzgerald, Sonny Bono, Fred Astaire, Cary Grant, Tom Wolfe, Uma Thurman, Salvador Dali, Gerald and Sara Murphy, Cole Porter, Mae West, Audrey Hepburn, Henry Kissinger, Leonard Bernstein, Jacqueline Onassis, the Dalai Lama, Charlie Rose, Lord Chesterfield, Sharon Stone, Truman Capote, Giuseppe Verdi, George Plimpton, Charles Chaplin, the entire Navaho, Zuni, and Masai tribes, Bill Clinton, and my husband, Bob Langs. (I'm merely arguing against "emptiness." You may not like what these individuals are full of . . . but it's not nothing. Also, it disturbed me that it was easier to think of men for this list than women, that women who like to "decorate their outsides" are easier targets for accusations of empty shelldom . . . but that's another story.)

The late Duke and Duchess of Windsor seem to prove Henderson's point; but Woody Allen wore that boring windbreaker for years and may still be wearing it now, even though he regularly attends fashion shows with Soon-Yi. Was he not an empty shell before? Has be become one now? Was he always one? Can empty shells ever fill up? "It is a puzzlement," as that ambassador of sartorial splendor, the King of Siam, would have said.

PHYLLIS RAPHAEL

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Miss The Excitement
East Hampton
May 18, 1998

Dear Mrs. Rattray,

Last year you were kind enough to publish an interview with me on the occasion of my retiring from the jewelry business after almost 30 years in East Hampton. Now I have decided to reopen Jewels by Virtu and I feel I owe you an explanation.

I want you to know I was completely honest in announcing that I was going out of business. This was no gimmick. However, I find I am not cut out for the inactive life. I miss the excitement and purpose that running a business provides. So I am reopening.

Please accept my sincere thanks for your past coverage.

Yours truly,

VINCENT J. GRIPPA

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Wild Beauty
Montauk
May 25, 1998

To the Editor:

Montauk is one of those rarest of places - it has a bit of wild beauty left to it. Its natural state is, of course, threatened by real estate development, but it also is endangered in small, less obvious ways.

The Town of East Hampton plans to create an additional two-and-a-half-mile asphalt walkway along the Old Montauk Highway, overlooking the ocean. The macadam strip might seem more convenient for walkers and bikers, but it will replace a gentle dirt path with a hard, artificial one. (Some might argue that the artificial path will be safer, but it actually will invite dangerous biker and pedestrian congestion adjacent to the highway.)

We should urge town officials to think twice about eliminating the natural paths that contribute to the land's rustic beauty.

Sincerely,

WILLIAM CRAIN