RISK REDEFINED At a reception for the new book “America’s War on ‘Carcinogens’: Reassessing the Use of Animal Tests to Predict Human Cancer Risk” (ACSH), the president of the American Council on Science and Health, Elizabeth M. Whelan, recommended eating farm-raised salmon as one way to avoid carcinogens. A former lieutenant governor, Betsy McCaughey, hosted the event at her Upper East Side home.

Ms. Whelan wrote the foreword for and was a co-editor of the book. It analyzes the scientific facts behind public health scares such as those involving water chlorination, hair dye, barbequed food, and even cranberries. The ACSH has found that though high doses of certain substances may cause cancer in mice or rats, it does not necessarily follow that small amounts ingested by humans pose a cancer threat.

“We ban things at the drop of a rat,” Ms. Whelan said. “Certainly, the risks of ‘high-level’ exposure to lead in paint, mercury in fish, or naturally occurring arsenic in drinking water are well documented and real.” But scares exacerbated by the press frequently are based on high-exposure rodent tests and are not applicable to humans at the level at which we are exposed.

Focus on various unsubstantiated fears has diverted public attention from real threats such as smoking, Ms. Whelan said. “We all have the same mortality rate – 100%,” she added. “We are well aware that the recommendations in this book will cause a regulatory earthquake – about a 10 on the public health Richter scale…But we are trying to give people a shot at dying young – at a very old age.”

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CARCINOGENS AND CARSON Johnny Carson’s long-time head writer on the “Tonight” show, Ray Siller, told his friend publicist Sy Presten that he begged Carson many times to please give up smoking. Carson, who died of emphysema, kept saying, “I’m going to outlive the people who tell me to quit smoking.”

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LOOK AT LONGEVITY

The Carson joke parallels one by the late comedian George Burns. “Caesar’s Place offered me a 10 year contract,” the then nonagenerian Burns once told an audience, “I said ‘Make it five. How do I know you’re going to be around in 10 years.'”

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MYSTICAL MOMENT Barbara & Barry Stimmel hosted a party on the Upper East Side for Pearl Abraham’s novel “The Seventh Beggar” (Riverhead).The party featured the performance of a haunting version of composer Steve Reich’s “Tehillim.”

Ms. Abraham told the Knickerbocker that Franz Kafka inspired her novel, which draws from a tale by Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, a 19th century chasidic mystic. While writing about Kafka for a class taught by the writer E.L Doctorow, Ms. Abraham said she just knew that Kafka had read Nachman of Bratslav “since he parodied him.” So, she decided to “return the favor.”

To parody a parody is to return to the original, layering “themes of storytelling and creation itself” in the tale, noted Ms. Abraham’s editor, Celina Spiegel.

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ALL IN THE FAMILY The ninth annual Sons and Daughters Gala Ball took place at the Yale Club as members of the New York chapters of the Sons of the American Revolution and the Daughters of the American Revolution dined on filet mignon and danced to the music of the Alex Donner Orchestra.

The president of the 1st New York Continental Chapter, SAR, Wesley M. Oler IV, organized the event, and the chairman of the New York Conference of Patriotic and Historical Societies and a board member of the 1st New York, John M. Hilliard, served as master of ceremonies.

Honorees in attendance included Regent of the New York City Chapter, DAR, Mary Reiner Barnes; a regent of the Knickerbocker Chapter, DAR, Anne Ware Teasdale, and a former Regent of the Mary Washington Colonial Chapter, DAR, Louise J. Gruber.

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FLORIDA FUN To SoHo, NoLita, and other names, it’s time to add So NYC (pronounce it “So-Nice”) – to describe the parts of Florida where Manhattanites flock thanks to easy air flights, warm weather, and destination activities.

This past weekend “Palm Beach! America’s International Fine Art & Antique Fair” was chaired by five New Yorkers: Paige Rense, John Loring, Mario Buatta, Audrey Gruss, and Pauling Pitt. It drew the likes of Marjorie Gordon, Liz Mezzacappa, and Sandra Nunnerley to browse past Rococo armchairs, gilt and blue glass Swedish chandeliers, and paintings by Picasso and Modigliani. Designer Arnold Scaasi lingered over the sterling silver coffee sets, Richard Feigen lectured on art-market boondoogles, and newlywed Melania Trump drew a crowd as she lingered over the diamonds.

Saturday night, Robert and Gladys Nederlander, John and Andrea Stark, Ira Singerman,and others gathered at the Norton Museum of Art’s “Bal des Artes” gala, which opened the current exhibit on “Spain in the Age of Exploration.”

“It’s not like the old Palm Beach anymore,” Patricia Patterson said. “There’s so much more to do here now.”

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BERNSTEIN BOOK A festschrift has been published in honor of a philosophy professor at New School University, Richard Bernstein. The book is called “Pragmatism, Critique, Judgment: Essays for Richard J. Bernstein” (MIT Press), edited by Seyla Benhabib and Nancy Fraser. Mr. Bernstein was an audience member at a talk hosted by YIVO and the Leo Baeck Institute where Edith Kurzweil spoke about her book “Nazi Laws and Jewish Lives: Letters from Vienna” (Transaction Publishers).