AAPLOG Conference

As I started to write this post, I had trouble labeling it. "Pro-life," obviously applies, as does "ob/gyn" and "research," but so does "ethics," "spirituality in medicine," "vocation," "advice," "surrender...." I had to stop myself from clicking almost all of them.

Today was the 2012 annual education meeting of the American Association for Pro-Life OB/GYNs. It was in Washington, D.C. (my first time in the capital); it snowed this morning, and the conference was great. I was impressed with the high and rigid standards for publications, recommendations, and protocols. I was fired up to start healing our culture, now!

The highlights:

• 8:45 Maureen Condic, PhD. “Defining the Beginning of Human Life”
• Dr. Condic was at the Vita Institute. She condensed several of her lectures into one (because the audience had a more uniform education) on when human life begins.
• Dr. Condic's white paper probably contains her arguments, although I freely confess I did not read it!



Credit: euthman

• 9:45 Theresa Deisher, Ph.D. “Current Ethical Issues in Drug Development”
• I had no idea that some cosmetics, several vaccines, and some drugs are made in cell lines derived from aborted fetuses (and they contain contaminants from those lines). I'm not advocating chucking all vaccines, but I agree with Dr. Deisher that we should make an effort to find ethical, economical, and technological superior alternatives. Check out some of these companies:
• AVM Biotechnology (website still under construction)
• CEVEC
• Transposagen
• Cellular Engineering Technologies
• 10:30 George Delgado, M.D. “Reversing Mifepristone: Case Reports”
• Repeated doses of 200mg IM progesterone in oil = stop a chemical abortion. He went through six cases (publication pending). Amazing.
• You know, it's impossible to reverse a surgical abortion, so I feel that the increasing use of RU-486 is almost a boon.
• 11:00 Paul Gray, M.D. “Medical and Surgical Naprotechnology”
• Naprotechnology is incredible. Mainstream gynecology treats menstrual disorders and infertility very quickly with birth control or IVF, without finding the cause; naprotechnology finds the cause of a woman's problems and addresses them to correct the symptoms or infertility (when possible). It corrects a cycle instead of suppressing it. Besides being a theoretically better approach, it also doesn't involve carcinogenic pills predisposing the patient to thromboembolism!
• If you want to learn more about naprotechnology, you can read up at naprotechnology.com or fertilitycare.org. Please note, I haven't explored these sites, and they weren't mentioned by Dr. Gray.
• 11:45 Priscilla Coleman, Ph.D. “The Psychology of Abortion: Addressing the Critical Questions to Maximize Patient Care in 2012”
• WECARE 
• Dr. Coleman carried out the largest meta-analysis to date on abortion after-effects. She's met with a lot of resistance, but she concluded that (yes; surprise) there is psychological morbidity following abortion, especially in high-risk groups (unsupportive relationship, hx of previous mental illness, ambivalence about the decision...).  
• 1:15 Frederick Dyer, Ph.D. “Horatio Robinson Storer, M.D. and the Physicians’ Crusade Against Abortion, with implications for the current practicing doctor’s responsibilities toward the abortion issue.”
• Interesting historical sketch of a gynecologist in the mid-1800s who advocated against clandestine abortion because of the harm it does. I didn't know there was abortion in the 1800s! 
• Dr. Storer was supported by the AMA and his work led to the laws against abortion that disappeared in 1973.
• 2:00 Michael New, Ph.D. ‘Analyzing How State Level Anti-Abortion Laws Impact Fertility Outcomes.”
• Dr. New was at the Vita Institute as well! Never hurts to hear it again.
• 2:45 George Mulcaire-Jones, M.D. “Safe Passages Program: Confronting Maternal Mortality in Rural Nigeria, Update.”

• Magnificat Maternal Health Project 
• Awesome teaching tool; reminds me of the Worth the Wait program, because it treats the disease, not the symptoms (it heals the culture and the family and doesn't just hand out contraceptives to African couples).
• My thoughts: it works in Africa? Good. Bring it here. I desire to touch the poor here.
• 3:30 Angela Lanfranchi, M.D.: “The Abortion Breast Cancer Link: The biologic basis and a review of the literature 1957-2011
• Breast Cancer Prevention Institute 
• There is a link all medical professionals already agree on: an abortion stops a full-term pregnancy, which has a protective effect.
• The link people debate about is the "independent" link: an abortion not only removes positive effect, but has negative effect on breast cancer risk. Just look at the physiology! Data supports this, too. (For instance, every time a study finds a statistically significant correlation, it's positive.)
• 4:15 Byron Calhoun. M.D. “Premature Labor: The At-Risk Patient”

• This presentation mostly went over my head. It was the only one that was purely clinical and all about management recommendations for patients, so there were lots of terms and acronyms that I didn't catch.... I learned what a cerclage is, but only because I looked it up on my phone in the middle of the session!
• The point of this talk was: 127 studies show that women with a previous abortion (surgical, medical, or spontaneous) show increased risk for preterm delivery. It's above a 300% increase for women with combined medical/surgical abortions (e.g. incomplete medical abortion requiring D&C) according to a study from China (Laoi).

