13 November 2006
South Africa - AIDS 'Cure', Ubhejane, Fails Test
Scientific testing at the Medical University of South Africa, proved the failure of the locally produced herbal mixture , uBhejane, thought to be a cure for HIV/AIDS. This comes after Medunsa announced the completion of their tests on UBhejane, produced by a KwaZulu-Natal traditional healer who says that he is not a traditional healer but an ex-trcuk driver. He claims to have received the recipe of the potion in a dream from his dead grandfather who was a traditional healer. According to Medunsa chief researcher at the department of family medicine, Patrick Maduna, uBhejane failed to cure HIV/AIDS, even though it is not toxic and has no side effects. The testing was performed on twenty-four patients that were treated with the mixture over four months. ...[more]
USA - Casual Sex Harmful to Women
According to a recent study published in the Journal of Sex Research, casual sex can be a depressing experience. The study concluded that college-aged women who have a history of casual sex tend to show more depressive symptoms after a sexual encounter than men do. It revealed that 18 percent of females and 3 percent of males thought their most recent casual sex experience was "the beginning of a romance". This discrepancy could be the reason for the difference in depressive symptoms. The study's sample included 404 undergraduate students in introductory psychology courses. The study excluded the results from lesbian, gay and non-traditional students -- those married or older than 21. ...[more]
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Scotland – Methadone, a Destruction to Rehabilitation
Professor Neil McKeganey, chairman of Drug Misuse Research at Glasgow University: sent a a clear message to drug addicts in search of rehabilitation. McKeganey's recent studies revealed that after three years of treatment only 3% of addicts on methadone become drug-free. The conclusion is therefore definite, methadone is not the solution, but part of the problem. These findings added proof to his earlier work, that revealed half of patients on methadone were likely to commit crimes. Although Politicians see it as a quick fix to a growing problem, research shows that taxpayers are in support of McKeganey and no longer wish to fund this discredited methadone programme. What is needed is a move away from methadone to a total abstinence policy that is backed by investment in rehabilitation facilities. ...[more]
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China - "Euthanasia Please" – I want a government-endorsed and tax-funded exit
Following a craze that has swept the world from India to Italy , the handicapped, the poor or simply those who are suicidal are demanding the right to euthanasia. The latest has been an invalid in Poland , whose official claim to assisted suicide has been rejected by the Krakow High Court. In China , a woman who no longer can or wants to care for her handicapped son wants him helped out of his misery. She has added that she hopes not to be reincarnated because the world is full of pain, misery and not over soon enough. While these pleas are beginning to change laws , their true cry for help is left unheard over the raging debate about legalising suicide. The media has so sensationalized the issue, that the plea of the victims only becomes another headline, turning their plight into a mere intellectual debate. ...[more]
Canada, France - Mercy Killing Now The "Get Out of Jail Free" Card
In the past four weeks, the "mercy-killing" plea has been used to award several murderers' freedom from their crimes of taking out those closest to them. The killings have ranged from bludgeoning or strangling to the favourite Hemlock-endorsed poisoning and suffocation. The most outrageous has been a Canadian liberal judge's passionate endorsement of a husband's way of dealing with a sick and suicidal wife at home, stating "You knew she would continue her attempts until she was successful. Each attempt was weakening her body and you were concerned that she might have suffered brain damage," the judge said. "You felt you had little choice but to respect her will." Yes, that was the judge, not the lawyer. He reluctantly gave him a nine-month suspended sentence and 50 hours community service. In France , an 80-year old strangled her severely handicapped daughter who was blind, mute and epileptic. While her actions were condemned, she walks free – the judgement loud and clear; those who are looking to get away with murder receive protection under the claims of "mercy killing". ...[more]
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South Africa - DFL Horrified at Governments Planned 2nd Marriage Bill
DFL woke up to the full horror of finding that the Government is seeking to turn the Civil Union Bill into a second Marriage Act. In the face of overwhelming opposition from 90% of South Africans as expressed to the Home Affairs Parliamentary Committee in its meetings day after day across the country, the amendments to the Bill, published this morning for the first time, give gay couples the right to marriage, not merely civil partnership. It seems that the vast majority of South Africans have been misled by their Government. This radical change in the Bill at the eleventh hour is contrary to both the will of the people and common sense. Furthermore, at this late stage neither the people nor the stake holders will have an opportunity to oppose it. DFL feel a special responsibility to highlight this matter since it was the judgement of the Constitutional Court in their case against Parliament, as recently as August, that clarified and stressed the constitutional obligation of Parliament to consult the people and listen to them in a meaningful way. ...[more]
USA – Homosexual Marriages Rejected by More States
Seven US States have rejected homosexual marriages, holding sacred the definition of wedlock to unions between a man and a woman. This was one of the few bright spots for conservative Republicans in otherwise disappointing elections that took place recently. Despite this great accomplishment, Democrats and liberals were claiming victory on stem cell research and abortion, two major social issues that have polarized US voters in recent years. "Two years ago we had 11 of these on the ballot, and in only two of them did we do better than 40 percent," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Conservatives will have to rethink their strategy on abortion after the loss in South Dakota where they viewed the strict law as their best chance to challenge a 33-year-old Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the United States . ...[more]
