LifeZine No. 752: 8th Feb 10
Meet Family & Life at Divine Mercy Conference!
Family & Life will have a prominent stand at the forthcoming Divine Mercy Conference at the RDS, Ballsbridge, in Dublin (Saturday and Sunday, 20th and 21st February, 2010). You will be able to see and avail of a wide range of exceptional pro-life material, including books, tapes, videos, DVDs, leaflets, prayer cards, etc. Our film documentary, Life: A New Revolution, will be showing, and we’ll give a free copy to anyone who would like one. We’ll will also have representatives from Family & Life on hand to assist you with any of your enquiries. The main speakers at the conference include: Bishop Martin Drennan of Galway; Fr Bob Faricy SJ, Professor of Spirituality and author, Rome; Fr Cathal Price CC; Fr Liam Lawton; Miss Joan Freeman; and Sharon Commins and her testimony to the power of Divine Mercy. Admission to the conference is only €25 for Saturday. €20 for Sunday or €30 for the whole weekend. Please come, and bring a friend or relative. The staff and volunteers of Family & Life look forward to seeing you there!
Vaccine Expert Challenges Minister Harney on HPV Vaccine for Children
Ireland will have to work hard to ensure that girls being offered the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine get all three doses if the country wants to guarantee maximum protection against the strains of the virus that are causing most cases of cervical cancer. So says one of the co-inventors of the vaccine, Prof Ian Frazer from the University of Queensland, Brisbane. He explained that in Australia, where HPV vaccinations began in 2007, data from some states shows there has been about an 80 per cent uptake of all three doses among schoolgirls, but that among those aged 18 to 26, uptake of all three was just 40 per cent after three years. “So the lesson is”, he contended, “you really have to work hard to get people to get the second and third dose . . . it will be the challenge everywhere, as it is with all vaccinations, to get people to come back and get the extra shots”. Three doses over a six-month period are recommended to ensure maximum protection, Prof Frazer said, and the goal would be to have at least 90 per cent uptake of all three doses among those being vaccinated. Girls who get only two doses might be protected, but it was not clear how long this would last. He stressed the importance of a major public education campaign before vaccinating began to ensure maximum uptake. Minister for Health Mary Harney announced recently that officials would offer the HPV vaccine to first-year students in secondary schools in Ireland before the summer break. Prof Frazer said he believed the HPV vaccine would also reduce the incidence of oral cancers, including cancer of the tonsils, which was growing among young people who practice oral sex. But last October, Dr Diane Harper, the leading international developer of the HPV vaccines, gave a sales pitch for Gardasil. Far from reassuring her audience that it was safe and efficacious, she revealed that: (1): 70 per cent of HPV infections resolve themselves without treatment in one year. After two years, this climbs to 90 per cent. Only half of the remaining 10 per cent of infections coincide with the development of cervical cancer. (2). The incidence of cervical cancer in the USA is so low that “if we get the vaccine and continue PAP screening, we will not lower the rate of cervical cancer in the US”. (3). “There have been no efficacy trials in girls under 15 years”. In an interview with ABC News, Dr Harper admitted that “The rate of serious adverse events (for the vaccine) is greater than the incidence rate of cervical cancer.” In the light of this, pro-life commentator Pat Buckley wonders why Minister Harney decided to introduce the vaccine: “The questions that must be asked are, why are the Minister and her Department proceeding with this initiative when the risks associated with the vaccine are so serious and are already in the public domain? And, why did the cost of the vaccine drop so significantly in such a short time? Is this reduction due to the adverse publicity, based on both the record of adverse reactions to the vaccine and the negative publicity created by Dr Harper’s frank admissions? The other questions that must be asked are, does the Minister and her Department believe there is an acceptable level of risk, and, if so, what is that level? There is one certain method to avoid HPV—it is called abstinence”. The Irish Times. January 20. Pat Buckley/ELN. January 18.
Archbishop of Canterbury Warns Against “Casual Attitude to Human Life”
The Archbishop of Canterbury has cautioned the UK about the dangers of taking a “casual attitude” toward human life. In a message for National Holocaust Memorial Day, Dr Rowan Williams said mankind must remain alert to a repeat of the Nazis’ division of people into “us and them”, which led to the murder of millions in death camps during World War II. He noted that the same “dehumanising rhetoric” could be seen in modern-day terrorism or in the neglect of disabled people and refugees, and suggested it is also at work in areas such as abortion and assisted suicide. “We must attend to the signs at home and abroad of those attitudes in ourselves and in others which were the harbingers of the Holocaust”, the Archbishop said in a statement marking the 10th Holocaust Memorial Day. “These include the dehumanising rhetoric which seeks to separate ‘us’ from ‘them’ and then to project all that is negative onto the other, onto “them”. “We need to be vigilant”, he added, “about every expression of ungenerous feeling towards people in need and all who may for a time be dependent on the wider community—the refugees and asylum seekers. We need to be alert to the signs of a casual attitude to the value of human lives, whether by acts of terrorism or, more subtly, in relation to disability, or the beginning or end of life”. Dr Williams—who in 2008 visited the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau with Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Lord Sachs—said it is important that the world continues to remember the Holocaust, because it “seems not yet to have learned” its lessons. We must surely attend not only to the survivors and their stories, but also to what is to be their legacy. Will their legacy be a world in which such things no longer happen because our children and we have learned the lessons and acted on them? Or will their generation, with all its suffering, its tenacity and its offering of hope pass from us like a nightmare best forgotten?” National Holocaust Memorial Day takes place annually on the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the Nazis killed more than a million Jews, Gypsies and political prisoners. The Telegraph. January 28.
