More Science by Press Release - the wrongly diagnosed PVS patient

I'm sure you've seen it on TV. A man was reportedly misdiagnosed as being in persistent vegetative state (PVS) and ones a brilliant scientist discovered that he wasn't he began communicating with the folks around him. The thing is though, according to the very same media reports he's unable to speak, or move any part of his body (and that includes then, of course, his arm, fingers etc). Well, if you watched the same reporting that I saw you will have seen him writing the story of being trapped in his motionless body on a touchscreen computer. His motionless body (in this case a finger) was kindly guided by a woman who held his hand and tipped the letters on the screen.

Really? How did she know which letter to tip? If the facts that have been reported in the papers and on TV are correct, he would not have been in a position to actually tell the woman in any way which letter to touch on the computer touch screen. Despite this glaring question-mark, swallowed whole by gullible journalists, serious questions remain about the misdiagnosis of patients believed to be in PVS. The doctor who claims to have discovered this misdiagnosis has not actually published any details about the case, so we need to take him on his word as opposed to scientific evidence - hence science by press release. This all matters, because the story in question gains much of its power from the patient's reported recollection (typed kindly by someone else's helping hand) of how life was for his mind trapped but fully conscious in his body.

It goes without saying that the Christian ethics crowd has happily exploited this case for its own agenda. Wesley J Smith who can be relied on to twist facts according to whatever it is that suits his employer's (neocon 'non-partisan' yet happily creationist 'think tank' Discovery Institute) ideological agenda declared that training permitted the patient to begin typing - well, according to the same evidence that he and I have access to, this is patently untrue. Catholic bioethics writers were all too happy to accept the story at face value because it suited their ideological interests. The less said the better.

Science by press release (and family video, in this case) is not a good thing, no matter what ideological side you happen to be on!

Gambia's crackpot leader is at it again

I have written before about the amazing leadership qualities of Gambian President Yahya Jammeh. Last time I wrote about this African leader I noted that his claim to have personally found a cure for AIDS might have been ever so slightly mistaken - well, I used more drastic words. Since then a reader of this blog alerted me to information about the latest travails of Gambia's leader. Yahya Jammeh had about 1000 villagers abducted by his special forces and rounded up in camps where 'witch doctors' beat the living hell out of them and forced them to drink all sorts of noxious substances. Reason being: the cause of death of the great leader's aunt was alleged witchcraft. So the Pres imported 'witch hunters' from neighbouring Guinea and had them have a go at about 1000 randomly chosen Gambian villagers. Amnesty International reports 'Many said they were then forced to confess to being witches. In some cases, they were also allegedly severely beaten, almost to the point of death. ... Villagers said they had been held for up to five days and forced to drink unknown substances, which they said caused them to hallucinate and behave erratically' I thought the Roman Catholic Church had a monopoly on these sorts of activities, but no, Muslim leader Jammeh seems to be operating in the same vein. Never mind that this kinda stuff is happening today, a few hundred years after the Catholics fought 'witchcraft' and burned to death a lot of people all over Europe.

Meanwhile, the leader of said Church, Pope Benedict (of ex-Hitler Youth fame) went out of his way to contribute to the AIDS crisis on the African continent by telling the locals in Cameroon that condoms contribute to the AIDS pandemic and that people should not be using them. I'm sure Benedict (whose penchant for wearing red shoes and colorful dresses is well-known and well-documented) is not using condoms either.

It's amazing what kind of things religious folks get up to when given half a chance, it seems. I wonder how long it will take until reality based policies will take hold in such godforsaken (pun intended) places. In any case, the African continent seems to be today's preferred playground for crackpots of all shades and colors. I wonder why...

British Medical Association Medical Ethics Committee on Access to Abortion

The British Medical Association's Medical Ethics Committee has issued a day or two ago a position statement on access to abortion in the UK. The organisation has been in favour of women's legal right to abortion since the 1970. I excerpt here the BMA's key opinions. In a number of key areas the organisation proposes to make access to abortion easier for pregnant women. This is quite significant, seeing that it comes immediately in the aftermath of public debate in the UK about the Roman Catholic Church's hierarchy clamouring to have abortion outlawed altogether. You can find the whole report here.

The MEC supports the revision of the Abortion Act 1967 so that, in the first trimester:
• women are not required to meet medical criteria for abortion
• the requirement for two doctors is removed
• suitably trained and experienced nurses and midwives may carry out both medical and surgical abortions
• as long as safety is ensured, premises do not need to be approved to carry out first trimester abortions.

The MEC believes:• that changes in relation to first trimester abortion should not adversely impact upon the availability of later abortions
• that health professionals with a conscientious objection to abortion should retain the right to opt out of providing abortion services, but should make their views known to patients and enable them to see another doctor without delay.

The MEC believes that the requirement for medical criteria should be removed for first trimester abortions.

The MEC believes that the requirement for two doctors’ opinions should be removed for abortions within the first trimester.

The MEC believes that the level of training and experience a person has is the most important factor in determining which procedures should be undertaken by which professions. The MEC has no objection, in principle, to nurses and midwives, with appropriate training and competence, carrying out abortions.

The MEC has no objection in principle to removing the requirement for premises to be “approved” for first trimester abortions and allowing medical abortions to take place at home where that is the woman’s wish.

Stem cell research - cultural wars continued

You will probably know of the never-ending ideological battles between pro-lifers and the rest of us. Main bone of contention is the moral status of embryos. Particularly viciously fought over was (well, is) the issue of embryonic stem cell research. For better or worse, embryonic stem cell research requires the extraction of embryonic stem cells around 10-14 days after conception. The embryos are destroyed in this process, much to the chagrin of pro-lifers. The cell accumulation they're concerned about has, of course, no central nervous system, no brain, no capacity to suffer, nothing in other words that would justify ascribing moral status to such embryos.
Comes scientific research 'demonstrating' that the same kind of therapeutic stem cell research can be undertaken without the destruction of embryos. In fact, so claims the research by Dr Catherine Verfaillie, we should also be able to use adult stem cells. Of course, if you can avoid fighting over nothing (with pro-lifers and others), that's what you should aim for. So, even if one subscribes to the view that the embryos in question do not deserve moral status of any kind, one should be relieved to see that valuable research can continue while cultural wars over moral standing can be avoided altogether by using adult stem cells.
Dr Verfaillie (that time of University of Minnesota affiliation) published her work in the prestigious peer reviewed journal NATURE. It has since turned out to be the case that some of the data she published was significantly flawed. Quite possibly her conclousions might not be sustainable in light of the serious mistakes she made. Perhaps, in light of the cultural wars just mentioned, it is not that insignificant that Dr Verfaillie since moved on to a Catholic university in Europe.
In case you're interested in good background information on stem cell research, check out this site at the US National Institutes of Health.