Government to vote on genetically modified babies

The Government is trying to legalise the creation of genetically modified babies. To prevent mitochondrial disease, it proposes creating modified embryos from a minimum of three parents, which would then be implanted by IVF. The proposal is expected to be voted on in the House of Commons this Tuesday, February 3.

Genetic modifications are expected to be passed on not only to the child, but to all future descendants. There is no way of knowing what the long-term effects might be.

The procedure will necessarily involve the destruction of living human embryos.

The procedure is currently prohibited by international law. We would be the first nation in the world to permit it.

The Department of Health is claiming widespread approval for the proposal, despite its own consultation having shown a majority of the public opposed to the idea.

It is not too late to send an e-mail to your MP, asking him or her to vote against the measure.

Ypu can see further details here or here.
       

The woman who came back to life

A remarkable story from the United States.

Forty-year-old Ruby Graupera-Cassimiro had been delivered of a healthy baby in a routine caesarean section when there was an unexpected complication. An amniotic fluid embolism in her bloodstream stopped her heart. Doctors say the condition is almost always fatal.

A team of more than a dozen doctors and nurses fought for 45 minutes to save her. They took turns to give CPR and gave repeated electric shocks. Nothing worked. Eventually the doctors stopped all lifesaving procedures. They told relatives there was nothing more they could do. Ruby's husband, mother and sister said their goodbyes and left the room.

They were about to record the time of death when Ruby's heart started beating again. Her family were praying in a room nearby when a nurse came in. "Keep praying," she said. "Her heart just started." 

When Ruby came round, despite being without heartbeat for 45 minutes, there was no trace of brain damage. There were no burns from the repeated shocks and there was no bruising from the CPR.

Then Ruby remembered what she thought was a dream she had had while she was unconscious. She met her late father, who told her it was not time for her to die.

"It was a complete miracle," said nurse Julie Ewing. "It was answered prayer. We were all there. We all witnessed it."

According to the doctors, there was no explanation for her heart starting beating again. Said Dr Amthony Dardano, president of the hospital's medical staff: "There's very few things in medicine that I've seen, working in the trauma centre myself and doing all the things that I do, that really were either unexplainable or miraculous. When I heard this story, that was the first thing that came to my mind."

Later, Ruby went back to the hospital with her baby for a tearful reunion with the doctors and nurses. "All I know is that I'm grateful to be here," she said. " I don't know why I was given this opportunity, but I'm very grateful for it."

You can read the full story here.
  

So what other explanation do you have?

Terez is a schoolteacher in her forties living in Israel. When she went to the Rabin Medical Centre in Tel Aviv she had a cancerous tumour on her leg the size of an orange.

The biopsy showed it was a sarcoma. "This is one of the most aggressive and terrifying of all cancerous tumours," said Professor Yaacov Bickles, head of the orthopaedic oncology department at the hospital. "With a tumour developed to this degree, the only treatment we could offer was to amputate her leg."

Terez sent the laboratory test results and x-rays to the USA to check the prognosis. The reply said the same thing: the leg must be amputated to save her life. Terez began to prepare herself for life with one leg.

On the day the amputation was to take place, Terez was told the operation had to be rescheduled because of "technical difficulties." On the day of the rescheduled operation, she was about to be wheeled into the operating theatre when she was told the amputation would again have to be postponed. There were no surgical units available because of the number of emergency cases. Then her mother fell ill, and Terez had to postpone the surgery to take care of her mother.

"Three times this surgery was delayed," says Terez. "This was a clear sign to me from heaven that I should not have the surgery." She reported her decision to the hospital. "When she told me she had decided not to have the leg amputated, it was clear to me she would soon die," said the doctor. "I was sorry about her decision."

What happened after that left medical staff - and the nation - speechless. "If someone had told me the story of what happened to Terez, I would have said they are crazy and sent them to a mental hospital," said Professor Bickles. "But I was there. I saw it with my own eyes."

Terez walked into Professor Bickles' office three months later with a big smile on her face. "What happened?" he said. "I prayed," she told him

They gave her an MRI scan. The results were undeniable. "This just does not happen," said the professor. "A growth of this kind cannot recede like this." They sent for another biopsy. 

There was no cancer. "We kept checking her records over and over. We just could not accept that the cancer had gone without any treatment."

News media began to report on the incident. Hospital staff and newshounds travelled to Terez's home to look for an explanation. They tasted the food she eats and checked the water she drinks.

They were left with no explanation other than the one they were given: Yeshua, the Messiah of Israel, heals today.

