Kissing Disease Information
Kissing Disease Information
Kissing disease cause
Kissing disease symptoms
Is it the same as mononucleosis and glandular fever?
Duration of kissing disease
Can you get it twice? Is it recurrent?
How do you get kissing disease?
Is it contagious?
Kissing disease incubation
Disease diagnosis
Disease treatment
Can it cause chronic fatigue?
Can kissing disease in children be a concern?
Can kissing disease in pregnancy be serious?
Kissing disease cause
The cause of kissing disease or mononucleosis is an infection by the Epstein Barr virus, a member of the herpes virus family.
Like all the herpes viruses, the kissing disease virus remains in the body for life.
In some cases, the virus can be reactivated when the body's defenses are lowered causing some people to get kissing disease twice or in rare cases, recurrent kissing disease.
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Kissing disease symptoms
The typical kissing disease symptoms are:
* Swollen glands in neck, armpits or groin
* Fever ranging from mild to severe
* Fatigue, sometimes extreme
* Sore throat, similar to tonsillitis
Some patients will also suffer from:
* Enlarged tonsils
* Headache
* Aching muscles
* Poor appetite
* Skin rash
* Abdominal pain
* Puffy eyelids
* Sensitivity to light
* Cough or runny nose
* Enlarged liver and spleen.
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Is it the same as mononucleosis or glandular fever?
Yes, it is the same as disease as mononucleosis or glandular fever. It is also called infectious mononucleosis, mono, mononucleosis virus, Epstein Barr, Epstein Barr virus and EBV.
Duration of kissing disease
Symptoms of kissing disease usually last from 1 - 4 weeks although some cases may last months.
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Can you get kissing disease twice? Is it recurrent?
Generally, people only get kissing disease once. Some people get kissing disease twice. About 6% of people experience recurrent kissing disease for months or years after they initially contact the virus.
A kissing disease relapse or recurring kissing disease means that the immune system needs to be strengthened in order to keep the symptoms at bay.
The e-book has a comprehensive kissing disease treatment plan that ensures long term recovery.
How do you get kissing disease?
The kissing disease virus is shed from the throat during the illness and up to a year after the infection. The virus can become dormant and later reactivated during a kissing disease relapse when it can be shed from the throat again.
Apart from through kissing, saliva can transmit the virus by people sharing drinking glasses, eating utensils, towels or toys. Kissing disease can be transmitted from mouth to hand so washing hands well is important.
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Is it contagious?
Though good personal hygiene makes sense, the kissing disease virus is everywhere, and exposure to it cannot be avoided entirely. Washing hands well, avoiding kissing and not sharing towels, glasses and eating utensils with infected patients is a good idea. People with kissing disease do not need to be isolated from others.
See the e-book "Nature's Amazing Mononucleosis Cures" for reasons why some people seem more susceptible to recurring kissing disease, and what you can do about it.
Kissing disease incubation
Kissing disease symptoms appear 30 - 50 days after exposure to the virus, although some people are infected with the virus for weeks or months before any symptoms begin to appear.
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Diagnosis
Kissing disease diagnosis is based on a persons age, symptoms and a physical exam. A diagnosis of kissing disease is made from laboratory tests including:
* Atypical lymphocytes - a type of white blood cell, in the blood. In mononucleosis, these atypical lymphocytes make up more than 10% of total lymphocytes.
* Increased total white blood cell count
* Antibody tests like the mono spot test.
* Additional Epstein Barr antibody tests
These are fully explained in the e-book.
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Treatment
The conventional medical approach to kissing disease treatment is not very effective. It includes only the basics like relieving symptoms. Advice normally given is to rest, drink plenty of fluids, gargle with salt water and suck on throat lozenges to relieve a sore throat. To relieve pain and fever, acetaminophen or ibuprofen may be recommended.
Antibiotics like penicillin are of no help in kissing disease as it is caused by a virus, and antibiotics don't work against viruses. If you have a bacterial infection in addition to having kissing disease, your doctor may give you an antibiotic.
I believe that much more can be done to treat the virus naturally for a complete kissing disease recovery. See the e-book "Nature's Amazing Mononucleosis Cures" for our full treatment plan.
In the book, I show the best natural health approaches to kissing disease treatment. I explain little known facts about nutrition, supplementation, pure water, adequate rest and sleep, stress reduction, and when to start gentle exercise. I also explain complementary therapies like the use of essential oils, homeopathy, massage, and visualization to ensure that kissing disease relapses do not occur.
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Can kissing disease cause chronic fatigue?
Some patients suffer from recurring kissing disease. Their primary symptom is usually fatigue and they end up being diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. It is often in times of stress when a kissing disease relapse occurs.
The bottom line is how healthy your immune system is. If you still get recurring kissing disease with sore throats, swollen glands or fatigue, it is nature's way of telling you that something is wrong with your immune system.
It may be suppressed from poor eating habits, nutritional imbalances, stress, smoking or a chronic underlying disease. Your genes can also make you more susceptible to disease.
Fortunately, through general lifestyle practices like a healthy diet, stress reduction, regular exercise and taking some immune boosting supplements, you can strengthen your immunity and make a full kissing disease recovery.
See the e-book for my comprehensive kissing disease treatment plan.
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Can kissing disease in children be a concern?
Kissing disease in adults is most common, mainly affecting adults aged 15 - 40. In children the kissing disease symptoms are normally less severe. Kissing disease in children is often passed off as a cold or flu and may not even be diagnosed.
In some cases acute kissing disease in children can be serious and has been known to turn into chronic kissing disease. Kissing disease treatment in children is the same as in adults as explained in "Nature's Amazing Mononucleosis Cures".
Can kissing disease in pregnancy be serious?
Recent research shows that reactivation of the Epstein Barr virus during pregnancy may shorten the duration of the pregnancy. It has been associated with the baby having a lower average birth weight, length and head circumference.
Since pregnancy and breastfeeding can cause fatigue, it is vital to address a kissing disease treatment plan that ensures a quick recovery.
Reference
http://www-kissingdisease.com/kissing-disease-facts.htm
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Solutions to Sexual Problems.
What's really behind decline of teen sex
By Laura Wershler
With a newly released StatsCan study on Canadian teen sexual behaviour and a new book out of the U.S. raising the spectre of sex-addicted adolescents, parents must be left scratching their heads.
Photograph by : David Silverman/Getty ImagesWith a newly released StatsCan study on Canadian teen sexual behaviour and a new book out of the U.S. raising the spectre of sex-addicted adolescents, parents must be left scratching their heads.
Let's start with the StatsCan study. It suggests two encouraging trends: teens are delaying intercourse and are more likely to use condoms than ever before. But keep in mind the sample was small (only 80 youth in Alberta, about 900 across the country) and the "new" stats were collected in 2005.
Interestingly girls account for the changes. The number of young women (15 to 19) reporting ever having had intercourse fell from 51 per cent in 1996/97 to 43 per cent in 2005. Young men stayed steady at 43 per cent. Although the female rate of condom use increased from 65 per cent to 70 per cent in 2005, the male rates remain unchanged at the higher rate of 80 per cent.
An August 27 Calgary Herald editorial (Don't Just Do It) infers from the report that postponing intercourse is attributable to teaching abstinence in schools. How did the editorial board draw this conclusion?
Mounting evidence demonstrates that improved access to comprehensive sexual health education is to be commended for contributing to such positive trends.
Another misguided notion in the editorial is "teens want and need the adults in their lives to set boundaries, to establish rules and guidelines for behaviour". How? By pushing abstinence.
The abstinence message comes across loud and clear in the new book, Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children which was featured in the Herald on Aug. 25. A quick Google search reveals authors Dr. Joe McIlhaney and Dr. Freda Bush are ardent abstinence-until-marriage advocates.
Their premise is that teen sex is bad for the brain because bonding hormones released during sex can become addictive. Yet Bush says that when two people are in a committed relationship, that addictive hormone is a good thing, ensuring a strong union.
This begs the question: Why do they believe that teens aren't capable of, or shouldn't have, committed sexual relationships?
The authors of Hooked are not alone in this belief.
The tendency to discourage teens from having sexual relationships is at the core of the research of American sociologist Amy Schalet. In a widely read paper entitled Must We Fear Adolescent Sexuality? Schalet compared the experience of adolescent sexuality in the U.S. and Netherlands based on in-depth interviews with teens and parents from both countries.
PAGEBREAK
It is well-documented that sexual health outcomes for teens in the Netherlands are among the best in the world (low rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections) while those in the U.S. are the worst among developed countries.
The biggest difference between the two cultures is that the U.S. dramatizes adolescent sexuality while the Netherlands normalizes it. American parents fear the "battle between the sexes" and perceive teen relationships as dangerous and therefore to be discouraged. Dutch parents expect their young people to gather sexual experience in the context of relationships and accept sexuality as a normal part of adolescence.
If teen sex is damaging our kids' brains, or hearts, perhaps the actual culprit is people like the authors of Hooked.
Couldn't their dramatic campaign against teen sexual relationships lead to the very danger they warn against -- casual sex?
Their well-meaning tips (eg. write down your commitment to abstain from sex, limit the amount of physical contact) on how parents can help their children say "no" are about as practical as the Herald editorial's assertion that what teens want and need are rules to guide their sexual behaviour.
What teens want and need is clearly stated in Beyond the Big Talk, a study published in March 2008 in the journal Pediatrics.
This study on parent-adolescent communication about sexual topics found that parents who take a rule-oriented, domineering approach to talking about sex risk hindering open, productive discussion and can expect more contempt, dishonesty and disengagement from their teens.
The encouraging message for parents is this:
Teens want open, supportive parents who engage in respectful, give-and-take conversations that foster ongoing communication about sexual issues.
Parents who talk early and often with their kids about sexuality have significant potential to reduce risky sexual behaviour and promote healthy sexual development.
Maybe the good news StatsCan report is evidence that more Canadian parents consider open discussion about sexuality a normal part of family life.
Laura Wershler is the executive director of Sexual Health Access Alberta. SHAA is working on a project to encourage parents to talk early and often about sexual issues with their children.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
By Laura Wershler
With a newly released StatsCan study on Canadian teen sexual behaviour and a new book out of the U.S. raising the spectre of sex-addicted adolescents, parents must be left scratching their heads.
Photograph by : David Silverman/Getty ImagesWith a newly released StatsCan study on Canadian teen sexual behaviour and a new book out of the U.S. raising the spectre of sex-addicted adolescents, parents must be left scratching their heads.
Let's start with the StatsCan study. It suggests two encouraging trends: teens are delaying intercourse and are more likely to use condoms than ever before. But keep in mind the sample was small (only 80 youth in Alberta, about 900 across the country) and the "new" stats were collected in 2005.
Interestingly girls account for the changes. The number of young women (15 to 19) reporting ever having had intercourse fell from 51 per cent in 1996/97 to 43 per cent in 2005. Young men stayed steady at 43 per cent. Although the female rate of condom use increased from 65 per cent to 70 per cent in 2005, the male rates remain unchanged at the higher rate of 80 per cent.
An August 27 Calgary Herald editorial (Don't Just Do It) infers from the report that postponing intercourse is attributable to teaching abstinence in schools. How did the editorial board draw this conclusion?
Mounting evidence demonstrates that improved access to comprehensive sexual health education is to be commended for contributing to such positive trends.
Another misguided notion in the editorial is "teens want and need the adults in their lives to set boundaries, to establish rules and guidelines for behaviour". How? By pushing abstinence.
The abstinence message comes across loud and clear in the new book, Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children which was featured in the Herald on Aug. 25. A quick Google search reveals authors Dr. Joe McIlhaney and Dr. Freda Bush are ardent abstinence-until-marriage advocates.
Their premise is that teen sex is bad for the brain because bonding hormones released during sex can become addictive. Yet Bush says that when two people are in a committed relationship, that addictive hormone is a good thing, ensuring a strong union.
This begs the question: Why do they believe that teens aren't capable of, or shouldn't have, committed sexual relationships?
The authors of Hooked are not alone in this belief.
The tendency to discourage teens from having sexual relationships is at the core of the research of American sociologist Amy Schalet. In a widely read paper entitled Must We Fear Adolescent Sexuality? Schalet compared the experience of adolescent sexuality in the U.S. and Netherlands based on in-depth interviews with teens and parents from both countries.
PAGEBREAK
It is well-documented that sexual health outcomes for teens in the Netherlands are among the best in the world (low rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections) while those in the U.S. are the worst among developed countries.
The biggest difference between the two cultures is that the U.S. dramatizes adolescent sexuality while the Netherlands normalizes it. American parents fear the "battle between the sexes" and perceive teen relationships as dangerous and therefore to be discouraged. Dutch parents expect their young people to gather sexual experience in the context of relationships and accept sexuality as a normal part of adolescence.
If teen sex is damaging our kids' brains, or hearts, perhaps the actual culprit is people like the authors of Hooked.
Couldn't their dramatic campaign against teen sexual relationships lead to the very danger they warn against -- casual sex?
Their well-meaning tips (eg. write down your commitment to abstain from sex, limit the amount of physical contact) on how parents can help their children say "no" are about as practical as the Herald editorial's assertion that what teens want and need are rules to guide their sexual behaviour.
What teens want and need is clearly stated in Beyond the Big Talk, a study published in March 2008 in the journal Pediatrics.
This study on parent-adolescent communication about sexual topics found that parents who take a rule-oriented, domineering approach to talking about sex risk hindering open, productive discussion and can expect more contempt, dishonesty and disengagement from their teens.
The encouraging message for parents is this:
Teens want open, supportive parents who engage in respectful, give-and-take conversations that foster ongoing communication about sexual issues.
Parents who talk early and often with their kids about sexuality have significant potential to reduce risky sexual behaviour and promote healthy sexual development.
Maybe the good news StatsCan report is evidence that more Canadian parents consider open discussion about sexuality a normal part of family life.
Laura Wershler is the executive director of Sexual Health Access Alberta. SHAA is working on a project to encourage parents to talk early and often about sexual issues with their children.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
New father at 13 prompts pregnancy debate in U.K.
KATHERINE HADDON
AGENCE-FRANCE PRESSE
LONDON
Stringer, AFP-Getty Images Briton Alfie Patten, 13, is a new dad, The Sun newspaper reported Friday.(photo)
A baby-faced, 13-year-old British schoolboy has fathered a child with his 15-year-old girlfriend, it emerged Friday, triggering debate about the country's high level of teenage pregnancies.
Alfie Patten, whose voice has not yet broken, admitted he had not thought about how he and girlfriend Chantelle Steadman would support baby daughter Maisie Roxanne, who was born Monday, but vowed to be a good father.
"I didn't think about how we would afford it I don't really get pocket money. My dad sometimes gives me 10 pounds," the four-foot tall teenager from Eastbourne, southern England, told the Sun tabloid. "When my mum found out, I thought I was going to get in trouble... I didn't know what it would be like to be a dad. I will be good, though, and care for it."
The case has drawn comment from Prime Minister Gordon Brown, while a former leader of the main opposition Conservative party said it was an example of social breakdown in "broken Britain."
"I don't know the individual details of the case but, of course, I think all of us would want to avoid teenage pregnancies," Brown told reporters.
But Iain Duncan Smith, a senior lawmaker and ex-Conservative leader, said someone needed to speak out about the breakdown of the family in Britain.
"Too many dysfunctional families in Britain today have children growing up where anything goes," he said. "It exemplifies the point we have been making about broken Britain. It's not being accusative, it' s about pointing out the complete collapse in some parts of society of any sense of what's right and wrong.
"There is no opprobrium any more about behaviour and quite often children witness behaviour that's aggressive, violent, rude and sexual It's as if no one is saying this is wrong."
The government has launched a strategy to reduce teenage pregnancy in England, which has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in western Europe.
Advisers say the level is falling but have called for more accessible contraceptives and more sex education in schools in areas which are falling behind.
Such efforts were praised by Tony Kerridge, a spokesman for Marie Slopes International, which runs sexual health clinics in 40 countries worldwide.
But he added that many young people in Britain needed to be encouraged to have higher aspirations.
"We have got the social aspect of young girls in the U.K. seeing having a baby as a route to getting their own place," he said. "It may seem like a short-term solution to problems at home, but the mid- to long-term prospects are probably a life stuck on benefits."
The families of both new, young parents are reportedly standing by them and Alfie's father Dennis, 45, said his son was fully committed to his new paternal role.
Calgary Herald, 14th Feb 2009
KATHERINE HADDON
AGENCE-FRANCE PRESSE
LONDON
Stringer, AFP-Getty Images Briton Alfie Patten, 13, is a new dad, The Sun newspaper reported Friday.(photo)
A baby-faced, 13-year-old British schoolboy has fathered a child with his 15-year-old girlfriend, it emerged Friday, triggering debate about the country's high level of teenage pregnancies.
Alfie Patten, whose voice has not yet broken, admitted he had not thought about how he and girlfriend Chantelle Steadman would support baby daughter Maisie Roxanne, who was born Monday, but vowed to be a good father.
"I didn't think about how we would afford it I don't really get pocket money. My dad sometimes gives me 10 pounds," the four-foot tall teenager from Eastbourne, southern England, told the Sun tabloid. "When my mum found out, I thought I was going to get in trouble... I didn't know what it would be like to be a dad. I will be good, though, and care for it."
The case has drawn comment from Prime Minister Gordon Brown, while a former leader of the main opposition Conservative party said it was an example of social breakdown in "broken Britain."
"I don't know the individual details of the case but, of course, I think all of us would want to avoid teenage pregnancies," Brown told reporters.
But Iain Duncan Smith, a senior lawmaker and ex-Conservative leader, said someone needed to speak out about the breakdown of the family in Britain.
"Too many dysfunctional families in Britain today have children growing up where anything goes," he said. "It exemplifies the point we have been making about broken Britain. It's not being accusative, it' s about pointing out the complete collapse in some parts of society of any sense of what's right and wrong.
"There is no opprobrium any more about behaviour and quite often children witness behaviour that's aggressive, violent, rude and sexual It's as if no one is saying this is wrong."
The government has launched a strategy to reduce teenage pregnancy in England, which has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in western Europe.
Advisers say the level is falling but have called for more accessible contraceptives and more sex education in schools in areas which are falling behind.
Such efforts were praised by Tony Kerridge, a spokesman for Marie Slopes International, which runs sexual health clinics in 40 countries worldwide.
But he added that many young people in Britain needed to be encouraged to have higher aspirations.
"We have got the social aspect of young girls in the U.K. seeing having a baby as a route to getting their own place," he said. "It may seem like a short-term solution to problems at home, but the mid- to long-term prospects are probably a life stuck on benefits."
The families of both new, young parents are reportedly standing by them and Alfie's father Dennis, 45, said his son was fully committed to his new paternal role.
Calgary Herald, 14th Feb 2009
Waiting to have a baby
Older moms giving birth to a burgeoning trend
By Valerie Berenyi, Calgary HeraldFebruary 15, 2009
As Angus Watson, a happy, personable little guy, goes about the daily thrills and spills of exploring his southwest Calgary home, his mom keeps a close eye on him, clearly delighted by her active first-born.
The chubby-cheeked 18-month-old came into the world Aug. 27, 2007--one of 16,543 babies born in Calgary hospitals between March 31, 2007, and April 1, 2008.
What's remarkable is that, like Angus, nearly 21 per cent of those babies--one in five --were delivered by a mother over 35, according to figures from Alberta Health Services.
Fran Watson gave birth to Angus when she was 43, having waited 20 years to find the right partner, get married and then have a child.
"What I feel as a mom who waited a long time is 'My God, I'm happy,' " said the longtime publicist. "And what can possibly be wrong with that wonderful feeling?"
She is part of a larger societal trend happening in Canada and other industrialized countries: the proportion of women over 35 giving birth in Canada has more than tripled from five per cent in 1982 to about 18 per cent in recent years, according to a report released Jan. 29 by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
Even so, we lag behind other developed nations. The same report found that while the birth rate in Canada in 2006 was 44.9 per 1,000 women age 35 to 39, rates in the United States (47.3 per 1,000) and England and Wales (53.8 per 1,000) were higher in the same year.
On Feb. 3, the birth of twin boys to 60-year-old Ranjit Hayer of Calgary thrust the issue of older mothers under the microscope.
While bearing children in one's seventh decade with the help of reproductive technology obtained in India may be an extreme example, late-blooming mothers now appear to be the new nor-mal. And, like Hayer, who tried for decades to bear children, many older mothers strongly defend their choice, despite the considerable risks.
On One's Last Eggs
The problems with waiting to have children are many.Women 35 and up are less fertile, have a greater risk of miscarriage or stillbirth and more complications in pregnancy such as diabetes and high blood pressure, said Dr. Jeffrey Roberts, a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist at the Pacific Centre for Reproductive Medicine in Vancouver, B. C.
Pregnant women over 40 are automatically considered high risk, and the maternal complications dramatically increase over 50, Roberts added.
"Women as they approach 45 and beyond have almost a 75 per cent risk of miscarriage," he said, "and the risk of Down syndrome becomes more than one in 100."
