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Doctors sterilize 9-year-old who gave birth against mothers wishes; Was it ethical?

Zoquipan Hospital
© Medical Daily
As we reported yesterday, a 9-year-old girl in Mexico gave birth in Zoquipan Hospital, in western Mexico over the weekend.

News reports today indicate that she has been sterilized by doctors and will no longer be able to conceive children for the rest of her life. Doctors went against family wishes when they performed the operation.

Dafne, the mother, was eight years old when she became pregnant, but did not know she was expecting until she was 7 months along.

It is still undetermined who the father of the newborn is. Authorities originally suspected her boyfriend, who is believe to be between 15 and 17 and fled two months ago when the mother to be refused to move in with him.

Doctors were performing DNA tests on all of Dafne's male family members in order to determine who the actual father is, amongst allegations that her step-father may have physically and sexually abused the new mother.

Briefcase

Obese man's GP payout

Luis Almario
© Steven SiewertLuis Almario
A morbidly obese man dying of liver cancer has been awarded more than $350,000 from his doctor because the GP failed to refer him to a weight-loss clinic or send him for lap-band surgery.

Medical experts say the case of Luis Almario is a legal landmark and will force doctors to ensure overweight patients shed kilos or risk being sued.

Dr Emmanuel Varipatis, a Sydney GP, is appealing the Supreme Court ruling that he was negligent in not sending Mr Almario, 68, to an obesity clinic or arranging for a bariatric surgeon to assess his suitability for gastric band surgery.

Colombian-born Mr Almario was in the care of Dr Varipatis from 1997 to 2011. During that time he weighed 140 kilograms despite being only 154 centimetres tall.

The court found Mr Almario has terminal liver cancer as a result of liver disease brought on by his obesity. He has been given 40 weeks to live.

Stormtrooper

China's one-child policy creates wimpy military recruits, deserters

CHinese Soldiers
© 5Election.com
Caoshi, China--While China's military prowess has long been a source of concern for other nations, there are signs that all is not well within the armed forces.

The posturing by China on the Senkaku Islands issue, for instance, suggests a state of readiness that could result in a call to arms at a moment's notice.

But an incident in late 2011 that was never publicly disclosed by China but uncovered by The Asahi Shimbun suggests the central leadership is being forced to re-evaluate recruitment to the People's Liberation Army/Navy.

The facts of the matter are this: Four soldiers deserted from their unit armed with automatic weapons and stolen ammo. A dragnet was set up and a fatal shootout followed. It emerged that the soldiers had racked up sizable gambling debts and armed themselves so they could rob a bank and become solvent again.

But as often happens in reporting on China, the gravity of the situation faced by security authorities at the time was not immediately apparent until long afterward.

On the morning of Nov. 9, 2011, police in Jilin province, northeastern China, issued an emergency notice to all financial institutions in the province.

It said, "Four soldiers armed with model 95 automatic rifles have stolen 795 rounds of ammunition and deserted their unit."

The soldiers, aged between 19 and 24, belonged to a unit based in Jilin city. Photos of the four men, along with their physical characteristics, were issued.

Info

Asian astrologers warn of stormy Year of Snake

Year of the Snake_1
© France24A man walks past Chinese New Year's calligraphy in Hong Kong on February 5, 2013. A stock market slide, possible conflict between Japan and China and more Gangnam-styled success for South Korean singer Psy will shape the incoming Year of the Snake, say Asian soothsayers.
A stock market slide, escalated conflict between Japan and China and more Gangnam-styled success for South Korean singer Psy will shape the incoming Year of the Snake, say Asian soothsayers.

Those who make predictions according to the study of feng shui -- or literally "wind-water" -- are influential in many parts of Asia, where people adjust their lives or renovate houses and offices based on the advice.

As they bid farewell to the Year of the Dragon, the fortune tellers warn that the "black water snake" that emerges to replace it on February 10 -- the first day of the Lunar New Year -- could be a venomous one that brings disaster.

Previous Snake years have been marked by the September 11, 2001 terror strikes that killed nearly 3,000 people, the crushing of the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy protests and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

The 1929 stock market plunge that heralded the Great Depression also occurred in a snake year.

Arrow Down

These 3-D portraits were created using only a person's DNA

Sample DNA
© Co.Exist
Stranger Visions is an art project which tries to determine what we look like based on a single strand of hair.

How much information about ourselves do we leave behind in public, as we shed saliva, hair, and sweat throughout the day? It's a question that drives the artwork of Heather Dewey-Hagborg, whose project Stranger Visions reconstructs the faces of the anonymous as 3-D printed sculptures, using genetic detritus found in chewing gum, cigarette butts, and wads of hair around New York City.

