tagged w/ Pregnancy
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This week’s Us Weekly and Life & Style covers share conjured stories about the contents of Jennifer Aniston’s womb.This week’s Us Weekly and Life & Style covers share conjured stories about... more
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A FORMER DEVIL WORSHIPER in Swaziland says she gave BIRTH to a seven-headed snake during her exorcism!
According to the Swazi Observer, Patience Tsabedze, a 27-year-old mother of two, who says she served the devil “in a very high rank” for seven years, suffered a “horrific” deliverance last week witnessed by her husband, who works as a police officer, his fellow officers, and a pastor who performed the exorcism.
Over the course of weeks, “Patience vomited gallons of blood, three live starfish and 20 ordinary fish, a dead rat, over 700 worms and other gory items. Her ears also excreted millipedes,” according to reports in the Swazi Observer.
But the horror scene didn’t end there, Patience says she later suffered severe “labor pains” and “gave birth” to a live snake.
“It was my first time seeing such a snake, a seven-headed one with glittering eyes. I tried to kill it but it hid inside the toilet so we decided to flush it,” her husband told the Times of Swaziland.
Despite no longer worshiping the devil, Patience says she still suffers attacks by demons.
http://www.tabloidprodigy.com/2011/07/20/devil-worshiper-gave-birth-to-seven-headed-snake-during-her-exorcism/A FORMER DEVIL WORSHIPER in Swaziland says she gave BIRTH to a seven-headed snake... more
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That'ts right, a 16 pound baby was born in Texas today!
Janet Johnson of Texas pushed a 16-pound, 1-ounce baby out of her ladyparts. That little boy, JaMichael Brown, is the sole reason that all children should say to their mothers, “I’m reeeeeeeally sorry if I caused you pain,” but they wouldn’t end that sentence with “in your vagina,” even though both mother and child would know that’s exactly what s/he meant.That'ts right, a 16 pound baby was born in Texas today!
Janet Johnson of Texas... more
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Ina May Gaskin started delivering babies in 1970 while on a hippie cross-country trip known as the caravan. She had no medical training, just a master's degree in English and a gut feeling that women deserved kinder, gentler births. When the hundreds of caravaners settled in Tennessee on what they called the Farm, Gaskin and several other women began delivering the community's babies at home and also opened one of the first, nonhospital birthing centers in the country. Word got around when Gaskin wrote about her successes in Spiritual Midwifery, and a movement was born.
Today, women still travel far and wide to give birth on the Farm, and Gaskin's methods have the respect of clinicians around the world (there is even an obstetric maneuver named after her). Now 71, she is credited with reviving what was essentially a dead profession in the U.S., inspiring scores of women to enter the field and helping found the Midwives Alliance of North America. But even while midwives attend more births in the U.S. — about 7.5% in 2008 — they're finding it increasingly hard to get practice agreements with doctors and hospitals. In her latest book, Birth Matters: A Midwife's Manifesta (Seven Stories, April 2011), Gaskin argues that America needs midwives more than ever.
You started attending births with no formal medical training. How did you know you could do it?
I knew how to deal with potential complications because kind doctors helped me. But basically I was behaving the way my aunt, who had a farm, would around any laboring mammal. You don't disturb her, you don't upset her. She deserves peace and quiet and respect. Doing that meant that no C-sections were necessary for the first 200 births on the Farm.
The C-section rate on the Farm is very low, under 2% for about 3,000 births, while the average in the U.S. for low-risk women is 20%. Can you explain?
It's very rare to see an undisturbed birth in a modern U.S. teaching hospital, but when you see a woman who isn't frightened, who's giving birth without interference, you stand back in awe and realize how little needed you are except in the rare circumstance. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't be around in case there is a problem. It just means that you should be able to tell when there's a problem, and you should be able to tell how not to create problems.
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http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2062393,00.html#ixzz1P9FhJMRxIna May Gaskin started delivering babies in 1970 while on a hippie cross-country trip... more
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I know a lot gets outsourced to India.... but pregnancy and childbirth? you've got to be kidding!...this is pretty much pregnancy farms! This can't be morally right...and surely it paves the way for black market business and surrogates being treated as nothing more than vessels and not humans themselves...
