British Section of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life

In the Guernsey Press, 14 Mar 04, Mr. Tony Booth wrote:

"I read with interest your front page article 'MMR parents vindicated by findings' (24 Feb. 2004). I agree with Dr. Brian Parkin that the 1998 paper by Andrew Wakefield suggesting a possible link between MMR and autism has indeed been given undue media prominence since its publication in 1998. Why? Because the report, now some six years old, has been superseded by many others from Japan, Ireland and the United States, which have all been compiled by reputable, independent scientific bodies and all have backed Mr. Wakefield's original findings....

"We, the parents, have not been properly informed. "Firstly, many specialists on both sides have been paid for their time and expertise during the 10-year legal action being brought against MMR. That's why it cost £15 m.

"Secondly, it's no secret that many pro-MMR reports over the past two decades were funded by manufacturers such as Merck Sharpe Dohme in the United States, the former Smith Kline Beecham in the U.K. and Aventis Pasteur in Switzerland. Then it was made public that nearly 20 U.K. government experts working for the so-supposedly impartial committee on safety of medicines and the joint committee on vaccination and immunisation, have all received payments from the pharmaceutical companies I name. Surely these people should also be investigated to question their partiality?"

Note by Editor 2005:

• A large study carried out in Japan is now to have proved that there is no link.
• The rising incidence of reported cases of autism is unexplained.

Commenting on the article "Breast cancer and abortion: collaborative re-analysis of data from 53 epidemiological studies" (The Lancet, Vol. 363, March 27, 2004), Patrick Carroll, of PAPRI (Pension and Population Research Institute, writes: "The article has its credibility impaired by the failure throughout the world to fully record induced abortions.

"This study places most weight on studies where abortion is measured prospectively before any diagnosis of breast cancer is made among the sample studied and the larger among these studies are especially weighted. Even in this country very few women declare induced abortions in such studies and the numbers of women both in the cancer group and in the control group of the Goldacre study in England, the largest study covered by this reanalysis, found only a small fraction of the women, that could have been expected to have had abortions from what is known from national incidence data, had a declared abortion history in either the cancer group or the control group. The median year of cancer diagnosis in this study was 1986. Cancers diagnosed then are likely to correspond to pregnancy related events such as live births and induced abortions that took place much earlier as in the 1960s. If there is such a large measure of under-recording in other countries, Great Britain is unusual in that there was liberalisation of the Abortion law at an early date when the 1967 Abortion Act took effect in 1968. Other countries liberalised later and many of the induced abortions relevant to this breast cancer investigation in other countries were illegal and even less likely to be declared than the abortions among women in a British study. "National breast cancer incidence data in England is now showing an increase that is concentrated in the age group S0+ and the pregnancy related events that correspond to that can be investigated using national data that is correlational or ecological for successive birth cohorts of women given age specific data including data for abortions and nulliparous abortions. This also helps to explain the steeper reverse gradient in breast cancer incidence across social class now observed in the UK."

Rebecca Tell Berg, aged 16, from Uddevalla in Sweden, died on 3 June 2003 after being given RU486. Rebecca's mother Catharina Tell said "I can't understand why I wasn't told about Rebecca wanting an abortion."

The parents of Holly Patterson, who died after using the drug she obtained from Planned Parenthood, say they believe the number of women who have died after using it is "widely under-reported". A state agency found that that an abortion business and a medical centre that treated Holly before her death improperly reported it to the authorities. (Life News. com)

On 18th Jan. 2004 the Daily Telegraph reported that since it was introduced in 1991, two women had died in Britain after taking the drug. This fact emerged in answer to a Parliamentary Question by Jim Dobbin MP.

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service is proposing that "women should not have to go back to their doctor for the second part of the treatment but instead are handed both treatments at the same time and are allowed to take the second at home." (Sunday Telegraph, 28 Sept. 2003). "How to make Home a Happy Place," was a comment by the late Arthur.Wynn on this long-cherished pro-abortionist plan.

