Expert: DS testing kills many ‘normal’ English babies
May 16th, 2009From the [UK] Guardian:
Dr. Anne Mackie, the head of prenatal screening for the UK’s National Health Service, says prenatal testing for Down syndrome causes the death of 146 English babies who do not have the condition each year.
Mackie said a change in testing methods could reduce the number of what she called “normal babies lost” to approximately 90 per year.
She said the vast majority of hospitals in English still use tests that are more likely to produce a false positive, wrongly assessing women as having a high risk of having a fetus with Down syndrome. This causes more women to undergo amniocentesis, an invasive prenatal test that carries a 1 percent risk of miscarriage.
Kypros Nicolaides, professor of foetal medicine at King’s College London, and inventor of the combined test, said it was shameful that healthy babies were lost because of the NHS’s inadequate screening.
… “It’s scandalous and disgraceful because so many babies are dying that would not have, had the [combined] method been introduced earlier and everywhere, as it should have been. The NHS is failing 70% of women in Britain and causing the death of normal babies.”
Earlier post here.
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May 17th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
What’s Wrong With This Article?
The Title reads, “NHS failure on Down’s screening kills healthy babies”.
Here is a quote, “Kypros Nicolaides, professor of foetal medicine at King’s College London, and inventor of the combined test, said it was shameful that healthy babies were lost because of the NHS’s inadequate screening.”
RANT: Do they realize that our babies ARE perfectly “healthy” and “Normal” babies just as they were suppose to be, given the concept, Disabilities are Natural! They don’t seem to be concerned about the loss of our beautiful children with DS either! It should read, “said it was shameful that any baby was lost due to the misconceptions of an uneducated public!” HOW ABOUT THAT????
Folks, we have come a long way but still have work to do educating others! All I can say is Thank Goodness the USA has the highest rate of births of our children due to the programs, organizations, parents and national campaigns!
Monica Crawford
Mom to Elijah, 2 (DS) & Josh, 11 (HFA, ADHD)
Owner of Californian Parents Group for Down Syndrome:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/lapods/
May 17th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
While I am strongly against pre-natal testing and the abortions that usually follow, this data should be reason enough to end the practice.
The test will never be perfect and who knows how many “perfect” babies will be eliminated as a result.