This Channel 4 documentary being aired at the end of the month investigates this strange and sick proposalI know a lot gets outsourced to India.... but pregnancy and childbirth? you've... more
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I won't be offering any opinions, I just find this poll rather interesting.
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By a 24 percent margin, 61-37 percent, Americans take the pro-life view that abortions should either be legal under no circumstances or legal only under a few circumstances. Although Gallup doesn’t specify those “few” circumstances, polling data has consistently shown that, when asked about cases such as rape, incest, or the life of the mother, a majority of Americans want all or almost all abortions made illegal — leaving only life of the mother or rape and incest as the exceptions.
“Americans are rather conservative in their stance on abortion, with 61% now preferring that abortion be legal in only a few circumstances or no circumstances. By contrast, 37% want abortion legal in all or most circumstances,” Gallup analyst Lydia Saad writes. “Over the past two decades, Americans have consistently leaned toward believing abortion should be legal in only a few or no circumstances, although less so in the mid-1990s than since about 1997, when combined support for these has averaged close to 60%.”I won't be offering any opinions, I just find this poll rather interesting.... more
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A small study of maternal deaths in New York City rings loud warning bells for pregnant African American women. Experts offer ideas on lowering some of the deadliest risks for all women: hypertension, C-section, embolism and pre-eclampsia.
One of the few looks at maternal mortality in the United States was New York City's recent analysis of 161 women who died from 2001 to 2005.
It's a small study with loud warning bells for African American women, who make up 24 percent of the city's maternity population.
Fifty-eight percent of those who died of pregnancy-induced conditions in the study were black and 10 percent were white. Hispanic and Asian/Pacific Islander pregnant women died at twice the rate of white pregnant women, but at significantly lower rates than blacks.
Women over 40 were found to be about 2.6 times more likely to die from childbirth-related conditions than younger women. Forty-nine percent were obese. Pregnant women who had private insurance and those insured by Medicaid –government insurance for those with low incomes--had similar rates of pre-natal care.
The New York City report drew no conclusions about how to lower the city's high rate of maternal deaths among African Americans.
In the United States 1 out of every 7 maternal deaths occurs six weeks after delivery, so some deaths might have been prevented if the woman received more follow-up care.
Full Story at: http://www.womensenews.org/story/reproductive-health/110425/study-details-causes-high-maternal-death-ratesA small study of maternal deaths in New York City rings loud warning bells for... more
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A clever high-school student in Toppenish, Washington, shocked a student assembly this week when she took off her prosthetic baby bump after six months of convincing everyone at her school that she was pregnant, according to the Yakima Herald-Republic. Gaby Rodriguez, 17, initially conceived the social experiment during her sophomore year as part of a senior project on stereotyping, but only a handful of people knew about it, including her mother, boyfriend, and the school principal. "She sacrificed her senior year to find out what it would be like to be a potential teen mom," said Principal Trevor Greene. During the assembly, she asked students and teachers to read some of the judgmental things people had said about her during her pregnancy. One teacher admitted to have initially wondered, "How are we going to take all of the potential that's in this girl and make sure it manifests itself and not let [her pregnancy] define who she is?" One of the conclusions Ms. Rodriguez drew from her research was that this was an issue Hispanic teens are more likely to face than white teens. At Toppenish High School, 85 percent of the student body is HispanicA clever high-school student in Toppenish, Washington, shocked a student assembly this... more
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Gaby Rodriguez would worry whenever anyone asked to touch her baby bump.
It wasn't because she felt shy or embarrassed. It was because the bulge -- fashioned from wire mesh and cotton quilt batting -- didn't actually contain a baby.
For the past 61/2 months -- the bulk of her senior year at Toppenish High School -- the 17-year-old A-student faked her own pregnancy.
Only a handful of people -- her mother, boyfriend and principal among them -- knew Gaby was pretending to be pregnant for her senior project, a culminating assignment required for graduation.
Her teachers and fellow students, except for her best friend, didn't realize they were part of a social experiment.
Neither did six of her seven siblings -- including four older brothers -- her boyfriend's parents, and his five younger brothers and sisters.
"At times, I just wanted to take it off and be done," she says. "I didn't want to go through this anymore."
But Gaby didn't give up the charade until Wednesday morning, when she revealed her secret during an emotional, all-school assembly.
