Carol Ann Rinzler

Carol Ann Rinzler is a devoted activist and civic leader. She is also the author of more than 20 health-related books, including: Nutrition for Dummies (6th edition due in 2015-16), The New Complete Book of Food, the award-winning Estrogen and Breast Cancer: A Warning for Women, and Leonardo’s Foot, which a reviewer for the American Association for the Advancement of Science described as “some of the best writing about science for the non-scientist he had encountered in recent years.”

As an activist, Ms. Rinzler uses her extensive personal e-mail list to reach physicians, legislators, administrators and patient advocates across the country. Her mission is to gain support for medical issues such as the amelioration of the Two Midnight Rule, which has put Medicare payments at risk for hospital patients put into “observation” status.

In civic life, Ms. Rinzler is a director of The Turtle Bay Association and is a founder of the nine-year-old 1000+ Friends of NYC Parks, which impressively reaches people in all five boroughs of New York City through e-mail only – with no meetings, dues or officers. Ever devoted to her community, Ms. Rinzler has served as a member of Manhattan Community Board 6, and she and her late husband, Perry Luntz, founded the Manhattan Neighborhood Council in 1993.

Ms. Rinzler’s mantra on both politics and civics could be a page straight from her Columbia University graduate thesis on the French Revolution which, she says, “taught me that if you annoy the intellectuals, 30 years later they will come back and chop off your head.”