"A 15 year-old girl who had an abortion without her mother's prior knowledge has reportedly said that she might have decided differently if she had consulted her mother" (Manchester Online, 9 Feb. 04, quoted in SPUC News). She now regrets her abortion and her mother wants to change the law.

"Caledonia Youth", a sexual advice clinic for young people in Dundee, is being criticised for arranging abortions for girls as young as 13 without parental knowledge (SPUC News, 9 March 04).

Commenting on a new "Right to confidentiality" campaign by the Independent Advisory Group on Teenage Pregnancy, Robert Whelan of Family and Youth Concern, said" "The new Sexual Offences Act was meant to stop people facilitating under-age sex, but nobody does more to facilitate it than the Government itself. Policies Ministers are pursuing have been shown not to work. Equipping children to have sex has never had any effect on conception rates, and it never will." (Image, March 2004).

Dr. John Willke, writing in Life Date, the Journal of Lutherans for Life (U.S.) Spring 2004, investigated claims that the 1993 Polish law making abortion illegal would result in damage to women. Only 1214 abortions were recorded in 2001. "In 1955, before the law was passed, 59,000 miscarriages were listed: in 1999 there were 41,000. That certainly didn't look like something driven underground, but maybe they were hidden in another source such as deaths due to pregnancy and birth? In 1990, 70 women died; in 1996, only 21. How could this be?

"I investigated further potential hiding places... I asked for the statistics on neonatal deaths: in 1990, 19 premature infants died for every 1,000 live births; in 2001, the figure was 7.7."

Lord Alton, writing for "Family and Life" of Ireland, April 2004, noted "At the end of her address to peers and MPs Norma McCorvey handed me copies of 1,000 affidavits that she has collected from postabortive women. These sworn statements make for harrowing reading." Norma McCorvey went on to speak at the Life conference in Northampton on 13th April and her lawyer described their efforts in the U.S. to overturn Roe v. Wade.

"Doe v. Bolton," The lesser known case which helped to make abortion more prevalent by defining health very widely, was attacked last year by its main figure "Mary Doe" Sandra Cano. Original parties in a lawsuit are allowed to ask a court to overthrow a decision.

"Silent no more" campaigners addressed the U.S. Supreme Court in September 1993. Actress Jennifer O'Neill, their spokesperson, who was forced to have an abortion by her boyfriend, said "We need to get the truth out. If you're considering an abortion, talk to someone who's had one."

"The low variant projection - historically the most accurate - calls for population to peak in 2040 at 7.5 billion people, up only slightly from today's 6.3 billion," Steven Mosher of the Population Research Institute wrote in his weekly briefing (22 Dec. 2003), commenting on a U.N. Population Division report. "This year's revision to the UNPD's World Population Prospects includes special long range projections. Population will spiral downward to only 2.3 billion by 2300. The world of tomorrow will resemble 'Old Europe' of today - graying, aged and dying..."

"Not that the UNDP got it all right. The UNDP's 'median variant' projection, the focus of most of the press coverage, rosily called for population to peak at 9.1 billion in 2100 and then remain almost stable for the next two centuries. But these numbers are premised on the wildly optimistic assumption that global fertility rates will bottom out at 1.85 children per woman.

"In the regal language of the report, '1.85 per woman represents a floor value below which the total fertility of high and medium-fertility countries is not allowed to drop before 2050.' Again, 1.85 is a floor below which total fertility 'is not allowed to drop'. No rationale is given for this limitation.

"The 'medium fertility assumption' also shows Europe's fertility rebounding from its current 1.35 children, mysteriously climbing to the required 1.85 by 2050 . . . Fertility rates in nature, or course, do not rise or fall simply because a demographic model so dictates. In the real world Europe's fertility rates continue to crash."

David Derbyshire, Daily Telegraph Science Correspondent, reported on S. April 04: "Injections of adult stem cells can help repair failing hearts, according to the biggest and most definitive study of its kind. Researchers say they have compelling evidence that bone marrow cells removed from the patient's own hip bones can treat one of the most common forms of heart disease....

"The new study, presented yesterday at the American Association for Thoracic Surgery conference in Toronto, Canada, is the first to show their effectiveness in a major random, clinical trial."