Category Archives: Medical Issues

Collision Course

November 19, 2007

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

A strange convergence of news stories this past week has come and gone like ships passing in the night, causing no ripples, leaving no wake.  On the surface, all is calm.  Down deep, strong currents pull toward inevitable disaster.

More than 1 million cases of Chlamydia were reported in the United States last year.  Federal health officials state this is the greatest number ever of reported cases for a sexually transmitted disease (STD).

What would generally generate alarm, though, is being soft-pedaled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  We are told this “may not be all bad news.”  We are not victims of a disease, the CDC says, but instead are victims of reporting of the disease.

Based on their analysis, we have the CDC to thank for these new higher levels of Chlamydia infection.  For more than 10 years, they have recommended annual screening for sexually active women, focusing on teens and young adults ages 15 to 25.

As good as our testing might be, Dr. John M. Douglas Jr. at the CDC admits to Associated Press that it leaves something to be desired.  “As many as 2.8 million new cases may actually be occurring each year,” Dr. Douglas states, a fact that appears almost as a throwaway footnote buried in the story.

Buried under this throwaway footnote is another story.  Rates of the STD gonorrhea are also soaring, with two consecutive years of increases.  But the biggest part of the story has yet to appear in bold headlines.

In 2006, a surveillance project in 28 cities found that 14 percent of the reported gonorrhea cases were resistant to ciprofloxacin and other antibiotics used to treat it.  This rate is up from the 9 percent in 2005, which was itself also up from the 7 percent in 2004.  Up, up, up…and the CDC responds in April…advising doctors “to stop using those drugs against gonorrhea.”

The rise of a superbug for gonorrhea doesn’t appear to fluster the CDCs own Dr. Douglas, though.  After all, “it doesn’t look like the superbugs are the reason for gonorrhea’s escalating numbers overall.”  What is?  Well, Dr. Douglas and his colleagues are “not sure what is driving the increase.”

Meanwhile, across the country in the Reno Gazette-Journal, a new study on Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, shows that this superbug and the deaths it causes may exceed deaths caused by AIDS.  Dr. Steven Althoff managed to diagnose and treat 4-year-old Jordan Roberts just in time.  She lived.  But Dr. Althoff has seen a five-fold increase of MRSA cases in the last year.

And out of Atlanta, U.S. health officials told AP that “a mutated version of a common cold virus has caused 10 deaths in the last 18 months.”  Again, “CDC officials don’t consider the mutation to be a cause for alarm for most people.”  It’s just as well.  Alarm, in this case, will do no good since “there are no good antiviral medications for adenoviruses.”

Three news stories this week.  Superbugs.  Bacterium and viruses resistant to drugs.  But we are told not to worry.

What are we to do?  Get tested?  Be informed?  Know we have the disease? And then what?  Well, at least, we know what we are not to do.  Don’t worry.

Three news stories this week.  Superbugs.  The CDC twists in the wind, letting ships run a collision course in the night, turning off the early warning system, and massaging us back to sleep.

You may have a deadly cold, a MRSA infection or a gonorrhea infection.  But the germs are not the culprits.  We are victims of knowledge, of knowing what ails us.  Now go back to sleep.  There’s nothing to worry about.

Emerging Questions for Emerging Answers

November 12, 2007

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

A pattern has emerged. Five easy steps, repeated each year, continue to promote the notion that adults should forget teaching teens the benefits of remaining sexually abstinent until marriage.

Step one: Those in favor of promoting contraception to our young people as “safe and protected sex” publish a Report suggesting sexual abstinence for teens is an impossible … and possibly undesirable … goal.

Step two: The liberal media quickly skims for any phrase that might give them a justification … no matter how slight … to print bold headlines declaring that abstinence education is a failure.

Step three: Repeat “Step Two” ad nauseam.

Step four: Experts fully and thoughtfully analyze said Report, revealing glaring errors, omissions, and inaccuracies in the report. Press releases are issued: the Report fails to qualify as research and is demonstrated to be a thinly disguised political tract controlled by bias.