The topic of her presentation: "Stereotypes, rumors and statistics."
"Teenagers tend to live in the shadows of these elements," she says.
Before taking off her fake baby belly in front of the entire student body, Gaby told her audience, "Many things were said about me. Many things traveled all the way back to me."
Then, she asked several students and teachers to read statements from 3x5 cards, quotes people actually said about her during the course of her experiment.
Her best friend, Saida Cortes, a 17-year-old senior who was sitting in the front row, read card No. 3: "Her attitude is changing, and it might be because of the baby or she was always this annoying and I never realized it."
It grew quiet in the gym as more and more quotes were read aloud. Then Gaby dropped her bomb: "I'm fighting against those stereotypes and rumors because the reality is I'm not pregnant."
She had been nervous about how the crowd might react. After all, she had been lying to them since October.
"It 'happened' at homecoming," says principal Trevor Greene, making air quotes with his middle and index fingers at the word "happened."
"In essence, she gave up her senior year," he says. "She sacrificed her senior year to find out what it would be like to be a potential teen mom.
"I admire her courage. I admire her preparation. I give her mother a lot of credit for backing her up on this."
But, the principal continues, "I have a daughter that will be here next year, and I would not let her do it."
At first Gaby's mother wasn't sure what to make of the idea, either.
"I thought she was crazy," says 52-year-old Juana Rodriguez, adding it was difficult to lie to family members -- "It didn't feel good" -- but she felt she needed to support her daughter, who enlisted two mentors from Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital's Childbirth Education Program to help her with her project.
When Gaby approached Greene last spring, she says she worried he might say no. He says he was impressed with her determination. He also says he was "shocked."
"I heard her out," he says. "I listened to her presentation, her proposal. And then I went through all the difficulties I foresaw to making this happen."
People might talk about her behind her back. Her older brothers might want to beat up her boyfriend. And there might be backlash -- even broken relationships -- when students, teachers and family members learned the truth.
"None of that deterred her," Greene says, adding he felt he needed to get permission from superintendent John Cerna.
Cerna signed off. In fact, he left the west side of the state -- where he had been attending a conference -- at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday in order to get to Gaby's 10:15 a.m. presentation.
"I wouldn't miss this," Cerna says, adding, "It's amazing that a young lady would take this challenge on. It was a well-kept secret."
Gaby began wearing her homemade, basketball-sized, prosthetic belly to school after spring break. Before that, she wore baggy sweaters and sweatshirts to conceal her faux pregnancy.
Her supposed due date was July 27, not quite two months after graduation.
Gaby and her boyfriend, 20-year-old Jorge Orozco, met at the homecoming game when she was a freshman and he was a senior. They started dating just over three years ago.
When Gaby told him her plan, "I thought she was nuts," the 2009 Toppenish High School graduate says. "I thought I was going to end up getting into problems with her brothers. I didn't really want to get into problems with anybody."
But, "I was doing it for her," he says, adding, "My parents thought it was going to be a boy."
Gaby -- who has a grade-point average of 3.8 and serves as president of her school's MEChA, or Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, Club -- came up with the idea during her sophomore year Advanced Placement biology class with Shawn Myers. She's in his anatomy class this year.
"You saw the side comments and the looks at her stomach," says Myers, who says he wasn't disappointed -- "just concerned" -- when she told him she was pregnant.
He says he wondered: "How are we going to take all of the potential that's in this girl and make sure it manifests itself and not let this define who she is and let it be a roadblock to what she wants to accomplish?"
It's a question Hispanic teens are more likely to face than white teens, Gaby found in her research. Black and Hispanic teens continue to have higher pregnancy rates than white teens.
And most teens at Toppenish High School -- about 85 percent -- are Hispanic.
Gaby came clean to Myers and two other teachers, both women, Monday. The women, she says, seemed relieved.
Myers had a different reaction: "She kept talking, and it did not register. Then I just kind of leaned forward and said, 'Are you serious?' I told her, 'You've run a great value experiment. You couldn't tell anybody because you had to control the variables.'"
But, he says, "When you're running a social experiment, you're dealing with human emotions. The human person in me felt I had been lied to."
Wednesday, Gaby apologized to teachers and students for misleading them.
