One ex-UK schools chief: Middle class kids smarter than poorer peers because of better genes

Middle-class children have better genes, says former schools chief… and we just have to accept it

5.12.09 / Laura Clark / Daily Mail

Middle-class children are more likely to be clever than those from poorer families because they have ‘better genes’, former Ofsted chief Chris Woodhead said yesterday.

The comments caused an immediate storm, with critics calling them insulting and ‘crazy’.

However, Mr Woodhead won support in some quarters – including the backing of an evolutionary psychologist, who said research had shown there was a link between class and average IQ.

Ex-chief inspector of schools Chris Woodhead believes middle-class children are, in general, ‘born with better genes’

Mr Woodhead called for a return to selection by ability at 11.

He suggested that grammar school pupils were more likely to be middle-class because ‘the genes are likely to be better if your parents are teachers, academics, lawyers, whatever, and the nurture is likely to be better’.

In an interview with the Guardian, he argued that Labour had betrayed a generation by refusing to accept that some children were not suited to formal secondary education.

The Government had tried to make education ‘accessible’ rather than ‘ rigorous’, he said.

Ministers should accept that some youngsters are simply born ‘not very bright’ and allow them to pursue practical training instead of forcing them into the classroom.

‘I’ve taught, and I can still remember trying to interest children who had no interest whatsoever in English,’ he said. ‘They didn’t want to be in the classroom.

‘If I’m honest I didn’t want them to be there either – because they were disruptive to children who did want to learn. What was the point?’

But political scientist Alan Ryan, who is the warden of New College, Oxford, criticised Mr Woodhead’s views on genes as ‘garbage’.

‘All the evidence is that initial genetic endowment is pretty much random across social classes, and everything depends on a nurturing environment,’ he said.

‘The idea that you look for some genetic underpinning to go with it seems crazy.’

The Department for Children, Schools and Families also rejected Mr Woodhead’s arguments. ‘We do not accept the inevitability of pupils’ socio-economic backgrounds shaping their attainment and their futures,’ a spokesman said.

However, there was support from Dr Bruce Charlton, an expert in evolutionary psychiatry from Newcastle University.

‘Chris Woodhead is basically correct, and there’s nothing new about it,’ he said.

Dr Charlton insisted that intelligence was ‘mostly inherited’, adding that family background and education ‘probably makes a small difference but nothing like as much as people think’.

Baby died after parents lost ruling which allowed hospital to withdraw medical treatment

Baby dies after parents lose legal fight

3.21.09 / Michael Holden / Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) – A nine-month old baby with an exceptionally rare medical condition died in a hospital on Saturday after his parents lost a legal battle to force doctors to keep treating him.

Two Court of Appeal judges had refused the parents permission to challenge a ruling which gave the hospital treating the boy, named as OT, the right to take him off the ventilator that was keeping him alive.

The boy died on Saturday morning, surrounded by his parents and family, after treatment was withdrawn, the Press Association reported.

“During his short time with us OT became the focus of our lives,” the baby’s parents, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, said in a statement.

“He died peacefully. We will miss him greatly and wish to say that we are proud to have known our beautiful son for his brief life.”

OT had a rare metabolic disorder and suffered brain damage and major respiratory failure. His parents said only one other child with their son’s condition had been identified by modern medicine.

After the courts’ ruling his parents said they were “deeply distressed” by the decision and were convinced that despite his problems their son’s life was worth preserving.

“That was the real argument between us and the doctors — they think his life is intolerable and that his disability is such that his life has little purpose,” they said.

“But we, along with some of the nurses, believed that he experiences pleasure and that he has long periods where he was relaxed and pain free.”

The parents said despite their differences with doctors they were enormously grateful to NHS staff for their work in trying to keep their son alive.

“Our belief in his humanity and inherent worth justified us taking every step to support him,” they said.

The NHS trust involved, which also cannot be identified, had argued that the child had no prospect of recovery and that he suffers intolerable pain as a result of his treatment and condition.

Australians refused insurance because of their genetic makeup

Australians refused insurance because of poor genes

3.10.09 / Deborah Smith / Sydney Morning Herald

AUSTRALIANS have been refused insurance protection because of their genetic make-up, researchers have shown in the first study in the world to provide proof of genetic discrimination.

Most cases were found to relate to life insurance. In one instance, a man with a faulty gene linked to a greater risk of breast and prostate cancer was denied income protection and trauma insurance that would have let him claim if he developed other forms of cancer.

