Abortion
USA – Bill requires mental health info before abortion
Anti-abortion lawmakers in Louisiana want women seeking the procedure in Louisiana to get pamphlets describing possible psychological effects, the illegality of coerced abortions and services available to human trafficking victims. The House Health and Welfare Committee backed a bill that would require clinics to provide those three brochures to women at the start of their state-mandated 24-hour waiting period before they can have an abortion. That would be added to other printed materials already required under the “Woman’s Right to Know” law, such as information on the foetus’ development in the womb and alternatives to abortion. No committee member objected to sending the bill to the full House for debate.
http://www.centredaily.com/
USA – Country’s strictest anti-abortion law signed in Mississippi
One of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the country will go into effect in Mississippi, barring women from seeking an abortion 20 weeks after the beginning of their last menstrual cycle. The bill, signed into law by Gov Phil Bryant on Wednesday and going into effect July 1, calculates conception from the first day of a woman’s last period rather than when the egg becomes fertilized and implanted in the uterus. The new legislation does have exceptions for the life of the mother or if the foetus has no chance of survival.
http://rt.com/usa/154424-
USA – Dobson tears into Obama: ‘Come and get me’
James Dobson a harsh critic of President Obama and an opponent in court, described him as the “abortion president” during an address. Dobson, whose organization recently won a court fight against Obama over a mandate in Obamacare that would have required his ministry to pay for abortion pills, has not been shy about challenging the president on his abortion agenda. He has made it so that every American will have to pay toward the support of abortion,” he said, noting the $250 million in taxpayer funds that already goes toward Planned Parenthood’s funding. He implored listeners to “keep fighting.” “We can win.
http://www.wnd.com/2014/05/
USA – South Carolina 20 Week Abortion Ban Advances
Legislation that would ban abortions after 19 weeks in South Carolina has advanced in the state Senate. A Senate subcommittee voted 4-1 to advance the bill after amending it to give exceptions to the ban for cases of rape, incest and foetal anomaly. Supporters believe the ban is needed on the assertion that a foetus at 20 weeks can feel pain. The proposed ban would only affect hospitals, as Planned Parenthood clinics in South Carolina do not provide abortions beyond 19 weeks. Under the ban, doctors who intentionally perform illegal abortions after 19 weeks could be fined $1,000 for first and second offences and $5,000 or three years in prison for a third offence.
http://charlotte.cbslocal.com/
Alternative Medicine
Australia – Homeopathy is no better than a placebo say scientists
Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council analyzed how effective alternative medicine are in treating illnesses and conditions, and concluded that “there is no reliable evidence that homeopathy is effective”. Among the 68 ailments that homeopathic remedies failed to treat were: asthma, arthritis, sleep disturbances, and chronic fatigue syndrome, malaria and heroin addiction. The researchers concluded that alternative treatments were either no more effective than a placebo, or that there was no reliable evidence to suggest it was. At the time, David Colquhoun, a pharmacologist at University College London, told The Independent that homeopathy was “utter nonsense”. Americans have spent $2bn investigating these things … they haven’t found a single one that works,” he said.
Euthanasia
UK – Retired art teacher commits suicide due to frustration with modern life
An 89-year-old named only as Anne, a retired art teacher, committed suicide at the Dignitas clinic because she was frustrated at the lack of interaction in modern life and because of our reliance on computers and the Internet. In her request to the clinic she said her lack of energy and declining health left her with “a life with no enviable future.” Anne took a lethal dose of barbiturates at the clinic, with her niece Linda, 54 at her side.
Canada – Vegetative patient communicates with doctors for first time
More than a decade after a car crash left him in an apparently vegetative state, Scott Routley has been able to tell scientists he is not in pain. Researchers have recorded the Canadian man’s responses to “yes” and “no” questions, as an MRI machined scanned his brain activity. It’s the first time someone who is uncommunicative and severely brain damaged has been able to give answers related to their care and treatment. Professor Adrian Owen, the study’s lead researcher at Canada’s University of Western Ontario, said 39-year-old Routley was clearly not vegetative and the text books needed rewriting.