I also enjoyed briefly meeting with someone from Students for Life, and also talking with some old OB/GYNs about being countercultural, not being afraid of lawsuits, and doing God's will. It's late and I've got to get up at 4:30am tomorrow to fly back home, so good night!

More die from abortion than childbirth?

Knowledge is valuable, even tiny details about obscure proteins, for two reasons:

1. Such knowledge may be practically useful in a current or future application.
2. Knowledge is inherently wonderful to have (just ask yourself if you'd like to be deprived of your eyesight, memories, or intellect, which are a few examples of the faculties we have for knowing the world).

But when I did clinical research a few years ago as a premed, I noticed the huge information glut in the scientific community.

This glut is mostly harmless but uselessly repetitive research published for the sake of publication. But the glut also includes false conclusions published and tolerated because of bias (conscious or unconscious, good or evil) and lack of skill (in the relevant field or in statistics).

One example of a false conclusion is The comparative safety of legal induced abortion and childbirth in the United States, by Elizabeth Raymond and David Grimes, promoted by Reuters the day after the March for Life. Its flaws are pointed out by Priscilla Coleman in this brief critique. Coleman's main thrust is that Raymond and Grimes' data is incomplete, because:

1. not all states count abortion-induced deaths,
2. not all abortion clinics report deaths,
3. not all abortion-induced deaths occur after first trimester abortions, and
4. not all autopsies correctly report abortion as a cause of death (e.g. if a women went to the ER after leaving an abortion clinic). 

Coleman also criticizes Raymond and Grimes of failing to discuss the protective effects of childbirth, though I think this might be legitimately outside the scope of their investigation.

I am ready to believe well of people, since I cannot read their intentions. However, I do not hold out that hope for research, which I can read and dismiss as poor.

---

Update 1/29/12: AAPLOG recommends afterabortion.org's research on this.

ACOG Patient Information

Last post, I linked some of ACOG's literature for providers. Now, I'll examine some of their literature for patients. I received five patient-information pamphlets when I became a member (yes, I am a member, but I also joined AAPLOG). ACOG sells these pamphlets to OB/GYNs in private practice. From their list of literature, I chose these five to receive:

1. Birth Control Pills
2. Emergency Contraception
3. Human Papillomavirus Infection
4. HIV and Women
5. How to Prevent Sexually Transmitted Diseases

(I purposefully chose the hot-button issues because I expect that when "reproductive rights" are not involved, ACOG's recommendations are medically sound.) Let's just look at Emergency Contraception (EC).

ACOG Conference

I readily talked about CMA. Now I have to drag myself into talking about ACOG. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists does not send me into raptures like the CMA does. In fact, ACOG's opinions are influenced by politicians and advocate a very sad agenda for women (abortion, contraception, selective reduction, etc).

I went to an ACOG conference last Saturday. I swept past several contraceptive companies and IVF providers, and dodged the free demos of IUDs that were being given out to the medical students.  Even so, most of the booths were encouraging: a new women's hospital was opening, a cord-blood bank was giving out stuff, and a lab company was showing off their pap-smear swabs right across from a da Vinci robot (which I got to play with!!!). I think this is because my district of ACOG is rather conservative.

Nationally speaking, ACOG seems very misled morally. Take a look at Committee Opinion 385, drafted in 2007 and reaffirmed last year. Other interesting ACOG opinions:

• Understanding and Using the U.S. Medical Eligibility Criteria for Contraceptive Use
• Forming a Just Health Care System
• The Obstetric-Gynecologic Hospitalist
• Increasing Use of Contraceptive Implants and Intrauterine Devices to Reduce Unintended Pregnancy 
• Menstrual Manipulation for Adolescents with Disabilities 
• Induced Abortion and Breast Cancer Risk 
• Abortion Access and Training 
• Misoprostol for Postabortion Care 
• Hormone Therapy and Heart Disease 
• End-of-Life Decision Making 
• Surgery and Patient Choice

All these links provide access to PDFs that open in this window; these documents belong to ACOG but are available online. I'd like to discuss some of these here in the future (the funnest posts I write are the ones where I dip into my philosophy background—closely seconded by the food posts). However, right now genetics beckons.