The findings have led to renewed calls by experts for policies to ensure the appropriate use of genetic test results by the insurance industry.

The director of the Centre for Genetics Education at Royal North Shore Hospital, Kristine Barlow-Stewart, said the research also showed consumers needed to be better informed about their rights.

“Eighty-five per cent of the people in the study didn’t know where to go to seek assistance if they had been discriminated against,” she said.

Associate Professor Barlow-Stewart and her colleagues surveyed more than 1000 people who had attended clinical genetic services about their experiences of discrimination.

In a long, complex process that was only possible because of the assistance of organisations and companies that had carried out the discrimination, the researchers were able to verify 11 cases of genetic discrimination, and their results are published in the journal Genetics in Medicine.

“Previous to this paper, only anecdotal reports of genetic discrimination have been available, with some commentators questioning whether or not the phenomenon actually existed,” Professor Barlow-Stewart said.

In one case, two women with the same genetic fault linked to breast cancer applied for income protection to the same insurer three years apart.

One was denied any type of cover, while the other was offered insurance with an exclusion of breast cancer.

The different decisions were justified by the Insurance and Financial Services Association on the grounds of updated scientific information. “But I don’t believe consumers should be penalised while the insurance companies are learning,” said Professor Barlow-Stewart.

An expert assessment panel should be established to advise on which tests are sufficiently well understood to be used for insurance purposes, she said.

This was one of the recommendations of a 2003 report by the Australian Law Reform Commission. “And it still hasn’t happened.”

Under industry guidelines, insurers cannot compel people to have a genetic test, but those who have been tested must reveal their results.

It is only legal for companies to use this information if they can justify their decisions.

In the case of the man with the breast cancer gene, genetic experts judged his exclusion from claims relating to all forms of cancer was too broad.

GENETIC DISCRIMINATION

Life insurance 42%

Family context 22%

Health services 20%

Social life 11%

Employment 5%

Italy starts mass Gypsy vaccination program, with clowns on hand to pacify

Gypsy vaccination scheme starts

3.2.09 / Guy Dinmore / Financial Times

Italy’s Red Cross has launched its biggest vaccination programme since the second world war, with the goal of immunising several thousand gypsy children living in camps around Rome.

The operation began at Casilino 900, a camp on the eastern outskirts of the capital that is believed to be one of the largest gypsy settlements in Europe. Some two dozen doctors were among 200 Red Cross volunteers that included clowns to provide entertainment in one of the big tents erected for the exercise.

The Red Cross action comes at a critical moment for Rome, with its human rights record under the international spotlight. Gianni Alemanno, the capital’s right-wing mayor, is under scrutiny for his plans to remove almost all the 50 or so legal and illegal gypsy camps around Rome and replace them with a small number of “maxi-camps” . Non-Italian gypsies without proper documentation, mostly from Romania and the Balkans, will be obliged to leave and could face expulsion from Italy.

A Council of Europe report to be released soon is expected to be highly critical of the squalid conditions in the camps, and particularly the treatment of children born in Italy but denied citizenship.

Casilino 900, its shacks and caravans the home for some decades for gypsies from the former Yugoslavia, is under threat of closure. It was one of many camps raided by police and regular army units recently in search of suspected criminals and those without proper documentation. Casilino 900 residents said about 40 men were detained last week.

This sense of fear and uncertainty, explained one woman, was a reason some families had not brought forward their children for vaccination. By mid-afternoon on Saturday about 160 children – accompanied by their mothers – had been vaccinated, with about 100 still not seen by the doctors.

An earlier Red Cross campaign commissioned by mayors to carry out a voluntary census of gypsy camps in Italy’s three biggest cities – Rome, Milan and Naples – ran into similar problems, with residents afraid that the headcount would be a prelude to mass expulsions. Such fears grew in recent weeks when police and army, using their own lists, entered camps and took away suspects.

Mr Alemanno’s plans, while still lacking in detail – including proposed sites for the new camps – have been generally welcomed by Romans who see the gypsy settlements as a health and security hazard.

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Related: EU OKs mass fingerprinting of Gypsies

Swath of foriegn organizations providing millions of dollars of funding for Philippines population control

Solon slams ‘foreign funding’ for birth control bill

9.28.08 / Christian Esguerra / Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA — Deputy Speaker Raul del Mar has challenged Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, chief promoter of House Bill No. 5043 or the reproductive health bill, to explain the role of a foreign-funded “non-governmental organization” in drafting the measure aimed at controlling the country’s population growth.