HIV/AIDS & STI’s
No news today
Homosexuality
Africa – EU Pressure on Africa to promote homosexuality
African governments reacted negatively when the European Parliament passed a resolution last month threatening sanctions on countries that punish homosexual acts. The resolution was a response to Uganda and Nigeria toughening sodomy laws and outlawing the promotion of homosexuality and same-sex marriage. The European Parliament asked that the governments of Uganda and Nigeria no longer be given development aid from the European Union. The Africans promptly countered. Each society has a human right to defend its culture and traditions and “determine its own moral values and norms” through its democratic institutions, African nations said in a declaration issued a few days later.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/
USA – Trans Women Are 49 Times More Likely to Have HIV
Last month, The Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) released a report, titled, “Trans Populations and HIV: Time to End the Neglect,” detailing the high rate of HIV infection among transgender men and women along with the failings of the HIV-focused medical community. The report’s estimate suggests that trans women are among the most at risk demographic, and are an estimated 49 times more likely to be living with HIV than members of the general population. Rates of infection are even higher among trans women of color. The reason for this alarmingly high rate of infection appears to hinge on a number of factors, including economic status, a propensity to engage in survival sex work, likelihood of intravenous drug use, and other high-risk behaviors.
UK – Promoting homosexuality on the rise in UK schools
“An increasing number of schools are introducing Section 28-style bans on promoting homosexuality, in the classroom,” delegates told the National Union of Teachers’ annual conference in Brighton this week,” media sources report. However, a motion before the conference has said, “That at least 46 schools, including a number of academies, had words similar to the previous legislation in their school policies. ”Deborah Glynn, from St Helens, Lancashire, highlighted research by the British Humanist Association, to the conference, “Which,” she said, “showed that there are many schools bringing this wording back into their policies.”
IVF &Surrogacy
USA – Rates of IVF continue to grow
A new healthcare analytics report has revealed just how much the IVF market is growing. The report, produced by Allied Analytics LLP, estimates that the net worth of the IVF market at the end of 2012 was US$9.3 billion, a figure which is set to increase to $21.6 billion by 2020. Delayed pregnancy in women is one of the key factors driving the increased use of IVF. Increased rates of infertility, due to stress levels, change in lifestyle and fertility related diseases, have also contributed to the increase in IVF. Developing economies are emerging to be the most preferred destination for IVF treatments with increasing focus on advanced technologies, improving health care infrastructure and favourable health care cost.
http://www.bioedge.org/index.
Japan – Researchers find ‘Juno,’ a key to fertility
Fertilization takes place when the female egg and the male sperm fuse and create an embryo. But how the egg and the sperm recognize one another in the first place is a more complicated question. Only in 2005 did Japanese researchers identify a receptor protein named “Izumo” on the sperm that recognized the egg. In the latest edition of the journal Nature, researchers report identifying the corresponding receptor protein on the egg: They named it “Juno.” A team of four from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Britain, led by Gavin Wright and Enrica Bianchi, made the discovery. Juno performs another crucial task: it blocks other sperm cells from joining to an egg once it has been fertilized.
Ghana – First IVF quadruplets delivered in Kumasi
The Trustcare Specialist Hospital and Fertility Centre in Kumasi on Friday cut a slice of medical history for itself, when it delivered a set of quadruplets through in-vitro fertilization. The babies, three males and a female, together with their 42-year old mother, are doing well. The pioneer assisted-reproductive technology centre in Kumasi, in a press release signed by Isaac Kofi Adu, clinical embryologist, said it had within the past three years delivered a number of multiple pregnancies. The release explained that to make IVF treatment affordable, the centre is collaborating with the Association of Childless Couples of Ghana (ACCOG), and “Walking Egg Organization” in Belgium, to bring low cost technology but effective IVF services to Ghana.
http://vibeghana.com/2014/04/
Medical Ethics
Belgium – Citizens’ Initiative against embryonic stem cells EU can’t ignore
One of Us, a European citizens’ initiative, has collected 1.7 million signatures is against embryonic stem cell research from all 28 E.U. member states for a proposal that would block funding for research in which embryos are destroyed. Under E.U. rules, the European Commission must now consider turning the proposal into legislation. E.U. member states have different regulations in the area of embryonic stem cell research, ranging from very permissive, for example in Belgium, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, where creating embryos for research purposes is allowed, to very restrictive, as in Poland and Lithuania, where research with embryonic stem cells is illegal. The union does not sponsor research that is illegal in the country where it would take place.
