Category: reproductive health

…the CBCP is not the Church…

In the raging controversy over RH, many commentators, including pro-RH ones, often miss the point that the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) is not the Church but merely an organization of its bishops. The Second Vatican Council has established that the Church consists of all baptized Catholics – lay and clergy, bishops, priests, nuns, and ordinary people. The anti-RH position definitely does not qualify as THE Church position because, despite the bishops and some institutions, the majority of Filipino Catholics support the enactment of a law that provides family planning services to all Filipinos especially the poor.

Dr. Alberto G. Romualdez

Sotto’s scot-free (and why it’s our fault)

Katrina Stuart Santiago

Yes plagiarism might seem small and petty, it can seem like an academic thing, but it certainly isn’t moot, and I don’t know that making fun of Tito Sotto, in whatever way, will mean people taking this seriously. If at all, it reveals how we have inadvertently clouded the conversation on plagiarism with the fact of social class, i.e., pang-edukado naman ang issue na ‘yan, pang-kayo-kayo lang. Because really, who has spent time and effort talking about Sotto in light of this mistake? Who has started laughing at him, thinking jokes as weapons, too? Tayo-tayo nga.

Read on…

The RH bill: Resolving the controversy with science

Flor Lacanilao

Most published and posted commentaries on the RH bill show poor public understanding of science. I am sharing here a summary of my comments posted at the online forum on Philippine science. It is focused on the nature and role of science.

The objectives of science don’t include to find the truth. They are aimed to understand nature and the universe. Researchers do investigations to produce information — used for education, development programs, policy-making, developing technology etc. — for the people’s well-being.

Many studies are meant to build up or strengthen scientific consensus, as in evolution and climate change. These are factual conclusions — that is, supported by valid data. They are not the truth nor are they permanent; they can be changed by more studies. This is the progressive nature of science.

That nature of science explains why most harmful predictions — like Paul Ehrlich’s “Population Bomb” (1968) — did not happen. Continued research stopped the serious threats.

The same corrective actions of science can stop side effects or unexpected results — serendipitous nature of scientific research. The discovery of DDT for saving lives from malaria had unexpected by-product, which damage ecosystems.

On the other hand, the threats on the economyof demographic winter (or reduced, aging human population), peddled by nonscientists who are against the RH bill, are without scientific basis. I have yet to see properly published studies verifying the claims (find out with Advanced Google Scholar, by searching for publications covered in Science Citation Index or Social Sciences Citation Index. These are the internationally accepted criteria in evaluating research performance.

Hence, results of scientific research — that is, properly published — are reliable bases for resolving crucial, controversial issues, and making policy decisions. In the DDT case, for example, they influenced the decisions for its medical use and for its subsequent worldwide ban.

Scientists do not debate religious views. They try to explain science. “Science and religion are different ways of understanding. Needlessly placing them in opposition reduces the potential of both to contribute to a better future.” (Read more in “Science, Evolution, and Creationism” <http://www.nap.edu/sec>).

sotto, guts, plagiarism #RH bill

this is to respond to sotto’s claim echoing, nay, plagiarizing blogger sarah pope’s, that using birth control pills causes “severe gut dysbiosis,” that is, kills good bacteria in the gastro-intestinal tract.

According, to Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride MD, the use of the pill also causes severe gut dysbiosis. What is worse, drug induced gut imbalance is especially intractable and resistant to treatment either with probiotics or diet change. Gut imbalance brought on through use of the pill negatively impacts the ability to digest food and absorb nutrients. As a result, even if a woman eats spectacularly well during pregnancy, if she has been taking oral contraceptives for a period of time beforehand, it is highly likely that she and her baby are not reaping the full benefits of all this healthy food as the lack of beneficial flora in her gut preclude this from occurring. Pathogenic, opportunistic flora that take hold in the gut when the pill is used constantly produce toxic substances which are the by-products of their metabolism. These toxins leak into the woman’s bloodstream and they have the potential to cross the placenta. Therefore, gut dysbiosis exposes the fetus to toxins. Not well known is also the fact that use of the pill depletes zinc in the body. Zinc is called “the intelligence mineral” as it is intimately involved in mental development. 

i sent pope’s link to doc butch, an internist, and this is what he emailed back:

Strange. Googling, found an incredible dearth of studies linking oral contraceptives to gut dysbiosis, how long it takes to develop, how long it takes to resolve on discontinuance of pills. No comparative studies. Even searching studies on gut dysbiosis in infants and neonates; there’s no mention or an “also” mention of contraceptives as cause.

Food additives, steroids, psychological and physical stress, antibiotics are the main cause of intestinal dysbiosis, not Pills. Antibiotics are the most common culprit. Women, pregnant or non-pregnant, are often prescribed antibiotics. In a review article on pediatric inflammatory bowel diseases, pneumonia before the age of five and consequent frequent use of antibiotics is implicated in the dysbiosis. No studies I found implicated birth control pills as primary cause or significant contributory cause for the development of pediatric gut dysbiosis.

And as I’m getting frustrated searching for studies, here’s a little math that snuck up. About 10 million women in the U.S. and 100 million women worldwide use combination oral contraceptive pills. I bet many of them are long-term users. And many probably eventually get pregnant. But we don’t read about an epidemic of intestinal dysbiosis among women and infants.

Another piece of math. Of those more than 100 million women, 95 to 98% of them successfully use birth control. Less deaths and diseases among them, no abortions, no unwanted pregnancies. Also, for some of the 2 to 5% who get pregnant despite conscientious use of the pills, antibiotics are often implicated for decreased effectiveness of birth control pills. The same antibiotics that are one of the most common causes of gut dysbiosis.

well, no wonder sotto’s staff had to settle for the blog of a “healthy economist.”  wala kasing medical studies supporting such a claim, not on the internet anyway, which should have raised warning signals.  this is not to disparage sarah pope, who’s clearly an advocate of natasha mcbride’s alternative health ek-ek (kanya-kanyang agenda), and who was clearly plagiarized, despite sotto’s chief of staff hector villacorta’s claim to the contrary.

On the claim of Ms. Pope that the senator plagiarized her blog in his “turno en contra’’ speech last Wednesday to stress his objection to the RH bill, Villacorta said he called the office of the IPO which stated that there is no such crime as plagiarism of a blog.

‘’There is no such thing. Blogs are public domain and government can use any information if it is for the common good,’’ Villacorta told the Manila Bulletin after checking with the IPO.

our intellectual property office should clear this up, ASAP.  surely our laws are no different from US copyright laws?

As things stand, US copyright law prohibits reuse without explicit permission for creative works until they enter the public domain – 70 years after the death of the author or 120 years after publication date if the date of death of the author is unknown.

read,too, Copyright and Public Domain.