Moms over 40 also have a higher chance of producing more eggs at once, thereby increasing their odds of having preterm twins. Low birth weight babies themselves can have a host of health problems.
Helen Vanderburg was willing to take those risks.
A fitness professional and the owner of Heavens Fitness in Calgary, Vanderburg said she delayed having children mostly because she wasn't in a committed relationship until she was older; building her career played a secondary role.
After meeting and marrying Terry Kane, a physical therapist, their first child Kiah was conceived naturally. They desperately wanted a second, so much so that Vanderburg went through five years of in vitro fertilization treatments at the Regional Fertility Program in Calgary.
She guesses it cost about $20,000. "I think I tried to erase the memory."
In the last round, she had three embryos implanted, but only one developed. She underwent a full complement of testing to rule out any genetic abnormalities and, at 45, gave birth to daughter Sage.
She hasn't personally experienced any resistance to older women having children--"It could be the world I travel in, where people are more accepting of that"--but she bristles at the fact most people wouldn't think twice about an older man having children.
At 50 she still sees herself as young.
"Women in their 40s and beyond are much fitter, healthier and stronger than the generations before us. In every physical way, they are young," she said, before neatly summarizing the conundrum she and other older mom face.
"Older woman can have babies because they're fit and healthy, but the reproductive system--and that's the big lecture I got from the Regional Fertility Clinic-- can't be changed with diet and exercise."
Being in top shape lets Vanderburg keep up with her girls, now 10 and 4, but she admits she initially wondered how Ranjit Hayer could do it at 60.
"I was seeing myself and thinking 'OK, add 10 years and could I run after toddlers, especially two boys?' "
But she feels motherhood is intensely personal; each woman has her own reasons about if and why she has children and when.
"The one thing I always remind myself is I don't know the person's story, so who am I to place judgment?"
a reproductive choice?
Likewise, Aradhana Parmar believes it is a woman's right to have babies when she chooses, at any age.
Why? Parmar, an associate professor of communication and culture at the University of Calgary who teaches women's studies and development studies, believes a little perspective is necessary.
"The reason for this (trend) is that new technologies are available in an era when women are professionals and they spend lots of time focusing on their careers and education, so by the time they are ready to settle down they are in their 30s."
At the same time, she says our life span has greatly improved, so that parents will be around longer to care for late-born children.
"Logically, it makes absolute sense to me to have children whenever it is convenient to them," Parmar said. "If you can raise a child, give them lots of love and affection and facilities, and even you're 50 but healthy, why not?"
A recent report from Statistics Canada may support her argument.
Published in September, it looked at the growing trend of first-time mothers over 35 and concluded that the children of older moms are generally as healthy as those born to younger women.
The study found that while they are at greater risk of birth defects, once the children of moms over 35 are born, their health, behaviour and cognitive outcomes up to the age of five were nearly the same as the children of mothers 25 to 29.
"I've talked to my grad students and my mature students and they all want to have children-- it's only a question of time, money or partners," said Parmar, 57, herself the mother of two grown children and a grandmother.
She believes motherhood is a basic instinct. "Some of it is cultural, yes, but the urge to create a life is so powerful."
Fran Watson agrees with Parmar that women have the right to have children at the time and age of their choosing, "so long as they have their support systems in place."
"(Ranjit and husband Jagir Hayer) have it all sorted out. Those kids have an abundant extended family. The kids I feel sorrier for are those born to moms who have no extended network to support them."
Like Vanderburg, once Watson finally met and married her husband, James Watson, a 46-year-old computer programmer, it was time "to pull the goalie."However, they were not willing to do so with the help of medical science.
Her first pregnancy ended in miscarriage, so she began using a combination of natural therapies to get pregnant again: vitamins, licorice root and progesterone from wild yams. Luckily, her second pregnancy was normal and resulted in Angus.
Watson said people are "so happy for us when they find out our age," although someone once remarked to her " 'Your grandson is so cute.' That was hard."
She said she encourages "anyone who has a strong feeling about this not to hold back because of age. It's only one factor among many.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
*****
Older dads face reproductive problems, too
By Valerie Berenyi, Calgary HeraldFebruary 15, 2009
While it's long been assumed that men can sire a child at any age--as actor Anthony Quinn did at 81--newer research shows fathers may also have a best-before date.
There is evidence that older dads face an increased risk of fathering children with genetic abnormalities such as Down syndrome or achondroplasia dwarfism, a type of autosomal dominant genetic disorder.
Several studies have linked a threefold increase in schizophrenia in the children of older fathers.
There are also risks of miscarriage among women impregnated by older men, said Dr. Jeffrey Roberts, a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist at the Pacific Centre for Reproductive Medicine in Vancouver, B. C.
"In the past we thought that it wouldn't matter how old the man is and that men are perfectly fertile up until senility-- as long as they could produce sperm and get the woman pregnant," said Roberts. "But we now know that (aging) sperm can contribute some genetic abnormalities to the child."
Some clinics, including his, now counsel couples when the man is over 40.
"But the association is very weak," he added. "By far the biggest risk is maternal age."
Besides Quinn, other famous older fathers include Pierre Trudeau, who sired a fourth child at 72. His daughter Sarah was born in 1991, but Trudeau didn't live to see her ninth birthday.
At 45 Tony Blair fathered child No. 4 while at 10 Downing Street; wife Cherie was 45 when baby Leo was born. Warren Beatty reproduced at age 62, as did Pablo Picasso at 68.
The world's oldest recorded father was an Australian miner named Les Colley, who was two months' shy of his 93rd birthday when he fathered his ninth child, a son named Oswald, in 1992. Colley died six years later, almost reaching 100.
[email protected]
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Older moms giving birth to a burgeoning trend
By Valerie Berenyi, Calgary HeraldFebruary 15, 2009
As Angus Watson, a happy, personable little guy, goes about the daily thrills and spills of exploring his southwest Calgary home, his mom keeps a close eye on him, clearly delighted by her active first-born.
The chubby-cheeked 18-month-old came into the world Aug. 27, 2007--one of 16,543 babies born in Calgary hospitals between March 31, 2007, and April 1, 2008.
What's remarkable is that, like Angus, nearly 21 per cent of those babies--one in five --were delivered by a mother over 35, according to figures from Alberta Health Services.
Fran Watson gave birth to Angus when she was 43, having waited 20 years to find the right partner, get married and then have a child.
"What I feel as a mom who waited a long time is 'My God, I'm happy,' " said the longtime publicist. "And what can possibly be wrong with that wonderful feeling?"
She is part of a larger societal trend happening in Canada and other industrialized countries: the proportion of women over 35 giving birth in Canada has more than tripled from five per cent in 1982 to about 18 per cent in recent years, according to a report released Jan. 29 by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
Even so, we lag behind other developed nations. The same report found that while the birth rate in Canada in 2006 was 44.9 per 1,000 women age 35 to 39, rates in the United States (47.3 per 1,000) and England and Wales (53.8 per 1,000) were higher in the same year.
On Feb. 3, the birth of twin boys to 60-year-old Ranjit Hayer of Calgary thrust the issue of older mothers under the microscope.
While bearing children in one's seventh decade with the help of reproductive technology obtained in India may be an extreme example, late-blooming mothers now appear to be the new nor-mal. And, like Hayer, who tried for decades to bear children, many older mothers strongly defend their choice, despite the considerable risks.
On One's Last Eggs
The problems with waiting to have children are many.Women 35 and up are less fertile, have a greater risk of miscarriage or stillbirth and more complications in pregnancy such as diabetes and high blood pressure, said Dr. Jeffrey Roberts, a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist at the Pacific Centre for Reproductive Medicine in Vancouver, B. C.
Pregnant women over 40 are automatically considered high risk, and the maternal complications dramatically increase over 50, Roberts added.
"Women as they approach 45 and beyond have almost a 75 per cent risk of miscarriage," he said, "and the risk of Down syndrome becomes more than one in 100."
Moms over 40 also have a higher chance of producing more eggs at once, thereby increasing their odds of having preterm twins. Low birth weight babies themselves can have a host of health problems.
Helen Vanderburg was willing to take those risks.
A fitness professional and the owner of Heavens Fitness in Calgary, Vanderburg said she delayed having children mostly because she wasn't in a committed relationship until she was older; building her career played a secondary role.
After meeting and marrying Terry Kane, a physical therapist, their first child Kiah was conceived naturally. They desperately wanted a second, so much so that Vanderburg went through five years of in vitro fertilization treatments at the Regional Fertility Program in Calgary.
She guesses it cost about $20,000. "I think I tried to erase the memory."
In the last round, she had three embryos implanted, but only one developed. She underwent a full complement of testing to rule out any genetic abnormalities and, at 45, gave birth to daughter Sage.
She hasn't personally experienced any resistance to older women having children--"It could be the world I travel in, where people are more accepting of that"--but she bristles at the fact most people wouldn't think twice about an older man having children.
At 50 she still sees herself as young.
"Women in their 40s and beyond are much fitter, healthier and stronger than the generations before us. In every physical way, they are young," she said, before neatly summarizing the conundrum she and other older mom face.
"Older woman can have babies because they're fit and healthy, but the reproductive system--and that's the big lecture I got from the Regional Fertility Clinic-- can't be changed with diet and exercise."
Being in top shape lets Vanderburg keep up with her girls, now 10 and 4, but she admits she initially wondered how Ranjit Hayer could do it at 60.
"I was seeing myself and thinking 'OK, add 10 years and could I run after toddlers, especially two boys?' "
But she feels motherhood is intensely personal; each woman has her own reasons about if and why she has children and when.
"The one thing I always remind myself is I don't know the person's story, so who am I to place judgment?"
a reproductive choice?
Likewise, Aradhana Parmar believes it is a woman's right to have babies when she chooses, at any age.
Why? Parmar, an associate professor of communication and culture at the University of Calgary who teaches women's studies and development studies, believes a little perspective is necessary.
"The reason for this (trend) is that new technologies are available in an era when women are professionals and they spend lots of time focusing on their careers and education, so by the time they are ready to settle down they are in their 30s."
At the same time, she says our life span has greatly improved, so that parents will be around longer to care for late-born children.
"Logically, it makes absolute sense to me to have children whenever it is convenient to them," Parmar said. "If you can raise a child, give them lots of love and affection and facilities, and even you're 50 but healthy, why not?"
A recent report from Statistics Canada may support her argument.
Published in September, it looked at the growing trend of first-time mothers over 35 and concluded that the children of older moms are generally as healthy as those born to younger women.
The study found that while they are at greater risk of birth defects, once the children of moms over 35 are born, their health, behaviour and cognitive outcomes up to the age of five were nearly the same as the children of mothers 25 to 29.
"I've talked to my grad students and my mature students and they all want to have children-- it's only a question of time, money or partners," said Parmar, 57, herself the mother of two grown children and a grandmother.
She believes motherhood is a basic instinct. "Some of it is cultural, yes, but the urge to create a life is so powerful."
Fran Watson agrees with Parmar that women have the right to have children at the time and age of their choosing, "so long as they have their support systems in place."
"(Ranjit and husband Jagir Hayer) have it all sorted out. Those kids have an abundant extended family. The kids I feel sorrier for are those born to moms who have no extended network to support them."
Like Vanderburg, once Watson finally met and married her husband, James Watson, a 46-year-old computer programmer, it was time "to pull the goalie."However, they were not willing to do so with the help of medical science.
Her first pregnancy ended in miscarriage, so she began using a combination of natural therapies to get pregnant again: vitamins, licorice root and progesterone from wild yams. Luckily, her second pregnancy was normal and resulted in Angus.
Watson said people are "so happy for us when they find out our age," although someone once remarked to her " 'Your grandson is so cute.' That was hard."
She said she encourages "anyone who has a strong feeling about this not to hold back because of age. It's only one factor among many.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
*****
Older dads face reproductive problems, too
By Valerie Berenyi, Calgary HeraldFebruary 15, 2009
While it's long been assumed that men can sire a child at any age--as actor Anthony Quinn did at 81--newer research shows fathers may also have a best-before date.
There is evidence that older dads face an increased risk of fathering children with genetic abnormalities such as Down syndrome or achondroplasia dwarfism, a type of autosomal dominant genetic disorder.
Several studies have linked a threefold increase in schizophrenia in the children of older fathers.
There are also risks of miscarriage among women impregnated by older men, said Dr. Jeffrey Roberts, a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist at the Pacific Centre for Reproductive Medicine in Vancouver, B. C.
"In the past we thought that it wouldn't matter how old the man is and that men are perfectly fertile up until senility-- as long as they could produce sperm and get the woman pregnant," said Roberts. "But we now know that (aging) sperm can contribute some genetic abnormalities to the child."
Some clinics, including his, now counsel couples when the man is over 40.
"But the association is very weak," he added. "By far the biggest risk is maternal age."
Besides Quinn, other famous older fathers include Pierre Trudeau, who sired a fourth child at 72. His daughter Sarah was born in 1991, but Trudeau didn't live to see her ninth birthday.
At 45 Tony Blair fathered child No. 4 while at 10 Downing Street; wife Cherie was 45 when baby Leo was born. Warren Beatty reproduced at age 62, as did Pablo Picasso at 68.
The world's oldest recorded father was an Australian miner named Les Colley, who was two months' shy of his 93rd birthday when he fathered his ninth child, a son named Oswald, in 1992. Colley died six years later, almost reaching 100.
[email protected]
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Kids have childhoods stolen by adult agendas
By Naomi Lakritz, Calgary HeraldMay 6, 2009 2:07 AM
A headline in Saturday's Herald about a new study really gave me pause. It read: "Grade 6 students admit hitting dates." Appalling, isn't it? Not the hitting part; that's only secondary to what's really wrong with this scenario. It's the dates. Grade 6 students are dating? They're 10 and 11 years old! What are their parents thinking? Or not thinking?
Peggy Orenstein put her finger on the problem in a column in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine. She wrote that while adults are busy prolonging their own youth, at the same time they're pushing kids to become adults faster.
"Since adults are staying younger older--50 is the new 30!--our children may soon surpass us in age," Orenstein wrote.
Last September, when we visited the Enchanted Forest near Revelstoke, B. C., my son wanted to climb up in a tree house, but hesitated. My friend saw him look longingly up at the tree house and asked what was the matter.
"I'd feel kind of silly. I'm 20," my son said.
My friend laughed. "Well, Jonny, if 50 is the new 30, then 20 is the new 10, so go for it!" he advised--and my son was up in the tree house in moments.
It was all lots of fun, and we had a good laugh over 20 being the new 10. But nobody should be laughing about 10 being the new 20, which is what's happening when young children are going out on dates.
Commenting on the study of 5,400 American children --what? thousands of young children are dating?--Ray Hughes, a London, Ont., teacher who developed a course called the Fourth R, which deals with violence, drug abuse and sexuality and starts in Grade 8, says the course will eventually begin in junior kindergarten.
You know what, Ray? Keep it in Grade 8, far away from the kindergarten kids.
The elementary school years should be about childhood.
I think the sense that this is becoming imperative is behind Alberta's proposed law which would allow parents to opt their children out of classes which teach values that run contrary to those being instilled at home.
The discussion on that law has gotten sidetracked by those who are worried it will let parents take their kids out of science classes when evolution is taught.
If that's the case, the language of the law needs tightening up. Science is a core subject and everyone should learn it. But I
believe parents have something more troubling in mind, and that is the introduction, earlier and earlier, of social-engineering agendas that discuss such things such as homosexuality.
If I had a child in kindergarten or the lower grades, I'd opt him out of such a course, too. Doesn't matter if it's homosexuality or heterosexuality-- little kids don't need to know about sex of any type. Or drugs. Or violence. They're babies. Let them be! Let them play.
As Orenstein wrote, "When I was a (child in kindergarten), we danced the hokey-pokey, swooned in suspense over (Duck, Duck, Goose) and napped on our mats until the Wake-Up Fairy set us free." Yes, you do the hokeypokey and you turn yourself around, that's what it's all about. That's all it should ever be about when you're five.
I remember those times. Parents sent their children to school and there was no thought to "opting out" of this or that class, because school was about academics, not agendas.
They didn't teach "values"-- they taught you how to do arithmetic. Or if they did teach you values, it was basic ones about good manners and how to treat others--things you need to know to get along in society. Kindergartners did fun stuff that five-yearolds are supposed to do. Grade 1 was about learning to read--and the brother and sister in The Cat in The Hat did not have two daddies. Parents today who want to opt their kids out of agenda-driven curricula --and the agenda always seems to involve teaching them things way beyond what their age level needs to know--are unfairly cast as homophobic bigots. Yet, I'm willing to bet the majority of these parents simply feel their children are too young for all this information about sex--gay or straight.
It is all being taught in the name of tolerance, but all it really demonstrates is an utter intolerance on the part of adults for the concept of childhood.
The early years are in grave danger of disappearing altogether. When kindergartners are studying sex and violence, and 11-yearolds are going out on dates, something precious has been snatched away from them and they can never get it back. We need to reclaim the hokey-pokey--and reject the hocus-pocus that forces an early and ersatz adulthood on children.
[email protected]
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
By Naomi Lakritz, Calgary HeraldMay 6, 2009 2:07 AM
A headline in Saturday's Herald about a new study really gave me pause. It read: "Grade 6 students admit hitting dates." Appalling, isn't it? Not the hitting part; that's only secondary to what's really wrong with this scenario. It's the dates. Grade 6 students are dating? They're 10 and 11 years old! What are their parents thinking? Or not thinking?
Peggy Orenstein put her finger on the problem in a column in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine. She wrote that while adults are busy prolonging their own youth, at the same time they're pushing kids to become adults faster.
"Since adults are staying younger older--50 is the new 30!--our children may soon surpass us in age," Orenstein wrote.
Last September, when we visited the Enchanted Forest near Revelstoke, B. C., my son wanted to climb up in a tree house, but hesitated. My friend saw him look longingly up at the tree house and asked what was the matter.
"I'd feel kind of silly. I'm 20," my son said.
My friend laughed. "Well, Jonny, if 50 is the new 30, then 20 is the new 10, so go for it!" he advised--and my son was up in the tree house in moments.
It was all lots of fun, and we had a good laugh over 20 being the new 10. But nobody should be laughing about 10 being the new 20, which is what's happening when young children are going out on dates.
Commenting on the study of 5,400 American children --what? thousands of young children are dating?--Ray Hughes, a London, Ont., teacher who developed a course called the Fourth R, which deals with violence, drug abuse and sexuality and starts in Grade 8, says the course will eventually begin in junior kindergarten.
You know what, Ray? Keep it in Grade 8, far away from the kindergarten kids.
The elementary school years should be about childhood.
I think the sense that this is becoming imperative is behind Alberta's proposed law which would allow parents to opt their children out of classes which teach values that run contrary to those being instilled at home.
The discussion on that law has gotten sidetracked by those who are worried it will let parents take their kids out of science classes when evolution is taught.
If that's the case, the language of the law needs tightening up. Science is a core subject and everyone should learn it. But I
believe parents have something more troubling in mind, and that is the introduction, earlier and earlier, of social-engineering agendas that discuss such things such as homosexuality.
If I had a child in kindergarten or the lower grades, I'd opt him out of such a course, too. Doesn't matter if it's homosexuality or heterosexuality-- little kids don't need to know about sex of any type. Or drugs. Or violence. They're babies. Let them be! Let them play.
As Orenstein wrote, "When I was a (child in kindergarten), we danced the hokey-pokey, swooned in suspense over (Duck, Duck, Goose) and napped on our mats until the Wake-Up Fairy set us free." Yes, you do the hokeypokey and you turn yourself around, that's what it's all about. That's all it should ever be about when you're five.
I remember those times. Parents sent their children to school and there was no thought to "opting out" of this or that class, because school was about academics, not agendas.
They didn't teach "values"-- they taught you how to do arithmetic. Or if they did teach you values, it was basic ones about good manners and how to treat others--things you need to know to get along in society. Kindergartners did fun stuff that five-yearolds are supposed to do. Grade 1 was about learning to read--and the brother and sister in The Cat in The Hat did not have two daddies. Parents today who want to opt their kids out of agenda-driven curricula --and the agenda always seems to involve teaching them things way beyond what their age level needs to know--are unfairly cast as homophobic bigots. Yet, I'm willing to bet the majority of these parents simply feel their children are too young for all this information about sex--gay or straight.
It is all being taught in the name of tolerance, but all it really demonstrates is an utter intolerance on the part of adults for the concept of childhood.
The early years are in grave danger of disappearing altogether. When kindergartners are studying sex and violence, and 11-yearolds are going out on dates, something precious has been snatched away from them and they can never get it back. We need to reclaim the hokey-pokey--and reject the hocus-pocus that forces an early and ersatz adulthood on children.
[email protected]
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Palin's daughter talks abstinence
Herald News Services
May 7, 2009 3:03 AM
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's daughter, who caused a stir on her mother's U. S. vice-presidential campaign last year when it was revealed she was pregnant, urged young Americans Wednesday to abstain from having sex to avoid becoming a teenage mother like herself.