Pope Benedict Thanks CDF for Bioethics Contributions
Speaking with the members of the Catholic Church’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) last month, Pope Benedict XVI expressed gratitude for their work, especially their efforts to apply Christian ethics to in vitro fertilisation (IVF), cloning and gene therapy. The Pope first highlighted the Vatican’s 2008 Instruction Dignitas Personae, which dealt with the morality of IVF, new forms of contraception, the freezing of human embryos, the cloning of human beings, the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos, genetic screening, gene therapy and other current biomedical processes. Dignitas Personae represents “a new milestone in the announcement of the Gospel, in full continuity with the Instruction Donum Vitae, published by the dicastery in 1987”, the Holy Father said. “In such delicate and pressing questions . . . the Magisterium of the Church seeks to offer its own contribution to the formation of consciences, not only the consciences of believers but of everyone who seeks the truth and is willing to listen to arguments that arise not only from the faith, but also from reason itself”, he explained. Reflecting on how Christianity makes its truthful contribution in the field of ethics and philosophy, the Pontiff noted that it does not offer “prefabricated solutions to real problems such as biomedical research and experimentation, but presents moral standpoints within which human reason can seek and find appropriate solutions”. “There are, in fact, certain aspects of Christian revelation”, he observed, “that throw light on the problems of bioethics. . . . These aspects, inscribed in the heart of man, are also understandable in rational terms as elements of natural moral law, and may find acceptance even among people who do not recognise themselves in the Christian faith”. Noting that natural moral law is accessible to all people, the Holy Father said this applies to both “civil and secular society. This law, inscribed in the heart of all human beings, touches an essential aspect of legal theory and appeals to legislators’ consciences and sense of responsibility”. CAN. January 15.
US Bishops: Enact Genuine Health Reform, Oppose Current Language on Abortion, Conscience Protection
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is urging members of Congress to “come together and recommit themselves to enact genuine health care reform that will protect the life, dignity, consciences and health of all”. “The health care debate, with all its political and ideological conflict, seems to have lost its central moral focus and policy priority, which is to ensure that affordable, quality, life-giving care is available to all”, the bishops write. “Now is not the time to abandon this task, but rather to set aside partisan divisions and special interest pressures to find ways to enact genuine reform. The U.S. Catholic bishops continue to urge the House and Senate to adopt legislation that ensures access to quality, affordable, life-giving health care for all; retains longstanding requirements that federal funds not be used for elective abortions or plans that include them, and effectively protects conscience rights; and, protects the access to health care that immigrants currently have and removes current barriers to access”. The prelates reiterated their serious concerns about the health care legislation that the House and Senate have passed: “Disappointingly, the Senate-passed bill in particular does not meet our moral criteria on life and conscience. Specifically, it violates the longstanding federal policy against the use of federal funds for elective abortions and health plans that include such abortions—a policy upheld in all health programs covered by the Hyde Amendment as well as in the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, and now in the House-passed ‘Affordable Health Care for America Act’. We believe legislation that fails to comply with this policy and precedent is not true health care reform and should be opposed until this fundamental problem is remedied. . . .The bill passed by the House (and to a lesser extent the Senate-passed bill) recognizes the need to protect conscience rights on abortion. However, provisions in both bills pose a threat to conscience that is not limited to abortion. That threat needs to be removed before any final bill is passed”. The January 26 letter was written by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities; Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development; and Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City, chairman of the Committee on Migration. CWN. January 27.
Science Scores New Breakthrough in Adult Cell Transformation
According to an Irish Times report, scientists have reached yet another milestone in the effort to produce replacement cells for any tissue type in the human body. A team from Stanford University in California has converted cells from a mouse’s tail directly into brain cells. Though much research remains to be done to confirm the breakthrough, the research team believes they have found an effective way to produce any of the many tissue types in the body. The goal, as ever, is to be able to produce healthy replacement cells as treatments for conditions such as motor neuron disease and Parkinson’s. The method is much simpler to achieve than that which Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University developed in 2006. He astounded the world’s science community by finding a way to convert ordinary skin cells into pluripotent stem cells such as those found in the developing human embryo. These cells can change into any of the body’s 200-plus distinct cell types. Now a Stanford team headed by Marius Wernig, an assistant professor of pathology at the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, has devised a way to take connective tissue cells from the tail skin of mice and make them convert directly into neurons. Their findings were published last month in the journal Nature. Scientists can produce the neurons without first having to push the skin cells back to being embryonic stem cells. It is a direct transition between the connective tissue cell, a fibroblast and the neurons. The earlier Japanese work relied on using four biochemical substances to make the skin cell convert to a pluripotent stem cell. In this new development, Prof Wernig came up with a combination of just three factors produced by genes in the neuron that were enough to make a connective tissue cell convert into a neuron. He used an initial trial-and-error method, inserting 19 different genes found in neurons into the fibroblast. He was able to reduce this until he could make the fibroblast convert directly to neurons, using just three genes. The new approach carries huge implications for the advancement of cell-replacement research. Most of the work has aimed at making pluripotent stem cells and then using them to produce replacement tissues. Prof Wernig’s approach seems to be able to cut out the stem cell, changing cells directly into the replacement cell type required. The Irish Times. January 28.