
blogs


The Inglis judgment should send a strong signal that it is not acceptable to take another person’s life, even in desperation.
A woman from East London who was found guilty of murder after giving her brain-damaged son a lethal heroin…

New advances in embryo testing may result in higher success rates for IVF but at what cost?
Two new embryo screening tests have been recently developed that researchers believe will increase success…

New report claims that junior doctors’ training ‘puts patients at risk’ but will the government be prepared to pay for the real solution required?
A new report, Foundation for Excellence, this week has claimed that patients are being put at ‘unnecessary…

NICE and GP consortia. What criteria should we use in deciding how to distribute scarce medical resources? Some help from St Paul.
The government’s drug rationing body, NICE, is to lose its power to turn down new medicines for use…

UK retailers are not being honest about the mode of action of new morning-after-pill ellaOne (ulipristal acetate)
Earlier this week the news broke that a new ‘morning-after pill’ was being sold online in Britain…

Powerful arguments advanced in UK parliament for a change in the law to ensure properly informed consent for abortion
Last night Nadine Dorries, Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire, spoke in an adjournment debate on the…

David Nutt’s report on the harmful effects of alcohol should prompt the government to adopt evidence-based protection strategies
Alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack, according to a study published in medical journal the Lancet.
The…

Are British Christians too fat? Almost certainly! But what should we be doing about it?
New research this week has shown that two-thirds of Britons are overweight or obese – making us the…

The real answer to reducing maternal mortality is not ‘safe’ abortion but better education, obstetric and midwifery care, CMF tells DFID
The Christian Medical Fellowship has now published its submission to the Department for International…

New survey reveals widespread ignorance about the level of abortion in Britain
Today, on the 43rd anniversary of the passing of the Abortion Act, Christian Concern has launched a new…

Jesus’ Nazareth Manifesto as a basis for healthcare mission
Jesus Christ’s dynamic entry into first century Palestine was marked by miraculous healing of many…
‘Suicide tourism’ gets public backing in Switzerland – but what for British laws?
Voters in Zurich, Switzerland, have rejected proposed bans on assisted suicide and ‘suicide tourism’. A proposal to restrict access for foreigners to assisted suicide only to those living at least one year in the canton was rejected by 78.4 per cent of voters. A second popular initiative launched by fringe conservative parties the Federal Democratic […]
HIV & AIDS treatment as the new prevention Tool: new findings should be treated with caution
News broke in the morning of Friday 13th May 2011 of the results of a ten year study by the United States National Institutes for Health (NIH) into the impact of early antiretroviral treatment (ART) for people living with HIV infection on reducing their risk of transmitting the virus to their sexual partners. Setting up two […]
Gerald’s final breath – a review of the BBC’s ‘Inside the Human Body’
Watching Inside the Human Body tonight was certainly a fascinating experience, looking at how the human body regulates its own function from birth to death, by way of various unusual examples, including a woman who only eats crisps and a man who swims in glacial lakes in conditions that would kill you or I. But […]
HPV vaccine Goes global
A year or so ago my twelve year old daughter was told that all her class were to be given the vaccination against the sexually transmitted HPV virus, assuming they consented to it. All her peers went ahead, probably with little thought on it. However we did stop to think about it, and discussed it […]
Disabled people fear change in assisted suicide law
Changing the law on assisted suicide would put pressure on disabled people to commit suicide, according to new research. The new ComRes poll found that 70 per cent of disabled people were concerned that such a change would lead to ‘pressure being placed on disabled people to end their lives prematurely’ The survey, commissioned by […]
Highlighting disparities in maternal care on International Midwives Day
Today is International Midwives Day, and many organisations are using this to highlight the awful disparities in maternal care, and maternal and infant mortality around the globe. As we blogged yesterday, there is the additional, largely overlooked tragedy of still births. And all of these issues could be addressed, in large part at least, by […]
How could anyone object to teaching schoolgirls to say ‘no to sex’?
MPs have voted 67-61 in favour of a bill introduced by Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, which wants schools to ensure that sex education for girls includes ‘information and advice on the benefits of abstinence from sexual activity’. The ten minute rule bill proceeds to a second reading next January but is unlikely to become law […]
Stillbirths: tragedy and controversy
New figures from The Lancet reveal the tragedy of the scale of stillbirths, estimated at around 3 million worldwide, every year; or more than 8,200 stillborn babies a day. This vast number eclipses deaths from AIDS/HIV and many other diseases that get far more money. Perhaps not surprisingly, 98% of these are in low- and […]
YouTube video of assisted suicide could sway vulnerable people
The Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail have both reported on the tragic story of a British couple in their 80s who died in a suicide pact at their home in Victoria Australia last Thursday. Don Flounders, 81, suffered from mesothelioma, which is an incurable form of lung cancer and his 88-year-old wife Iris, who was not suffering […]
The health risks of obesity – a challenge to Christians
Having just returned from a Christian medical conference where large (especially male) abdomens were very much in evidence I was interested to see that the two lead stories on the BBC health pages this morning deal with the health consequences of obesity. The first story, published yesterday, reports on a study from the Mayo Clinic […]
Russia leads the way in dealing with demographic time-bomb
I warned recently that unless something is done to reverse current demographic trends, economic necessity, together with the ‘culture of death’ ideology which is becoming more openly accepted, may well mean that the generation that killed its children will in turn be killed by its own children. In other words legalised abortion will lead to legalised […]
More fiction and hype about embryonic stem cells as scientists fear withdrawal of funding in patent scrap
Stem cell scientists are kicking up an enormous fuss over a ruling expected very soon from the European Court of Justice about patents for embryonic stem cells. They are up to their usual tricks hyping up the therapeutic potential of these cells for a variety of degenerative diseases and the BBC is obliging in its […]