When she took off her baby belly, there were a few nervous giggles, and a loud, "Whaaaaat?!" from the audience.
Then, there was applause. And, at the end of the assembly, following a Q&A session, there was a standing ovation, the first one Greene says he remembers during his three-year tenure at Toppenish High School.
"She really fooled me. I never would've guessed it," says 17-year-old senior Vicente Villanueva. "I'm really surprised."
So was 19-year-old Angel Jalomo, a 2010 Davis High School graduate and Gaby's niece: "I didn't know what to say. I just started crying."
Gaby will present her research to a board of community members in May. It will include photos and video from Wednesday's assembly. And Gaby still needs to finish writing her report. But by revealing the project to students Wednesday, she can go on her English class trip to Ashland, Ore., on Friday without her baby belly.
Plus, she didn't want to be pregnant for prom. She already has her dress, a teal form-fitting mermaid gown with spaghetti straps.
Gaby plans to attend Columbia Basin College to study social work or sociology in the fall. And, she says, "I'm not planning to have a child until after I graduate."
http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories/2011/04/20/pregnot-toppenish-high-student-fakes-pregnancy-as-social-test-about-stereotypes-rumorsGaby Rodriguez would worry whenever anyone asked to touch her baby bump.
It... more
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Leading research organisations and patient groups are asking the government to change the law to allow scientists to implant embryos into women that have genetic material from three different parents.This "tiny" bit of third person's DNA can prevent inherited disorders being passed on researchers claim. The groundbreaking procedure has so far only been tried in a lab and mostly using animal embryos. But if it proves safe and successful it could prevent several hundred babies every year being born with genetic defects.The afflictions can include blindness, organ failure, muscular disorders, learning disabilities and diabetes. Many babies die as a result of the genetic defects.The diseases are caused by mutations in the mitochondrial DNA, which is found only in the egg of the mother.British scientists have led efforts to find ways to prevent inherited disorders being passed on and causing babies to die or be disabled.The call for a law change comes in a letter sent to Andrew Lansley, the health secretary. The letter, from the Wellcome Trust, Academy of Medical Sciences, Medical Research Council and Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, among others, was dispatched as a group of experts published a review commissioned by Lansley into the safety and effectiveness of scientific procedures attempted so far.How do they do it?There are two separate techniques - both of which involve mixing the DNA of the parents with a small amount of mitochondrial DNA from a donor egg.This is not, however, "three-parent IVF", said Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, one of the authors of the review which has now gone to the government. "It is not a term we have used once in this report and it is not a term that should be used," he told the Guardian."This is a tiny, tiny bit of DNA. It is not carrying any characteristics except that you have normally functioning mitochondria."The DNA contribution from the egg with normal mitochondria is tiny compared to the DNA from the two main parents.Dr Evan Harris, the former Lib Dem MP who has taken a close interest in embryo research, likened it to "changing the battery on the laptop, but not affecting the information on the hard disk".One of the two experimental techniques is called maternal spindle transfer and involves removing the genetic material from the would-be mother's unfertilised egg and fusing it into a donor egg from which the nucleus has been removed. Fertilisation with the partner's sperm takes place afterwards."It's been done in various animals and seems to be both efficient and safe," said Lovell-Badge. But it has not been tried using human eggs, which the scientists would like to see happen.The other method is proncuclear transfer, which has been researched by the Institute of Genetic Medicine at Newcastle University. This involves the transfer of both parents' DNA from a fertilised egg into a fertilised donor egg which has had its nucleus removed. This was successfully carried out in mice as early as the 1980s, and in Newcastle has also been done with abnormal human eggs.Lovell-Badge and his team would like to see this attempted in normal fertilised human eggs and also in monkeys, to be sure of the safe outcome.The further experiments should not take much more than a year. Scientists and patient groups are now pressing the government to consider the legal and ethical issues involved, so that the necessary regulatory changes can be made to move the experimental work into the clinic as soon as possible.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/apr/19/scientists-embryos-three-parents Leading research organisations and patient groups are asking the government to change... more
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A mother's diet during pregnancy can alter the DNA of her child and increase the risk of obesity, according to researchers.The study, to be published in the journal Diabetes, showed eating a lot of carbohydrate changed bits of DNA.
:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13119545A mother's diet during pregnancy can alter the DNA of her child and increase the... more
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A mother's diet during pregnancy can alter the DNA of her child and increase the risk of obesity, according to researchers.
link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13119545A mother's diet during pregnancy can alter the DNA of her child and increase the... more
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Prosecution would be a 'significant step' towards abortion being outlawed, says lawyer for pregnant women's group
A woman accused of murdering her four-day-old baby girl by trying to kill herself with rat poison while pregnant has become a cause célèbre for US women's groups and civil liberties organisations.
Bei Bei Shuai, 34, a restaurant owner who moved to the US from China 10 years ago, was pregnant and planning to marry her boyfriend until she learned late last year that he was already married and he would be abandoning her.
A few days later, on 23 December, she went to a hardware store, bought rat poison pellets, went back to her flat in Indianapolis and swallowed some. But she did not die immediately and was persuaded by friends to go to hospital.
She was given treatment to counteract the poison and gave birth on New Year's Eve, but her daughter, Angel, suffered seizures and died after four days.
Shuai then had a second breakdown and spent a month in a psychiatric ward, after which she left to stay with friends and began rebuilding her life.
But in March she was arrested and charged with murder and attempted foeticide. She now faces life imprisonment.
"This case has huge implications for pregnant women, not only in Indiana but across the country," said Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union.
"If we allowed the state to put a woman in jail for anything that could pose a risk to her pregnancy, there would be nothing to stop the police putting in jail a woman who has a drink of wine or who smokes. So where do you draw the line?"
Kolbi-Molinas said there had been an alarming rise in the number of such cases across the US. Some women's groups put the rise down to pressure on prosecutors from anti-abortion groups.
Shuai has been held in Marion County jail, Indianapolis, where she is segregated from other prisoners. She was last in court for a bail hearing on Wednesday but the judge, Sheila Carlisle, has not yet ruled whether she will be kept in custody. Carlisle is expected to begin hearing a motion for the case's dismissal next month.
Linda Pence, Shuai's lawyer, described the decision to prosecute her as "horrible" and "outrageous". She disputes the prosecution's claim that the baby died from rat poison, saying that Shuai received a host of medicines at the hospital, many of which could have caused the death.
The National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) group is helping to mount the defence.
Kathrine Jack, a lawyer with the NAPW, who meets Shuai about once a week, said that after the initial suicide attempt, she had regained hope. "She has been on a rollercoaster," said the lawyer, who argued that women such as Shuai should, rather than being locked up, receive medical and psychiatric help.
Jack, who has been involved in dozens of similar cases where women were charged as a result of incidents while pregnant, said: "Prosecutions like this are increasing in the US and are a result of anti-abortion rhetoric and movements that seek to give the foetus rights above and beyond those of women.
"If it was allowed to stand, it would not outlaw abortion right away but it would be a significant step along the way."
Dave Rimstidt, part of the prosecution team, said careful consideration had gone into the decision to charge Shuai.
"This is a very unique case. Every charging decision is very difficult and goes through a process where we consider all the facts, all the circumstances, and under this situation, we believe we've charged the two charges we can prove," he said.
Utah, Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa and South Carolina are among states to have pressed ahead with cases involving pregnant women and their foetuses, most of which have related to women taking illegal drugs during pregnancy.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/15/woman-attempted-suicide-pregnant-accusedProsecution would be a 'significant step' towards abortion being outlawed,... more
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POWERFUL video in regards to the physical and psychological effects of teenage pregnancy and abortion.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NaFjy5-QWIPOWERFUL video in regards to the physical and psychological effects of teenage... more
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A gene linked to premature births has been discovered by scientists in the US and Finland.
link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13079149A gene linked to premature births has been discovered by scientists in the US and... more
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By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Robert Parry in In These Times examines how Paul Ryan’s budget test would turn healthcare for the elderly into one big free-market death panel.
Ryan’s plan privatizes Medicare, replacing it with premium support for insurance companies. That means the government would kick in a fixed amount of money towards insurance premiums for Americans over age 65. Ryan also wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which requires insurers to cover people with preexisting conditions. Ryan’s plan doesn’t guarantee that Americans over 65 could get insurance in the first place. Even if they could find an insurer willing to take them, there is no reason to believe that premium support would cover more than part of the cost.