http://news.sciencemag.org/
UK – Alarm over care of the elderly
The Lancet has published an alarming editorial about the pressure on healthcare systems from an growing elderly population. The key issue is demographic as the proportion of people over 60 years will double from about 11{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4} to 22{01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4} by 2050. In addition, Western nations such as Britain have significantly cut funding to elderly care in recent years and public funding for older people’s social care fell by a massive £1·2 billion or 15·4 {01b0879e117dd7326006b2e84bcaac7e8fa1509c5c67baf2c9eb498fe06caff4} between 2010 and 2014, even though it had been stagnant between 2005 and 2010. The authors are concerned particularly for middle to low income countries such as China, which face the same issues as the US and the UK, but with less funding to address it.
http://www.bioedge.org/index.
India – Row over clinical trial as 254 Indian women die
The death of 254 Indian women in a 15-year US-funded clinical trial for a cervical cancer screening method has triggered a raging debate about its ethicality. It is a well established fact that any kind of cervical screening reduces the incidence of the cancer. Yet, almost 140,000 women in the control arm of the trial were not screened. After a complaint, the United States Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) determined that the women were not given adequate information to give informed consent. If, at any time during the past 15 years, the women in the unscreened control groups had been told the simple truth that cervical screening would lower their risk of death from cancer, they would have left the control groups and sought screening on their own, thereby nullifying a scientifically defective experimental design. The OHRP determined that it was thus difficult to presume that the studies are not compromised by the inadequate informed consent.
USA – bioethicists take Belgian child euthanasia to task
American bioethicists have criticised Belgium’s law permitting children with terminal illness to choose euthanasia. Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Art Caplan and colleagues argue that children do not have adults’ capacity for informed consent. “Children and adolescents lack the experiential knowledge and sense of self that adults often invoke, rightly or wrongly, at the end of their lives,” they argue. Furthermore, a developed nation like Belgium ought to have good enough palliative care so that no child will experience “constant and unbearable suffering”. The ethical way to achieve this goal should be expanded education and clinical guidance around the provision of aggressive palliative care.
http://www.bioedge.org/index.
Pedophilia
USA – Child abuse costing the church billions of dollars
Almost $3 billion is what allegations of child sex abuse has cost the American church between 2004 and 2013. The data was released in the 11th annual report from the US Episcopal conference on progress in the implementation of the Charter for Protection of Children and Young People. The costs include the settlements, therapy and psychological care for victims and legal fees. The analysis conducted by StoneBridge Business Partners particularly looked at 127 diocese for the period from July 2012 to 30 June 2013. During this time, there were 857 victims of sexual abuse and more than 900 complaints against the church. However, not all cases had sufficient evidence to launch a lawsuit against the clergy accused of paedophilia.
http://www.west-info.eu/child-
UK – Downloading child abuse ‘manuals’ to be made illegal
Downloading manuals containing guidance on how to groom children for sexual abuse is to become a criminal offence, the government has said. The government must ensure police have the investigative capacity to infiltrate and disrupt the networks of offenders hidden online. Prime Minister David Cameron said “It’s completely unacceptable that there is a loophole in the law which allows pedophiles to write and distribute these disgusting documents.” I want to ensure we do everything we can to protect children – and that’s why I am making them illegal.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-
Pornography
UK – New system can scan the internet for illegal images
Scientists have developed a new system that makes it possible to scan traffic on the internet for illegal photographs. The system can, for example, help trace child pornography on the internet without infringing on the privacy of internet users, said researchers at the University of Twente in The Netherlands. Internet service providers could use the tool to keep their network ‘clean’, they said. The police use a standard database to detect illegal photographs such as child pornography on equipment they seize, such as computers or USB sticks.
