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MW Voice FEATURE Letters to the Editor War Mothers news from around the world Mama's Health News Did You Know? Corporate War on the People Resistance in the War OTHER FALL 2008 ARTICLES
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Mama's Health News • U.S. hospitals and nursing homes flush about 250 millions pounds of unused drugs down the drain yearly. They end up in America's drinking water. This affects frogs, fish and other wildlife.
Spina Bifida • Every year Spina Bifida and anacephaly affect 4,000 pregnancies in the US •This condition affects more children than muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis combined. • Spina Bifida is not curable. But it can sometimes be prevented. If a woman takes 4 milligrams of folic acid daily beginning two to three months prior to conception, the risk of Spina Bifida can be reduced by up to 70%. • Spina Bifida results when the fetal spinal column fails to close during the early weeks of pregnancy. • Spina Bifida can cause paralysis, loss of sensation in the legs, bowel and bladder complications, and hydrocephalus (pressure on the brain.) • 40% to 70% of people with Spina Bifida are latex sensitive. • Only 30% of women of childbearing age take folic acid. For more info, contact www.sbawi.org or 414-607-9061
Ultrasound—Uncontrolled Experiment
In 1997-8 the Australian government paid $39 million for pregnancy scans. This compares to $54 million for all other obstetric costs. The US would spend $1.2 billion yearly on one routine scan for each pregnant woman. UK radiologist H. D. Meire performed pregnancy scans for 20 years. He said that they are performed “with machines emanating vastly different powers of energy (never proven to be harmless). They are used to obtain information not proven to be of any clinical value. And operators not certified as competent to perform the operations do the scans.” Recently doctors have been using vaginal ultrasound. They place the instrument high in the vagina, close to the fetus. This is done in early pregnancy. There is little tissue to shield the vulnerable developing fetus. Some women experience vaginal scans as “diagnostic rape.” Ultrasound is also used to investigate possible problems during pregnancy. Yet a routine scan is unlikely to pick up disabilities like cerebral palsy, Down’s Syndrome, heart and kidney abnormalities. Recently doctors began using ultrasounds to measure the thickness of a 3-month-old fetus’ neck skin (nuchal) fold. A baby might have Downs Syndrome if it has a thick fold. When the risk is over one in 250, the doc recommends amniocentesis. This involves taking some of the fetus’ tissue. Yet 19 out of 20 babies diagnosed as “high risk” will turn out not to have Downs syndrome. Ultrasound waves causes heating of the area. Then small pockets of gas in the tissue vibrate and collapse. Temperatures of many thousands of degrees Celsius in the gas create a wide range of chemical products. Some are potentially toxic. These effects are of real concern in living tissue. On cells grown in the lab, abnormalities caused by exposure to ultrasound persisted for several generations. A study on newborn rats showed that ultrasound can damage the nervous system. Ultrasound’s possible adverse effects on humans include preterm labor or miscarriage, low birth weight, poorer condition at birth, perinatal death, dyslexia and delayed speech development. Ultrasound is another way an “expert” using a machine makes a mother’s knowledge of her body and her baby secondary to technical information. Thus physicians imprint the “cult of the expert” from the earliest weeks of life. Ultrasound artificially splits mother from baby well before this is a physiological or psychic reality. If you choose to have a scan, have it done by an operator who performs at least 750 scans per year. Say you want the shortest scan possible. If an abnormality is found, ask for counseling and a second opinion as soon as possible.
Pseudo-Science Still Tries to “cure” LGBT People The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is the official handbook of US mental health workers. Published in 1952, the DSM has created classifications of mental health “illnesses” and “disorders.” These have stigmatized the poor, women, people of color and LGBT people. Until gay activism stopped it in 1973, the DSM labeled homosexuality a mental disorder. Doctors used clitoridectomies, lobotomies, castration, hormone treatment, electro shock and insulin shock to “treat” homosexuality. Some psychiatrists still force LGBT people to undergo physical and psychological abuse to “cure” them. And they still institutionalize some youth because of their sexuality or gender identity. The fifth DSM revision is scheduled for May of 2012. An early draft of DSM-V is due for comment in 2009. The APA named Kenneth Zucker to chair the “Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders” section of the DSM. Zucker works at the Centre for Addiction and Recovery. His work is part of the “ex-gay” movement. It claims to “cure” homosexuality. Zucker says that to “treat gender identity disorder,” young boys should be forbidden to play with dolls. Sources: Truthout; Dr. Sarah J. Buckle; Young and Furious | |
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Fall
2008
Doctors
have used Ultrasound routinely since the late 1970s. They order
ultrasounds for 99% of Australian fetuses and 70% of US fetuses. UK
consumer activist Beverly Beech has called routine prenatal
ultrasound (RPU) “the biggest uncontrolled experiment in history.”
The Cochrane Collaborative Database concludes that routine
use of ultrasound results in no clear benefit.