Saying the bill came “out of nowhere,” Del Mar wanted to know if the Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD) influenced lawmakers in preparing the substitute bill now being considered for approval on second reading.

“What is this PLCPD?” he asked in an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Sunday. “Why is it actively participating in the crafting of the bill? What is the nature of the organization?”

The matter was also the main subject of Del Mar’s interpellation of Lagman last Wednesday, during which he raised possible violations committed by the group in lobbying for the measure.

He said the PLCPD appeared so “privileged” that it even had an office at Room 611 at the Batasan complex.

Del Mar’s queries reflected the persistent argument by “pro-life” groups that Lagman’s population bill was a template measure similar to those also being pushed in other poor countries by foreign-funded agencies promoting contraceptives.

During interpellation, Lagman defended the PLCPD, where he serves as board secretary, saying its role has been limited to “assisting in the formulation of government policies.”

Ramon San Pascual, PLCPD executive director, admitted on Sunday that HB 5043’s “backbone” was the old population control bill his group earlier drafted with other NGOs in 2001.

“In terms of principles and philosophy, it’s still the same,” he said. “But in terms of content, only 30 percent of the original bill is reflected in the substitute measure.”

San Pascual admitted that the PLCPD has been getting millions in financial support from foreign agencies promoting contraceptives.

He said the group usually got P7 million to P8 million yearly each from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the Europe-based Interchurch Conference Organization. He said another P3 million annually was sourced from the United Nations Population Fund.

Since it was getting money from foreign donors, the PLCPD would need to register with the Department of Justice before it could lobby for the population control measure, according to Del Mar.

“Its participation renders the bill defective,” he added.

Meanwhile, former social welfare secretary Dinky Soliman urged Church leaders on Sunday to better understand the reproductive health bill, stressing that it did not advocate abortion, nor did it eliminate family planning.

“What it advocates is no to abortion. The bill will give correct information on natural and artificial methods, and teach women and couples how to plan their families,” she said at the Tinapayan forum in Manila.

Citing UN statistics, Soliman said three babies were being born every minute in the Philippines while 11 mothers were dying every day from reproductive health problems. Abortions reached 500,000 to 600,000 in 2007, she added.

With a report from Allison Lopez

Colorado “assisted-living” facility under fire for witholding food, water, and medication from residents

State skewers home’s elder care

The Boulder nonprofit’s boss denies the claims and says ex-staffers misunderstood her.

3.1.09 / Jennifer Brown / Denver Post

A Boulder home for the elderly long known for helping residents die with grace has reached a compliance agreement with the state to settle accusations of withholding Western medicine, food and water, and failing to report a suspected suicide.

The Anam Chara assisted-living center — where the founder says they have celebrated 100 “death passages” — was skewered in an 86-page deficiency report from the state health department.

Among the worst violations of state regulations alleged in the report is that staff failed to notify authorities about a suspected suicide after a depressed patient was found dead, her oxygen tube pulled from her nose and in her hands. The woman had threatened to kill herself and previously removed her tube, according to staff interviews.

The report also alleges that home founder Peggy Quinn, who is not a medical professional, ordered staff to discontinue a patient’s medication, food and water because the director believed the patient was nearing death.

Other allegations suggest Quinn canceled physicians’ appointments, set up naturopathic visits without the knowledge of residents’ families and once ordered staff to put garlic in a patient’s ear rather than medicine for an earache.

Though Quinn agreed to correct the deficiencies cited in the report, she called the allegations “really inaccurate” in an interview. She blamed disgruntled employees who have left the home.

” ‘Disgruntled’ is a mild word,” she said.

“Misunderstandings”

Anam Chara — which means “soul friend” in Gaelic — is “not anti-Western medicine,” Quinn said. “There were misunderstandings that happened during that time.”

Quinn said there was no suicide.

“I did not ever know that the word ’suicide’ had been used until after the state had received a complaint anonymously,” she said.

“The coroner and her son and everybody that knows about it thinks it’s ridiculous. She died in the night in her sleep. No one was there when it happened. Time will tell how beautiful it was.”

But the state Department of Public Health and Environment report says the woman pulled out her oxygen tube on the way to the home and, a couple of weeks before her death in May, was found unconscious, gray and bleeding from the nose after yanking out the tube.

