P28 Layout 1

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

P28 Layout 1 TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 2014 HEALTH & SCIENCE Snail venom cuts pain in early lab trial WASHINGTON: An experimental drug made prey, injecting a venom that paralyzes fish long ment of a whole new class of drugs capable of population and can arise from cancer, AIDS, dia- from snail venom has shown early signs of enough for the snail to eat it up. relieving one of the most severe forms of chron- betes, and other debilitating diseases. promise in numbing pain, raising hopes in the A tiny protein derived from the snail’s venom ic pain that is currently very difficult to treat,” One conotoxin-derived drug, ziconotide, has hunt for new, non-addictive medications, has formed the basis of five new experimental said Craik. already been approved for human use. However, researchers said Sunday.The drug, which has not compounds, said lead researcher David Craik of Animal venoms are poisons that can block it is not available in pill form and must be been tested yet on humans, was judged to be the University of Queensland in Australia. certain channels in the nervous system, and act infused directly into the lower part of the spinal about 100 times more potent than morphine or A preliminary study using one of these new differently than opioid painkillers such as mor- cord. gabapentin, which are currently considered the compounds on lab rats “appeared to significant- phine and hydrocodone, which carry the risk of The five new compounds Craik and col- gold standard for chronic nerve pain. ly reduce pain,” said a press statement released addiction and death from overdose. leagues are developing would be taken orally. The active ingredient, conotoxin, comes from ahead of Craik’s presentation at an American Pharmaceutical companies have begun “We don’t know about side effects yet, as it carnivorous cone snails, which are common in Chemical Society meeting in Dallas, Texas. investigating venoms in recent years as poten- hasn’t been tested in humans. But we think it the western Pacific and Indian Ocean. “This is an important incremental step that tial sources of new drugs for managing neuro- would be safe,” Craik said, adding that human The marine animals can reach out and stab could serve as the blueprint for the develop- pathic pain, which affects 15 percent of the US trials are at least two years away. — AFP Polluted Paris forces half cars off the road PARIS: Paris on Monday resorted to drastic measures to curb soaring pollution levels by forcing all cars with number plates ending in even numbers off the road for the first time in two decades. Around 700 police officers were deployed to man 60 checkpoints around the French capital to ensure that only cars with number plates ending in odd numbers were out on the streets. Public transport has been free since the weekend to persuade Parisians to leave their cars at home, and the state railway company SNCF warned on its website of packed suburban trains at peak hours due to the extreme meas- ure.”It is sure we will have more clients today,” a delighted taxi driver told AFP. “There are people who take their car because they don’t want to be pressed up against others in the metro. Today they will take a taxi.” The restrictions came into force across Paris and 22 surrounding areas from 5:30 am (0430 GMT). They will be reviewed on a daily basis, GUILO: In this Tuesday, April 6, 2004 file photo, a worker collects sun-dried cocoa with odd numbers potentially banned on beans to be put into sacks for export in Guiglo, Ivory Coast. A large-scale study is Tuesday if an extension is deemed necessary. being launched in 2014 to see if pills containing the nutrients in dark chocolate can Parking will be free for vehicles with even help prevent heart attacks and strokes. — AP number plates, the Paris city hall said, calling on residents to consult carpooling or car-sharing sites to work out their travel plans. Study to test ‘chocolate’ However not everyone seemed to be aware PARIS: Police officers control vehicles along the Seine river in Paris, yesterday. Cars with even-num- of the ban, or chose to ignore it. “You don’t have bered license plates are prohibited from driving in Paris and its suburbs yesterday following a gov- pills for heart health the right to drive with your number plate,” a man ernment decision over the weekend. Paris is taking drastic measures to combat its worst air pollu- on a scooter remarked to another while stopped tion in years, banning around half of the city’s cars and trucks from its streets. — AP NEW YORK: It won’t be nearly as much tive flavanols in most of the candy on at a red light. “Oh really? I didn’t know,” the sec- cal football, with less than a week to