Life Links 12/15/10

An ob/gyn in Washington will keep his license but has been fined and be required to attend ethics training after aborting his own child when he impregnated his co-worker.


German doctors are claiming they have cured a American man with HIV and leukemia three years after performing an adult stem cell transplant.

In 2007, a 44-year-old American named Timothy Ray Brown, who had both HIV and leukemia, was set to undergo stem cell therapy in Berlin to fight his leukemia. But Dr. Gero Huetter and colleagues at Charite-University Medicine Berlin decided to perform a stem cell transplant that also might help against his HIV.

They used stem cells from a donor who had an inherited gene mutation that left his body without the gene receptors involved in contracting HIV, making him naturally resistant to the virus......

The treatment in Brown's case couldn't be used for the general population, Fischl said, because he first had to undergo intense chemotherapy and full-body radiation to fight his leukemia. The treatments nearly destroyed his immune system _ but also left his body receptive to the new, HIV-resistant stem cells.

A Washington Post blog has a story on a recent study by pro-choice researchers attempting to debunk a study which found that women who have abortions are more prone to having mental health issues. Priscilla Coleman, the author of the original study has a long, first comment.


In the United Arab Emirates, 5 individuals (4 women and one man) are being investigated on charges of throwing a newborn child in a trash can after attempting to assist in an abortion which led to the death of a girl.

According to the head of the Khor Fakkan public prosecution, Mubarak Bin Abbad, the case details date back to the time when the eastern region police department had received a tip-off from a lady reporting the finding of a dead body of a girl in one of the buildings in the city of Khor Fakkan.

The public prosecutor and the criminal investigators rushed to the scene where the body was found. They ordered that the dead body be taken to the Khor Fakkan hospital for examination by the forensic team in order to determine what caused the death of the girl.

Investigations revealed that the deceased had undergone an abortion and that 4 compatriot women and a man were involved. They were duly arrested and upon being interrogated, they confessed that they helped the deceased to abort and get rid of her baby.