Staff members told a state investigator the woman said she was moved to the home against her will and wanted to die.

The report also alleges Quinn instructed a patient’s physician to discontinue all medications and directed staff to withhold food and water because she was entering the “death process.” In interviews with the health department, 10 staff members said Quinn directed them to stop giving the patient food and water and to swab the woman’s mouth with liquid.

Quinn said her staff misinterpreted her. When a staff member told her the woman was declining, Quinn says she asked them to “keep swabbing her mouth through the weekend” and that she would call her doctor Monday.

“The staff member interpreted that as I was saying stop the meds,” Quinn said.

The report also says Quinn told staff to put garlic in another resident’s ear instead of having the patient examined by a doctor. “Absolutely not,” Quinn said. “I’m aware that garlic is a powerful antibiotic, and I’ve used it on my child, but no, absolutely not. But it wouldn’t be beyond me to talk to a family about it if they are attracted to integrated medicine.”

Anam Chara, a nonprofit center with 10 beds, is not required to have medical professionals on staff because it is an assisted-living center and not a nursing home. The center — where the dead are sometimes kept on dry ice for three days for an in-home wake — boasts a vegetable garden and home-cooked meals.

The state’s oversight

The health department’s Health Facilities and Emergency Medical Services Division has nine investigators who randomly inspect Colorado’s 540 assisted-living centers each year.

The division also investigates hundreds of complaints lodged against the centers. The reports are public and available online, though there is a lag time in posting them.

“If they allege something that would cause immediate harm to the resident, . . . we get out there right away,” said Howard Roitman, division director.

Roitman said the state does not rank assisted-living centers and could not say how the severity of Anam Chara’s report compares to others. But he said several homes require corrective action each year.

The investigation into complaints against Anam Chara was completed in October and the home finished much of its “plan of correction” in January.

Quinn said she is not worried about the home staying full and that the “right people will come to Anam Chara.” Her mission to help people age and die with beauty and dignity will continue, she said.

“Whether their money runs out or their health runs out, they can stay in this community that becomes their extended family,” she said. “It’s not just about taking care of the body, of the physical health. It’s the emotional and spiritual health as well.”

Jennifer Brown: 303-954-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com

Oregon play depicts government sponsored seven decade forced sterilization program

Decades of Forced Sterilizations Cast Ripples

From Portland Observer

A play about the forced sterilization of men and women during the Eugenics era, especially for minorities and the disadvantaged, takes the stage for Black History Month at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center in north Portland.

Play tells about violations of most personal rights

A secret with historical weight that continues to cast silent, powerful ripples in our community is told in the play “Perfection,” currently on stage for Black History Month at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center in north Portland.

Oregon was part of a nationwide movement of forced sterilization of men and women beginning in the early 1900s through as late as 1971. If you were on any government assistance, welfare, foster care, if you were a minority with potential of becoming a ward of the state your most personal rights could be violated.

“Perfection” explores the human fall out of social engineering through the eyes of Anna May Dobbs, both victim and collaborator of forced sterilizations during Oregon’s little known Eugenics era.

In 2000, former Gov. John Kitzhaber issued a public apology to the thousands of forced sterilization victims in Oregon. It was the first time many Oregonians had ever heard of the state’s eight decades of participation in the Eugenics.

Thought state sterilization laws have been removed from the books, institutionalized oppression against those who are not wealthy, healthy and white dove underground and still influences social and political policies today. “Perfection’ seeks to put a face and a heart to the continuing legacy of the Eugenics movement.

The play is written by Helen Hill, a founding member of Bay City Arts Center, a thriving arts center dedicated to supporting creativity in Tillamook County. She has focused on social justice issues for stage and radio for over 10 years.

Chosen by New York’s Black Experimental Theatre to be part of the 2006 Core Project, “Perfection” went on to win the 2006 Radiant Theatre’s Emergence Festival of New Women Playwrights.

The edge-of-your-seat drama is directed by Drammy winner Brenda Phillips and stars Andrea White, Habiba Addo, Josh Belville, Veronica Everett, Garfield Wedderburn, Alex Fuchs, Brian Kettler.

This month’s performances at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, 5340 N. Killingsworth are each Thursday through Saturday nights at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m.

Admission is $16-$20. For tickets call 503-205-0715 or visit ifccarts.org.