go before Bollecker. fun as eating candy bars, but a big study the market. Cocoa flavanols are often ond driver replied before speeding off. Those key municipal elections. “Drivers are being targeted even though is being launched to see if pills contain- destroyed by the processing,” said who choose to brave the ban risk a fine of 22 The opposition UMP candidate for Paris may- heating is more polluting, but no one is asking ing the nutrients in dark chocolate can Manson, who will lead the study with euros ($30) if paid immediately, or 35 euros if or, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, called the meas- for heating to be used on alternate days.” help prevent heart attacks and strokes. Howard Sesso at Brigham and others at paid within three days. Electric and hybrid cars ure a “fig leaf”. By Saturday the number of pollution particu- The pills are so packed with nutrients Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center will be exempted from the ban as well as any Ecology Minister Philippe Martin said he lates in the air had fallen slightly after hitting a that you’d have to eat a gazillion candy in Seattle. vehicle carrying three people or more. understood the “difficulties, the irritation and high of 180 micrograms per cubic metre-well bars to get the amount being tested in Participants will get dummy pills or It is the first time since 1997 that the French even anger” over the move, adding: “But we just over double the safe limit-on Friday. this study, which will enroll 18,000 men two capsules a day of cocoa flavanols for authorities have resorted to such a drastic meas- had to take this decision.” So-called PM10 particulates are created by and women nationwide. four years, and neither they nor the ure. The government made the announcement Martin said similar measures in 1997 “had vehicles, heating and heavy industry, with the “People eat chocolate because they study leaders will know who is taking on Saturday after pollution particulates in the air yielded results,” adding that he hoped that the safe limit set at 80 per cubic metre. enjoy it,” not because they think it’s good what during the study. The flavanol cap- exceeded safe levels for five straight days in Paris number of vehicles on the roads would be “sig- The smoggy conditions have been caused by for them, and the idea of the study is to sules are coated and have no taste, said and its environs. One enterprising website did nificantly lower” on Monday, without giving a a combination of cold nights and warm days, see whether there are health benefits Manson, who tried them herself. not waste any time cashing in on the restric- figure. which have prevented pollution from dispers- from chocolate’s ingredients minus the tions. Lending site e-loue.com encouraged France’s Automobile Club Association (ACA), ing. sugar and fat, said Dr. JoAnn Manson, Dummy pills Parisians with odd-number plates to rent them which counts some 760,000 members, The pollution particulates in the air can preventive medicine chief at Harvard- In the other part of the study, partici- to neighbours who could not drive on Monday. denounced the move as “hasty, ineffective” and cause asthma attacks as well as respiratory and affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital pants will get dummy pills or daily multi- “bound to lead to chaos”. heart problems. The World Health Organization in Boston. vitamins containing a broad range of Ban is ‘hasty, ineffective’ - “This measure had no effect in any country has said finer particulates-known as PM2.5 are The study will be the first large test of nutrients. Participants will be recruited The issue has become something of a politi- where it was introduced,” said ACA head Didier cancer-causing. — AFP cocoa flavanols, which in previous small- from existing studies, which saves mon- er studies improved blood pressure, ey and lets the study proceed much cholesterol, the body’s use of insulin, more quickly, Manson said, although artery health and other heart-related some additional people with a strong Five babies a day left at China city’s ‘baby hatch’ factors. interest in the research may be allowed BEIJING: More than 260 unwanted children, most statement issued Sunday said. Many babies are given up because parents can- A second part of the study will test to enroll. The women will come from the multivitamins to help prevent cancer. Women’s Health Initiative study, the of them babies, have been abandoned in a Chinese Its quarantine facilities were “not enough to not afford expensive medical bills and fees for spe- Earlier research suggested this benefit long-running research project best “safe haven” in just over six weeks-more than five a meet the demand” and wards that had previously cial education, it said.