Some girls believe a baby "is like having an accessory on their hip," Bristol Palin, 18, told a panel. "Having a baby is a huge responsibility and I think that teenagers should just wait to have sex," she said.
Palin was speaking at an event organized by the Candie's Foundation, which aims to educate teenagers about the problems young people face if they get pregnant, and which has appointed her as a teen ambassador.
Bristol Palin had a son, Tripp, in December.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Herald News Services
May 7, 2009 3:03 AM
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's daughter, who caused a stir on her mother's U. S. vice-presidential campaign last year when it was revealed she was pregnant, urged young Americans Wednesday to abstain from having sex to avoid becoming a teenage mother like herself.
Some girls believe a baby "is like having an accessory on their hip," Bristol Palin, 18, told a panel. "Having a baby is a huge responsibility and I think that teenagers should just wait to have sex," she said.
Palin was speaking at an event organized by the Candie's Foundation, which aims to educate teenagers about the problems young people face if they get pregnant, and which has appointed her as a teen ambassador.
Bristol Palin had a son, Tripp, in December.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Adult TV tempts kids to engage in sex
ReutersMay 8, 2009 3:03 AM
Watching adult-oriented TV shows and movies might prompt children to start having sex at an earlier age, according to a new study released by Children's Hospital Boston.
The research suggests that early onset of sexual activity among teens might relate to the amount of adult content they watched as children.
"Television and movies are among the leading sources of information about sex and relationships for adolescents," said Hernan Delgado, a pediatrician who headed the research team.
"Our research shows that their sexual attitudes and expectations are influenced much earlier in life."
The study consisted of 754 subjects who were tracked during childhood and again five years later, when their ages ranged from 12 to 18.
When the youngest children in the sample were exposed to adult-targeted entertainment, they were more likely to have sex earlier.
The study showed that for every hour the youngest group of kids watched adult-targeted content over two sample days, their chances of having sex during early adolescence increased by 33 per cent.
"Children learn from media, and when they watch media with sexual references and innuendoes, our research suggests, they are more likely to engage in sexual activity earlier in life,"said David Bickham, a co-author of the study.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
ReutersMay 8, 2009 3:03 AM
Watching adult-oriented TV shows and movies might prompt children to start having sex at an earlier age, according to a new study released by Children's Hospital Boston.
The research suggests that early onset of sexual activity among teens might relate to the amount of adult content they watched as children.
"Television and movies are among the leading sources of information about sex and relationships for adolescents," said Hernan Delgado, a pediatrician who headed the research team.
"Our research shows that their sexual attitudes and expectations are influenced much earlier in life."
The study consisted of 754 subjects who were tracked during childhood and again five years later, when their ages ranged from 12 to 18.
When the youngest children in the sample were exposed to adult-targeted entertainment, they were more likely to have sex earlier.
The study showed that for every hour the youngest group of kids watched adult-targeted content over two sample days, their chances of having sex during early adolescence increased by 33 per cent.
"Children learn from media, and when they watch media with sexual references and innuendoes, our research suggests, they are more likely to engage in sexual activity earlier in life,"said David Bickham, a co-author of the study.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
HPV vaccine sends wrong message
By Jim Mahony, For The Calgary HeraldJuly 7, 2009
Recently, the public health branch of the Alberta government offered Albertans, including Calgary parents of school age girls, an explanation of why only about one-third of Grade 5 girls in the city's separate schools stepped up to receive the HPV vaccine (the Herald, June 24, 2009).
The reason, an Alberta Health Services official said, was that vaccination clinics set up for the purpose were not convenient for parents. While some Albertans might accept that explanation, most know the reality: that Catholic parents and school trustees raised moral concerns about the vaccine, and when it came to choosing, they gave Gardasil the "thumbs down." That decision was not about convenience, as Alberta Health officials and most others engaged in this debate likely know.
Thus, it was surprising to see the same argument raised by ethicist Juliet Guichon and two physicians in a recent Herald column (June 24, Most vulnerable denied HPV vaccine). The trio refined their pitch, however, arguing that the lower "uptake" by Catholic parents was "probably due more to inconvenience than compliance with religious dictates."
Notably, Guichon and her colleagues offered no evidence in support of that claim. If they have such evidence, they should make it public. Otherwise, they should not presume to speak for Catholic parents in the separate school system.
Of perhaps equal interest, Guichon and colleagues do not identify the "religious dictates" they mention, and it's not clear what they mean. While Calgary Catholic Bishop Fred Henry has made clear he does not support HPV vaccinations for school-age girls, he has left the final decision on whether or not to vaccinate to parents. However one describes that approach, it is not dictating.
On the other hand, if "dictates" refers to Catholic teachings, the church has consistently taught that sex should take place within the confines of marriage, and only there. That might well be relevant to the debate, since some argue that Gardasil's net effect will be to encourage sexual activity, and not just the marital kind.
A more thoughtful analysis than Guichon's would recognize that Catholic parents with young daughters might have declined the vaccine because they believed girls might view it as a green light for early sexual activity. Even those of us who are not parents can appreciate these concerns. Guichon and friends claim promiscuity is not a concern, arguing that clinical trials of HPV vaccine showed no effect on girls' risk behaviour. Yet, clinical trials have limitations, and offer little insight into behaviour.
Such trials do not reflect the knowledge most parents have of their kids or the temptations kids face today. Some are stronger in the face of temptations. Others are not, and it may be these kids that parents had in mind when they said "no" to Gardasil.
Equally relevant to concerns over early sexual activity is the "silver bullet" theory that says teens who believe they are immune from consequences will try risky behaviour.
If they don't know it yet, the girls who get Gardasil will soon learn that doctors believe them less likely to develop certain cancers than unvaccinated girls, despite risky behaviour. Anyone who thinks that knowledge will not affect their choices in life is much mistaken.
No one is suggesting that all or most HPVvaccinated girls will become promiscuous, but few parents can doubt that girls who are inclined to early sexual activity will be tempted to take the plunge, because they are protected. After all, "the doctor said so."
Certainly, society has done little or nothing to discourage such activity. Indeed, the opposite is true. In recent years, society has neutralized many, if not most, of the serious consequences of sexual activity through condoms, oral contraceptives and other means. Often, such "advances" are promoted on public health grounds. Yet, whatever they need, today's kids do not need more encouragement to have sex.
Most public health officials who defend the use of HPV vaccine do so from the perspective that physical health is the only health that matters. In their neatly defined world, contracting a disease is the worst possible evil. What they rarely acknowledge is that the health of a young person--boy or girl -- is broader than just physical health.
Arguably, the real harm caused by early or indiscriminate sex is not physical, but psychological and spiritual. There is ample evidence that prematurely active adolescents are damaged in ways that no clinical trial or test will reveal.
The decision that many Catholic parents have made to keep their daughters Gardasil-free is both reasonable and moral, implying no lack of concern for their children's health. Indeed, such a decision arguably shows an understanding that harm, though not physical, may still be done to young people, despite the absence of disease.
That's a concept that Alberta's public health officials would do well to consider.
---
Jim Mahony, a journalist and former Calgary lawyer, writes about health-care ethics and end-of-life issues from a Catholic perspective
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
http://www.calgaryherald.com/story_prin ... 9&sponsor=
By Jim Mahony, For The Calgary HeraldJuly 7, 2009
Recently, the public health branch of the Alberta government offered Albertans, including Calgary parents of school age girls, an explanation of why only about one-third of Grade 5 girls in the city's separate schools stepped up to receive the HPV vaccine (the Herald, June 24, 2009).
The reason, an Alberta Health Services official said, was that vaccination clinics set up for the purpose were not convenient for parents. While some Albertans might accept that explanation, most know the reality: that Catholic parents and school trustees raised moral concerns about the vaccine, and when it came to choosing, they gave Gardasil the "thumbs down." That decision was not about convenience, as Alberta Health officials and most others engaged in this debate likely know.
Thus, it was surprising to see the same argument raised by ethicist Juliet Guichon and two physicians in a recent Herald column (June 24, Most vulnerable denied HPV vaccine). The trio refined their pitch, however, arguing that the lower "uptake" by Catholic parents was "probably due more to inconvenience than compliance with religious dictates."
Notably, Guichon and her colleagues offered no evidence in support of that claim. If they have such evidence, they should make it public. Otherwise, they should not presume to speak for Catholic parents in the separate school system.
Of perhaps equal interest, Guichon and colleagues do not identify the "religious dictates" they mention, and it's not clear what they mean. While Calgary Catholic Bishop Fred Henry has made clear he does not support HPV vaccinations for school-age girls, he has left the final decision on whether or not to vaccinate to parents. However one describes that approach, it is not dictating.
On the other hand, if "dictates" refers to Catholic teachings, the church has consistently taught that sex should take place within the confines of marriage, and only there. That might well be relevant to the debate, since some argue that Gardasil's net effect will be to encourage sexual activity, and not just the marital kind.
A more thoughtful analysis than Guichon's would recognize that Catholic parents with young daughters might have declined the vaccine because they believed girls might view it as a green light for early sexual activity. Even those of us who are not parents can appreciate these concerns. Guichon and friends claim promiscuity is not a concern, arguing that clinical trials of HPV vaccine showed no effect on girls' risk behaviour. Yet, clinical trials have limitations, and offer little insight into behaviour.
Such trials do not reflect the knowledge most parents have of their kids or the temptations kids face today. Some are stronger in the face of temptations. Others are not, and it may be these kids that parents had in mind when they said "no" to Gardasil.
Equally relevant to concerns over early sexual activity is the "silver bullet" theory that says teens who believe they are immune from consequences will try risky behaviour.
If they don't know it yet, the girls who get Gardasil will soon learn that doctors believe them less likely to develop certain cancers than unvaccinated girls, despite risky behaviour. Anyone who thinks that knowledge will not affect their choices in life is much mistaken.
No one is suggesting that all or most HPVvaccinated girls will become promiscuous, but few parents can doubt that girls who are inclined to early sexual activity will be tempted to take the plunge, because they are protected. After all, "the doctor said so."
Certainly, society has done little or nothing to discourage such activity. Indeed, the opposite is true. In recent years, society has neutralized many, if not most, of the serious consequences of sexual activity through condoms, oral contraceptives and other means. Often, such "advances" are promoted on public health grounds. Yet, whatever they need, today's kids do not need more encouragement to have sex.
Most public health officials who defend the use of HPV vaccine do so from the perspective that physical health is the only health that matters. In their neatly defined world, contracting a disease is the worst possible evil. What they rarely acknowledge is that the health of a young person--boy or girl -- is broader than just physical health.
Arguably, the real harm caused by early or indiscriminate sex is not physical, but psychological and spiritual. There is ample evidence that prematurely active adolescents are damaged in ways that no clinical trial or test will reveal.
The decision that many Catholic parents have made to keep their daughters Gardasil-free is both reasonable and moral, implying no lack of concern for their children's health. Indeed, such a decision arguably shows an understanding that harm, though not physical, may still be done to young people, despite the absence of disease.
That's a concept that Alberta's public health officials would do well to consider.
---
Jim Mahony, a journalist and former Calgary lawyer, writes about health-care ethics and end-of-life issues from a Catholic perspective
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
http://www.calgaryherald.com/story_prin ... 9&sponsor=
Sex abuse denies the image of the Creator in us
By Bishop Fred Henry, For The Calgary Herald
October 6, 2009
On Sept. 30, at the Eucharist, we read from the Book of Nehemiah and I preached about the expression "sadness of the heart," a deep profound pain that cannot be adequately expressed in simple language, but only by way of an image. Little did I realize how apt that image would be for so many of us when it was announced that Bishop Raymond Lahey from Nova Scotia was charged with the possession and importation of child pornography. Our sadness, pain and anger seem boundless. I had hoped that we had finally rounded the corner on all the abuse situations within the church and on the part of its shepherds.
In August, the Diocese of Antigonish reached a multi-million-dollar settlement with known and alleged child victims of sexual abuse by priests. Bishop Lahey apologized and noted that they were entitled to protection.
He said: "Sexual abuse, indeed, any abuse, is wrong. It is crime and it is a serious sin in the eyes of God. I want to assure you that for some time our diocese, like others throughout Canada, have been taking steps to protect children and youth."
Although Bishop Lahey has not yet had his day in court, there appears to be a real disconnect between his words and alleged actions.
Undoubtedly, many of the victims of abuse are feeling re-victimized now in light of the events of the past days.
Let us never forget that any material that demeans the inherent dignity of women, men and children by removing sexuality from the context of meaningful interpersonal relationships denies the image of the Creator within all of us.
Pornography and the portrayal of sadistic violence debase sexuality, corrode human relationships, exploit individuals -- especially women and young people -- undermine marriage and family life, foster anti-social behaviour and weaken the moral fibre of society itself.
Pornography degrades those used in its production, as well as those who are desensitized or whose values are perverted through its consumption.
We denounce pornography because we believe that it reduces the Creator's gift of sexuality to a level that is devoid of personal dignity, commitment and spirituality. The sin of pornography involving children is most grave.
As we stand in a place of pain, brokenness and vulnerability right now, we should pray for victims of sexual abuse and pornography, for the priests and people of Antigonish, for Bishop Lahey, and for one another in this time of trial.
Fred B. Henry is the Catholic Bishop of Calgary.
---------
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
http://www.calgaryherald.com/story_prin ... 5&sponsor=
By Bishop Fred Henry, For The Calgary Herald
October 6, 2009
On Sept. 30, at the Eucharist, we read from the Book of Nehemiah and I preached about the expression "sadness of the heart," a deep profound pain that cannot be adequately expressed in simple language, but only by way of an image. Little did I realize how apt that image would be for so many of us when it was announced that Bishop Raymond Lahey from Nova Scotia was charged with the possession and importation of child pornography. Our sadness, pain and anger seem boundless. I had hoped that we had finally rounded the corner on all the abuse situations within the church and on the part of its shepherds.
In August, the Diocese of Antigonish reached a multi-million-dollar settlement with known and alleged child victims of sexual abuse by priests. Bishop Lahey apologized and noted that they were entitled to protection.
He said: "Sexual abuse, indeed, any abuse, is wrong. It is crime and it is a serious sin in the eyes of God. I want to assure you that for some time our diocese, like others throughout Canada, have been taking steps to protect children and youth."
Although Bishop Lahey has not yet had his day in court, there appears to be a real disconnect between his words and alleged actions.
Undoubtedly, many of the victims of abuse are feeling re-victimized now in light of the events of the past days.
Let us never forget that any material that demeans the inherent dignity of women, men and children by removing sexuality from the context of meaningful interpersonal relationships denies the image of the Creator within all of us.
Pornography and the portrayal of sadistic violence debase sexuality, corrode human relationships, exploit individuals -- especially women and young people -- undermine marriage and family life, foster anti-social behaviour and weaken the moral fibre of society itself.
Pornography degrades those used in its production, as well as those who are desensitized or whose values are perverted through its consumption.
We denounce pornography because we believe that it reduces the Creator's gift of sexuality to a level that is devoid of personal dignity, commitment and spirituality. The sin of pornography involving children is most grave.
As we stand in a place of pain, brokenness and vulnerability right now, we should pray for victims of sexual abuse and pornography, for the priests and people of Antigonish, for Bishop Lahey, and for one another in this time of trial.
Fred B. Henry is the Catholic Bishop of Calgary.
---------
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
http://www.calgaryherald.com/story_prin ... 5&sponsor=
Sex-ed texting targets teens
By Laura Stone, Canwest News ServiceNovember 17, 2009
It's sex-ed in 160 characters.
From North Carolina to Toronto, a handful of initiatives are now using text-messaging to teach teens about sexual health--answering questions about everything from emergency contraceptives to the age-old query: "Why doesn't he like me?"
The newest addition comes from Seattle's candid "Scarleteen" website, which recently began a text-message service for its roughly 10,000 American visitors a day. There are tentative plans to make it available soon in Canada--where about 1,250 teens log on daily.
Advocates said these services exist to reach teens in their preferred mode of communication. "With teenagers, texting is just huge," said Scarleteen founder, Heather Corinna, a former kindergarten teacher.
Scarleteen is run by 15 trained volunteers, many of whom are studying in a health-related field, said Corinna. They answer text messages through the use of a computer program.
"Some of the questions are really immediate. Somebody that used a condom for sex and had a condom break, and asks you what to do and didn't know about emergency contraception, you can tell them about it really, really quickly," she said. "It's good to be able to help them like that in real time."
A similar initiative, The Birds and Bees Text Line, opened out of the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Campaign of North Carolina in February.
Meanwhile, Toronto Public Health has modelled its new texting program, TOHealth, on a service based in San Francisco. While TOHealth doesn't yet offer personalized responses-- though there are plans to--it allows teens to text-message questions for free to 365247 about topics, such as sexual preparedness and pregnancy. The automatic service replies with information about where to get help in the city.
"We're trying to get out there and get the information to them in a way that seems very private and personal," said Michelle Hamilton-Page, the project leader at TOHealth, adding most teens get their sexual education from each other and it's often rife with inaccuracies.
But some researchers say texting shouldn't replace other, less abbreviated, forms of sexual education from health professionals.
"The idea that a texting service, in particular, which is providing information in very short bursts, can take the role of broadly based comprehensive sexual health education, would be a mistake," said Alex McKay, research co-ordinator for the Toronto-based Sex Information and Education Council of Canada.
Peter Jon Mitchell, a research analyst at the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada in Ottawa, said texting services, such as Scarleteen, focus primarily on crises, instead of bigger picture issues that are better handled by a strong parental relationship.
"Ultimately it's going to be teens and their parents dealing with the fallout, long after the news hits, and long after a text message is sent," said Mitchell, whose organization advocates for youth to delay sex until they are out of their teens.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
http://www.calgaryherald.com/story_prin ... 2&sponsor=
By Laura Stone, Canwest News ServiceNovember 17, 2009
It's sex-ed in 160 characters.
From North Carolina to Toronto, a handful of initiatives are now using text-messaging to teach teens about sexual health--answering questions about everything from emergency contraceptives to the age-old query: "Why doesn't he like me?"
The newest addition comes from Seattle's candid "Scarleteen" website, which recently began a text-message service for its roughly 10,000 American visitors a day. There are tentative plans to make it available soon in Canada--where about 1,250 teens log on daily.
Advocates said these services exist to reach teens in their preferred mode of communication. "With teenagers, texting is just huge," said Scarleteen founder, Heather Corinna, a former kindergarten teacher.
Scarleteen is run by 15 trained volunteers, many of whom are studying in a health-related field, said Corinna. They answer text messages through the use of a computer program.
"Some of the questions are really immediate. Somebody that used a condom for sex and had a condom break, and asks you what to do and didn't know about emergency contraception, you can tell them about it really, really quickly," she said. "It's good to be able to help them like that in real time."
A similar initiative, The Birds and Bees Text Line, opened out of the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Campaign of North Carolina in February.
Meanwhile, Toronto Public Health has modelled its new texting program, TOHealth, on a service based in San Francisco. While TOHealth doesn't yet offer personalized responses-- though there are plans to--it allows teens to text-message questions for free to 365247 about topics, such as sexual preparedness and pregnancy. The automatic service replies with information about where to get help in the city.
"We're trying to get out there and get the information to them in a way that seems very private and personal," said Michelle Hamilton-Page, the project leader at TOHealth, adding most teens get their sexual education from each other and it's often rife with inaccuracies.
But some researchers say texting shouldn't replace other, less abbreviated, forms of sexual education from health professionals.
"The idea that a texting service, in particular, which is providing information in very short bursts, can take the role of broadly based comprehensive sexual health education, would be a mistake," said Alex McKay, research co-ordinator for the Toronto-based Sex Information and Education Council of Canada.
Peter Jon Mitchell, a research analyst at the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada in Ottawa, said texting services, such as Scarleteen, focus primarily on crises, instead of bigger picture issues that are better handled by a strong parental relationship.
"Ultimately it's going to be teens and their parents dealing with the fallout, long after the news hits, and long after a text message is sent," said Mitchell, whose organization advocates for youth to delay sex until they are out of their teens.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
http://www.calgaryherald.com/story_prin ... 2&sponsor=
-
confusedman
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2009 3:36 am
Hello All,
I am an ismaili man i am 18 years old. I love hazar imam and Allah but i have a problem. Masurbation tempts me terribly. Can anyone tell me how by prayer i can over come this. I feel so bad everytime i do this. i keep apologizing to Allah and Hazar Imam for hours after doing it and not being able to sleep.
I am an ismaili man i am 18 years old. I love hazar imam and Allah but i have a problem. Masurbation tempts me terribly. Can anyone tell me how by prayer i can over come this. I feel so bad everytime i do this. i keep apologizing to Allah and Hazar Imam for hours after doing it and not being able to sleep.
There has been discussion on this issue under:confusedman wrote:Hello All,
I am an ismaili man i am 18 years old. I love hazar imam and Allah but i have a problem. Masurbation tempts me terribly. Can anyone tell me how by prayer i can over come this. I feel so bad everytime i do this. i keep apologizing to Allah and Hazar Imam for hours after doing it and not being able to sleep.
