HUB's LIST of medical fun facts

“Have you seen the video? You must see the video?” -Carly Fiorina on CNN

I must admit that the Republican Presidential debates have been occasionally entertaining as the non-Trumps gradually reveal a little of their own personalities in trying to counter his H-U-G-E one. But sometimes the posturing for a sound bite or a differentiating headline has so grossly distorted the facts that alarm bells go off in my head. Wait, you say, isn’t that normal for a political campaign? Of course it is, but as a physician I can’t help but cringe watching rabid political attacks based on distorted, misleading, and even deliberately misstated “medical information”.

“Planned Parenthood is profiting from selling baby parts obtained from abortions”.

1. The 1988 Fetal Tissue Transplantation Panel, appointed by President Reagan, after reviewing decades of research stated that there was no evidence that the possible use of fetal tissue for medical research had ever helped persuade a woman to have an abortion.
2. Only a few Planned Parenthood affiliates in three Western states have arrangements to provide fetal tissue from abortions to researchers.
3. Permission for donation of fetal tissue cannot be sought from a woman until after she has decided to end the pregnancy.
4. By law, the fetal tissue can not be sold for profit. A sum of $30 to $100 may be reimbursed to the health care providers/facility (not to Planned Parenthood, not to the patient) to cover costs of tissue recovery.
5. By law, there is no federal reimbursement for the abortion procedure itself.
6. Use of the unique characteristics of fetal tissue has allowed successful research for decades in the development of life-saving , disease-preventing vaccines. “Virtually every person in the country has benefitted from research using fetal tissue.” (1)

“Use of fetal tissue is unethical.”

1. Just today the pediatric neurosurgeon running for President answered a question in New Hampshire about Planned Parenthood with, “Tearing babies apart? Is that what you mean? The medical ethics of selling body parts and manipulating babies in order to preserve certain body parts? It’s illegal.” Besides mixing “legal’ in with “ethical’, two different concepts, Dr. Carson has also apparently forgotten that he participated in a 1992 medical research study using tissue from aborted fetuses. (2)
2. “The research use of fetal remains is ethical.” said Reagan’s 1988 panel.
3. The Committee on Pro-Life Activities of the National Conference of Bishops has written “it may not be wrong in principle for someone unconnected with an abortion to make use of fetal organ from an unborn child who died as a result of an abortion.” (3)

“Planned Parenthood is in the abortion business.”

1. Three per cent (3%) of the 10.6 million services delivered annually by Planned Parenthood were related to abortion procedures in 2014. That does represent over 320,000 abortions, so I can understand why believers in “zero abortions” might be upset, but Planned Parenthood services are much broader:
   42% for sexually transmitted disease tests (including HIV tests),
   34% for contraception services,
   11% for pregnancy tests,
   and 9% for cancer screening and prevention.
2. “The inconsistent or incorrect use of contraception accounts for nearly half of unintended pregnancies and half of those end in abortion.” (4)
3.  78% of the people served lived at or below the 150% federal poverty level.
4. “We strongly support Planned Parenthood not only for its efforts to channel fetal tissue into important medical research but also for its other work as one of the country’s largest providers of healthcare for women, especially poor women.” (5)

“Have you seen the video? You must see the video?” -Carly Fiorina on CNN

1. “The Video” of Planned Parenthood physicians describing how they obtained fetal tissue is a heavily and deceptively edited compilation of 30 months of taping obtained by actors who misrepresented themselves and asked leading questions.
2. “The Other Video” and pictures of a bucket of dead baby parts being sorted out by a technician has nothing to do with Planned Parenthood and is from “stock footage” from an anti-abortion organization.

I have no association with Planned Parenthood, and I am not an advocate of abortion as “a means of contraception”.
I am dismayed when information about a major health care provider and a valuable medical research resource is so distorted in such a believable fashion for political means.

In New Hampshire Dr. Carson decried political correctness and likened it to “group-think in Nazi Germany”.  In our present state of political polarization, demand for political correctness, a discouraged middle-class, growing fear of foreigners and scapegoating of immigrants, and even a popular, narcissistic candidate with a distinctive hair style, could “It” happen here?

References;
1.  NEJM 373:10, September 3, 2015 , p.890
2.  Boston Globe, Oct. 1, 2015, B4
3.  Biomedical Politics 1991
4.  Guttmacher Institute 2014
5.  Editors of the NEJM, Sept. 3, 2015

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2015 at 8:43 PM and is filed under current events, evidence-based medicine, government, Pediatrics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.