Recommended publications
  • Anonymous Birth Law Saves Babies—Optimization, Sustainability and Public Awareness
    Arch Womens Ment Health (2016) 19:291–297 DOI 10.1007/s00737-015-0567-3 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Anonymous birth law saves babies—optimization, sustainability and public awareness Chryssa Grylli1 & Ian Brockington2 & Christian Fiala3 & Mercedes Huscsava4 & Thomas Waldhoer5 & Claudia M. Klier1 Received: 5 April 2015 /Accepted: 30 July 2015 /Published online: 13 August 2015 # Springer-Verlag Wien 2015 Abstract The aims of this study are to assess the impact of neonaticides. The subsequent significantly decreasing num- Austria’s anonymous birth law from the time relevant statisti- bers of anonymous births with an accompanying increase of cal records are available and to evaluate the use of hatches neonaticides represents additional evidence for the effective- versus anonymous hospital delivery. This study is a complete ness of the measure. census of police-reported neonaticides (1975–2012) as well as anonymous births including baby hatches in Austria during Keywords Anonymous birth . Baby hatches . Neonaticide . 2002–2012. The time trends of neonaticide rates, anonymous Child abandonment legislation births and baby hatches were analysed by means of Poisson and logistic regression model. Predicted and observed rates were derived and compared using a Bayesian Poisson regres- sion model. Predicted numbers of neonaticides for the period Introduction of the active awareness campaign, 2002–2004, were more than three times larger than the observed number (p= The day of birth is the day in which an individual runs the 0.0067). Of the 365 women who benefitted from this legisla- highest risk of being murdered. The term ‘neonaticide’ has tion, only 11.5 % chose to put their babies in a baby hatch.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Press
    SYNOPSIS Vienna, 2001. CARLA, an Austrian woman in her late twenties and bulimic, became pregnant unintentionally and lives as a single mother under very precarious cir- cumstances. She struggles to have the strength to take responsibility - financially and psychologically - for the baby. While searching for the child’s father, Carla meets in her former favorite karaoke bar a non-binary person from Argentina who is dressed as an ASTRONAUT. The two social outcasts establish a closeness in a short time that some people cannot achieve in years in a confined space. The encounter with the Astronaut gives Carla a new per- spective on her reality and the courage to make the most important decision of her life. DIRECTOR’S MARIANO CABACO NOTES The human brain automatically organizes people and things into categories to make the world easier to understand for themselves. Discrimination, misunderstandings and fears are mostly the result of this. ASTRONAUTS deals with questions that are drastic and still hard to make for women today. When the external circumstances are precarious, a lot of feelings of guilt come up when having a child. The first baby hatch was launched in Vienna in 2001 to help parents in such hopeless situations. Being able to bring your child to such a safe place, where they are well looked after, is an important socio-political and women’s rights achievement that is just as important today as it was 20 years ago. Two strangers from different cultures meet in absurd circumstances - a Karaoke Bar in Vienna-, as out- casts of society. But their cultural differences give them the space to change their perspective on their personal realities.
    [Show full text]
  • Openness in International Adoption
    Texas A&M University School of Law Texas A&M Law Scholarship Faculty Scholarship 3-2015 Openness in International Adoption Malinda L. Seymore Texas A&M University School of Law, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar Part of the Family Law Commons, and the International Law Commons Recommended Citation Malinda L. Seymore, Openness in International Adoption, 46 Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 163 (2015). Available at: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/707 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Texas A&M Law Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Texas A&M Law Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. OPENNESS IN INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION Malinda L. Seymore* ABSTRACT After a long history of secrecy in domestic adoption in the United States, there is a robust trend toward openness. That is, however, not the case with internationaladoption. The recent growth in international adoption has been spurred, at least in part, by the desire of adoptive parents to return to closed, confidential adoptions where the identity of the birth mother is secret and there is no ongoing contact with her. There is, however, an emergent interest in increased openness in internationaladoption, spurred by the success of domestic open adoptions, health concerns when an adoptee's genetic history is important, psychological issues relating to identity in adoptees, and concern that the international adoption might have been corrupt. International adoptive families who were once happy to avoid birth parent involvement have begun to seek them out.