Maybe the plan is to save money by pricing most seniors out of health insurance entirely. If you can’t get insurance in the first place, you don’t qualify for premium support.
Mitt Romney and health care
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney kicked off the exploratory phase of his campaign this week, Lynda Waddington reports in the Iowa Independent. Ironically, this prospective frontrunner is best known for bringing Obama-style health care reform to Massachusetts.
Aswini Anburajan of TAPPED wonders whether Romney’s record on health care will hurt him in the primary. Repealing health care reform is one of the major themes for the Republican Party, and Romney is the architect of a similar system. However, Anburajan notes, campaigning to all but abolish Medicare hasn’t hurt GOP Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan’s political status, even though seniors are a big part of the GOP base..
Part of the reason why Ryan hasn’t felt a backlash from seniors is that his plan preserves Medicare for people who are currently over 55 and will only decimate the program for younger people.
Demonizing pregnant users
At RH Reality Check, Lynn Paltrow takes the New York Times to task for a sensationalized story about children born to women who are dependent upon prescription painkillers. Paltrow notes that the same alarmist language was used to hype a non-existent epidemic of crack babies in the 1980s. The evidence suggests that the impact of drug use during pregnancy on the developing fetus is relatively minor compared to the effects of other factors that are correlated with drug use, such as poverty, poor nutrition, and lack of prenatal care.
If we assume there’s a clear causal relationships between using drugs and hurting babies, it’s easier to lay all the blame on the mother. The truth, Paltrow argues, is much more complicated. Drug use is just part of a constellation of unhealthy factors that conspire to give the children of poor and marginalized women a worse start in life.
Positing a distinct syndrome caused by drug abuse is often a first step towards stigmatizing, and even criminalizing, poor women who give birth to sick children.
Hungry women and children
Speaking of threats to the health of poor women and their children, the new budget deal slashes $500 million from nutrition programs, with the Women Infants and Children (WIC) food support program at the USDA taking the hardest hit, Tom Laskawy reports for Grist.
If you get your meals through an umbilical cord, the Republicans want to protect you; but if you have to eat groceries, you’re on your own.
Big Pharma hikes HIV drug prices
Elizabeth Lombino at Change.org reports that more than 8,000 people nationwide are on the waiting list for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), a government program that helps poor people living with HIV/AIDS pay for medications. Lombino notes that even as the ranks of patients who can’t cover their drugs continues to swell, pharmaceutical companies continue to raise their prices. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is calling upon pharmaceutical companies to lower prices to help grapple with what has come to be known as the ADAP crisis. So far, it’s been to little effect.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Robert Parry in In These Times... more
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EXTRACT: CryAb1 toxin [was] detected in [pregnant women], their fetuses and [non-pregnant women]. This is the first study to reveal the presence of circulating [pesticides associated to genetically modified foods] in women with and without pregnancy, paving the way for a new field in reproductive toxicology including nutrition and utero-placental toxicities.
NOTE: Bt corn (maize) was developed by transferring cry1Ab from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) into corn. It is to be found in the most common GM corn - Monsanto's Bt MON810 (marketed with the trade name YieldGard) - a corn genetically engineered to resist corn borers by producing its own insecticide, the Cry1Ab toxin. Global production of Bt corn takes place on many millions of hectares worldwide and many different types of foods contain Bt corn. In the European Union, seven countries - Austria, Hungary, Greece, France, Luxembourg, Germany and Bulgaria have banned Mon810.
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Maternal and fetal exposure to pesticides associated to genetically modified foods in Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada
http://bit.ly/ifIjUg
Aziz Aris (a,b,c) and Samuel Leblanc (c)
(a) Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Sherbrooke Hospital Centre, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
(b) Clinical Research Centre of Sherbrooke University Hospital Centre, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
(c) Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
Received 29 June 2010; revised 26 January 2011; accepted 13 February 2011. Available online 18 February 2011.
Abstract
Pesticides associated to genetically modified foods (PAGMF), are engineered to tolerate herbicides such as glyphosate (GLYP) and gluphosinate (GLUF) or insecticides such as the bacterial toxin bacillus thuringiensis (Bt).