Current Issues --> This is a sad question...but have to ask
http://www.ismaili.net/html/modules.php ... 99&start=0
Why more women are saying 'no' to the pill
By Susan Martinuk,
Calgary Herald
January 15, 2010
According to recent statistics, women are increasingly saying "no" to the birth control pill. They are said to be more concerned about the potential impact of the pill on their health and on the environment.
With this news, the very idea of birth control has come full circle. Over the past 50 years, women demanded that the male-dominated pharmaceutical industry produce some kind of reliable and easy- to-use means of protecting their sexual and personal freedom. Yet, now that they have a plethora of pill formulations (that are supposedly 98 per cent effective in preventing conception) as options, that once-welcomed outside hormonal influence is being spurned and women are determined to control their own reproductive timetable. Irony, indeed.
But the declining interest in the pill may be more indicative of a very different trend. According to Dr. Roger Pierson, former president of Canada's Fertility and Andrology Society, the new statistics reveal far more about changes in the pharmaceutical industry than a changing approach to birth control. He says, "Pharmaceutical companies are no longer searching for the 'holy grail' of oral contraceptives -- a pill that is safe, effective and reversible."
Why not? Pierson believes there are several reasons.
Many of the popular, brand-name oral contraceptives are at, or nearing, patent expiration dates. That means other drug companies are free to create a generic form of the drug that can be sold at a far lower price. As a result, profits are falling for brand-name pills and pharmaceutical companies that invested hundreds of millions in product development are no longer interested in throwing money at advertising and promotional campaigns for products that are about to become obsolete.
A large number of lawsuits over birth control products may be even more significant in shutting down corporate interest in producing and developing new pills. Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals produces Yaz, the most popular pill in the U.S. But it ran into FDA and legal trouble with advertising that over-promised the good and understated the bad. A slew of lawsuits in 27 states were settled with an agreement that Bayer spend $20 million on a new ad campaign and, for the next six years, submit all Yaz advertising for FDA approval.
Lawsuits were filed against Jannsen-Ortho in the mid-2000s over the Ortho Evra contraceptive patch. It worked well as a contraceptive, but seemed to have a nasty problem in increasing the possibilities of blood clots and strokes. This may be one of the reasons that Janssen-Ortho, one of the oral contraceptive giants in the pharmaceutical industry, has now shut down its entire women's health division in sales and marketing.
Some of the more well-known class action lawsuits were filed against the makers of The Dalkon Shield and Norplant. Problems with the Shield led to more than 300,000 lawsuits, creating the largest tort liability case since asbestos. Ultimately, the cost of litigation and settlements was in the billions.
Norplant was another breakthrough contraceptive method -- a set of capsules implanted into a woman's arm were effective in preventing pregnancy for up to five years. But Wyeth, the makers of Norplant, failed to properly warn its users about the potential side-effects and that resulted in an out-of-court settlement with 32,000 women.
This potential for legal complications likely led several companies to cease research into a male contraceptive that was close to being marketed. It worked extremely well in most men, but 10 -to 15 per cent of men didn't respond to the drug. In our litigious atmosphere, that kind of a failure rate on a new product would surely open the door wide to the lawyers and lawsuits.
There are no perfect contraceptives and, obviously, no perfect drug companies. That, in part, is why this is such an emotionally-charged debate. While litigation could lead to better drugs, it more typically leads to a loss of profits and the inevitable loss of corporate interest in the product. We may not like it, but that's basic capitalism and the vast majority of us live by it. The scary part is that this declining trend in contraceptive development may lead to a similar disinterest in developing non-contraceptive drugs for women.
Susan Martinuk's column runs every Friday.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
http://www.calgaryherald.com/story_prin ... 3&sponsor=
By Susan Martinuk,
Calgary Herald
January 15, 2010
According to recent statistics, women are increasingly saying "no" to the birth control pill. They are said to be more concerned about the potential impact of the pill on their health and on the environment.
With this news, the very idea of birth control has come full circle. Over the past 50 years, women demanded that the male-dominated pharmaceutical industry produce some kind of reliable and easy- to-use means of protecting their sexual and personal freedom. Yet, now that they have a plethora of pill formulations (that are supposedly 98 per cent effective in preventing conception) as options, that once-welcomed outside hormonal influence is being spurned and women are determined to control their own reproductive timetable. Irony, indeed.
But the declining interest in the pill may be more indicative of a very different trend. According to Dr. Roger Pierson, former president of Canada's Fertility and Andrology Society, the new statistics reveal far more about changes in the pharmaceutical industry than a changing approach to birth control. He says, "Pharmaceutical companies are no longer searching for the 'holy grail' of oral contraceptives -- a pill that is safe, effective and reversible."
Why not? Pierson believes there are several reasons.
Many of the popular, brand-name oral contraceptives are at, or nearing, patent expiration dates. That means other drug companies are free to create a generic form of the drug that can be sold at a far lower price. As a result, profits are falling for brand-name pills and pharmaceutical companies that invested hundreds of millions in product development are no longer interested in throwing money at advertising and promotional campaigns for products that are about to become obsolete.
A large number of lawsuits over birth control products may be even more significant in shutting down corporate interest in producing and developing new pills. Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals produces Yaz, the most popular pill in the U.S. But it ran into FDA and legal trouble with advertising that over-promised the good and understated the bad. A slew of lawsuits in 27 states were settled with an agreement that Bayer spend $20 million on a new ad campaign and, for the next six years, submit all Yaz advertising for FDA approval.
Lawsuits were filed against Jannsen-Ortho in the mid-2000s over the Ortho Evra contraceptive patch. It worked well as a contraceptive, but seemed to have a nasty problem in increasing the possibilities of blood clots and strokes. This may be one of the reasons that Janssen-Ortho, one of the oral contraceptive giants in the pharmaceutical industry, has now shut down its entire women's health division in sales and marketing.
Some of the more well-known class action lawsuits were filed against the makers of The Dalkon Shield and Norplant. Problems with the Shield led to more than 300,000 lawsuits, creating the largest tort liability case since asbestos. Ultimately, the cost of litigation and settlements was in the billions.
Norplant was another breakthrough contraceptive method -- a set of capsules implanted into a woman's arm were effective in preventing pregnancy for up to five years. But Wyeth, the makers of Norplant, failed to properly warn its users about the potential side-effects and that resulted in an out-of-court settlement with 32,000 women.
This potential for legal complications likely led several companies to cease research into a male contraceptive that was close to being marketed. It worked extremely well in most men, but 10 -to 15 per cent of men didn't respond to the drug. In our litigious atmosphere, that kind of a failure rate on a new product would surely open the door wide to the lawyers and lawsuits.
There are no perfect contraceptives and, obviously, no perfect drug companies. That, in part, is why this is such an emotionally-charged debate. While litigation could lead to better drugs, it more typically leads to a loss of profits and the inevitable loss of corporate interest in the product. We may not like it, but that's basic capitalism and the vast majority of us live by it. The scary part is that this declining trend in contraceptive development may lead to a similar disinterest in developing non-contraceptive drugs for women.
Susan Martinuk's column runs every Friday.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
http://www.calgaryherald.com/story_prin ... 3&sponsor=
February 8, 2010
Editorial
Abstinence Education Done Right
The ongoing debate over sex education has been rekindled by a provocative new study suggesting that teaching abstinence can delay the start of sexual activity among inner-city youngsters — if it is freed from the moralistic overtones and ideological restrictions that were the hallmark of abstinence-only programs under the Bush administration.
It would be a mistake to place too much importance on a single study of black middle-school students in Philadelphia, but the study appears to be sound and its findings are worth further exploration.
The study, published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, a journal of the American Medical Association, was led by a husband-wife team at the University of Pennsylvania. They randomly assigned 662 African-American students in grades six and seven to one of four different programs — an eight-hour abstinence-only program stressing the benefits of delaying intercourse; an eight-hour safer-sex program stressing condom use; a comprehensive intervention that covered both abstinence and condoms; and a control group that offered health information unrelated to sexual behavior.
The only program that successfully delayed the start of sexual activity was the abstinence-only instruction. By the end of two years, only a third of the abstinence-only group had engaged in sexual intercourse compared with almost half of the control group.
Advocates of abstinence-only education have seized on the new findings as evidence that their approach works best. Some are urging the Obama administration to reverse course and restore federal support for abstinence-only education. That is a willful misreading of the implications of this study.
Under current federal law, supported by the Bush administration and conservatives in Congress, abstinence-only programs that seek federal support must meet several rigid requirements that essentially make them abstinence-until-marriage programs.
They must teach, for example, that abstinence from sexual activity outside of marriage is the “expected standard” for all school-age children. This new study would have failed that test. It did not advocate abstinence until marriage but urged students to wait until they were more mature. It encouraged abstinence as a way to eliminate the risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, had youngsters draw up lists of the pros and cons of sexual activity, and taught strategies for resisting pressure to have intercourse.
The Obama administration, with Congressional acquiescence, has wisely eliminated funding for abstinence-only programs that meet the old ideological criteria and is supporting a range of programs to prevent teenage pregnancy, provided they are based on rigorous science. This study fits the new rubric, not the old.
The new study will need to be replicated in older teenagers and other ethnic groups to see if the findings are broadly relevant, and teenagers will need to be followed long enough to measure the effects in avoiding pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. No single approach will suffice to reduce sexual activity in all teenagers, but the new study suggests that there is a sensible, effective way to teach abstinence.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/opini ... nted=print
Editorial
Abstinence Education Done Right
The ongoing debate over sex education has been rekindled by a provocative new study suggesting that teaching abstinence can delay the start of sexual activity among inner-city youngsters — if it is freed from the moralistic overtones and ideological restrictions that were the hallmark of abstinence-only programs under the Bush administration.
It would be a mistake to place too much importance on a single study of black middle-school students in Philadelphia, but the study appears to be sound and its findings are worth further exploration.
The study, published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, a journal of the American Medical Association, was led by a husband-wife team at the University of Pennsylvania. They randomly assigned 662 African-American students in grades six and seven to one of four different programs — an eight-hour abstinence-only program stressing the benefits of delaying intercourse; an eight-hour safer-sex program stressing condom use; a comprehensive intervention that covered both abstinence and condoms; and a control group that offered health information unrelated to sexual behavior.
The only program that successfully delayed the start of sexual activity was the abstinence-only instruction. By the end of two years, only a third of the abstinence-only group had engaged in sexual intercourse compared with almost half of the control group.
Advocates of abstinence-only education have seized on the new findings as evidence that their approach works best. Some are urging the Obama administration to reverse course and restore federal support for abstinence-only education. That is a willful misreading of the implications of this study.
Under current federal law, supported by the Bush administration and conservatives in Congress, abstinence-only programs that seek federal support must meet several rigid requirements that essentially make them abstinence-until-marriage programs.
They must teach, for example, that abstinence from sexual activity outside of marriage is the “expected standard” for all school-age children. This new study would have failed that test. It did not advocate abstinence until marriage but urged students to wait until they were more mature. It encouraged abstinence as a way to eliminate the risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, had youngsters draw up lists of the pros and cons of sexual activity, and taught strategies for resisting pressure to have intercourse.
The Obama administration, with Congressional acquiescence, has wisely eliminated funding for abstinence-only programs that meet the old ideological criteria and is supporting a range of programs to prevent teenage pregnancy, provided they are based on rigorous science. This study fits the new rubric, not the old.
The new study will need to be replicated in older teenagers and other ethnic groups to see if the findings are broadly relevant, and teenagers will need to be followed long enough to measure the effects in avoiding pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. No single approach will suffice to reduce sexual activity in all teenagers, but the new study suggests that there is a sensible, effective way to teach abstinence.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/opini ... nted=print
July 19, 2010
African Studies Give Women Hope in H.I.V. Fight
By CELIA W. DUGGER
VULINDLELA, South Africa — With an AIDS vaccine still out of reach, two rigorous new studies have found different ways to sharply cut H.I.V. infections among women and schoolgirls, who make up a majority of the newly infected in sub-Saharan Africa.
After two decades in which researchers searched fruitlessly for an effective vaginal microbicide to block H.I.V., South African scientists working in two AIDS-devastated communities of South Africa, one rural and one urban, say they have finally found something that shows real promise.
Women who used a vaginal microbicidal gel containing an antiretroviral medication widely used to treat AIDS, tenofovir, were 39 percent less likely over all to contract H.I.V. than those who used a placebo. Those who used the gel most regularly reduced their chances of infection 54 percent, according to a two-and-a-half year study of 889 women by Caprisa, a Durban-based AIDS research center.
Broader trials are needed to confirm the results, and it will most likely be years before the product is publicly available, but if produced on a large scale the gel would cost less than 25 cents per application, the lead investigators estimated.
Because the trial was relatively small and the gel was nowhere close to 100 percent effective, AIDS scientists and public health officials wanted to see another trial get similar results before they undertook the large fund-raising and public education efforts that would be needed to make billions of doses of the gel, as well as the applicators, which are more expensive, and then to persuade women to use them and governments of poor countries to adopt them.
Dr. Bruce Walker, a Harvard Medical School professor who was not involved in the study, said a cheer erupted when researchers unveiled their findings to a small group of scientists last month in Durban.
“This is the first time that there’s been a tool that women can use to protect themselves from becoming infected,” he said. “It’s a game changer.”
In Vienna, where the meeting of the International AIDS Society just opened, leaders of the global fight against AIDS said they found the results of the microbicide trial very impressive. The study was published online on Monday by Science magazine.
“This is very encouraging,” said Michel Sidibé, executive director of Unaids, the United Nations AIDS agency. “It can be controlled by women, and put in 12 hours earlier, and that is empowering. They do not have to ask the man for permission to use it. And the cost of the gel is not high.”
In another piece of progress against AIDS, a separate, large study in Malawi sponsored by the World Bank, and made public on Sunday, found that if poor schoolgirls and their families received small monthly cash payments, the girls had sex later, less often and with fewer partners.
A year and a half after the program started, the girls were less than half as likely to be infected with the AIDS or herpes viruses than were girls whose families got no payments. The likelihood that the girls would agree to sex in return for gifts and cash declined as the size of the payments from the program rose, suggesting the central role of extreme poverty in sexual choices.
“Maybe we can combine these behavioral and biomedical interventions,” said Dr. Tim Farley, a scientist with the World Health Organization involved in H.I.V. prevention research. “We need to pursue both avenues.”
At a time of intensifying competition for global health dollars, when the number of people who contract H.I.V. is outstripping those put on treatment each year, pressure is mounting on African countries and donors to focus more heavily on prevention. Male circumcision is one method proven to at least halve a man’s chances of H.I.V. infection.
Scientists say the success of the $18 million microbicide trial, largely paid for by the United States Agency for International Development, and the study on cash payments offer hope to girls and women in Africa, who have higher rates of H.I.V. infection than their male counterparts and often less power in relationships to protect themselves.
There have been other signs of progress. A new Unaids study found that H.I.V. prevalence among young people had declined by more than 25 percent in 15 of the 21 countries most affected by AIDS. In eight countries, the agency found evidence of positive changes in sexual behavior among young people, for example delaying having sex, having fewer partners and the increasing use of condoms.
In the $400,000 trial in Malawi, 3,800 teenage girls and young women, ages 13 to 22, were randomly assigned to two groups. Half the girls received no cash payments. The parents of the other half were paid $4 to $10 a month while the girls themselves received $1 to $5 a month if they attended school regularly.
After 18 months, the H.I.V. prevalence among the girls who got the cash was 1.2 percent, compared with 3 percent for the others. “The program empowered these girls to make better choices,” said Berk Ozler, a senior economist with the World Bank’s Development Research Group.
While cash programs are already spreading in Africa, the antiretroviral gel will take longer, according to the husband-and-wife team of epidemiologists who led the study. They are Dr. Salim S. Abdool Karim, Caprisa’s director, and Dr. Quarraisha Abdool Karim, associate scientific director.
“I would be very sad if we had to sit around a table three years from now and we don’t have the confirmation and regulations in place,” Dr. Salim Karim said.
Dr. Quarraisha Karim noted that, “For women, it certainly is a turning point.”
In South Africa, where 5.7 million people are H.I.V.-positive, more than in any other nation, the government is eager to move forward. “As soon as we’re confident it’s a safe and effective product, we should do our best to get it out,” said Derek Hanekom, the country’s deputy minister of science and technology.
The women who participated in the study — in the city of Durban and in the rural community of Vulindlela, in the rolling hills of KwaZulu-Natal — used the gel up to 12 hours before and after sex. Usually their partners were not aware of it. Tissue biopsies found levels of tenofovir that were 1,000 times what they would have been in the blood if the drug had been taken by pill, the team said.
The success follows years of disappointing results in trials of other microbicides that were found to be ineffective, or even to raise a woman’s risk of H.I.V. infection. There are currently other trials under way that use tenofovir in gel and pill forms.
Gilead Sciences, the California-based biopharmaceutical company that developed tenofovir, donated 65 pounds of the active ingredient for the study. It has also relinquished any claim to royalties on the gel if it is distributed in Africa and poor countries in other parts of the world.
Dr. Howard Jaffe, president of the Gilead Foundation, the company’s charitable arm, said that Dr. Salim Karim — nicknamed Slim — pitched the microbicide idea to company scientists in 2004, to initial reluctance.
“Slim is nothing if not charismatic, passionate and intelligent, and we thought it needs to be studied, it will be studied and this may be the best time to do it,” Dr. Jaffe said.
In Vulindlela, women have a desperate need for a way to protect themselves. H.I.V. testing of pregnant women in the area has found that one in 10 is already H.I.V.-positive by 16; half are infected by 24.
Before antiretroviral treatment became available here, the graveyards were crowded every weekend with funeralgoers. Fewer people are dying now, but many young women are still getting infected.
Xoliswa Mthethwa, 26, who was part of the study, said she told her boyfriend about the gel and he was very supportive. If it worked, she said, “I’d be the first person to go buy it.”
Donald G. McNeil Jr. contributed reporting from Vienna.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/world ... &th&emc=th
African Studies Give Women Hope in H.I.V. Fight
By CELIA W. DUGGER
VULINDLELA, South Africa — With an AIDS vaccine still out of reach, two rigorous new studies have found different ways to sharply cut H.I.V. infections among women and schoolgirls, who make up a majority of the newly infected in sub-Saharan Africa.
After two decades in which researchers searched fruitlessly for an effective vaginal microbicide to block H.I.V., South African scientists working in two AIDS-devastated communities of South Africa, one rural and one urban, say they have finally found something that shows real promise.
Women who used a vaginal microbicidal gel containing an antiretroviral medication widely used to treat AIDS, tenofovir, were 39 percent less likely over all to contract H.I.V. than those who used a placebo. Those who used the gel most regularly reduced their chances of infection 54 percent, according to a two-and-a-half year study of 889 women by Caprisa, a Durban-based AIDS research center.
Broader trials are needed to confirm the results, and it will most likely be years before the product is publicly available, but if produced on a large scale the gel would cost less than 25 cents per application, the lead investigators estimated.
Because the trial was relatively small and the gel was nowhere close to 100 percent effective, AIDS scientists and public health officials wanted to see another trial get similar results before they undertook the large fund-raising and public education efforts that would be needed to make billions of doses of the gel, as well as the applicators, which are more expensive, and then to persuade women to use them and governments of poor countries to adopt them.
Dr. Bruce Walker, a Harvard Medical School professor who was not involved in the study, said a cheer erupted when researchers unveiled their findings to a small group of scientists last month in Durban.
“This is the first time that there’s been a tool that women can use to protect themselves from becoming infected,” he said. “It’s a game changer.”
In Vienna, where the meeting of the International AIDS Society just opened, leaders of the global fight against AIDS said they found the results of the microbicide trial very impressive. The study was published online on Monday by Science magazine.
“This is very encouraging,” said Michel Sidibé, executive director of Unaids, the United Nations AIDS agency. “It can be controlled by women, and put in 12 hours earlier, and that is empowering. They do not have to ask the man for permission to use it. And the cost of the gel is not high.”
In another piece of progress against AIDS, a separate, large study in Malawi sponsored by the World Bank, and made public on Sunday, found that if poor schoolgirls and their families received small monthly cash payments, the girls had sex later, less often and with fewer partners.
A year and a half after the program started, the girls were less than half as likely to be infected with the AIDS or herpes viruses than were girls whose families got no payments. The likelihood that the girls would agree to sex in return for gifts and cash declined as the size of the payments from the program rose, suggesting the central role of extreme poverty in sexual choices.
“Maybe we can combine these behavioral and biomedical interventions,” said Dr. Tim Farley, a scientist with the World Health Organization involved in H.I.V. prevention research. “We need to pursue both avenues.”
At a time of intensifying competition for global health dollars, when the number of people who contract H.I.V. is outstripping those put on treatment each year, pressure is mounting on African countries and donors to focus more heavily on prevention. Male circumcision is one method proven to at least halve a man’s chances of H.I.V. infection.