    [Show full text]
  • Childlessness in Europe: Contexts, Causes, and Consequences Demographic Research Monographs
    Demographic Research Monographs Michaela Kreyenfeld Dirk Konietzka Editors Childlessness in Europe: Contexts, Causes, and Consequences Demographic Research Monographs A Series of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research Editor-in-chief James W. Vaupel Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/5521 Michaela Kreyenfeld • Dirk Konietzka Editors Childlessness in Europe: Contexts, Causes, and Consequences Editors Michaela Kreyenfeld Dirk Konietzka Hertie School of Governance Department of Social Sciences Berlin, Germany Braunschweig University of Technology Braunschweig, Germany Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research Rostock, Germany ISSN 1613-5520 ISSN 2197-9286 (electronic) Demographic Research Monographs ISBN 978-3-319-44665-3 ISBN 978-3-319-44667-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44667-7 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016961706 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017. This book is published open access. Open Access This book is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this book are included in the work’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if such material is not included in the work’s Creative Commons license and the respective action is not permitted by statutory regulation, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to duplicate, adapt or reproduce the material.
    [Show full text]
  • Tradurre Figure / Translating Figurative Language Donna Rose Miller, Enrico Monti
    Tradurre figure / Translating figurative language Donna Rose Miller, Enrico Monti To cite this version: Donna Rose Miller, Enrico Monti. Tradurre figure / Translating figurative language. Bononia Uni- versity Press, pp.01-405, 2013, Rizomatica, 978-88-7395-989-2. 10.6092/unibo/amsacta/4030. hal- 02375282 HAL Id: hal-02375282 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02375282 Submitted on 21 Nov 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. TRADURRE FIGURE TRANSLATING FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE A CURA DI / EDITED BY DONNA R. MILLER & ENRICO MONTI QUADERNI DEL CESLIC CeSLiC Quaderni del CeSLiC Atti di Convegni CeSLiC - 3 Selected Papers 2014 General Editor Donna R. Miller CeSLiC Centro di Studi Linguistico-Culturali, ricerca – prassi – formazione http://www3.lingue.unibo.it/ceslic/ Con il contributo di / Contributors: Dipartimento di Lingue, Letterature e Culture Moderne (LILEC), Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna ILLE (EA 4363), Institut de recherche en langues et littératures européennes, Université de Haute-Alsace (Mulhouse) Dipartimento di Interpretazione e Traduzione (DIT), Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, Campus di Forlì Alliance Française, Bologna Associazione Culturale Italo-Britannica, Bologna Centro traduttori della Fiera del Libro per Ragazzi, Bologna Regione Emilia-Romagna Immagine di copertina / Cover image: © Chema Madoz TRADURRE FIGURE TRANSLATING FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE A cura di / Edited by DONNA R.
    [Show full text]
  • UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Shanghai's Wandering
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Shanghai’s Wandering Ones: Child Welfare in a Global City, 1900–1953 DISSERTATION submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in History by Maura Elizabeth Cunningham Dissertation Committee: Professor Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, Chair Professor Kenneth L. Pomeranz Professor Anne Walthall 2014 © 2014 Maura Elizabeth Cunningham DEDICATION To the Thompson women— Mom-mom, Aunt Marge, Aunt Gin, and Mom— for their grace, humor, courage, and love. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF FIGURES iv LIST OF TABLES AND GRAPHS v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi CURRICULUM VITAE x ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION xvii INTRODUCTION: The Century of the Child 3 PART I: “Save the Children!”: 1900–1937 22 CHAPTER 1: Child Welfare and International Shanghai in Late Qing China 23 CHAPTER 2: Child Welfare and Chinese Nationalism 64 PART II: Crisis and Recovery: 1937–1953 103 CHAPTER 3: Child Welfare and the Second Sino-Japanese War 104 CHAPTER 4: Child Welfare in Civil War Shanghai 137 CHAPTER 5: Child Welfare in Early PRC Shanghai 169 EPILOGUE: Child Welfare in the 21st Century 206 BIBLIOGRAPHY 213 iii LIST OF FIGURES Page Frontispiece: Two sides of childhood in Shanghai 2 Figure 1.1 Tushanwan display, Panama-Pacific International Exposition 25 Figure 1.2 Entrance gate, Tushanwan Orphanage Museum 26 Figure 1.3 Door of Hope Children’s Home in Jiangwan, Shanghai 61 Figure 2.1 Street library, Shanghai 85 Figure 2.2 Ah Xi, Zhou Ma, and the little beggar 91 Figure 3.1 “Motherless Chinese Baby” 105 Figure
    [Show full text]
  • Baby Box”, an Issue Or Solution to Child Abandonment in South Korea
    Stockholm University Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies The ”Baby box”, an issue or solution to child abandonment in South Korea Isabella Sjöstrand B.A Thesis in Korean Studies Spring Term 2018 Supervisor: Sonja Häussler 1 Stockholm University Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies Abstract A few years ago South Korea got a lot of attention from abroad. The phenomenon called “Baby box” emerged in modern society and gave mothers a place to abandon their baby in a safe environment. The purpose of this study is to trace how the phenomenon “Baby box” appeared and to understand what the situation of unmarried mothers in Korea are. By studying the Korean history of adoption practice, women’s limited status, the welfare system and law the author tries to find an answer to why so many unmarried mothers chose not to bring up their own children and instead give them up for adoption or even abandon them. The “Baby box” has become a place that saves lives of children as they are abandoned in a safe environment, however legalizing the “Baby Box” puts other issues on the table. The thesis raises the question whether the “Baby box” can be a solution to child abandonment in Korea or if the issues remain until legal action is taken. Key word: South Korea, Baby box, Single mother, Adoption, Confucianism 2 Stockholm University Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies Sammanfattning För några år sen blev Sydkorea uppmärksammat i omvärlden. Fenomenet "baby box" eller på svenska, ”Bebisluckan” som har uppstått i ett modernt samhälle, har gett mödrar en plats att överge sina barn i en säker miljö.