"I started fixating on this idea of hair and what can I know about someone from a hair," explains Dewey-Hagborg, a Brooklyn-based information artist. Her faces were determined based on looking at just three traits--gender, eye color, and maternal ethnicity--an admittedly simplified look (but still more advanced than police forensics labs which use a kit to determine hair and eye color from a sample). Plugging that information into software she wrote herself, she could spin up different 3-D versions of a face--eventually settling on the ones she finds most interesting aesthetically--and bring them to life with a 3-D printer.

The resulting busts may bear, at most, a "family resemblance" to the original person, Dewey-Hagborg says. "Part of that is that I need to do more experiments," to incorporate more traits. "Part of that is that it's just impossible."

Info

Real-life vampire addicted to blood, doctors claim

Vampire
© Margaaret M. Stewart | shutterstock
In a chilling case report, doctors in Turkey have described what they claim to be a real-life vampire with multiple personalities and an addiction to drinking blood.

The 23-year-old married man apparently started out slicing his own arms, chest and belly with razor blades, letting the blood drip into a cup so he could drink it. But when he experienced compulsions to drink blood "as urgent as breathing," he started turning to other sources, the doctors said.

The man, whose name and hometown were not revealed in the report, was arrested several times after stabbing and biting others to collect and drink their blood. He apparently even got his father to get him bags of the ghastly drink from blood banks, according to the report announced today (Feb. 8) by the Journal of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics. The case study was published last fall.

The doctors said they found traumatic events in the man's life leading up to his two-year bloodsucking phase. His four-month-old daughter became ill and died, he witnessed the murder of his uncle, and he saw another violent killing in which "one of his friends cut off the victim's head and penis," the report said.

Magnify

Hong Kong customs discover 2,600 live snakes in boxes marked as fruit

Image
© AFP Photo
Hong Kong customs authorities investigating a shipment from Thailand marked as fruit were shocked to discover the consignment instead contained 2,600 live snakes, officials said Friday.

Customs intercepted the air cargo shipment of 2,400 common rat snakes and 200 cobras on Tuesday and returned them on Thursday, a government spokeswoman said, just days before the start of the Year of the Snake in the Chinese horoscope.

Bad Guys

Malaysian jailed over major seizure of tiger parts

Image
© AFP Photo
Activists Friday slammed a two-year jail term handed to a Malaysian man over the country's biggest seizure of illegally trafficked tiger parts as too short and a "demoralising finale" to the case.

Eight tiger skins, and 22 tiger skulls and bones were discovered at the home of Nor Shahrizam Nasir in northern Malaysia in February last year, as well as nine pieces of African elephant ivory.

A district court in northern Kedah state found Nor Shahrizam guilty Thursday of illegal possession of tiger parts and ivory and he was ordered to serve 24 months in jail, said TRAFFIC, a group that monitors wildlife smuggling.

Malaysian court or wildlife officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Cell Phone

Sri Lanka phone-smuggling prisoner betrayed by ringing butt

Image
© AFP Photo
A Sri Lankan prisoner who tried to hide his mobile phone during a search of his cell was caught out when guards heard ring tones from his rear-end, a hospital official said on Friday.

The 58-year-old convict had to be admitted to the national hospital in Colombo where doctors later retrieved the handset from his rectum.

Eye 1

No psych assessment for accused in Vancouver apartment stabbing, despite "mental breakdown"

Jerome Bonneric
© Facebook/CTV BCJerome Bonneric is pictured in this undated photo.
Vancouver, Canada - Moving slowly and looking dazed with his right arm still in a cast, Jerome Bonneric, accused in last week's West End stabbing spree, made his second appearance in Vancouver Provincial Court this week.

The psychiatric assessment request his lawyer had said he expected from Crown prosecutors Thursday morning did not come, and Judge William Kitchen did not order one.

"It was a terrible mental breakdown," said Bonneric's lawyer Robert Bellows, who was also not seeking a psychiatric assessment for his client. "It was absolutely out of character for him."

Bellows suggested earlier in the week that his client has serious mental health issues, adding that he was at St. Paul's Hospital shortly before the attack.

Bonneric, 33, has spoken by phone with his parents in France, Bellows said, and four friends attended his court appearance, accompanied by the French deputy consul.

"He has lots of friends who care for him and love him," Bellows said. "He's still extremely despondent and extremely sad about what's happened."