Scientists say the success of the $18 million microbicide trial, largely paid for by the United States Agency for International Development, and the study on cash payments offer hope to girls and women in Africa, who have higher rates of H.I.V. infection than their male counterparts and often less power in relationships to protect themselves.
There have been other signs of progress. A new Unaids study found that H.I.V. prevalence among young people had declined by more than 25 percent in 15 of the 21 countries most affected by AIDS. In eight countries, the agency found evidence of positive changes in sexual behavior among young people, for example delaying having sex, having fewer partners and the increasing use of condoms.
In the $400,000 trial in Malawi, 3,800 teenage girls and young women, ages 13 to 22, were randomly assigned to two groups. Half the girls received no cash payments. The parents of the other half were paid $4 to $10 a month while the girls themselves received $1 to $5 a month if they attended school regularly.
After 18 months, the H.I.V. prevalence among the girls who got the cash was 1.2 percent, compared with 3 percent for the others. “The program empowered these girls to make better choices,” said Berk Ozler, a senior economist with the World Bank’s Development Research Group.
While cash programs are already spreading in Africa, the antiretroviral gel will take longer, according to the husband-and-wife team of epidemiologists who led the study. They are Dr. Salim S. Abdool Karim, Caprisa’s director, and Dr. Quarraisha Abdool Karim, associate scientific director.
“I would be very sad if we had to sit around a table three years from now and we don’t have the confirmation and regulations in place,” Dr. Salim Karim said.
Dr. Quarraisha Karim noted that, “For women, it certainly is a turning point.”
In South Africa, where 5.7 million people are H.I.V.-positive, more than in any other nation, the government is eager to move forward. “As soon as we’re confident it’s a safe and effective product, we should do our best to get it out,” said Derek Hanekom, the country’s deputy minister of science and technology.
The women who participated in the study — in the city of Durban and in the rural community of Vulindlela, in the rolling hills of KwaZulu-Natal — used the gel up to 12 hours before and after sex. Usually their partners were not aware of it. Tissue biopsies found levels of tenofovir that were 1,000 times what they would have been in the blood if the drug had been taken by pill, the team said.
The success follows years of disappointing results in trials of other microbicides that were found to be ineffective, or even to raise a woman’s risk of H.I.V. infection. There are currently other trials under way that use tenofovir in gel and pill forms.
Gilead Sciences, the California-based biopharmaceutical company that developed tenofovir, donated 65 pounds of the active ingredient for the study. It has also relinquished any claim to royalties on the gel if it is distributed in Africa and poor countries in other parts of the world.
Dr. Howard Jaffe, president of the Gilead Foundation, the company’s charitable arm, said that Dr. Salim Karim — nicknamed Slim — pitched the microbicide idea to company scientists in 2004, to initial reluctance.
“Slim is nothing if not charismatic, passionate and intelligent, and we thought it needs to be studied, it will be studied and this may be the best time to do it,” Dr. Jaffe said.
In Vulindlela, women have a desperate need for a way to protect themselves. H.I.V. testing of pregnant women in the area has found that one in 10 is already H.I.V.-positive by 16; half are infected by 24.
Before antiretroviral treatment became available here, the graveyards were crowded every weekend with funeralgoers. Fewer people are dying now, but many young women are still getting infected.
Xoliswa Mthethwa, 26, who was part of the study, said she told her boyfriend about the gel and he was very supportive. If it worked, she said, “I’d be the first person to go buy it.”
Donald G. McNeil Jr. contributed reporting from Vienna.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/world ... &th&emc=th
Photo story: Sex ed, in pictures
Murals teach Tanzanians to practice safe sex by avoiding parties, sugar daddies and big butts.
Throughout Tanzania, wall murals have long been popular as a form of cheap commercial advertising. But public wall spaces are now becoming platforms to spread safe sex messages to as many people as possible.
According to Unicef, the current HIV rate in Tanzania hovers at about 6 percent. Life expectancy is 56 years. An estimated 15 percent of Tanzanian women have undergone female genital mutilation. Lifetime risk of maternal death is 1 in 24, one of the highest in the world. Forty percent of 18-year-old girls in Tanzania are mothers already or pregnant.
GlobalPost's Iva Skoch took a walk outside the painted walls of the all-girls Jangwani Secondary School in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania's largest city, where sex education comes in the form of murals. Here is what she found:
"Have principles," reads one sex ed mural in Tanzania, where wall murals offer safe sex messages. (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Do not engage in risky behavior." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Be faithful in your marriage." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Avoid hidden environments." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Education about AIDS should be given at school." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Stay away from bad peers." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Say no, have principles." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Don't lust and avoid temptations." Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Be satisfied with what you have." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Stop sexual corruption." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Focus on your studies, stop dirty thoughts." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Be safe." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Stop female genital mutilation." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Read. But don't read about or watch sex." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Avoid having many lovers." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Don't be greedy, avoid temptation" and "Say no to propositions." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
Fataki is a fictional Tanzanian sugar daddy. The extensive Fataki campaign aims to put an end to the prevalence of cross-generational sex. (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/afri ... d-pictures
Murals teach Tanzanians to practice safe sex by avoiding parties, sugar daddies and big butts.
Throughout Tanzania, wall murals have long been popular as a form of cheap commercial advertising. But public wall spaces are now becoming platforms to spread safe sex messages to as many people as possible.
According to Unicef, the current HIV rate in Tanzania hovers at about 6 percent. Life expectancy is 56 years. An estimated 15 percent of Tanzanian women have undergone female genital mutilation. Lifetime risk of maternal death is 1 in 24, one of the highest in the world. Forty percent of 18-year-old girls in Tanzania are mothers already or pregnant.
GlobalPost's Iva Skoch took a walk outside the painted walls of the all-girls Jangwani Secondary School in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania's largest city, where sex education comes in the form of murals. Here is what she found:
"Have principles," reads one sex ed mural in Tanzania, where wall murals offer safe sex messages. (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Do not engage in risky behavior." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Be faithful in your marriage." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Avoid hidden environments." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Education about AIDS should be given at school." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Stay away from bad peers." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Say no, have principles." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Don't lust and avoid temptations." Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Be satisfied with what you have." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Stop sexual corruption." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Focus on your studies, stop dirty thoughts." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Be safe." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Stop female genital mutilation." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Read. But don't read about or watch sex." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Avoid having many lovers." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
"Don't be greedy, avoid temptation" and "Say no to propositions." (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
Fataki is a fictional Tanzanian sugar daddy. The extensive Fataki campaign aims to put an end to the prevalence of cross-generational sex. (Iva R. Skoch/GlobalPost)
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/afri ... d-pictures
9 January 2011 Last updated at 20:57 ET
Fury over doctor's book on sex education for Muslims
By Aleem Maqbool BBC News, Islamabad
Dr Mobin Akhtar with his book Dr Mobin Akhtar says there is nothing un-Islamic about discussing sex
Dr Mobin Akhtar is on a mission to educate Pakistanis in sexual matters, but his latest attempt to do so has caused controversy.
The release of his book - Sex Education for Muslims - aims to teach people about sex in a way that is in keeping with Islamic instruction.
Dr Akhtar, 81, says the fact that sex is not discussed in Pakistan is having serious repercussions. As a psychiatrist, he says he has witnessed them himself, and that is why he felt the need to write his book.
"There's a huge problem in our country," he says.
"Adolescents, especially boys, when they get to puberty, and the changes that come with puberty, they think it's due to some disease.
"They start masturbating, and they are told that is very dangerous to health, and that this is sinful, very sinful."
'Misconceptions'
Dr Akhtar says he has seen cases where teenagers, not understanding what is happening to their bodies, have become depressed and even committed suicide.
"I myself passed through that stage with all these concerns, and there's no-one to tell you otherwise, and that these are wrong perceptions. It was only when I entered medical college that I found out that these were all misconceptions."
The book
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Ignorance about sexual matters is causing a lot of our young people unnecessary psychological distress”
End Quote Dr Mobin Akhtar Author of Sex Education for Muslims
He says even now in Pakistan, many doctors do not discuss sexual matters openly, and that teachers and parents are embarrassed about the issues. There is no sex education teaching in government schools.
Dr Akhtar says it is not seen as appropriate to broach the subject of sex in the conservative culture of Pakistan, and that it is also felt that doing so might encourage young people to behave in an "un-Islamic" way.
"They ask me when you should start sex education, and I say as soon as the child can talk. They should be told the names of the genitals just as they are told about hands and eyes and ears, and nose," he says.
"When they get a little bigger and they ask where a child comes from, you can say it. That doesn't make the child sexually active or immoral."
Dr Akhtar says there is also nothing un-Islamic about discussing sex.
He says he felt that the best way to help people understand that was to write a book which brought together basic sex education with information about the Islamic perspective on the subject.
"When I started to study what the Koran, Islamic law and religious scholars had to say about it, I realised there is so much discussion about sex in Islam. One would be surprised.
"There are sayings from the Prophet Muhammad about sexual matters, and historical sources tell us he answered detailed queries on the subject from both men and women."
The writings in Dr Akhtar's book are interspersed with quotes from the Prophet Muhammad, and also from the Koran, like this one: "You are allowed intercourse at night with your wives during the month of fasting. They are as intimate for you as your own clothes, and vice versa." (Koran, Surah Baqra, Verse 187)
'Quack'
Among many other topics, Dr Akhtar writes of the Islamic thinking about masturbation, marital problems and how a man should wash himself after having sex so that he is clean enough to perform prayers.
But many Pakistanis have found Dr Akhtar's book unpalatable.
Pakistani children Pakistani children have no access to sex education
He tried to tone down the title - Sex Education for Muslims is the name of the English version of the book, in Urdu the title is Special Problems for Young People.
But that has not been enough to appease some.
"I have had threats. Even other doctors have accused me of acting like a maverick, a quack," he says.
"A provincial politician even hauled me into his office and said I was encouraging pornography. I explained I was doing nothing of the sort."
Dr Akhtar says he has found very few bookshops willing to stock his book, or any newspapers that will print paid advertisements for it.
"It is a very sad reaction. Ignorance about sexual matters is causing a lot of our young people unnecessary psychological distress, and we have to change that.
"I am only talking about educating people gradually and sensitively, but at the moment we are not even doing that."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12117519
Fury over doctor's book on sex education for Muslims
By Aleem Maqbool BBC News, Islamabad
Dr Mobin Akhtar with his book Dr Mobin Akhtar says there is nothing un-Islamic about discussing sex
Dr Mobin Akhtar is on a mission to educate Pakistanis in sexual matters, but his latest attempt to do so has caused controversy.
The release of his book - Sex Education for Muslims - aims to teach people about sex in a way that is in keeping with Islamic instruction.
Dr Akhtar, 81, says the fact that sex is not discussed in Pakistan is having serious repercussions. As a psychiatrist, he says he has witnessed them himself, and that is why he felt the need to write his book.
"There's a huge problem in our country," he says.
"Adolescents, especially boys, when they get to puberty, and the changes that come with puberty, they think it's due to some disease.
"They start masturbating, and they are told that is very dangerous to health, and that this is sinful, very sinful."
'Misconceptions'
Dr Akhtar says he has seen cases where teenagers, not understanding what is happening to their bodies, have become depressed and even committed suicide.
"I myself passed through that stage with all these concerns, and there's no-one to tell you otherwise, and that these are wrong perceptions. It was only when I entered medical college that I found out that these were all misconceptions."
The book
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Ignorance about sexual matters is causing a lot of our young people unnecessary psychological distress”
End Quote Dr Mobin Akhtar Author of Sex Education for Muslims
He says even now in Pakistan, many doctors do not discuss sexual matters openly, and that teachers and parents are embarrassed about the issues. There is no sex education teaching in government schools.
Dr Akhtar says it is not seen as appropriate to broach the subject of sex in the conservative culture of Pakistan, and that it is also felt that doing so might encourage young people to behave in an "un-Islamic" way.
"They ask me when you should start sex education, and I say as soon as the child can talk. They should be told the names of the genitals just as they are told about hands and eyes and ears, and nose," he says.
"When they get a little bigger and they ask where a child comes from, you can say it. That doesn't make the child sexually active or immoral."
Dr Akhtar says there is also nothing un-Islamic about discussing sex.
He says he felt that the best way to help people understand that was to write a book which brought together basic sex education with information about the Islamic perspective on the subject.
"When I started to study what the Koran, Islamic law and religious scholars had to say about it, I realised there is so much discussion about sex in Islam. One would be surprised.
"There are sayings from the Prophet Muhammad about sexual matters, and historical sources tell us he answered detailed queries on the subject from both men and women."
The writings in Dr Akhtar's book are interspersed with quotes from the Prophet Muhammad, and also from the Koran, like this one: "You are allowed intercourse at night with your wives during the month of fasting. They are as intimate for you as your own clothes, and vice versa." (Koran, Surah Baqra, Verse 187)
'Quack'
Among many other topics, Dr Akhtar writes of the Islamic thinking about masturbation, marital problems and how a man should wash himself after having sex so that he is clean enough to perform prayers.
But many Pakistanis have found Dr Akhtar's book unpalatable.
Pakistani children Pakistani children have no access to sex education
He tried to tone down the title - Sex Education for Muslims is the name of the English version of the book, in Urdu the title is Special Problems for Young People.
But that has not been enough to appease some.
"I have had threats. Even other doctors have accused me of acting like a maverick, a quack," he says.
"A provincial politician even hauled me into his office and said I was encouraging pornography. I explained I was doing nothing of the sort."
Dr Akhtar says he has found very few bookshops willing to stock his book, or any newspapers that will print paid advertisements for it.
"It is a very sad reaction. Ignorance about sexual matters is causing a lot of our young people unnecessary psychological distress, and we have to change that.
"I am only talking about educating people gradually and sensitively, but at the moment we are not even doing that."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12117519
March 6, 2011
Why Monogamy Matters
By ROSS DOUTHAT
Social conservatives can seem like the perennial pessimists of American politics — more comfortable with resignation than with hope, perpetually touting evidence of family breakdown, social disintegration and civilizational decline.
But even doomsayers get the occasional dose of good news. And so it was last week, when a study from the Centers for Disease Control revealed that American teens and 20-somethings are waiting longer to have sex.
In 2002, the study reported, 22 percent of Americans aged 15 to 24 were still virgins. By 2008, that number was up to 28 percent. Other research suggests that this trend may date back decades, and that young Americans have been growing more sexually conservative since the late 1980s.
Why is this good news? Not, it should be emphasized, because it suggests the dawn of some sort of traditionalist utopia, where the only sex is married sex. No such society has ever existed, or ever could: not in 1950s America (where, as the feminist writer Dana Goldstein noted last week, the vast majority of men and women had sex before they married), and not even in Mormon Utah (where Brigham Young University recently suspended a star basketball player for sleeping with his girlfriend).
But there are different kinds of premarital sex. There’s sex that’s actually pre-marital, in the sense that it involves monogamous couples on a path that might lead to matrimony one day. Then there’s sex that’s casual and promiscuous, or just premature and ill considered.
This distinction is crucial to understanding what’s changed in American life since the sexual revolution. Yes, in 1950 as in 2011, most people didn’t go virgins to their marriage beds. But earlier generations of Americans waited longer to have sex, took fewer sexual partners across their lifetimes, and were more likely to see sleeping together as a way station on the road to wedlock.
And they may have been happier for it. That’s the conclusion suggested by two sociologists, Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker, in their recent book, “Premarital Sex in America.” Their research, which looks at sexual behavior among contemporary young adults, finds a significant correlation between sexual restraint and emotional well-being, between monogamy and happiness — and between promiscuity and depression.
This correlation is much stronger for women than for men. Female emotional well-being seems to be tightly bound to sexual stability — which may help explain why overall female happiness has actually drifted downward since the sexual revolution.
Among the young people Regnerus and Uecker studied, the happiest women were those with a current sexual partner and only one or two partners in their lifetime. Virgins were almost as happy, though not quite, and then a young woman’s likelihood of depression rose steadily as her number of partners climbed and the present stability of her sex life diminished.
When social conservatives talk about restoring the link between sex, monogamy and marriage, they often have these kinds of realities in mind. The point isn’t that we should aspire to some Arcadia of perfect chastity. Rather, it’s that a high sexual ideal can shape how quickly and casually people pair off, even when they aren’t living up to its exacting demands. The ultimate goal is a sexual culture that makes it easier for young people to achieve romantic happiness — by encouraging them to wait a little longer, choose more carefully and judge their sex lives against a strong moral standard.
This is what’s at stake, for instance, in debates over abstinence-based sex education. Successful abstinence-based programs (yes, they do exist) don’t necessarily make their teenage participants more likely to save themselves for marriage. But they make them more likely to save themselves for somebody, which in turn increases the odds that their adult sexual lives will be a source of joy rather than sorrow.
It’s also what’s at stake in the ongoing battle over whether the federal government should be subsidizing Planned Parenthood. Obviously, social conservatives don’t like seeing their tax dollars flow to an organization that performs roughly 300,000 abortions every year. But they also see Planned Parenthood’s larger worldview — in which teen sexual activity is taken for granted, and the most important judgment to be made about a sexual encounter is whether it’s clinically “safe” — as the enemy of the kind of sexual idealism they’re trying to restore.
Liberals argue, not unreasonably, that Planned Parenthood’s approach is tailored to the gritty realities of teenage sexuality. But realism can blur into cynicism, and a jaded attitude can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Social conservatives look at the contemporary sexual landscape and remember that it wasn’t always thus, and they look at current trends and hope that it doesn’t have to be this way forever.
In this sense, despite their instinctive gloominess, they’re actually the optimists in the debate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/opini ... emc=tha212
Why Monogamy Matters
By ROSS DOUTHAT
Social conservatives can seem like the perennial pessimists of American politics — more comfortable with resignation than with hope, perpetually touting evidence of family breakdown, social disintegration and civilizational decline.
But even doomsayers get the occasional dose of good news. And so it was last week, when a study from the Centers for Disease Control revealed that American teens and 20-somethings are waiting longer to have sex.
In 2002, the study reported, 22 percent of Americans aged 15 to 24 were still virgins. By 2008, that number was up to 28 percent. Other research suggests that this trend may date back decades, and that young Americans have been growing more sexually conservative since the late 1980s.
Why is this good news? Not, it should be emphasized, because it suggests the dawn of some sort of traditionalist utopia, where the only sex is married sex. No such society has ever existed, or ever could: not in 1950s America (where, as the feminist writer Dana Goldstein noted last week, the vast majority of men and women had sex before they married), and not even in Mormon Utah (where Brigham Young University recently suspended a star basketball player for sleeping with his girlfriend).
But there are different kinds of premarital sex. There’s sex that’s actually pre-marital, in the sense that it involves monogamous couples on a path that might lead to matrimony one day. Then there’s sex that’s casual and promiscuous, or just premature and ill considered.
This distinction is crucial to understanding what’s changed in American life since the sexual revolution. Yes, in 1950 as in 2011, most people didn’t go virgins to their marriage beds. But earlier generations of Americans waited longer to have sex, took fewer sexual partners across their lifetimes, and were more likely to see sleeping together as a way station on the road to wedlock.
And they may have been happier for it. That’s the conclusion suggested by two sociologists, Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker, in their recent book, “Premarital Sex in America.” Their research, which looks at sexual behavior among contemporary young adults, finds a significant correlation between sexual restraint and emotional well-being, between monogamy and happiness — and between promiscuity and depression.
This correlation is much stronger for women than for men. Female emotional well-being seems to be tightly bound to sexual stability — which may help explain why overall female happiness has actually drifted downward since the sexual revolution.
Among the young people Regnerus and Uecker studied, the happiest women were those with a current sexual partner and only one or two partners in their lifetime. Virgins were almost as happy, though not quite, and then a young woman’s likelihood of depression rose steadily as her number of partners climbed and the present stability of her sex life diminished.
When social conservatives talk about restoring the link between sex, monogamy and marriage, they often have these kinds of realities in mind. The point isn’t that we should aspire to some Arcadia of perfect chastity. Rather, it’s that a high sexual ideal can shape how quickly and casually people pair off, even when they aren’t living up to its exacting demands. The ultimate goal is a sexual culture that makes it easier for young people to achieve romantic happiness — by encouraging them to wait a little longer, choose more carefully and judge their sex lives against a strong moral standard.
This is what’s at stake, for instance, in debates over abstinence-based sex education. Successful abstinence-based programs (yes, they do exist) don’t necessarily make their teenage participants more likely to save themselves for marriage. But they make them more likely to save themselves for somebody, which in turn increases the odds that their adult sexual lives will be a source of joy rather than sorrow.
It’s also what’s at stake in the ongoing battle over whether the federal government should be subsidizing Planned Parenthood. Obviously, social conservatives don’t like seeing their tax dollars flow to an organization that performs roughly 300,000 abortions every year. But they also see Planned Parenthood’s larger worldview — in which teen sexual activity is taken for granted, and the most important judgment to be made about a sexual encounter is whether it’s clinically “safe” — as the enemy of the kind of sexual idealism they’re trying to restore.