Step five: The liberal media ignores their own prejudiced reporting of flawed “research.” No headlines appear to retract their errant headlines. The media could take responsibility and announce, “We goofed,” “We messed up,” “We were wrong.” But they don’t.

The latest report to trigger this five-step pattern, Emerging Answers 2007, was issued with great fanfare this month by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancies. Written by Douglas Kirby, Ph.D., it was quickly raised on high by the liberal media … ad nauseam … and used to “prove” that … you guessed it … teaching sexual abstinence to teens is a failed enterprise.

Now that the media has finished its part in this charade and departed for other urgent news flashes, thoughtful experts will be able to take the time to analyze Dr. Kirby’s work and put forward their responses. I offer the following Emerging Questions for their consideration:

  1. Why is researcher bias ignored? The introduction to the report states, “Dr. Kirby thought it important to also note that ETR Associates also developed and continues to market several of the curricula reviewed in Emerging Answers 2007.” Plainly speaking, Dr. Kirby makes money selling the curricula he helped write and is now “researching.”
  • Listed as the sole author of the report, Kirby also gives credit to his Research Associate for “important contributions” … none other than an ETR Associates employee of eight years. Further, ETR staff Lori Rolleri and Karin Coyle are thanked for helping determine the topics covered by the report and creating its “balance.”
  • Amazingly, The National Campaign announces these conflicts of interest with thanks to Dr. Kirby for his admission, as if the admission absolves both of them from any professional or ethical challenges. Would this work for the tobacco industry?
  1. Why do The National Campaign and Kirby continue to isolate and address only one of many consequences of teen sex … teen pregnancy? Throughout the report, teen pregnancy is identified as the target for educational programs and the basis for Kirby’s evaluation. If there are fewer pregnancies, the program succeeds? No matter how much sex adolescents are having? No matter the age of the adolescents having sex?
  • This emphasis on teen pregnancy is a foundational research bias. It defines what will be accepted as “success” by the researcher. Consider an 11-year-old who is sexually active. One program may prevent pregnancy by helping her become sexually abstinent. Another program may inject her with Depo Provera. Which approach is successful?
  1. Where are the many positive evaluations of abstinence-until-marriage programs and curricula? These exist. Could their exclusion from Kirby’s “balanced consideration of topics” have anything to do with the research bias set up from the outset in the design of the study favoring contraception for adolescents?
  1. Why is medically accurate information on STDs minimized and even mischaracterized in its importance for teens, suggesting that “protecting” teens from pregnancy is the same as “protecting” teens from STDs? Kirby refers to “behavior that affects the transmission of STDs” and to “protection against pregnancy and STD” as if such “protection” actually exists.

Behavior doesn’t cause STDs. Bacterium and virus are the culprits. The research on their individual infectivity for the major STDs is clear. Condoms have a limited ability to prevent STDs. Chemical contraceptives have NO effectiveness.

In good time, the answers to these and other Emerging Questions will emerge. They will be developed by experts in the field of teen sex who will finally be able to review the full 204-page report in detail. Their answers will shed great light on teen sex and truly effective ways to intervene.

Most likely, “Programs That Work” will actually include many abstinence-until-marriage programs overlooked by Dr. Kirby and The National Campaign. These abstinence programs will focus on teen sex as an inherently risky behavior and will teach teens the truth about the many negative consequences, in addition to pregnancy, related to teen sex.

When that time comes, one great question remains: Will the press take note, much less care? Never mind the ad nauseam. Will the truth, when it fails to conform to media bias, ever make even one headline?

Target Without a Bull’s-Eye

November 5, 2007

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

My father’s dart board hangs in the garage unused.  A great rainy day game, years ago we could happily pass hours waiting for the sky to clear.  A steak on the grill under the eaves, a football game on a television to the side, and a dart game for the commercials…good memories of good times.

Like all things from the past, it is amazing to see what modern technology has done with a simple game we once played on a 14-inch paper target with plastic red and yellow darts.  The Hot Seller at www.dartboards.com boasts 5 bright LED lights and comes with both soft tip and steel tip darts.  With 210 variations of 37 games, you will never lack for a partner.  The Halex CricketView Dart Board Package features Cybermatch, letting you play against the computer.

