From the Melbourne, Australia, Herald Sun:

Health Department officials in the Australian state of Victoria report that the number of women who terminated their pregnancies after receiving a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome almost tripled in the decade ending in 2006.

Government figures showed 146 abortions for Down syndrome in 2006, including five late term abortions, compared with 54 in 1995.

They also show more than twice as many babies with Down syndrome were aborted than were born with the condition — in 2006 146 were terminated and 62 were born.

A spokeswoman for the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists attributed the increase to more advanced screening.

Related story:

Two couples suing doctors for failing to diagnose Down syndrome — Melbourne, Australia, Herald-Sun

Two Victorian couples are suing doctors for failing to diagnose Down Syndrome in their unborn babies, denying them the chance to terminate the pregnancies.

The couples are claiming unspecified damages for economic loss, continuing costs of care of the children, and “psychiatric injury”.

Both say they would have aborted their pregnancies had they been told their children would be born with Down Syndrome.

Says authorities failed to disclose ‘psychopathic issues/behaviors’

From the [UK] Daily Mail, AP/Washington Post, [UK] Telegraph:

Russia’s foreign minister is urging an end to all U.S. adoptions after a a seven-year-old Siberian boy adopted by an American family was sent back to Moscow alone because his U.S. mother didn’t want him any more.

The adoptive mother, Torry-Ann Hansen of Tennessee, said in a letter to authorities that the boy “is violent and has severe psychopathic issues/behaviors.” She claimed that the Russian orphanage staff had lied about his “mental stability” in order to “get him out of their orphanage”.

The Russians angrily denied this, saying he was stubborn but that his only disability was that he was ‘flat-footed’.

Related posts:

• Higher rates of learning disabilities among adopted children — Houston Chronicle
• Adopted youths more likely to have mental disorders — Chicago Tribune

Company sees threat to free speech on the Internet

From Reuters/New York Times, AP/Forbes.com, CNN:

A judge in Milan has found three Google executives guilty of criminal privacy violation charges for allowing a cellphone video of the bullying of an Italian youth to be displayed on a company website in 2006.

Press reports said the video showed the boy, described as having Down syndrome or autism, being taunted by classmates while one of the teens made a mock phone call to a Down syndrome support group.

A Google spokesman said the company would appeal what it called an “astonishing” decision, and said the case posed a threat to freedom of speech on the Internet.

Prosecutors said the case was not about censorship, but about balancing freedom of expression with the rights of an individual. They said the video remained online for months even though some web users had posted comments asking that it be taken down. Google said it removed the video within hours of being notified by police.

The three defendants received six-month suspended sentences for privacy violation. They were acquitted of charges of defamation, as was a fourth executive. All had denied wrongdoing. In an earlier action in juvenile court, the four bullies were sentenced to community service.

From the Montreal Gazette, CBC News:

A French family is making a public appeal to stay in Canada on humanitarian grounds after their application for permanent residency was rejected because their seven-year-old daughter has cerebral palsy.

Rachel Barlagne was deemed “medically inadmissable” because her disability would pose an “excessive burden” on the state. According to court documents, the “excessive burden” amounts to $5,200 per year for special education.

“We hope the immigration minister understands our situation and takes steps to allow us to stay,” David Barlagne said outside Federal Court in Montreal, where his lawyers are fighting to keep his family in the country. “We are determined to do whatever we have to to stay in Canada.”

Earlier post here.

(Photo from CBC News)

From the [UK] Telegraph, Wall Street Journal, CNN,  BBC:

The British government offered  “sympathy” and “regret” yesterday to survivors of the Thalidomide scandal, and unveiled a government plan award more than £20 million in compensation to survivors.

The statement, by Health Minister Mike O’Brien, comes more than 50 years after one of the worst public health and political scandals in Britain’s recent history. Thalidomide had not been fully tested before it was prescribed to pregnant women  as a treatment for morning sickness or insomnia starting in 1958. The drug was withdrawn in 1961 after thousands of babies were born with missing or foreshortened limbs, blindness, deafness, and other disabilities.

“The government wishes to express its sincere regret and deep sympathy for the injury and suffering endured by all those affected,” said O’Brien.

Advocates have fought a long and bitter battle for compensation, and for public acknowledgment that the government should have done more to avert or minimize the drug’s disastrous consequences.

Guy Tweedy, of the Thalidomide Trust, said: “I’m highly delighted and so glad that it actually came, 50 years too late but never mind. It’s an apology not just to thalidomide victims but to the parents who lost their children in the early days. The apology means as much in some ways as the money.”

Earlier posts here.

Editors of the Montreal Gazette say the Canadian government has made a “bad mistake” and should reverse its decision to expel a family of French immigrants because one of their daughters has cerebral palsy.

Computer software business owner David Barlagne and his wife brought their family from Paris to Montreal in 2005 after being told there would be no barriers to their becoming permanent residents. But government officials later informed them that their seven-year-old daughter Rachel is “medically inadmissible” and “risks giving rise to an excessive burden on social or health services.”

An excerpt:

If word gets out about how badly Canada has treated the Barlagne family, we won’t have to worry about over-shooting our targets for top-calibre immigrants for years to come.

See also: Family threatened with deportation due to daughter’s illness — CTV.com

(Montreal Gazette photo)

From the [UK] Independent,  BBC, [UK] Guardian, [UK] Times, [UK] Telegraph:

An official report says the British government should “radically overhaul” the system for educating kids with disabilities, finding broad evidence that parents must battle to get appropriate support for their children.

Among other findings, the inquiry said children with disabilities are eight times more likely to be excluded from school, and many are removed illegally. For example, the report found that some children were routinely excluded when there were staffing shortages or if support staff were absent.

The report said the school system was still living with the legacy of old expectations that children with disabilities could not be educated.

“My inquiry has concluded that there needs to be a major reform of the current system,” said Brian Lamb, the report’s author and chairman of the Special Education Consortium. “There needs to be a radical recasting of the relationship between parents, schools and local authorities, to ensure a clearer focus on the outcomes and life chances for children with special needs and disability.”

The government-commissioned inquiry called for the creation of a new national helpline to provide parents with information and advice, as well as funding for a government ombudsman’s office to help parents with complaints about special education.

Students with disabilities make up 20 percent of the school-age population in the UK.