Prostitution & Trafficking
USA – Oklahoma House passes three human trafficking bills
Three Senate bills aimed to combat human trafficking cleared the state House of Representatives this week. If the bills become law, those convicted of human trafficking in the future could find it much more difficult to live a normal life in Oklahoma once being released from prison. One of the three new bills would help victims who want suspects to pay them back financially. Another would require those convicted of the crime serve 85 percent of their time before being eligible for parole. The final bill would ensure convicts would have to register as sex offenders.
USA – Amnesty International should not endorse legalizing prostitution
An estimated 16,000 girls and women in the Chicago area are involved in the sex trade, according to a 2002 study. The only way we can put an end to prostitution is by penalizing its purchase and Amnesty International is set to decide whether it should endorse a policy to legalize the purchase of sex. Supporters of the policy change allege that decriminalizing paying for sex is a solution to the harms associated with prostitution. They say decriminalization would protect the health and safety of prostitutes and ultimately would curtail the domestic and international sex trade. However, virtually every person bought for sex, boy, girl, teenager or adult, would not choose prostitution if they saw another way to survive.
UK – Outlaw buying sex, says former Tory minister Caroline Spelman
The former Tory cabinet minister Caroline Spelman has called for the UK to consider criminalising the purchase of sex. She said she was shocked by estimates that thousands of prostitutes in the UK had been trafficked, and believed such sexual exploitation would have to be addressed through reducing demand. Demands for Britain to look again at changing prostitution laws come as France is passing legislation to emulate the Nordic model and the law is under review in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Finland and Canada.
Stem Cells & Cloning
No news today
Substance Abuse
USA – Dagga: Debunking Pot Proponents’ Prison Myths
Dagga (marijuana) crusaders have waged an excellent campaign convincing people America’s prisons are overflowing with “nonviolent, petty” drug users costing millions in tax money. Pennsylvania State Senator Leach, a staunch advocate of legalizing marijuana, stated in 2013, “According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), 24,685 marijuana arrests were made in Pennsylvania in 2006 at a cost of $325.36 million to taxpayers”. But according to Rafael Lemaitre, the communications director of the ONDCP, the office “does not maintain arrest figures.” The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, whom however provide specific data, said there are fewer than 300 people sentenced to prison in Pennsylvania each year for marijuana, of which only about 5 are for possession of ‘small amounts’.
USA – Marijuana and tobacco, treated very differently by government
When it comes to tobacco and marijuana, public policies appear headed in contradictory directions. For years, candy cigarettes have been criticized as providing children a gateway to tobacco smoking leading to a federal ban in 2009. Yet in Colorado, the legalization of marijuana has produced a host of different candy products infused with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive ingredient in pot. Dr. Andrew Monte, a medical toxicologist at the University of Colorado Medical School, said a poison control call occurs every few days involving a child ‘accidentally’ eating marijuana products. “The state of Colorado and the state of Washington are seeing significant, both social and enforcement, issues,” Ricky Adams, chief of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol said.
USA – Christie: I Will ‘Never’ Legalize Weed in N.J.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie repeated his well-known opposition to legalizing marijuana in his state, and sharply criticized one that has done just that – Colorado. “To me, it’s just not the quality of life we want to have here in the state of New Jersey, and there’s no tax revenue that’s worth that.” Christie said on a public radio show. He vowed “never” to legalize the drug while in office because of its negative impact on people’s brains, citing a recent study in the Journal of Neuroscience released that found even smokers who used it once or twice experienced “significant abnormalities” in vital brain regions.
USA – Recreational marijuana use can cause changes in brain
The size and shape of two brain regions involved in emotion and motivation may differ in young adults who smoke marijuana at least once a week, according to The Journal of Neuroscience. The study suggests that even light to moderate recreational marijuana use can cause changes in brain anatomy,” said Carl Lupica, PhD. The current study, Jodi Gilman, PhD, Anne Blood, PhD, and Hans Breiter, MD, of Northwestern University and Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School used magnetic resonance imaging to compare the brains of 18- to 25-year olds who reported smoking marijuana at least once per week with those with little to no history of marijuana use. 106
http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/
Disclaimer: the views and opinions expressed in these articles do not necessarily reflect those of Doctors for LifeInternational
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