    [Show full text]
  • April - July 2007 Volume 33, Nos
    April - July 2007 Volume 33, Nos. 4 -7 Among Ourselves Offering A New Hope For Humanity Addressing The Heart Of Social, Economic And Political Systems It would be impossible to put together in this issue them. Their own reading of the signs of the time was in of the INFO the varied and the profound insights based one sense being influenced by a new hope that raised their on our reflections on the Compendium of the Social creative energies. They seem to be persons who spoke with Doctrine of the Church. We will thus continue with the a passion not just on the subject matter of the contents of publication of the rest of the key papers that were the Social Doctrine of the Church but their own personal presented at the Asian Presentation of the Compendium and lived convictions about their lives as followers of Jesus held last January 2007 in Thailand. in the context of Asia. They were able to bring to our All the presenters shared one thing in common. They awareness that the Social Doctrine of the Church, if it is were able to examine critically, some of the most pressing to be understood by the world today, has to be lived out issues that are confronting both the Church and the world actively by the Christian in the social, economic and of Asia. Normally, most of us tend to look at the reality political world. Christian in the world today can truly outside, either with indifference or from a very pessimistic influence the heart of our social, economic and political perspective because often we are either not too aware of systems, when the Social Doctrine becomes an essential the reality outside or that our views are often narrow and element of the evangelisation.
    [Show full text]
  • Extended Abstracts of the XIX National Congress of the Italian Society of Neonatology Firenze, Italy, 28–30 October
    Extended Abstracts of the XIX National Congress of the Italian Society of Neonatology Firenze, Italy, 28–30 October An international journal concerned with the continuity of fetal and postnatal life Publication information: Early Human Development (ISSN 03 78-3782). For 2013, volume 89 is sc heduled for publication. AIMS AND SCOPE Subscription prices are available upon request from the Publisher or from the Elsevier Customer Service Department nearest you or Early Human Development is a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal which provides a forum where, original research from this journal’s website (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/earlhumdev). Further information is available on this journal and other and review papers concerned with early human growth and development are gathered. The emphasis is on the contin- Elsevier products through Elsevier’s website (http://www.elsevier.com). Subscriptions are accepted on a prepaid basis only and are uum of fetal life, the problems of the perinatal period and those aspects of postnatal growth which are influenced by entered on a calendar year basis. Issues are sent by standard mail (surface within Europe, air delivery outside Europe). Priority rates early events; and on the safe-guarding of the quality of human survival. The Journal will b e relevance to clinicians and are available upon request. Claims for missing issues should b e made within six months of the date of dispatch. researchers concerned with the continuity of fetal and postnatal life. Advertising information. Advertising orders
    [Show full text]
  • Birth Practices Through the Ages This Exhibit
    Museum Of Motherhood Birth Practices Through the Ages This Exhibit This exhibit has been produced using public domain images and text from digital and print sources on the subject of motherhood and birth practices through the ages. Every Motherhood experience is unique, making this topic extremely broad. We hope the images and information provided will be both informative and fascinating. This exhibit includes a worldly perspective; however, due to the sheer breadth and scope of something that simply attempts to skim the surface of ‘Birth Practices Through the Ages’, we have focused our attention through a primarily Western lens, taking information from European and American sources. Our future goal is to expand this collection with an even broader and more Photo by Lynsey Stone of Rachel Whaley, a chiropractor and inclusive perspective. mother in Texas Do you have something to share? Please do! We invite you to e-mail your ideas to us, or drop them in the suggestion box at the front desk and get involved with M.O.M. today. Museum Of Motherhood Birth Practices Through the Ages (Panel 1) Before 10th Century AD Procreation is a mysterious and powerful fundamental force of life. The concept of a woman giving birth without assistance is inconceivable of in modern society; yet its necessity has often required courageous acts of strength and determination. The detailed carving of this woman of Ancient Costa Rica (500-1000 AD), pictured below right, captivates the determination and intensity of a laboring woman. The Basalt figurine represents an ancient woman, who struggled to simply survive.