Modern technology has done a lot to update the game of darts.  But one thing hasn’t changed.  At $219.99, complete with computer partners and LED lights, the Halex Dart Board still has the familiar scoring system around the edge funneling in to a small precious bull’s eye at the center.

Bull’s Eye!  This exclamation first evidenced itself in print in 1825, being used to describe much more than the center of a target.  Broadly speaking, “a shot that hits the bull’s eye” is, according to Webster’s, “something that precisely attains a desired end.”  You succeeded because you were focused on “something central or crucial.”

Life is like a good game of darts.  You can set out, throwing darts all day, all week, all year long, and here and there, you will certainly rack up a fair number of points.  But if you want to play the game to win, life works much better when you are aiming for the bull’s eye.

No wonder today’s kids are having such a rough go at the game of life.  Raised in the modern age of relativism, the bull’s eye has been painted off the board, leaving a game with no focus, with nothing “central or crucial.”

A report appearing in the Journal of Adolescent Health sheds light on a tragic example of life without a bull’s eye.  The Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation studied in detail how California teens ages 12 to 16 interpret abstinence and sexual activity.  Their results will make your eyes pop.

According to the study, 12 percent of the children believed they were abstinent if engaging in sexual (vaginal) intercourse.  For 14 percent of the youth, anal sex was considered abstaining.  More than 44 percent considered genital touching an abstinent behavior, and 33 percent believed oral sex qualified as abstinence.

These teens have done a great job of learning what they have been taught.  On the popular advice column posted by Columbia University, a student asks Alice, “I have a question from my college sexuality class: In what behaviors can one participate and still be sexually abstinent?”

Alice responds, “To some, abstinence is not having any type of sexual experience. To others, it means not having oral, anal, or vaginal sex. Some define abstinence specifically as not allowing penetration or not having vaginal or anal intercourse, but believe that oral sex is acceptable for them to give or get.”

To clarify, Alice offers up concrete examples.  She advises this student that “with a partner” she can try “window shopping”…or “taking a shower.”  Tomorrow the student and her “partner” might enjoy “picnicking in the park”…or they might “cuddle, caress, or stroke each other with fingers, lips, and tongues, with or without clothes on.”  Either this…or that…it’s all abstinence.

And just to make sure there is no confusion, Alice wraps up her 500-word description of sexual abstinence with this guiding light, “It’s important to think about what abstinence means to you, and then to live by that belief (until you choose to change your mind, rather than changing it in the heat of the moment).  [underlining added]

Ask Alice at Columbia University is not an aberration.  She is representative of comprehensive sex education programs.

“In California,” explains Valerie Huber, Executive Director of the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA), “96 percent of schools teach comprehensive sex education, and according to a recent report in the California Journal of Health Promotion, there has been 1.1 million new STD cases reported in Californians ages 15 to 24.  A careful review of the most popular comprehensive sex education curricula reveals that it leaves definitions for abstinence up to the discretion of the individual student.  It is not surprising that teens loosely define the term and end up acquiring an STD as a result.”

Without a bull’s eye to define sexual abstinence, the results of the study by the Pacific Institute are completely understandable.  No bull’s eye.  No need to aim.

The stake in a game of horseshoes, home runs, uprights or darts is points, and it is senseless to play the game without a target to aim for.

The stake in the game of life is…life.  Why be surprised at the tragic results of the game of life if we hand our children a target without a bull’s eye?

Failure Is Assigned to Maine Students

October 22, 2007

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

If you’ve read the news, and if you’re not banging your head against the wall, you must be pulling out hairs…or at least scratching the scalp raw.  What were they thinking of?

Wednesday night, October 17, grown adults on the Portland School Committee in Maine voted to extend approval of condoms for junior high students to a wider approval of the full range of birth control options.  School-based health clinics will now be in the business of dispensing birth control to students ages 11 to 13…confidentially…without informing their parents.

This decision shows the muddled thinking of adults who, while loving children, have lost track of the best interests of children.  Richard Verrier, who supported the vote for birth control, told the Associated Press, “it’s not enough to depend on parents to protect their children because there may be students who can’t discuss things with their parents.”