Liberals argue, not unreasonably, that Planned Parenthood’s approach is tailored to the gritty realities of teenage sexuality. But realism can blur into cynicism, and a jaded attitude can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Social conservatives look at the contemporary sexual landscape and remember that it wasn’t always thus, and they look at current trends and hope that it doesn’t have to be this way forever.
In this sense, despite their instinctive gloominess, they’re actually the optimists in the debate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/opini ... emc=tha212
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Sex can be bad for the brain, study says
By Kim Covert, Postmedianews May 6, 2011
Talk about your unsafe sex. First researchers suggested having sex could boost your risk of a heart attack. Now, a study seems to say that if it doesn't stop your heart, it just might literally blow your mind.
Dutch researchers say sexual activity is one of the eight main triggers -along with blowing your nose and drinking coffee -that increase the risk of a rare intracranial aneurysm that can sometimes rupture and cause a stroke.
Worse still, given alcohol's widespread reputation as a lubricant of love, particularly among the young, researchers found that the risk rose shortly after drinking alcohol.
"Subarachnoid hemorrhage caused by the rupture of an intracranial aneurysm is a devastating event that often affects young adults," said Dr. Monique H.M. Vlak, a neurologist at the University Medical Centre in Utrecht and lead author of the study published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association. "These trigger factors we found are superimposed on known risk factors, including female gender, age and hypertension."
An intracranial aneurysm is a weakness in the wall of a blood vessel in the brain that can cause it to balloon. When it ruptures, it causes a subarachnoid hemorrhage -a stroke caused by bleeding at the base of the brain. Researchers say about two per cent of the population have these aneurysms, but few of them rupture.
Drinking coffee is actually more likely to set off off a subarachnoid hemorrhage than sex -and so is blowing your nose, according to the researchers, who calculated the "attributable risk" of the eight trigger factors as follows: Drinking coffee, 10.6 per cent; vigorous physical exercise, 7.9 per cent; nose-blowing, 5.4 per cent; sexual intercourse, 4.3 per cent; straining to defecate, 3.6 per cent; drinking cola, 3.5 per cent; being startled, 2.7 per cent; and being angry, 1.3 per cent.
"All of the triggers induce a sudden and short increase in blood pressure, which seems a possible common cause for aneurysmal rupture, said Vlak.
In March, a report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that sex, as well as sudden bouts of other vigorous physical activity, can trigger heart attacks, especially in people who are not regularly active.
While there are symptoms that can precede a rupture, including vomiting, vision problems, loss of consciousness and especially severe headaches, most people with intracranial aneurysms that rupture never experience them.
Researchers don't advise avoiding physical activity just because it could cause an aneurysm to rupture and cause a stroke.
"Reducing caffeine consumption or treating constipated patients with unruptured intracranial aneurysm with laxatives may lower the risk of subarachnoid hemorrhage," Vlak said, adding it's unclear whether medication that lowers blood pressure would reduce the risk of hemorrhage.
Researchers asked 250 patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage to fill out a questionnaire about their exposure to potential triggers before the event, then used the questionnaire results to assess relative risk.
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/health/br ... story.html
By Kim Covert, Postmedianews May 6, 2011
Talk about your unsafe sex. First researchers suggested having sex could boost your risk of a heart attack. Now, a study seems to say that if it doesn't stop your heart, it just might literally blow your mind.
Dutch researchers say sexual activity is one of the eight main triggers -along with blowing your nose and drinking coffee -that increase the risk of a rare intracranial aneurysm that can sometimes rupture and cause a stroke.
Worse still, given alcohol's widespread reputation as a lubricant of love, particularly among the young, researchers found that the risk rose shortly after drinking alcohol.
"Subarachnoid hemorrhage caused by the rupture of an intracranial aneurysm is a devastating event that often affects young adults," said Dr. Monique H.M. Vlak, a neurologist at the University Medical Centre in Utrecht and lead author of the study published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association. "These trigger factors we found are superimposed on known risk factors, including female gender, age and hypertension."
An intracranial aneurysm is a weakness in the wall of a blood vessel in the brain that can cause it to balloon. When it ruptures, it causes a subarachnoid hemorrhage -a stroke caused by bleeding at the base of the brain. Researchers say about two per cent of the population have these aneurysms, but few of them rupture.
Drinking coffee is actually more likely to set off off a subarachnoid hemorrhage than sex -and so is blowing your nose, according to the researchers, who calculated the "attributable risk" of the eight trigger factors as follows: Drinking coffee, 10.6 per cent; vigorous physical exercise, 7.9 per cent; nose-blowing, 5.4 per cent; sexual intercourse, 4.3 per cent; straining to defecate, 3.6 per cent; drinking cola, 3.5 per cent; being startled, 2.7 per cent; and being angry, 1.3 per cent.
"All of the triggers induce a sudden and short increase in blood pressure, which seems a possible common cause for aneurysmal rupture, said Vlak.
In March, a report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that sex, as well as sudden bouts of other vigorous physical activity, can trigger heart attacks, especially in people who are not regularly active.
While there are symptoms that can precede a rupture, including vomiting, vision problems, loss of consciousness and especially severe headaches, most people with intracranial aneurysms that rupture never experience them.
Researchers don't advise avoiding physical activity just because it could cause an aneurysm to rupture and cause a stroke.
"Reducing caffeine consumption or treating constipated patients with unruptured intracranial aneurysm with laxatives may lower the risk of subarachnoid hemorrhage," Vlak said, adding it's unclear whether medication that lowers blood pressure would reduce the risk of hemorrhage.
Researchers asked 250 patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage to fill out a questionnaire about their exposure to potential triggers before the event, then used the questionnaire results to assess relative risk.
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/health/br ... story.html
May 21, 2011
Religion and Sex Quiz
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Faith is a huge force in American life, and it’s common to hear the Bible cited to bolster political and moral positions, especially against same-sex marriage and abortion. So here’s my 2011 religion quiz. Choose the best responses (some questions may have more than one correct answer):
1. The Bible’s position on abortion is:
a. Never mentioned.
b. To forbid it along with all forms of artificial birth control.
c. Condemnatory, except to save the life of the mother.
2. The Bible suggests “marriage” is:
a. The lifelong union of one man and one woman.
b. The union of one man and up to 700 wives.
c. Often undesirable, because it distracts from service to the Lord.
3. The Bible says of homosexuality:
a. Leviticus describes male sexual pairing as an abomination.
b. A lesbian should be stoned at her father’s doorstep.
c. There’s plenty of ambiguity and no indication of physical intimacy, but some readers point to Ruth and Naomi’s love as suspiciously close, or to King David declaring to Jonathan: “Your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” (II Samuel 1:23-26)
4. In the Bible, erotic writing is:
a. Forbidden by Deuteronomy as “adultery of the heart.”
b. Exemplified by “Song of Songs,” which celebrates sex for its own sake.
c. Unmentioned.
5. Jesus says that divorce is permitted:
a. Only after counseling and trial separation.
b. Never.
c. Only to men whose wives have been unfaithful.
6. Among sexual behavior that is forbidden is:
a. Adultery.
b. Incest.
c. Sex with angels.
7. The people of Sodom were condemned principally for:
a. Homosexuality.
b. Blasphemy.
c. Lack of compassion for the poor and needy.
This quiz, and the answers below, draw from a new book, “Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions about Sex and Desire.” It’s by Jennifer Wright Knust, a Bible scholar at Boston University who is also an ordained American Baptist pastor.
Professor Knust’s point is that the Bible’s teachings about sexuality are murky and inconsistent and prone to being hijacked by ideologues (this quiz involves some cherry-picking of my own). There’s also lots we just don’t understand: What exactly is the offense of “arsenokoitai” or “man beds” that St. Paul proscribes? It is often translated as a reference to homosexuality, but it more plausibly relates to male prostitution or pimping. Ambiguity is everywhere, which is why some of you will surely harrumph at my quiz answers:
1. A. Abortion is never mentioned as such.
2. A, B and C. The Bible limits women to one husband, but other than that is all over the map. Mark 10 envisions a lifelong marriage of one man and one woman. But King Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines (I Kings 11:3). And Matthew (Matthew 19:10-12) and St. Paul (I Corinthians 7) both seem to suggest that the ideal approach is to remain celibate and avoid marriage if possible, while focusing on serving God. Jesus (Matthew 19:12) even seems to suggest that men make themselves eunuchs, leading the early church to ban enthusiasts from self-castration.
3. A and C. As for stoning on a father’s doorstep, that is the fate not of lesbians but of non-virgin brides (Deuteronomy 22:13).
4. B. Read the “Song of Songs” and blush. It also serves as a metaphor for divine relations with Israel or with humans.
5. B and C. Jesus in Mark 10:11-12 condemns divorce generally, but in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 suggests that a man can divorce his wife if she is guilty of sexual immorality.
6. A, B and C. We forget that early commentators were very concerned about sex with angels (Genesis 6, interpreted in the Letter of Jude and other places) as an incorrect mixing of two kinds.
7. C. “Sodomy” as a term for gay male sex began to be commonly used only in the 11th century and would have surprised early religious commentators. They attributed Sodom’s problems with God to many different causes, including idolatry, threats toward strangers and general lack of compassion for the downtrodden. Ezekiel 16:49 suggests that Sodomites “had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.”
Hmm. “Did not aid the poor and needy.” Who knew that that’s what the Bible condemns as sodomy? At a time of budget cuts that devastate the poor, isn’t that precisely the kind of disgusting immorality that we should all join together in the spirit of the Bible to repudiate?
I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/opini ... emc=tha212
Religion and Sex Quiz
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Faith is a huge force in American life, and it’s common to hear the Bible cited to bolster political and moral positions, especially against same-sex marriage and abortion. So here’s my 2011 religion quiz. Choose the best responses (some questions may have more than one correct answer):
1. The Bible’s position on abortion is:
a. Never mentioned.
b. To forbid it along with all forms of artificial birth control.
c. Condemnatory, except to save the life of the mother.
2. The Bible suggests “marriage” is:
a. The lifelong union of one man and one woman.
b. The union of one man and up to 700 wives.
c. Often undesirable, because it distracts from service to the Lord.
3. The Bible says of homosexuality:
a. Leviticus describes male sexual pairing as an abomination.
b. A lesbian should be stoned at her father’s doorstep.
c. There’s plenty of ambiguity and no indication of physical intimacy, but some readers point to Ruth and Naomi’s love as suspiciously close, or to King David declaring to Jonathan: “Your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” (II Samuel 1:23-26)
4. In the Bible, erotic writing is:
a. Forbidden by Deuteronomy as “adultery of the heart.”
b. Exemplified by “Song of Songs,” which celebrates sex for its own sake.
c. Unmentioned.
5. Jesus says that divorce is permitted:
a. Only after counseling and trial separation.
b. Never.
c. Only to men whose wives have been unfaithful.
6. Among sexual behavior that is forbidden is:
a. Adultery.
b. Incest.
c. Sex with angels.
7. The people of Sodom were condemned principally for:
a. Homosexuality.
b. Blasphemy.
c. Lack of compassion for the poor and needy.
This quiz, and the answers below, draw from a new book, “Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions about Sex and Desire.” It’s by Jennifer Wright Knust, a Bible scholar at Boston University who is also an ordained American Baptist pastor.
Professor Knust’s point is that the Bible’s teachings about sexuality are murky and inconsistent and prone to being hijacked by ideologues (this quiz involves some cherry-picking of my own). There’s also lots we just don’t understand: What exactly is the offense of “arsenokoitai” or “man beds” that St. Paul proscribes? It is often translated as a reference to homosexuality, but it more plausibly relates to male prostitution or pimping. Ambiguity is everywhere, which is why some of you will surely harrumph at my quiz answers:
1. A. Abortion is never mentioned as such.
2. A, B and C. The Bible limits women to one husband, but other than that is all over the map. Mark 10 envisions a lifelong marriage of one man and one woman. But King Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines (I Kings 11:3). And Matthew (Matthew 19:10-12) and St. Paul (I Corinthians 7) both seem to suggest that the ideal approach is to remain celibate and avoid marriage if possible, while focusing on serving God. Jesus (Matthew 19:12) even seems to suggest that men make themselves eunuchs, leading the early church to ban enthusiasts from self-castration.
3. A and C. As for stoning on a father’s doorstep, that is the fate not of lesbians but of non-virgin brides (Deuteronomy 22:13).
4. B. Read the “Song of Songs” and blush. It also serves as a metaphor for divine relations with Israel or with humans.
5. B and C. Jesus in Mark 10:11-12 condemns divorce generally, but in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 suggests that a man can divorce his wife if she is guilty of sexual immorality.
6. A, B and C. We forget that early commentators were very concerned about sex with angels (Genesis 6, interpreted in the Letter of Jude and other places) as an incorrect mixing of two kinds.
7. C. “Sodomy” as a term for gay male sex began to be commonly used only in the 11th century and would have surprised early religious commentators. They attributed Sodom’s problems with God to many different causes, including idolatry, threats toward strangers and general lack of compassion for the downtrodden. Ezekiel 16:49 suggests that Sodomites “had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.”
Hmm. “Did not aid the poor and needy.” Who knew that that’s what the Bible condemns as sodomy? At a time of budget cuts that devastate the poor, isn’t that precisely the kind of disgusting immorality that we should all join together in the spirit of the Bible to repudiate?
I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/opini ... emc=tha212
In the face of recent revelations about the reckless sexual conduct of elected officials, it's worth recalling that sexual restraint was once the measure of a man.
June 16, 2011
Those Manly Men of Yore
By SARA LIPTON
“WHAT was he thinking?” That’s the question columnists, talking heads and my (mostly female) friends have been asking about Representative Anthony D. Weiner of New York, who announced Thursday that he would resign, just over a week after admitting he’d sent sexually explicit photographs and messages to women over the Internet.
Sadly, that question has been asked of a dizzying number of unfaithful men in recent memory: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Mark Sanford, John Ensign, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, Newt Gingrich, Bill Clinton ... the list goes on and on.
The conventional answer is that when it comes to sex, a certain kind of man, no matter how intelligent, doesn’t think at all; he just acts. Somehow a need for sexual conquest, female adulation and illicit and risky liaisons seems to go along with drive, ambition and confidence in the “alpha male.” And even if we denounce him and hound him from office, we tend to accept the idea that power accentuates the lusty nature of men.
This conception of masculinity is relatively new, however. For most of Western history, the primary and most valued characteristic of manhood was self-mastery. Late antique and Roman writers, like Plutarch, lauded men for their ability to resist sexual temptation and control bodily desire through force of will and intellect. Too much sex was thought to weaken men: a late-15th-century poem mocks an otherwise respectable but overly sexually active burgess who has “wasted and spent” his “substance” until there is “naught left but empty skin and bone.”
Rampant sexuality was something men were supposed to grow out of: in medieval political theory, young male bodies were used as symbols of badly run kingdoms. A man who indulged in excessive eating, drinking, sleeping or sex — who failed to “rule himself” — was considered unfit to rule his household, much less a polity.
Far from seeming “manly,” aggressive sexuality was associated with women. In contrast to the Victorian view of women that is still influential today, ancient and medieval writers described women as consumed by lust and sexual desire. In 1433, officials in Florence charged with regulating women’s dress and behavior sought “to restrain the barbarous and irrepressible bestiality of women who, not mindful of the weakness of their nature, forgetting that they are subject to their husbands, and transforming their perverse sense into a reprobate and diabolical nature, force their husbands with their honeyed poison to submit to them.”
Because of this association of sexuality with femaleness, men who failed to control their sexual urges or were susceptible to feminine attractions found their masculinity challenged. Marc Antony was roundly mocked as having been “softened and effeminized” by his desire for Cleopatra. When the king and war hero Pedro II of Aragon spent the night before a battle not in prayer or council but in bed with a woman, he was labeled effeminate.
Few of us would wish to revive these notions or endorse medieval misogyny. But in the face of recent revelations about the reckless and self-indulgent sexual conduct of so many of our elected officials, it may be worth recalling that sexual restraint rather than sexual prowess was once the measure of a man.
How and why have we moved so far from this ideal? Why do so many powerful men take sexual risks that destroy their families and careers? Contemporary worship of youth is one explanation: rather than shunning the idea of childishness, many adults, male and female, now spend much of their time clinging to an illusory and endless adolescence. The ability to be a “player” well into middle age thus becomes a point of pride, rather than shame, for the modern man. Perhaps the erosion of men’s exclusive status as breadwinners and heads of households also figures in: when one no longer “rules the household,” there may be less motivation for or satisfaction in “ruling oneself.”
But in the face of recent headlines I find myself less inclined to analyze or excuse current mores than to echo medieval ones. The critics of Pedro II of Aragon would have turned Arnold Schwarzenegger’s own words against him and his kind: Who are the girlie men now?
Sara Lipton, an associate professor of history at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, is a fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/opini ... emc=tha212
June 16, 2011
Those Manly Men of Yore
By SARA LIPTON
“WHAT was he thinking?” That’s the question columnists, talking heads and my (mostly female) friends have been asking about Representative Anthony D. Weiner of New York, who announced Thursday that he would resign, just over a week after admitting he’d sent sexually explicit photographs and messages to women over the Internet.
Sadly, that question has been asked of a dizzying number of unfaithful men in recent memory: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Mark Sanford, John Ensign, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, Newt Gingrich, Bill Clinton ... the list goes on and on.
The conventional answer is that when it comes to sex, a certain kind of man, no matter how intelligent, doesn’t think at all; he just acts. Somehow a need for sexual conquest, female adulation and illicit and risky liaisons seems to go along with drive, ambition and confidence in the “alpha male.” And even if we denounce him and hound him from office, we tend to accept the idea that power accentuates the lusty nature of men.
This conception of masculinity is relatively new, however. For most of Western history, the primary and most valued characteristic of manhood was self-mastery. Late antique and Roman writers, like Plutarch, lauded men for their ability to resist sexual temptation and control bodily desire through force of will and intellect. Too much sex was thought to weaken men: a late-15th-century poem mocks an otherwise respectable but overly sexually active burgess who has “wasted and spent” his “substance” until there is “naught left but empty skin and bone.”
Rampant sexuality was something men were supposed to grow out of: in medieval political theory, young male bodies were used as symbols of badly run kingdoms. A man who indulged in excessive eating, drinking, sleeping or sex — who failed to “rule himself” — was considered unfit to rule his household, much less a polity.
Far from seeming “manly,” aggressive sexuality was associated with women. In contrast to the Victorian view of women that is still influential today, ancient and medieval writers described women as consumed by lust and sexual desire. In 1433, officials in Florence charged with regulating women’s dress and behavior sought “to restrain the barbarous and irrepressible bestiality of women who, not mindful of the weakness of their nature, forgetting that they are subject to their husbands, and transforming their perverse sense into a reprobate and diabolical nature, force their husbands with their honeyed poison to submit to them.”
Because of this association of sexuality with femaleness, men who failed to control their sexual urges or were susceptible to feminine attractions found their masculinity challenged. Marc Antony was roundly mocked as having been “softened and effeminized” by his desire for Cleopatra. When the king and war hero Pedro II of Aragon spent the night before a battle not in prayer or council but in bed with a woman, he was labeled effeminate.
Few of us would wish to revive these notions or endorse medieval misogyny. But in the face of recent revelations about the reckless and self-indulgent sexual conduct of so many of our elected officials, it may be worth recalling that sexual restraint rather than sexual prowess was once the measure of a man.
How and why have we moved so far from this ideal? Why do so many powerful men take sexual risks that destroy their families and careers? Contemporary worship of youth is one explanation: rather than shunning the idea of childishness, many adults, male and female, now spend much of their time clinging to an illusory and endless adolescence. The ability to be a “player” well into middle age thus becomes a point of pride, rather than shame, for the modern man. Perhaps the erosion of men’s exclusive status as breadwinners and heads of households also figures in: when one no longer “rules the household,” there may be less motivation for or satisfaction in “ruling oneself.”
But in the face of recent headlines I find myself less inclined to analyze or excuse current mores than to echo medieval ones. The critics of Pedro II of Aragon would have turned Arnold Schwarzenegger’s own words against him and his kind: Who are the girlie men now?
Sara Lipton, an associate professor of history at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, is a fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/opini ... emc=tha212
June 18, 2011
I Had Polio. I Also Have Sex.
By WINSTONE ZULU
Lusaka, Zambia
I SPOKE at an AIDS conference not long ago, and after the talk, someone asked me how I had contracted H.I.V. “Well,” I replied, “sexually.” Staring at my crutches, which I have used since I got polio as a child, she exclaimed, “But how?”
The assumption that all disabilities — of hands, feet, hearing, sight — somehow also affect the ability and desire to have sex is common. It would be comic if it didn’t have such serious consequences: people with disabilities are rarely exposed to sex education and are almost never considered in need of information about H.I.V. and treatment for it.
