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An Australian woman has won a multi-million dollar payout from UK company Diageo PLC, the local distributor of the drug Thalidomide that caused birth defects in thousand of babies around the world in the 1960s, her lawyers said on Wednesday. Lynette Rowe, 50, was born without arms and legs after her mother Wendy took Thalidomide for a month while pregnant. At the time the drug was prescribed as a treatment for morning sickness. The settlement with Rowe could pave the way for more than 100 other Thalidomide victims in Australia and New Zealand to receive compensation through a class action,...

Being A Polygamist Most of us frown upon the idea of polygamy, but it's considered an acceptable lifestyle in many other places around the world. For instance in Africa, children are considered to be symbolic of wealth, so polygamy is an appealing lifestyle because of how quickly it allows families to grow. Being Or Using A Prostitute Prostitution has some terrible connotations in America, but in places like Germany, it's just like any other respectable profession. For instance, if you are unemployed for a year and refuse to take an available job (like being a prostitute), the government reserves the...

Retired Master Sergeant LeRoy Foster is haunted by the job that launched his 20-year career in the US Air Force—spraying herbicides along perimeter fences and fuel pipelines at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. This duty seemed inconsequential, field maintenance work done amid B-52 bombers thundering in and out to refuel for bombing raids over Vietnam and a beehive of other military operations buzzing at Navy bases on the small island in the mid-Pacific Ocean. Despite nasty outbreaks of acne that a military doctor recorded in a 1968 medical report, he couldn’t imagine that the government-issued weed-killers might be planting...

My mum... was the first girl to live beyond childhood. Five of her sisters died as babies or toddlers. It was not until many years later that anyone worked out why so many children died and three boys were born deaf... Today there is no doubt among us that this tragedy occurred because my grandparents were first cousins.... [snip] In the UK more than 50 per cent of British Pakistanis marry their cousins.. ... the practice is on the rise and also common among East African, Middle-Eastern and Bangladeshi communities... the children of first cousins are ten times more likely...

The 22-week infant was found breathing a day after the operation. He died one day later in intensive care at a hospital in the mother's home town of Rossano, in southern Italy. The mother, pregnant for the first time, had opted for an abortion after prenatal scans revealed that the foetus had a cleft lip and palate, according to reports in the Italian media. The condition is treatable with surgery. The baby - weighing just 11oz - survived the procedure, carried out on Saturday in the Rossano Calabro hospital, but was left by doctors to die. He was discovered alive...

Abortion Practitioner Loses Medical License for Killing Wrong Twin in Failed Abortion Tampa, FL -- A Florida-based abortion practitioner lost his medical license this weekend after the state medical board evaluated his license. Matthew Kachinas was supposed to do an abortion on one of the twin babies who had physical disabilities but wound up killing the other baby in the failed abortion. http://LifeNews.com/state4981.html

SAN DIEGO – More than 30 years after the world greeted its first "test-tube" baby with a mixture of awe, elation and concern, researchers say they are finding only a few medical differences between these children and kids conceived in the traditional way. More than 3 million children have been born worldwide as a result of what is called assisted reproductive technology, and injecting sperm into the egg outside the human body now accounts for about 4 percent of live births, researchers reported Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The majority of...

Caster Semenya, woman who rocked athletics world, 'is hermaphrodite' Rick Broadbent and Fred Bridgland in Johannesburg Sex tests carried out on Caster Semenya, the world 800 metres champion, show that she is a hermaphrodite, a source close to the case claimed last night. If the allegation is backed up by the official results, the South African may find herself stripped of her gold medal and banned from racing. The IAAF, the world governing body, refused to comment on the claim last night, but earlier in the day its general secretary, Pierre Weiss, said: “It is clear that she is a...

"Something's wrong with this baby," my ultrasound technician told me. She had just scanned Mrs. Jones (a fictitious name) at 20 weeks and went on to describe her findings, findings that surely meant little chance of survival for that baby. As I later spoke with Mrs. Jones to relay the findings, she wept. I arranged an appointment with a maternal-fetal medicine (MFM) specialist. The next day I received an urgent call from my patient. Through more tears, she described her visit in which the MFM doctor confirmed the grim prognosis. The baby would die, probably within a week or two....

July 28, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Scientists are stunned to discover that a ten-year-old German girl's brain has rewired itself to allow her to see out of one eye as though she has two, even though half of her brain tissue was entirely missing from birth. In a report published this week in the online version of the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Lars Muckli, a neuroscientist at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, said, "Despite lacking one hemisphere, she's capable of living a normal life."The girl, called AH in the study, was born with only one...