Well, Mr. Verrier, it’s too bad the Portland School Committee failed to act as “caring parents” to “protect their children.”  Any loving parent will know that a child 11 to 13 is not old enough to engage in sexual activity of any kind.  A loving parent protecting their child would take every possible step to teach, counsel, mentor and direct their child away from sexual activity.

Instead, Portland School Committee members acted as rebuffed taxpayers who do not want to spend dollars on rearing babies born to children.  Even when the district provided condoms at their clinics they reported that 17 middle school students had become pregnant in the last four years, seven of them in the 2006-7 school year.

Responding to teen sex as a teen pregnancy issue, their emphasis on birth control tells students that having sex is not the problem.  Having babies is what the adults who “care about them” object to.

One must wonder at the factual information the Committee relied on to make their decision.  Firstly, teen sex is not just a problem when it creates babies.

Valerie Huber, Executive Director of the National Abstinence Education Association points out the obvious.  “Whenever an 11-year old is having sex, there is a problem much bigger than whether or not she will become pregnant because a child that young who has the opportunity to have sex – let alone feels she is mature enough to deal with the physical and emotional effects of intercourse – is, in most cases, seeking intimacy and approval because it is void on all other levels in her life.”

This search for love is what leads to teen pregnancy.  Engaging in the lives of teens, demonstrating true affection and love for their welfare, is a costly investment.  But it is what prevents teen pregnancy.  Instead of providing what teens really need, the Committee opted to throw pills and condoms at them.

They will be disappointed.  They will continue to witness teen births.  Given typical use, the overall failure rate for condoms in preventing pregnancy is approximately 15%.  For teens, this failure rate increases to 22%.  When you promote condoms to teens, you are promoting a 22% failure rate.

Likewise, chemical birth control has its own failure rates.  Dr. Patricia Sulak, a leading researcher of birth control, makes it a practice to ask her adult audiences to raise their hands if they or someone they know became pregnant while using the birth control pill.  With regularity, the room is filled with hands waving in the air.

Evaluating contraception failure rates for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), the Committee has now become a key causative factor in this epidemic.  Condoms, despite regular media hype, fail to prevent serious STD infections, including incurable genital herpes.  One in five people over the age of 12 now have genital herpes and carry the virus on body areas not covered by the condom.  Talk about failure!

And if you want to ensure failure, just give a pack of birth control pills or a patch to an eleven-year-old.  Reassured by adults she trusts that she is “protected” against pregnancy, what chance is there that she will also use condoms?  Chemical contraception offers absolutely NO protection against STDs.  Automatic failure!

Committee members will find themselves regretting their actions, even if it takes several years for them to see their error.  Not so for the teens who accept the Committee “solutions” for teen pregnancy.

These teens will begin reaping the “rewards” of failure right away.  They will experience the failures of the solutions promoted by adults who wanted a quick fix at the expense of teens who will be left to deal with the here and now failures of the quick fix.

Contraception will fail to safeguard our children.  And by leading our children to contraception, the Committee has failed our children.  A double dose of failure…and we will all pay the final price.

Tax Dollars Pay for Fraud

October 15, 2007

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

Impressive federal agencies listed on Consumer Sentinel’s website are leading a battle to protect Americans against fraud:  U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Postal Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Better Business Bureau…and more.  They brag about their successes.

The Federal Trade Commission just announced complaints against seven online sellers of alternative hormone replacement therapy (HRT) products, alleging that they made health claims for their natural progesterone creams without supporting scientific evidence. Six of the sellers have signed consent orders barring them from making such unsubstantiated claims in the future. The seventh did not respond to staff’s repeated contacts, and the case will now be heard by an administrative law judge.

“Millions of women seek safe, effective alternatives to hormone replacement therapy,” said Lydia Parnes, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “These companies violated their trust by making claims they just couldn’t prove.”

Meanwhile, the largest consumer fraud case in our nation’s two-hundred year history continues unchallenged right under the noses of our best Consumer Sentinels.  The worst of it is that this fraud on American taxpayers is financed by our tax dollars, yours and mine.