As a result, although people with disabilities are just as likely to be sexually active as people without, our H.I.V. infection rate is up to three times higher.
In Africa, children with disabilities are less likely to receive sexual health education, both because they are less likely to be enrolled in school, and because those who attend are sometimes removed from sexual health classes. Due to the widespread belief that we are asexual, we are often left out of family planning programs, despite the fact that many of us want children or are parents already.
The blind can’t read H.I.V. prevention posters; the deaf can’t hear radio campaigns. Vague messages are not understood by those with intellectual disabilities. Places where condoms and education materials are available are often physically inaccessible.
People with disabilities are often among the poorest of the poor, and can’t afford health care services. But even those with access to health care often experience discrimination and loss of privacy in health centers. Consider my hearing-impaired friends, who have to bring a family member to interpret if they want to get tested for H.I.V. In many places, people face being evicted or ostracized if family members learn they have H.I.V. The lack of confidentiality is a big deterrent to testing and treatment.
Worst of all, when drugs and services must be rationed, our lives are sometimes valued less than others. I have heard of cases where people with disabilities are given a lower priority for life-saving antiretrovirals.
Last week world leaders met at the United Nations to discuss efforts to fight H.I.V. Despite pledges for universal access to prevention, treatment and care, some people — children and heterosexuals — always get more attention in these meetings than others — sex workers, drug users, gays and lesbians and people with disabilities.
We must no longer be overlooked because of false assumptions about our sexuality. People with disabilities can and do have sex. I know from my own experience. We need to be a part of the fight against H.I.V., too.
Winstone Zulu, an adviser for AIDS-Free World, is the coordinator of Health Triangle Zambia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/opini ... emc=tha212
I Had Polio. I Also Have Sex.
By WINSTONE ZULU
Lusaka, Zambia
I SPOKE at an AIDS conference not long ago, and after the talk, someone asked me how I had contracted H.I.V. “Well,” I replied, “sexually.” Staring at my crutches, which I have used since I got polio as a child, she exclaimed, “But how?”
The assumption that all disabilities — of hands, feet, hearing, sight — somehow also affect the ability and desire to have sex is common. It would be comic if it didn’t have such serious consequences: people with disabilities are rarely exposed to sex education and are almost never considered in need of information about H.I.V. and treatment for it.
As a result, although people with disabilities are just as likely to be sexually active as people without, our H.I.V. infection rate is up to three times higher.
In Africa, children with disabilities are less likely to receive sexual health education, both because they are less likely to be enrolled in school, and because those who attend are sometimes removed from sexual health classes. Due to the widespread belief that we are asexual, we are often left out of family planning programs, despite the fact that many of us want children or are parents already.
The blind can’t read H.I.V. prevention posters; the deaf can’t hear radio campaigns. Vague messages are not understood by those with intellectual disabilities. Places where condoms and education materials are available are often physically inaccessible.
People with disabilities are often among the poorest of the poor, and can’t afford health care services. But even those with access to health care often experience discrimination and loss of privacy in health centers. Consider my hearing-impaired friends, who have to bring a family member to interpret if they want to get tested for H.I.V. In many places, people face being evicted or ostracized if family members learn they have H.I.V. The lack of confidentiality is a big deterrent to testing and treatment.
Worst of all, when drugs and services must be rationed, our lives are sometimes valued less than others. I have heard of cases where people with disabilities are given a lower priority for life-saving antiretrovirals.
Last week world leaders met at the United Nations to discuss efforts to fight H.I.V. Despite pledges for universal access to prevention, treatment and care, some people — children and heterosexuals — always get more attention in these meetings than others — sex workers, drug users, gays and lesbians and people with disabilities.
We must no longer be overlooked because of false assumptions about our sexuality. People with disabilities can and do have sex. I know from my own experience. We need to be a part of the fight against H.I.V., too.
Winstone Zulu, an adviser for AIDS-Free World, is the coordinator of Health Triangle Zambia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/opini ... emc=tha212
July 9, 2011
Is Sex Passé?
By ERICA JONG
WHAT could be more eternal than sexuality? The fog of longing, the obsession with the loved one’s voice, smell, touch. Sex is discombobulating and distracting, it makes you immune to money, politics and family. And sometimes I think the younger generation wants to give it up.
People always ask me what happened to sex since “Fear of Flying.” While editing an anthology of women’s sexual writing called “Sugar in My Bowl” last year, I was fascinated to see, among younger women, a nostalgia for ’50s-era attitudes toward sexuality. The older writers in my anthology are raunchier than the younger writers. The younger writers are obsessed with motherhood and monogamy.
It makes sense. Daughters always want to be different from their mothers. If their mothers discovered free sex, then they want to rediscover monogamy. My daughter, Molly Jong-Fast, who is in her mid-30s, wrote an essay called “They Had Sex So I Didn’t Have To.” Her friend Julie Klam wrote “Let’s Not Talk About Sex.” The novelist Elisa Albert said: “Sex is overexposed. It needs to take a vacation, turn off its phone, get off the grid.” Meg Wolitzer, author of “The Uncoupling,” a fictional retelling of “Lysistrata,” described “a kind of background chatter about women losing interest in sex.” Min Jin Lee, a contributor to the anthology, suggested that “for cosmopolitan singles, sex with intimacy appears to be neither the norm nor the objective.”
Generalizing about cultural trends is tricky, but everywhere there are signs that sex has lost its frisson of freedom. Is sex less piquant when it is not forbidden? Sex itself may not be dead, but it seems sexual passion is on life support.
The Internet obliges by offering simulated sex without intimacy, without identity and without fear of infection. Risky behavior can be devoid of risk — unless of course you use your real name and are an elected official.
Not only did we fail to corrupt our daughters, but we gave them a sterile way to have sex, electronically. Clearly the lure of Internet sex is the lack of involvement. We want to keep the chaos of sex trapped in a device we think we can control.
Just as the watchword of my generation was freedom, that of my daughter’s generation seems to be control. Is this just the predictable swing of the pendulum or a new passion for order in an ever more chaotic world? A little of both. We idealized open marriage; our daughters are back to idealizing monogamy. We were unable to extinguish the lust for propriety.
Punishing the sexual woman is a hoary, antique meme found from “Jane Eyre” to “The Scarlet Letter” to “Sex and the City,” where the lustiest woman ended up with breast cancer. Sex for women is dangerous. Sex for women leads to madness in attics, cancer and death by fire. Better to soul cycle and write cookbooks. Better to give up men and sleep with one’s children. Better to wear one’s baby in a man-distancing sling and breast-feed at all hours so your mate knows your breasts don’t belong to him. Our current orgy of multiple maternity does indeed leave little room for sexuality. With children in your bed, is there any space for sexual passion? The question lingers in the air, unanswered.
Does this mean there are no sexual taboos left? Not really. Sex between older people is the new unmentionable, the thing that makes our kids yell, “Ewww — gross!” You won’t find many movies or TV shows about 70-year-olds falling in love, though they may be doing it in real life.
The backlash against sex has lasted longer than the sexual revolution itself. Both birth control and abortion are under attack in many states. Women’s health care is considered expendable in budgetary negotiations. And the right wing only wants to champion unborn children. (Those already born are presumed able to fend for themselves.)
Lust for control fuels our current obsession with the deficit, our rejection of passion, our undoing of women’s rights. How far will we go in destroying women’s equality before a new generation of feminists wakes up? This time we hope those feminists will be of both genders and that men will understand how much equality benefits them.
Different though we are, men and women were designed to be allies, to fill out each other’s limitations, to raise children together and give them different models of adulthood. We have often botched attempts to do this, but there is valor in trying to get it right, to heal the world and the rift between the sexes, to pursue the healing of home and by extension the healing of the earth.
Physical pleasure binds two people together and lets them endure the inevitable pains and losses of being human. When sex becomes boring, something deeper is usually the problem — resentment or envy or lack of honesty. So I worry about the sudden craze for Lysistrata’s solution. Why reject honey for vinegar? Don’t we all deserve sugar in our bowls?
Erica Jong is the author of 22 books, most recently “Sugar in My Bowl.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/opini ... emc=tha212
Is Sex Passé?
By ERICA JONG
WHAT could be more eternal than sexuality? The fog of longing, the obsession with the loved one’s voice, smell, touch. Sex is discombobulating and distracting, it makes you immune to money, politics and family. And sometimes I think the younger generation wants to give it up.
People always ask me what happened to sex since “Fear of Flying.” While editing an anthology of women’s sexual writing called “Sugar in My Bowl” last year, I was fascinated to see, among younger women, a nostalgia for ’50s-era attitudes toward sexuality. The older writers in my anthology are raunchier than the younger writers. The younger writers are obsessed with motherhood and monogamy.
It makes sense. Daughters always want to be different from their mothers. If their mothers discovered free sex, then they want to rediscover monogamy. My daughter, Molly Jong-Fast, who is in her mid-30s, wrote an essay called “They Had Sex So I Didn’t Have To.” Her friend Julie Klam wrote “Let’s Not Talk About Sex.” The novelist Elisa Albert said: “Sex is overexposed. It needs to take a vacation, turn off its phone, get off the grid.” Meg Wolitzer, author of “The Uncoupling,” a fictional retelling of “Lysistrata,” described “a kind of background chatter about women losing interest in sex.” Min Jin Lee, a contributor to the anthology, suggested that “for cosmopolitan singles, sex with intimacy appears to be neither the norm nor the objective.”
Generalizing about cultural trends is tricky, but everywhere there are signs that sex has lost its frisson of freedom. Is sex less piquant when it is not forbidden? Sex itself may not be dead, but it seems sexual passion is on life support.
The Internet obliges by offering simulated sex without intimacy, without identity and without fear of infection. Risky behavior can be devoid of risk — unless of course you use your real name and are an elected official.
Not only did we fail to corrupt our daughters, but we gave them a sterile way to have sex, electronically. Clearly the lure of Internet sex is the lack of involvement. We want to keep the chaos of sex trapped in a device we think we can control.
Just as the watchword of my generation was freedom, that of my daughter’s generation seems to be control. Is this just the predictable swing of the pendulum or a new passion for order in an ever more chaotic world? A little of both. We idealized open marriage; our daughters are back to idealizing monogamy. We were unable to extinguish the lust for propriety.
Punishing the sexual woman is a hoary, antique meme found from “Jane Eyre” to “The Scarlet Letter” to “Sex and the City,” where the lustiest woman ended up with breast cancer. Sex for women is dangerous. Sex for women leads to madness in attics, cancer and death by fire. Better to soul cycle and write cookbooks. Better to give up men and sleep with one’s children. Better to wear one’s baby in a man-distancing sling and breast-feed at all hours so your mate knows your breasts don’t belong to him. Our current orgy of multiple maternity does indeed leave little room for sexuality. With children in your bed, is there any space for sexual passion? The question lingers in the air, unanswered.
Does this mean there are no sexual taboos left? Not really. Sex between older people is the new unmentionable, the thing that makes our kids yell, “Ewww — gross!” You won’t find many movies or TV shows about 70-year-olds falling in love, though they may be doing it in real life.
The backlash against sex has lasted longer than the sexual revolution itself. Both birth control and abortion are under attack in many states. Women’s health care is considered expendable in budgetary negotiations. And the right wing only wants to champion unborn children. (Those already born are presumed able to fend for themselves.)
Lust for control fuels our current obsession with the deficit, our rejection of passion, our undoing of women’s rights. How far will we go in destroying women’s equality before a new generation of feminists wakes up? This time we hope those feminists will be of both genders and that men will understand how much equality benefits them.
Different though we are, men and women were designed to be allies, to fill out each other’s limitations, to raise children together and give them different models of adulthood. We have often botched attempts to do this, but there is valor in trying to get it right, to heal the world and the rift between the sexes, to pursue the healing of home and by extension the healing of the earth.
Physical pleasure binds two people together and lets them endure the inevitable pains and losses of being human. When sex becomes boring, something deeper is usually the problem — resentment or envy or lack of honesty. So I worry about the sudden craze for Lysistrata’s solution. Why reject honey for vinegar? Don’t we all deserve sugar in our bowls?
Erica Jong is the author of 22 books, most recently “Sugar in My Bowl.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/opini ... emc=tha212
October 3, 2011
Contraceptive Used in Africa May Double Risk of H.I.V.
By PAM BELLUCK
The most popular contraceptive for women in eastern and southern Africa, a hormone shot given every three months, appears to double the risk the women will become infected with H.I.V., according to a large study published Monday. And when it is used by H.I.V.-positive women, their male partners are twice as likely to become infected than if the women had used no contraception.
The findings potentially present an alarming quandary for women in Africa. Hundreds of thousands of them suffer injuries, bleeding, infections and even death in childbirth from unintended pregnancies. Finding affordable and convenient contraceptives is a pressing goal for international health authorities.
But many countries where pregnancy rates are highest are also ravaged by H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. So the evidence suggesting that the injectable contraceptive has biological properties that may make women and men more vulnerable to H.I.V. infection is particularly troubling.
Injectable hormones are very popular. About 12 million women between the ages of 15 and 49 in sub-Saharan Africa, roughly 6 percent of all women in that age group, use them. In the United States, it is 1.2 million, or 3 percent of women using contraception. While the study involved only African women, scientists said biological effects would probably be the same for all women. But they emphasized that concern was greatest in Africa because the risk of H.I.V. transmission from heterosexual sex was so much higher there than elsewhere.
“The best contraception today is injectable hormonal contraception because you don’t need a doctor, it’s long-lasting, it enables women to control timing and spacing of birth without a lot of fuss and travel,” said Isobel Coleman, director of the women and foreign policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations. “If it is now proven that these contraceptions are helping spread the AIDS epidemic, we have a major health crisis on our hands.”
The study, which several experts said added significant heft to previous research while still having some limitations, has prompted the World Health Organization to convene a meeting in January to consider if evidence is now strong enough to advise women that the method may increase their risk of getting or transmitting H.I.V.
“We are going to be re-evaluating W.H.O.’s clinical recommendations on contraceptive use,” said Mary Lyn Gaffield, an epidemiologist in the World Health Organization’s department of reproductive health and research. Before the meeting, scientists will review research concerning hormonal contraceptives and women’s risk of acquiring H.I.V., transmitting it to men, and the possibility (not examined in the new study) that hormonal contraceptives accelerate H.I.V.’s severity in infected women.
“We want to make sure that we warn when there is a real need to warn, but at the same time we don’t want to come up with a hasty judgment that would have far-reaching severe consequences for the sexual and reproductive health of women,” she said. “This is a very difficult dilemma.”
The study, led by researchers at the University of Washington and published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, involved 3,800 couples in Botswana, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. In each couple, either the man or the woman was already infected with H.I.V. Researchers followed most couples for two years, had them report their contraception methods, and tracked whether the uninfected partner contracted H.I.V. from the infected partner, said Dr. Jared Baeten, an author and an epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist.
The research was presented at an international AIDS conference this summer, but has now gained traction, scientists said, with publication in a major peer-reviewed journal.
The manufacturer of the branded version of the injectable, Depo-Provera, is Pfizer, which declined to comment on the study, saying officials had not yet read it. The study’s authors said the injectables used by the African women were probably generic versions.
The study found that women using hormonal contraception became infected at a rate of 6.61 per 100 person-years, compared with 3.78 for those not using that method. Transmission of H.I.V. to men occurred at a rate of 2.61 per 100 person-years for women using hormonal contraception compared with 1.51 for those who did not.
While at least two other rigorous studies have found that injectable contraceptives increase the risk of women’s acquiring H.I.V., the new research has some strengths over previous work, said Charles Morrison, senior director of clinical sciences at FHI 360, a nonprofit organization whose work includes researching the intersection of family planning and H.I.V.
Those strengths include the fact that researchers followed couples and were therefore able to track transmission of H.I.V. to both men and women. Dr. Morrison said only one other less rigorous study had looked at whether hormonal contraception increased the risk of infected women’s transmitting the virus to men.
“This is a good study, and I think it does add some important evidence,” said Dr. Morrison, who wrote a commentary accompanying the Lancet article.
Although the study has limitations, including its use of data not originally intended to determine the link between contraceptive use and H.I.V., “I think this does raise the suspicion” that injectable contraceptives could increase transmission risk, he said.
Why that would occur is unclear. The researchers recorded condom use, essentially excluding the possibility that increased infection occurred because couples using contraceptives were less likely to use condoms.
The progestin in injectable contraceptives appears to have a physiological effect, scientists said. Renee Heffron, an epidemiologist and co-author of the study, said research examining whether the hormone changes genital tissue or vaginal mucous had been inconclusive. Studies in macaques found that progestin thins vaginal tissue, she said, “but studies among women didn’t show the same amount of thinning.”
It could be that progestin causes “immunologic changes in the vagina and cervix” or could increase the H.I.V.’s “ability to replicate,” Dr. Morrison said.
At one point, the researchers measured the concentration of H.I.V. in infected women’s genital fluid, finding “there was more H.I.V. in the genital fluid of those using hormonal contraception than those who aren’t,” Dr. Baeten said, a possible reason men might have increased risk of infection from hormonal contraceptive users. Those women “don’t have more H.I.V. in their blood,” he said.
The researchers also found that oral contraceptives appeared to increase risk of H.I.V. infection and transmission, but the number of pill users in the study was too small to be considered statistically significant, the authors said.
Previous research on the pill has been more mixed than with injectables, which could have a greater impact because they involve a strong dose meant to last for three months, Dr. Baeten said.
In another troubling finding, results from the same study, published separately, showed that pregnancy also doubled the risk of women’s contracting H.l.V. and of infected women’s transmitting it to men. That may partly be due to increased unprotected sex, but could also relate to hormones, researchers said.
But there are no simple solutions, the authors acknowledge. Any warning against such a popular contraceptive method may not only increase complications from pregnancy but increase H.I.V. transmission, too, since pregnancy itself may raise a woman’s risk of H.I.V. infection.
First, the researchers and others say, greater emphasis should be placed on condom use along with hormonal methods.
Some experts, like Dr. Morrison, favor a randomized controlled trial for more definitive proof, but others question how to “randomize women who may have strong preferences about their contraception,” he added.
Dr. Ludo Lavreys, an epidemiologist who led one of the first studies to link injectable contraceptives to increased H.I.V. risk, said intrauterine devices, implants and other methods should be explored and expanded. “Before you stop” recommending injectables, he said, “you have to offer them something else.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/healt ... s&emc=tha2
Contraceptive Used in Africa May Double Risk of H.I.V.
By PAM BELLUCK
The most popular contraceptive for women in eastern and southern Africa, a hormone shot given every three months, appears to double the risk the women will become infected with H.I.V., according to a large study published Monday. And when it is used by H.I.V.-positive women, their male partners are twice as likely to become infected than if the women had used no contraception.
The findings potentially present an alarming quandary for women in Africa. Hundreds of thousands of them suffer injuries, bleeding, infections and even death in childbirth from unintended pregnancies. Finding affordable and convenient contraceptives is a pressing goal for international health authorities.
But many countries where pregnancy rates are highest are also ravaged by H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. So the evidence suggesting that the injectable contraceptive has biological properties that may make women and men more vulnerable to H.I.V. infection is particularly troubling.
Injectable hormones are very popular. About 12 million women between the ages of 15 and 49 in sub-Saharan Africa, roughly 6 percent of all women in that age group, use them. In the United States, it is 1.2 million, or 3 percent of women using contraception. While the study involved only African women, scientists said biological effects would probably be the same for all women. But they emphasized that concern was greatest in Africa because the risk of H.I.V. transmission from heterosexual sex was so much higher there than elsewhere.
“The best contraception today is injectable hormonal contraception because you don’t need a doctor, it’s long-lasting, it enables women to control timing and spacing of birth without a lot of fuss and travel,” said Isobel Coleman, director of the women and foreign policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations. “If it is now proven that these contraceptions are helping spread the AIDS epidemic, we have a major health crisis on our hands.”
The study, which several experts said added significant heft to previous research while still having some limitations, has prompted the World Health Organization to convene a meeting in January to consider if evidence is now strong enough to advise women that the method may increase their risk of getting or transmitting H.I.V.
“We are going to be re-evaluating W.H.O.’s clinical recommendations on contraceptive use,” said Mary Lyn Gaffield, an epidemiologist in the World Health Organization’s department of reproductive health and research. Before the meeting, scientists will review research concerning hormonal contraceptives and women’s risk of acquiring H.I.V., transmitting it to men, and the possibility (not examined in the new study) that hormonal contraceptives accelerate H.I.V.’s severity in infected women.
“We want to make sure that we warn when there is a real need to warn, but at the same time we don’t want to come up with a hasty judgment that would have far-reaching severe consequences for the sexual and reproductive health of women,” she said. “This is a very difficult dilemma.”
The study, led by researchers at the University of Washington and published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, involved 3,800 couples in Botswana, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. In each couple, either the man or the woman was already infected with H.I.V. Researchers followed most couples for two years, had them report their contraception methods, and tracked whether the uninfected partner contracted H.I.V. from the infected partner, said Dr. Jared Baeten, an author and an epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist.