The aim of this study was to evaluate the correlation between maternal and fetal exposure, and to determine exposure levels of GLYP and its metabolite aminomethyl phosphoric acid (AMPA), GLUF and its metabolite 3-methylphosphinicopropionic acid (3-MPPA) and Cry1Ab protein (a Bt toxin) in Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada.
Blood of thirty pregnant women (PW) and thirty-nine nonpregnant women (NPW) were studied.
Serum GLYP and GLUF were detected in NPW and not detected in PW. Serum 3-MPPA and CryAb1 toxin were detected in PW, their fetuses and NPW. This is the first study to reveal the presence of circulating PAGMF in women with and without pregnancy, paving the way for a new field in reproductive toxicology including nutrition and utero-placental toxicities.
Keywords: Pregnant women; Maternal and fetal blood; Nonpregnant women; Genetically modified foods; Glyphosate; Gluphosinate; Cry1Ab
Article Outline [payment required for full text]
1. Introduction
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Chemicals and reagents
2.2. Study subjects and blood sampling
2.3. Herbicide and metabolite determination
2.3.1. Calibration curve
2.3.2. Extraction procedure
2.3.3. GC–MS analysis
2.4. Cry1Ab protein determination
2.5. Statistical analysis
3. Results
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Conflict of interest statement
Acknowledgements
References
Corresponding author at: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Sherbrooke Hospital Centre, 3001, 12e Avenue Nord, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada J1H 5N4. Tel.: +1 819 820 6868x12538; fax: +1 819 564 5302.EXTRACT: CryAb1 toxin [was] detected in [pregnant women], their fetuses and... more
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Pregnant women living in the vicinity of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster are caught in the middle of conflicting evacuation advice.
While the government recommends that anyone living within about 19 miles of the plant leave the area and stay indoors, the International Atomic Energy Agency thinks people farther away are also at risk.
The agency finds that unsafe radiation levels have spread as far as places such as the city of Iitate, about 25 miles away from the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant.
"Japan exceeded its criteria and twice the amount of our standard for evacuation," said an the atomic agency spokesperson last week in Tokyo. "We have advised (Japan) to carefully assess the situation and they have indicated that it is already under assessment."
Greenpeace International, which sent observers to Fukushima prefecture in Japan to monitor radiation levels, is accusing Japanese authorities of intentionally downplaying risks and not issuing adequate health warnings.
"It was not safe for people to remain in Iitate, especially children and pregnant women, when it could mean receiving the maximum allowed annual dose of radiation in only a few days," said Jan van de Putte, a Greenpeace radiation safety analyst. "When further contamination from possible ingestion or inhalation of radioactive particles is factored in, the risks are even higher."
Waseda Shotengai, a nonprofit shop-owners advocacy group in Tokyo, has started a project called "Evacuate a Baby" to step in to the breach in evacuation policy. (Waseda is an area in Tokyo's Shinjuku district.)
"Our group is taking responsibility for Japan's future by saving mothers and their children and pregnant women," said Junichiro Yasui, a member of Waseda Shotengai.
Keiya Konno, the group's president, was killed along with his entire family when the tsunami destroyed his hometown of Minami Sanriku City in Miyagi prefecture. Waseda Shotengai and its branch in Minami Sanriku worked together to export local goods to Tokyo. Yasui wanted to help the people where Konno came from and the organization's members agreed that the task couldn't be left to the government.
"They are too bureaucratic and still in a state of chaos and are not helping pregnant women enough, so we decided to do it," Yasui said. "The Japanese government supports us. For example, they give us permits that we need, such as for buses."
The group agrees with the atomic agency that the evacuation zone should be extended beyond the government's suggested radius of between 12.5 miles and 19 miles.
Under normal circumstances, the group of more than 450 serves as a business booster by organizing and hosting commercial events. But since March 19 it's been focusing on what it can do to move people from the affected areas, find a place for them to stay and provide them with proper nutrition, medical care and ongoing support.
The group had evacuated five families as of April 1. Since then electricity has been restored in some of the affected areas and Yasui thinks that will speed up demand for their services.
"We are starting to receive many phone calls asking for help," he said. He expects they will be evacuating hundreds of families.Pregnant women living in the vicinity of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant... more
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