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Iraq - Saddam's Agents Ran a Human Trafficking Ring
According to a witness in Saddam Hussein's genocide trial, the former Iraqi president allegedly ran a human trafficking ring where he "sold" his sister and other Kurdish women in the 1980s. Hussein's lawyers and co-defendants instantly argued that the charge against him was hearsay and was based on a forged document. The witness presented to the chief judge, a document published in an Iraqi Kurdish newspaper, which indicated that 18 women were sold to Egypt 's intelligent service. The list included the name of Hussein's sister as well as girls as young as 14. ...[more]
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Australia - Use of Cloned Human Embryos Approved
A vote from The Australian senate to legalise the cloning of human embryos has sparked an emotional debate on the ethics of the procedure . A four-year ban on therapeutic cloning was overturned by new legislation, which was passed by 34 votes to 32 marked by warnings of a nightmarish future in which scientists create monsters. The legislation will now go before the House of Representatives, where it is expected to be approved and become law. ...[more]
England - Blind Mice See Again After Retinal Stem Cell Transplant
According to scientists from the Ophthalmology and Child Health department of University College London and Moorfield's Eye Hospital, blind mice received their vision back after undergoing retinal stem cell transplants. The researchers say there is hope this study could eventually lead to sight restoration for humans blinded by diabetes or age-related macular degeneration. This study was published in the journal Nature. ...[more]
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USA – Playboy Touring With Auditions
Despite the fact that it is Pornography Awareness Week, which is a week aimed at reducing the harmful effects of pornography, Playboy's team of photographers recently headed for 12 Universities in the United States . Auditions were held at locations unknown to the public for fear that multitudes would protest as in times past. Houston University student Evelyn, 18, posed without her parents consent, hoping that they would not find out. Playboy representatives object to the characterization of their magazine as pornography. However, Roger O'Dell, the executive director of Model Cities-El Paso, an organization that raises community awareness about the dangers of pornography and is fighting the proliferation of explicit material disagrees. O'Dell says that Playboy's content is just that as it is intended to arouse men. According to O'Dell, during the past seven years or so and due to the increasing use of the internet , American society has witnessed "an explosion of pornography," . "That's changed our mores and attitudes about sex turning it into predatory, self-gratification and casual recreation instead of intimacy, procreation and marriage says O'Dell. ...[more]
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USA – Bill to Cut Abortion Time to 21 Weeks, Failed
The bid to reduce the time when women can legally have an abortion from 24 weeks to 21 was crushed despite the argument that scientists now know that a foetus can feel pain from the age of 21 weeks. The Bill was defeated with 187 votes to 108. The Labour side condemned the proposed bill saying it is "an attack on women's reproductive rights". Mid Bedfordshire Tory MP Nadine Dorries said, "My argument for reduction rests not on viability, but on the issue of foetal sentience - how foetuses respond to pain, sound etc." She also states that "the decision to terminate a pregnancy or not is one with which the woman concerned will have to live for the rest of her life". Labour MP Christine McCafferty condemned the bill as "cynical, cruel and inhumane". ..[more]
USA - Appeals Court Blocks South Dakota 'Informed Consent' Abortion Law
A law in South Dakota requiring doctors to inform women in writing that an abortion would "terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being", has been blocked . "It injects an ideological component into the discussion of the unsettled question of when human life begins," said Planned Parenthood attorney Timothy E. Branson. He said "We really don't think that women are confused about whether they're carrying a human embryo as opposed to a cat embryo". But Judge Raymond W. Gruender, who supported the South Dakota legislature, said requiring doctors to disclose the full humanity of the unborn child was simply requiring a statement of "obvious medical fact." The South Dakota measure "requires abortion doctors to enunciate the state's viewpoint on an unsettled medical, philosophical, theological and scientific issue, that is, whether a foetus is a human being." ...[more]
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South Africa – Dad Refuses to Allow Daughter's Surgery
A little girl almost died after her father refused to give consent for urgent brain surgery on the child as the traditional healers he consulted told him not to allow the operation. But the Centre for Child Law at the University of Pretoria intervened and decided to perform the operation. With a cyst the size of an orange pressing on her brain, the medical solution is relatively simple. A "shunt"has to be placed into the cyst to drain the fluid on an ongoing basis. According to law, surgical procedures on children have to be agreed to by their parents but this child's father refused because traditional healers said that she would not live if she had the operation. Doctors, on the other hand, said if the child was not operated on urgently, she would definitely die. ...[more]
South Africa - Traditional Healers Oppose Ritual Murders
A big group of traditional healers protested by demonstrating and conducting sacrifices in Thohoyandou while appealing to their ancestors to intercede to stop traditional healers from practising ritual murders. Dr Neluvhola, a well-known local traditional healer, says "Traditional healers who practice ritual murder should be locked up in jail for the rest of their lives. They are harming our wonderful profession, because our mission is to save life, not to kill. They are not real traditional healers but hooligans who have no respect for human life". He also went on to say there is a need to teach traditional healers about the mixing of herbs rather than resorting to ritual murder. "If they find out that their medicines are not working, they must not resort to the use of human flesh. They need to have good knowledge of herbs to produce a concoction with good results." ...[more]
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