Pedigree Dogs Exposed Documentary - BBC Narrator: "and there's the rub -- the problems of dogs (like this champion neapolitan mastiff) are all too obvious to outsiders, but within the breed, they are blind to them. David Hancock -- dog historian "We have allowed some breeds to become too heavy, some too short-faced, some too heavy-coated, some too short-legged, others too short-lived, all in the pursuit of cosmetic points, not sound anatomical points."

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan - Travelers to Africa and Asia all have their favorite forms of foreign aid to "make a difference." One of mine is a miracle substance that is cheap and actually makes people smarter. Unfortunately, it has one appalling side effect. No, it doesn't make you sterile, but it is just about the least sexy substance in the world. Indeed, because it's so numbingly boring, few people pay attention to it or invest in it. (Or dare write about it!) It's iodized salt. Almost one-third of the world's people don't get enough iodine from food and water. The result...

The Day I Considered Abortion: Could I trust God despite my baby's potential birth defects? by Andrea Stone I had no reason to suspect I was pregnant; my period was only a day or two late. But all weekend, I just didn't feel right. So first thing Monday morning, I took a pregnancy test. Positive. I felt as though a lightning bolt struck me. The test couldn't be right. Two years earlier, my husband, Joe, had had a vasectomy. Joe and I'd been married seven years, and we already had two children—a four-year-old daughter and a not-quite-two-year-old son. We were...

We have had LOTS of wonderful information come out since we held a fast as a group and I will begin sharing that with you over the next few days. One is important enough, it all is, but this is very critical information so I will get it right out tonight. I did not want to overwhelm you with it all at once. Now . . . those of you who know me well know that I do not get political . . . UNTIL it comes to hurting people with these deadly drugs or killing innocent people.... Party means...

GUEST COMMENTARY by BRENT ROONEY * In the 15 October 2008 McCain/Obama debate AUTISM was mentioned at the beginning and at the end of the debate. Three times as many families are affected by the serious behavioral problems of autistic children than the number of families affected by CP(Cerebral Palsy). Male infants have higher autism risk than do female infants; gastrointestinal problems are a likely autism risk factor. Whether vaccinations elevate autistic risk is not a settled issue. There is evidence than metal poisoning (e.g.s. mercury, lead) raises autistic risk. Estimates of the prevalence of autism vary by a factor...

The Risk of Love July 23rd, 2008 by Mark Shea Recently a reader wrote me to say, “I read a story on the Internet about a Catholic couple whose new baby was diagnosed with spina bifida and anencephaly (no brain). They chose to abort it. How on earth would you deal pastorally with such a horrible situation?” Such questions involve several parts. What does God think? What would I do? What should I make of those people over there? We feel torn between obeying God’s commands “Don’t kill” and “Don’t judge.” And in our culture, “Don’t judge” has much the...

Arranged marriages between British Asians raise the risk of in-breeding and birth defects, a Government minister has said. Phil Woolas, a junior environment minister, came under fire from Muslim groups already concerned about the public reaction to the Archbishop of Canterbury's remarks about sharia law. Mr Woolas, the Labour MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, said that marriages between first cousins are a factor in birth defects and inherited conditions. He said: "Part of the risk, I am told by the health service, is first-cousin marriages. If you are supportive of the Asian community then you have a duty to...

Cody Hall was born with a hemangioma, a tumorous birthmark that distorted the shape of her face and grew larger as she got older. When she was 1-year-old, her doctors in England told her parents that nothing could be done about her condition, so her parents took her to see surgeons in the U.S. Fourteen years and 18 reconstructive surgeries later, most of them at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York, the girl who once had a hopelessly deformed face was flashing a beautiful smile at the prom.

science editor A major medical row will erupt this month when scientists and health experts hold two key meetings to discuss the controversial subject of marriages between cousins and their impact on health in Britain. The debates will be held by the Royal Society of Medicine as part of its 100 Years of Medical Genetics celebrations on 23 May, and by the Progress Educational Trust at Clifford Chance in east London on 29 May. Both will reveal deep divisions among scientists. Some researchers and politicians say inter-cousin unions, which are highly prevalent among British Pakistanis, have led to a striking...

AP Business Writer Health regulators warned again Friday that Roche and Novartis drugs prescribed to organ transplant patients can cause miscarriages and birth defects when used by pregnant women. The Food and Drug Administration last October said it received reports of miscarriages and infants born with ear and mouth birth defects after their mothers took Roche's CellCept. At the time, FDA added its most serious warning to CellCept and a similar Novartis AG drug, Myfortic. FDA spokesman Christopher Kelly said the agency has not received any new reports of pregnancy-related problems, but was concerned some doctors may not have seen...