    [Show full text]
  • Download List Q&A
    LIST Q&A Project 1. What is ninna ho’s mission? ninna ho aims at defending the rights of abandoned children by informing women who find themselves in difficulty to keep a newborn child of both their rights and those of the baby and by installing ‘baby hatches’ in a network of hospitals throughout the country as a concrete alternative to abandonment or infanticide. It is principally involved with medical institutions and hospitals. 2. I’m interested in adopting a legally abandoned child. What do I have to do to help an abandoned child find a home and family? Generally children born in a hospital who are not recognized by their parents are adopted very quickly. You should present your request to adopt a child to the Juvenile Court in the locality where you are resident. The Court will select couples that they consider suitable to maintain and bring up one or more children from the waiting list. After a successful period of fostering the Court may proceed with the formal adoption. 3. In the case I were to be interested in sponsoring the installation of a ‘baby hatch’, how much would it cost? The cost of installing a ‘baby hatch’ depends on the hospital concerned, on the need to construct the room isolating the hatch and on any necessary work on the electrical system to connect the alarm to the maternity ward and the intensive care unit. The Managing Director of the hospital should be involved to coordinate the work at the hospital, planning permission may have to be filed for with the local authorities and a supplier for the thermal cot selected for installation in the hatch.
    [Show full text]
  • CHILD ADOPTION and SURROGACY from the BABY FACTORY: a FLUX of REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH CARE in the SOUTH EAST of NIGERIA Chukwuma Emeka Godson (Ph.D)
    African Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Research ISSN: 2689-5129 Volume 2, Issue 3, 2019 (pp. 47-53) www.abjournals.org CHILD ADOPTION AND SURROGACY FROM THE BABY FACTORY: A FLUX OF REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH CARE IN THE SOUTH EAST OF NIGERIA Chukwuma Emeka Godson (Ph.D) ABSTRACT: Infertility and childlessness among married couples is rife in Igboland, which is the South East of Nigeria. Child adoption and surrogacy are becoming popular options for solving the problem in recent times. These means yield quick positive result when they are sought through the baby factory which however has not been spoken well of, due to some criminal activities that sometimes take place there. Consequently, many infertile couples who would have speedily realized their goals in marriage through these means are denied the opportunity. The paper tried to closely assess the act of engaging in child adoption and surrogacy through the baby factory to determine if there is any utilitarian value derivable from the baby factory and how it could be harnessed legitimately. It was observed that these means have helped the triad involved in these procedures. Adoptive parents who got babies through the baby factories may not have been helped if these teenagers did not give birth to children that could be adopted. Genetic surrogacy fits into Igbo world view that emphasizes consanguinity and can best be realized through the baby factory structure. Due to negative publicity, actions of some greedy criminal operators, dearth of proper legislative frame work, proper monitoring and particularly, absence of government involvement in implementation to ensure uniformity in practice, baby factory activities have been hunted by law enforcement agents.
    [Show full text]