David Lazarus tells the story on his blog here.
   

Sexually transmitted diseases increased

Almost half a million new cases of sexually transmitted infections were diagnosed in 2012, according to figures from Public Health England. 

There were 448,422 new cases - a rise of five per cent on the previous year. There were 206,912 new cases of chlamydia. Diagnoses of gonorrhoea were up 21 per cent.

The impact of sexually transmitted diseases was greatest on young people under 25.

(Among men who have sex with men, there was a 37 per cent increase in new cases of gonorrhoea, an eight per cent increase in chlamydia and an eight per cent increase in genital warts.)

Peter Saunders claims to have the remedy. Marry a virgin, he suggests, and stay faithful to him or her throughout your lifetime.

It is, he says, amazingly effective.

'I lost everything, but God sent His angels'

Leslie Haskin was one of 15 children. Her father was a Baptist minister, her mother a choir director. Despite being brought up in a godly home, she decided when she moved to New York to work that she wanted nothing to do with God.

She was an insurance company executive, nicknamed "the Ice Princess" because of her attitude to her underlings.

At 8.46 am on September 11, 2001, she was in her company's offices on the 37th floor of the World Trade Centre when an airplane hit the building.

Through the window she saw bodies falling as people threw themselves from windows to escape the flames. Ceilings were collapsing and you could see flames through the seams. Someone shouted "The building is coming down! The building is coming down!"

Elevators were not able to be used. Leslie joined others on the stairs. The stairway was narrow and progress was slow. The force of a second airplane hitting an adjoining building jammed the door below her so it couldn't be opened.  She was trapped near the ninth floor, and sure she was going to die.

She closed her eyes and said "God help us." She suddenly remembered a hymn her mother used to sing to her to waken her in a morning. "Pass me not, O gentle Saviour, Hear my humble cry; While on others Thou art calling, Do not pass me by."

After 10 minutes, the door opened and Leslie reached the street. She saw the body of a man who had been decapitated. Bodies of those who had leaped from windows lay around. The body of a man exploded near her and splattered her with blood.

She couldn't speak properly. Doctors found she had had a nervous breakdown. She was in a psychiatric hospital for several weeks, then under continuing care by doctors and therapists, still heavily medicated. She boarded up the windows of her home because she believed the Taliban were in her shed and wanted to kill her. Doctors said she would never work again.

One day her 12-year-old son came into her room and jumped up on the bed. "Mom, are you ready?" he said. "Ready for what?" "To receive Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour. The Bible says if you are lukewarm in your faith God will spit you right out of His mouth."

She prayed with her son to accept Christ.

Slowly she improved as she stopped taking the medication. Doctors were amazed when she started to fly on planes again.

Leslie has written several books, appeared on television and become the subject of a film. Now she travels the world telling people Jesus Christ is the answer.

"I lost everything," she says, "but God sent His angels to help me."

You can read the full story here.

Paralysed - but life is still sweet

From the day Matt Hampson was born, his mother knew he would be trouble.

There was the day he undid his baby seat, opened the car door and bounced down the road. They picked him up without a scratch. And the day he climbed scaffolding his father had erected to re-roof a cottage and launched himself on to the roof.

He started playing rugby at five and fell in love with the game. He played for England in their under-18s team and later for England under-21s.

One day during a training session he launched himself into a scrum and something went wrong. When he came round in hospital he was paralysed from the neck down and needed a ventilator to breathe. He was 20 years old.

I wrote about Matt two years ago. I mentioned how despite his disability he did charity work, coached youngsters, wrote a newspaper column and had his own website.

So why write about him again now? Because this week the Daily Mail printed an interview with him and his mother - an interview it called "one of the most moving interviews you'll ever read."

Today, six years after the accident, Matt is still paralysed. He is still on a ventilator. He still needs day-and-night care.

He has learned to write using a laser attached to his forehead beamed on to a computer screen. He has set up a foundation to support people injured through sport.

"I've never seen Matt despair," says his mother Anne. "Never. I have seen him tired and fed up, but he has always said life is precious. It's a different life now, but it's still precious. And I still have hopes for him; every hope that he will lead a happy life."

When Matt was in hospital, he would greet everyone with a smile. People would dread seeing him in hospital, but leave feeling uplifted.

"He's always had this instant effect on people," says his mother. "He makes them love him. He says life is still sweet.

"He has a plaque downstairs that says just that in Latin: omnia causa fiunt (Everything happens for a reason). That's what he believes. He thinks he's been put in this position to make an impact on the lives of other disabled people.

"He sees himself as privileged."