The research was presented at an international AIDS conference this summer, but has now gained traction, scientists said, with publication in a major peer-reviewed journal.
The manufacturer of the branded version of the injectable, Depo-Provera, is Pfizer, which declined to comment on the study, saying officials had not yet read it. The study’s authors said the injectables used by the African women were probably generic versions.
The study found that women using hormonal contraception became infected at a rate of 6.61 per 100 person-years, compared with 3.78 for those not using that method. Transmission of H.I.V. to men occurred at a rate of 2.61 per 100 person-years for women using hormonal contraception compared with 1.51 for those who did not.
While at least two other rigorous studies have found that injectable contraceptives increase the risk of women’s acquiring H.I.V., the new research has some strengths over previous work, said Charles Morrison, senior director of clinical sciences at FHI 360, a nonprofit organization whose work includes researching the intersection of family planning and H.I.V.
Those strengths include the fact that researchers followed couples and were therefore able to track transmission of H.I.V. to both men and women. Dr. Morrison said only one other less rigorous study had looked at whether hormonal contraception increased the risk of infected women’s transmitting the virus to men.
“This is a good study, and I think it does add some important evidence,” said Dr. Morrison, who wrote a commentary accompanying the Lancet article.
Although the study has limitations, including its use of data not originally intended to determine the link between contraceptive use and H.I.V., “I think this does raise the suspicion” that injectable contraceptives could increase transmission risk, he said.
Why that would occur is unclear. The researchers recorded condom use, essentially excluding the possibility that increased infection occurred because couples using contraceptives were less likely to use condoms.
The progestin in injectable contraceptives appears to have a physiological effect, scientists said. Renee Heffron, an epidemiologist and co-author of the study, said research examining whether the hormone changes genital tissue or vaginal mucous had been inconclusive. Studies in macaques found that progestin thins vaginal tissue, she said, “but studies among women didn’t show the same amount of thinning.”
It could be that progestin causes “immunologic changes in the vagina and cervix” or could increase the H.I.V.’s “ability to replicate,” Dr. Morrison said.
At one point, the researchers measured the concentration of H.I.V. in infected women’s genital fluid, finding “there was more H.I.V. in the genital fluid of those using hormonal contraception than those who aren’t,” Dr. Baeten said, a possible reason men might have increased risk of infection from hormonal contraceptive users. Those women “don’t have more H.I.V. in their blood,” he said.
The researchers also found that oral contraceptives appeared to increase risk of H.I.V. infection and transmission, but the number of pill users in the study was too small to be considered statistically significant, the authors said.
Previous research on the pill has been more mixed than with injectables, which could have a greater impact because they involve a strong dose meant to last for three months, Dr. Baeten said.
In another troubling finding, results from the same study, published separately, showed that pregnancy also doubled the risk of women’s contracting H.l.V. and of infected women’s transmitting it to men. That may partly be due to increased unprotected sex, but could also relate to hormones, researchers said.
But there are no simple solutions, the authors acknowledge. Any warning against such a popular contraceptive method may not only increase complications from pregnancy but increase H.I.V. transmission, too, since pregnancy itself may raise a woman’s risk of H.I.V. infection.
First, the researchers and others say, greater emphasis should be placed on condom use along with hormonal methods.
Some experts, like Dr. Morrison, favor a randomized controlled trial for more definitive proof, but others question how to “randomize women who may have strong preferences about their contraception,” he added.
Dr. Ludo Lavreys, an epidemiologist who led one of the first studies to link injectable contraceptives to increased H.I.V. risk, said intrauterine devices, implants and other methods should be explored and expanded. “Before you stop” recommending injectables, he said, “you have to offer them something else.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/healt ... s&emc=tha2
October 18, 2011
Does Sex Ed Undermine Parental Rights?
By ROBERT P. GEORGE and MELISSA MOSCHELLA
Princeton, N.J.
IMAGINE you have a 10- or 11-year-old child, just entering a public middle school. How would you feel if, as part of a class ostensibly about the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, he and his classmates were given “risk cards” that graphically named a variety of solitary and mutual sex acts? Or if, in another lesson, he was encouraged to disregard what you told him about sex, and to rely instead on teachers and health clinic staff members?
That prospect would horrify most parents. But such lessons are part of a middle-school curriculum that Dennis M. Walcott, the New York City schools chancellor, has recommended for his system’s newly mandated sex-education classes. There is a parental “opt out,” but it is very limited, covering classes on contraception and birth control.
Observers can quarrel about the extent to which what is being mandated is an effect, or a contributing cause, of the sexualization of children in our society at younger ages. But no one can plausibly claim that teaching middle-schoolers about mutual masturbation is “neutral” between competing views of morality; the idea of “value free” sex education was exploded as a myth long ago. The effect of such lessons is as much to promote a certain sexual ideology among the young as it is to protect their health.
But beyond rival moral visions, the new policy raises a deeper issue: Should the government force parents — at least those not rich enough to afford private schooling — to send their children to classes that may contradict their moral and religious values on matters of intimacy and personal conduct?
Liberals and conservatives alike should say no. Such policies violate parents’ rights, whether they are Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist or of no religion at all. To see why, we need to think carefully about the parent-child relationship that gives rise to the duties that parental rights serve and protect.
Parents are responsible for bringing new people into the world, bound to them by blood and, ordinarily, deep feeling. These people are incapable of developing their uniquely human capacities on their own, giving parents an obligation to their children and to society to help them reach maturity — one that requires attending not only to children’s physical and emotional needs, but their intellectual and moral growth as well.
Parenting, especially in moral and religious matters, is very important and highly personal: while parents enlist others’ help in this task, the task is theirs. They are ultimately responsible for their children’s intellectual and moral maturity, so within broad limits they must be free to educate their children, especially on the deepest matters, as they judge best. This is why parental rights are so important: they provide a zone of sovereignty, a moral space to fulfill their obligations according to their consciences.
The right to parent is rather like the right to exercise one’s religion. Like parental duties, religious duties are serious and highly personal. This is why, absent the most serious reasons, it would be a grave violation of individual rights if the state prevented people from honoring what they regarded as their religious obligations. To subject children to indoctrination in deeply personal matters against their parents’ consciences is no less a violation than forcing Muslim parents to send their children to a Catholic Mass.
True, the state needs to protect children from abuse and neglect. It is also true that the state has a legitimate interest in reducing teenage pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. But it is not abuse or neglect to protect the innocence of preteenage children or to teach one’s children more conservative, as opposed to more liberal, moral values. Nor is it wrong or unreasonable to limit the state’s control over what one’s children learn and think about sensitive issues of morality. On the contrary, that is just what is required if parents are to fulfill their duties and exercise their legitimate rights.
Unless a broader parental opt out is added, New York City’s new policies will continue to usurp parents’ just (and constitutionally recognized) authority. Turning a classroom into a mandatory catechism lesson for a contested ideology is a serious violation of parental rights, and citizens of every ideological hue should stand up and oppose it.
Robert P. George is a professor of politics at Princeton and the founder of the American Principles Project. Melissa Moschella is a doctoral candidate in political theory at Princeton.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/opini ... emc=tha212
Does Sex Ed Undermine Parental Rights?
By ROBERT P. GEORGE and MELISSA MOSCHELLA
Princeton, N.J.
IMAGINE you have a 10- or 11-year-old child, just entering a public middle school. How would you feel if, as part of a class ostensibly about the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, he and his classmates were given “risk cards” that graphically named a variety of solitary and mutual sex acts? Or if, in another lesson, he was encouraged to disregard what you told him about sex, and to rely instead on teachers and health clinic staff members?
That prospect would horrify most parents. But such lessons are part of a middle-school curriculum that Dennis M. Walcott, the New York City schools chancellor, has recommended for his system’s newly mandated sex-education classes. There is a parental “opt out,” but it is very limited, covering classes on contraception and birth control.
Observers can quarrel about the extent to which what is being mandated is an effect, or a contributing cause, of the sexualization of children in our society at younger ages. But no one can plausibly claim that teaching middle-schoolers about mutual masturbation is “neutral” between competing views of morality; the idea of “value free” sex education was exploded as a myth long ago. The effect of such lessons is as much to promote a certain sexual ideology among the young as it is to protect their health.
But beyond rival moral visions, the new policy raises a deeper issue: Should the government force parents — at least those not rich enough to afford private schooling — to send their children to classes that may contradict their moral and religious values on matters of intimacy and personal conduct?
Liberals and conservatives alike should say no. Such policies violate parents’ rights, whether they are Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist or of no religion at all. To see why, we need to think carefully about the parent-child relationship that gives rise to the duties that parental rights serve and protect.
Parents are responsible for bringing new people into the world, bound to them by blood and, ordinarily, deep feeling. These people are incapable of developing their uniquely human capacities on their own, giving parents an obligation to their children and to society to help them reach maturity — one that requires attending not only to children’s physical and emotional needs, but their intellectual and moral growth as well.
Parenting, especially in moral and religious matters, is very important and highly personal: while parents enlist others’ help in this task, the task is theirs. They are ultimately responsible for their children’s intellectual and moral maturity, so within broad limits they must be free to educate their children, especially on the deepest matters, as they judge best. This is why parental rights are so important: they provide a zone of sovereignty, a moral space to fulfill their obligations according to their consciences.
The right to parent is rather like the right to exercise one’s religion. Like parental duties, religious duties are serious and highly personal. This is why, absent the most serious reasons, it would be a grave violation of individual rights if the state prevented people from honoring what they regarded as their religious obligations. To subject children to indoctrination in deeply personal matters against their parents’ consciences is no less a violation than forcing Muslim parents to send their children to a Catholic Mass.
True, the state needs to protect children from abuse and neglect. It is also true that the state has a legitimate interest in reducing teenage pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. But it is not abuse or neglect to protect the innocence of preteenage children or to teach one’s children more conservative, as opposed to more liberal, moral values. Nor is it wrong or unreasonable to limit the state’s control over what one’s children learn and think about sensitive issues of morality. On the contrary, that is just what is required if parents are to fulfill their duties and exercise their legitimate rights.
Unless a broader parental opt out is added, New York City’s new policies will continue to usurp parents’ just (and constitutionally recognized) authority. Turning a classroom into a mandatory catechism lesson for a contested ideology is a serious violation of parental rights, and citizens of every ideological hue should stand up and oppose it.
Robert P. George is a professor of politics at Princeton and the founder of the American Principles Project. Melissa Moschella is a doctoral candidate in political theory at Princeton.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/opini ... emc=tha212
June 26, 2012, 10:23 am 11 Comments
Sex in This City
By DAYO OLOPADE
NAIROBI — Kenya’s cosmopolitan capital barely sleeps. Not only are most workers up before the sun, for many young men and women, the predawn hour is when the real fun starts.
Then, Nairobi’s youth spill out of clubs and bars, and head for their chips funga — a slangy way of describing French fries to go. In Kiswahili, funga means “to be covered,” a reference to the way any late night greasy spoon will bundle your potatoes in tinfoil or a paper bag for takeaway. But among the young and hungry, chips funga has become a euphemism for taking a paramour home from the club.
The term works as a noun (“chips” or “chipo”), verb (“to chip”) adjective (“chipsed”) or past participle (“chipoed”). In many ways it’s the antidote to funga ndao — meaning to marry, or “tie the knot.” Chips Funga is now also the name of a Web site for online dating in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
Kenyan youth, who love wordplay, have come up with variations. A “corporate funga”: a tryst during the week; a “regular funga”: a more consistent companion; a “sausage funga”: a man who is taken home by a woman.
To me, sausage funga reveals a new culture of female empowerment. Too bad the policies and programs related to sexual health in Africa are not improving fast enough to keep pace with sexual mores.
Upwardly mobile, working and educated women in Kenya are taking ownership over casual sex. In a post titled “You’re Really Terrible in Bed. Honestly!” a female Kenyan blogger explains:
“It’s an unwritten rule that a sausage funga should not by any chance sleep over, request for a toothbrush, insist on using one of your towels, stay long enough to even open up the fridge and make you breakfast that was not asked for, ask for your number or take you out for lunch etc. This is just a NO-go zone.”
This is a forward-leaning statement. It implies financial independence, a level playing field for female opinions and even a right to satisfaction.
Unfortunately, this sassy stance is unusual. In Kenya and in Africa generally, women are rarely so well off or so well regarded as to run the show. Most African women have very little control over how and when they have sex, and consequently, when they bear children — or if they contract HIV/AIDS.
Just 46 percent of women in Kenya use contraception, and the figure dips dramatically outside of urban centers. Those who want contraception often can’t get it due to high prices or shortages. Sporadic sexual activity — fungas — actually reduces the likelihood of proper use. And women who rely on hormonal birth control are more likely to be casual about condom use.
Given Kenya’s rates of sexually transmitted disease — about 1.5 million people there are living with HIV — the funga culture is a dangerous form of empowerment.
On July 11, the Gates Foundation and the British government are convening a massive summit on family planning. It’ll mark a useful turnabout. In part at their behest, for a while much of the funding for health in Kenya has been spent on preventing malaria and HIV rather than improving access to contraception. And it’s rare to see a “talk to your partner” practicum or even a male-focused outreach campaign.
Thus it was encouraging to hear, last week, Kenyan popular radio specifically debating contraceptive methods and the role men can play in safe sexual practices. A recent national study concluded that urban Kenyan men are willing to talk with women about protection — even if few of them bring up the topic themselves.
In addition to joking about takeaway food, young Kenyans could explore another kind of sausage funga: insisting that sex itself take place “covered up.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dayo Olopade is a journalist covering global politics and development policy. She is writing a book about innovation in Africa
http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/ ... y_20120626
Sex in This City
By DAYO OLOPADE
NAIROBI — Kenya’s cosmopolitan capital barely sleeps. Not only are most workers up before the sun, for many young men and women, the predawn hour is when the real fun starts.
Then, Nairobi’s youth spill out of clubs and bars, and head for their chips funga — a slangy way of describing French fries to go. In Kiswahili, funga means “to be covered,” a reference to the way any late night greasy spoon will bundle your potatoes in tinfoil or a paper bag for takeaway. But among the young and hungry, chips funga has become a euphemism for taking a paramour home from the club.
The term works as a noun (“chips” or “chipo”), verb (“to chip”) adjective (“chipsed”) or past participle (“chipoed”). In many ways it’s the antidote to funga ndao — meaning to marry, or “tie the knot.” Chips Funga is now also the name of a Web site for online dating in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
Kenyan youth, who love wordplay, have come up with variations. A “corporate funga”: a tryst during the week; a “regular funga”: a more consistent companion; a “sausage funga”: a man who is taken home by a woman.
To me, sausage funga reveals a new culture of female empowerment. Too bad the policies and programs related to sexual health in Africa are not improving fast enough to keep pace with sexual mores.
Upwardly mobile, working and educated women in Kenya are taking ownership over casual sex. In a post titled “You’re Really Terrible in Bed. Honestly!” a female Kenyan blogger explains:
“It’s an unwritten rule that a sausage funga should not by any chance sleep over, request for a toothbrush, insist on using one of your towels, stay long enough to even open up the fridge and make you breakfast that was not asked for, ask for your number or take you out for lunch etc. This is just a NO-go zone.”
This is a forward-leaning statement. It implies financial independence, a level playing field for female opinions and even a right to satisfaction.
Unfortunately, this sassy stance is unusual. In Kenya and in Africa generally, women are rarely so well off or so well regarded as to run the show. Most African women have very little control over how and when they have sex, and consequently, when they bear children — or if they contract HIV/AIDS.
Just 46 percent of women in Kenya use contraception, and the figure dips dramatically outside of urban centers. Those who want contraception often can’t get it due to high prices or shortages. Sporadic sexual activity — fungas — actually reduces the likelihood of proper use. And women who rely on hormonal birth control are more likely to be casual about condom use.
Given Kenya’s rates of sexually transmitted disease — about 1.5 million people there are living with HIV — the funga culture is a dangerous form of empowerment.
On July 11, the Gates Foundation and the British government are convening a massive summit on family planning. It’ll mark a useful turnabout. In part at their behest, for a while much of the funding for health in Kenya has been spent on preventing malaria and HIV rather than improving access to contraception. And it’s rare to see a “talk to your partner” practicum or even a male-focused outreach campaign.
Thus it was encouraging to hear, last week, Kenyan popular radio specifically debating contraceptive methods and the role men can play in safe sexual practices. A recent national study concluded that urban Kenyan men are willing to talk with women about protection — even if few of them bring up the topic themselves.
In addition to joking about takeaway food, young Kenyans could explore another kind of sausage funga: insisting that sex itself take place “covered up.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dayo Olopade is a journalist covering global politics and development policy. She is writing a book about innovation in Africa
http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/ ... y_20120626
October 18, 2012
An HPV Vaccine Myth Debunked
One of the most preposterous arguments raised by religious and social conservatives against administering a vaccine to girls to protect them from human papillomavirus, or HPV, has been that it might encourage them to become promiscuous. That notion has now been thoroughly repudiated by a study published on Monday in Pediatrics, a journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Although most women infected with HPV, the most common sexually transmitted virus, experience no symptoms, persistent infections with some strains of the virus can cause cervical and other types of cancer, as well as genital warts. In 2006, the government’s top committee of experts on immunization practices recommended that all girls ages 11 or 12, and even some as young as 9, receive the vaccine so that they could develop immunity before they became sexually active. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Cancer Society and the American Academy of Family Physicians have all endorsed the recommendations and attest to the vaccine’s safety.
In previous surveys, teenage girls have said they would not modify their sexual behavior after getting the HPV vaccine, but those were based on self-reporting which is not considered highly reliable. The new study, conducted by researchers from Kaiser Permanente and Emory University, analyzed medical data collected by the Kaiser Permanente managed care plan in metropolitan Atlanta. It looked at 1,400 girls who were 11 or 12 in 2006, roughly a third of whom had received the HPV vaccine, and followed them for up to three years.
Over all, there was no difference between girls who had received the vaccine and those who had not in such indicators of sexual activity as pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, testing for sexually transmitted diseases and counseling on how to use contraceptives. As one expert said, parents should think of the vaccine as they would a bicycle helmet; it is protection, not an invitation to risky behavior
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/19/opini ... 21019&_r=0
An HPV Vaccine Myth Debunked
One of the most preposterous arguments raised by religious and social conservatives against administering a vaccine to girls to protect them from human papillomavirus, or HPV, has been that it might encourage them to become promiscuous. That notion has now been thoroughly repudiated by a study published on Monday in Pediatrics, a journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Although most women infected with HPV, the most common sexually transmitted virus, experience no symptoms, persistent infections with some strains of the virus can cause cervical and other types of cancer, as well as genital warts. In 2006, the government’s top committee of experts on immunization practices recommended that all girls ages 11 or 12, and even some as young as 9, receive the vaccine so that they could develop immunity before they became sexually active. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Cancer Society and the American Academy of Family Physicians have all endorsed the recommendations and attest to the vaccine’s safety.
In previous surveys, teenage girls have said they would not modify their sexual behavior after getting the HPV vaccine, but those were based on self-reporting which is not considered highly reliable. The new study, conducted by researchers from Kaiser Permanente and Emory University, analyzed medical data collected by the Kaiser Permanente managed care plan in metropolitan Atlanta. It looked at 1,400 girls who were 11 or 12 in 2006, roughly a third of whom had received the HPV vaccine, and followed them for up to three years.
Over all, there was no difference between girls who had received the vaccine and those who had not in such indicators of sexual activity as pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, testing for sexually transmitted diseases and counseling on how to use contraceptives. As one expert said, parents should think of the vaccine as they would a bicycle helmet; it is protection, not an invitation to risky behavior
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/19/opini ... 21019&_r=0
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tylerthecreator
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Mon Nov 12, 2012 6:49 pm
I am 15 years old and I've been masturbating since I was 13 years old (practically 5 times a week). When I first started I didn't know it was haram but then I came across a Quranic verse speaking about chastity and sexual behavior which made realize that it was wrong and evil. I have experience many of the downsides of masturbating such as weak erection, premature ejaculation, loss of vision, loss and thinning of hair, lower back pain, acne, and most importantly earning Hazir Imam's anger and disapproval. I have been trying really hard to stop for over a year, but I can't. I see something exciting and I end up masturbating. The longest I have stopped is about a week, but then I end up getting erections over my classmates, female friends, and women on TV and the internet. How can I stop this evil habit and stop looking at women in the wrong way?!?!? 
The one and only one person can stop you from this bad habit is 'YOU AND YOUR OWN WILL POWER" you have to be practical and need to a be strict person make a decision today that you will quit this bad habit.
Many youngster have this kind bad habit but eventually this will goes away as your age pass by so don't feel that you are the only one in this habit but try to stop it as I wrote above. Good luck.
A repentantly prayer will be helpful.
Many youngster have this kind bad habit but eventually this will goes away as your age pass by so don't feel that you are the only one in this habit but try to stop it as I wrote above. Good luck.
A repentantly prayer will be helpful.