News Briefs

Family planning schemes spread AIDS

BALTIMORE - A new study by the National Institutes of Health, University of North Carolina and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore said that international family planning schemes that promote the injected contraceptive Depo-Provera has led to a worsening of the AIDS epidemic and spread of other STDs in Africa, southeast Asia and South America. At first glance, it may appear that the move away from condoms and to an injectable contraceptive has led to more "unprotected" sex but Charles Morrison of Family Health International in Research Triangle Park, N.C., who led the study, said that it is possible that the drug itself actually increases susceptibility to disease. The study says that the use of such drugs can increase the risk of STD's as much as three-fold. Under President Bill Clinton, USAID provided 41,967,200 units of Depo-Provera to the developing world from 1994-2000, and the UNFPA distributed 20 million units with American taxpayer money. Stephen Mosher, president of the Population Resarch Institute, said "As the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa rages out of control, we have been recklessly promoting and distributing drugs which make women even more vulnerable to the deadly virus. We have been pouring gasoline on a fire."

Medical journals censor abortion info

CHICAGO - The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer criticized the censorship of scientific research by The Lancet, the most influential British medical journal, and Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, the main publication of the American Association for Cancer Research. Both publications refused to publish letters from medical researchers on the relationship between abortion and breast cancer. The Coalition's president, Karen Malec, said "Recognition of the (abortion-breast cancer) link could embarrass leading researchers and the cancer fundraising industry. Nevertheless, the increasing incidence and importance of female breast cancer merits the fullest scientific investigation and discussion." Lancet refused a letters from two experts: Chris Kahlenborn, author of Breast Cancer: It's Link to Abortion and the Birth Control Pill, and Patrick Carroll, a British actuary and statistician and the research director for the Pension and Population Research Institute in London. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention rejected a letter from Joel Brind, Ph.D., professor of endocrinology at Baruch College, City University of New York.

Manitoba permits gay 'marriage'

WINNIPEG - Manitoba became the fifth Canadian jurisdiction to allow same-sex "marriage" when the Court of Queen's Bench found the prohibition against gays marrying one another to be unconstitutional. Justice Douglas Yard said, "the traditional definition of marriage is no longer constitutionally valid in view of the provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The traditional definition of marriage in Manitoba is reformulated to mean a voluntary union for life of two persons at the exclusion of all others." Unlike in B.C., Ontario and Quebec, the federal government did not become involved in the case and following another case in the Yukon earlier this year, the feds asked for a deferral to implement the decision until the Supreme Court decided on the issue federally.

Lesbian divorce granted