Defrauding “millions of women” with claims of “safe, effective” medical procedures, Planned Parenthood sells abortions to minors, evading legal requirements put in place to protect our daughters against rape and incest.

For over ten years, Planned Parenthood has demonized those who have worked to collect evidence of their fraud.  But thanks to the growing ability to share information through the Internet, this evidence can now easily be reviewed by every American taxpayer.

In May of this year, Lila Rose, a UCLA journalism student, set out to prove that Planned Parenthood is not following California’s mandatory reporting laws.  Posing as a 15-year-old impregnated by her 23-year-old boyfriend, she secretly captured 2 different Planned Parenthood clinics coaching her on how to avoid the law.   “You could say 16…just figure out a birthday that works…and I don’t know anything.”

Clearly unafraid of any law enforcement effort, Planned Parenthood moved immediately to preserve their right to break the law and defraud American taxpayers.  Instead of offering promises to comply with laws protecting minors against sexual abuse, they threatened to sue Lila Rose for exposing their law-breaking.

This case finally brought to light a practice that has gone on for over a decade.  In a nationwide telephone “sting”, volunteer citizens made calls to Planned Parenthood abortion clinics around the country.  Posing as a girl 14 and her 22-year-old boyfriend, a young girl asked clinic staff if she could get an abortion.

Recorded on YouTube, time and again, Planned Parenthood staffers coach the minor on avoiding mandatory reporting laws in their states.  “There is complete confidentiality,” one Colorado operator advises her, “You need to call completely anonymously…and don’t tell us anything about who the partner is.”  An Alaska woman advises, “have a girlfriend come with you and tell them your boyfriend is 16.”  Iowa, Connecticut, Missouri, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Texas, Tennessee, New Jersey, Utah, Kentucky…caught on tape…each clinic staff person gives the minor a plan to avoid state law.  ”As long as you have the money and yourself,” the New Jersey Planned Parenthood receptionist assures her, “you’re fine.”

This deception has dire consequences for our young daughters.  As Lila made plans for her investigation in Los Angeles, across the country, a lawsuit filed in Ohio revealed that Planned Parenthood had failed to report a known case of incest.  As alleged in the suit, in November, 2004, a 16-year-old girl paid for her abortion and informed Planned Parenthood staff that her own father was the father of her baby and that the abuse had been on-going since 2000.  Incredibly, Becki Brenner, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio, told Cybercast News Service the young girl was a “victim of pro-life activists.”

The fraud does not stop here.  Intent on expanding the network of clinics that promote breaking our laws, Planned Parenthood has resorted to deceit, sneaking into towns with false identities in order to build abortion super-clinics.  Ainsley Earhardt on Hannity’s America filed a detailed report from Aurora, Illinois, where Planned Parenthood’s scheme involved filing false building permits under business names intended to mask Planned Parenthood’s identity.  The fifth permit fraudulently stated that the tenant was unknown.

Illinois Zoning Attorney Vince Tessitori defines the series of five permits as fraud…purposely deceiving public authorities in the approval process.  This is a scheme being used by Planned Parenthood around the country.  In Texas, construction workers realized the deception when they discovered plans to install bulletproof windows and surgery recovery rooms.  They refused to continue construction.

Last year Planned Parenthood’s financial statements disclosed over $305 million of our tax dollars funded their deception and fraud.  After paying for all business expenses, including construction permits and employee wages, they earned more than 60 million dollars in profit…quite a haul for a business that claims to be non-profit.

American taxpayers are being fleeced.  We are being asked to pay the bill for a business that earns a profit from breaking the law right under the noses of the FBI…law-breaking caught on tape, but allowed…and paid for with our tax dollars.

Getting mad is not enough.  Action is what counts.  If you want to put an end to this publicly funded fraud, you need to let Congress know.  They are the ones who continue to pour our money into Planned Parenthood’s massive public fraud.

Call today:  (202) 224-3121.  The Capital Operator can direct you to your Senator and Representative.  On the web, you can locate your representatives and contact them directly.

Your message:  Stop sending our tax dollars to Planned Parenthood.  Stop now.  Stop right this minute.