Miami Herald Examines Reduced Services At Fla. Planned Parenthood Clinics During Review

The Miami Herald on Friday examined how Planned Parenthood of South Palm Beach and Broward Counties’ five clinics have reduced their services during a Planned Parenthood Federation of America review of the clinics. PPFA suspended services at the clinics after a February review found evidence of financial mismanagement (Samuels, Miami Herald, 3/28). The review also found deficiencies in the conditions, medical operations, policies and procedures at the clinics. The national office asked the group to suspend services at the affiliate’s clinics in Boca Raton, Oakland Park, Tamarac, Pembroke Pines and Deerfield Beach, Fla., until the problems are addressed (Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, 3/25).

According to the Herald, the clinics have turned away thousands seeking services previously provided at the facilities, including low-cost breast exams, mental health counseling, HIV testing, contraception and abortion services. The five clinics serve about 16,000 clients, according to the Florida Association of Planned Parenthood Affiliates. While the clinics are under investigation, clients will be able to receive test results and will be given referrals to other providers. An empowerment class for teenagers that is operated by the affiliate at the Boys & Girls Club of Broward County will continue during PPFA’s investigation, the Herald reports.

Karen Ruffatto, vice president of operations at PPFA, said that although it is “very rare” to suspend services at affiliate clinics, it was necessary to suspend services at the Florida clinics to address “competency in management and fiscal discipline.” Barbara Herring, a former board member at the affiliate, said the “real tragedy” in the situation is that “thousands of women don’t have a place to turn for family planning.” Alex Arreaza, the affiliate’s board chair, said the affiliate and PPFA “really are just trying to mak[e] the clinic better,” adding, “There’s no need to worry. When we open again, we’re going to be leaner and more efficient.” It is unclear when the clinics will reopen, the Herald reports (Miami Herald, 3/28).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

© 2007 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.

Chicago Tribune Examines Egg, Sperm Donation Issues Ahead Of Conference On Donor Registry

The Chicago Tribune on Wednesday examined issues associated with egg and sperm donation ahead of the first national conference to discuss the creation of a registry of such donors in the U.S.

Australia, Sweden and the United Kingdom maintain registries of egg and sperm donors. In the U.S., organizations that handle egg, and sperm donations have little oversight, the Tribune reports. Some organizations do not keep records of who receives donated eggs or sperm, and although some groups will help donors and recipients establish contact, many will not. According to CDC, about 8,000 infants are born annually from donated eggs and embryos. Although reports on infants born from sperm donation are not required, estimates of the annual number range from 5,000 to in the “tens of thousands.”

A donor registry would compile donors’ genetic and medical information and track the infants born from their donations. A registry also could help track whether voluntary donation guidelines — which allow for a maximum of six egg donation cycles for women and a maximum of 25 families receiving sperm — are followed, according to the Tribune. Nigel Cameron, president of the Institute on Biotechnology and the Human Future at the Illinois Institute of Technology, said, “Anything that brings some kind of order into the situation and ensures that children have access to their own genetic and biological information is going to be better.” Wendy Kramer, who runs Donor Sibling Registry, said the industry needs “mandatory reporting of who’s donating, where, how often, what their profiles are and how many offspring are born.”

The three largest U.S. fertility clinics — California Cryobank, Fairfax Cryobank and Xytex Corporation — have said they plan to endorse the idea of a limited donor registry at the conference. Charles Sims, medical officer at California Cryobank, said executives from the three companies will propose a voluntary registry to serve as an archive of information on donors, recipient families and offspring.

Sims said there is “concern by a lot of people that information linking a child to his or her genetic or biological origins could be hopelessly lost” if organizations dealing with donors or fertility clinics close. Sims added that any donor registry must respect the privacy rights of donors and families. Sean Tipton, director of public affairs at the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, said that ASRM believes a registry should include “as much relevant medical information as possible” but is “opposed to proposals that remove anonymity.”

Although there is agreement that a registry should maintain the privacy of donors and recipients, it is still unclear how a registry would function in practice, the Tribune reports. Egg and sperm donors provide family medical histories and take extensive tests before donating, but there is no requirement that agencies follow donors to determine whether their medical conditions change, according to the Tribune. Nanette Elster, director of the Health Law Institute at DePaul College of Law and organizer of the conference, questioned whether it would be legally feasible to ask donors about relevant information if they stipulate they do not want to be contacted. The conference begins today in Chicago (Graham, Chicago Tribune, 3/26).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

© 2007 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.

What is impotence

Impotence is a condition that affects men not only physically but also psychologically. In this condition a man is often unable to achieve or maintain an erection necessary for sexual intercourse.

Most men who suffer from impotence face either one of these problems:

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What is Weight Loss all about? 1 of 3

It is vital to grasp that once an individual weighs to a great extent, his or her knee joints, hip joints as well as lower back would have to make more effort to give support to him or her and this may induce stress as well as tension upon these various joints… weight loss lessens the burden these various joints carry.

The cause of obesity in most cases among Americans is an inactive lifestyle; roughly forty percent of grownups in the U.S. don’t take part in any free time bodily activities and less than 1/3 of grownups engage in the suggested amount of physical activity.In the United States of America, there’s an approximated fifty million folks that attempt to drop off weigh; regrettably, just five percentages have actually succeeded.

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Dhyana Meditation for Fitness

It is the experience of almost everyone of us that whenever we try to concentrate the mind on an object or an idea, the mind immediately starts wandering. It is very difficult to keep the mind steadily concerned about a single thought. This difficulty has been expressed even by such a superior disciple as Arjuna, even when there was such a highly capable guru as Lord Krishna to instruct him. After hearing carefully the description of yoga from the mouth of Lord Krishna (Gita), Arjuna had to confess that he could not understand it properly, because of the instability of his mind. He expressed that control of the mind was even more difficult than control of the wind. On this, Lord Krishna has said something which is important for everybody who wishes to bring the mind under control. Krishna declares in clear terms (Gita) that although there is no doubt that the mind is a very difficult,. cult thing to be brought under control, it can, nevertheless, be made silent and steady, by a two-pronged attack, that of vairagya and abhyasa. He does not fail to warn that yoga is impossible for those whose minds are not steady and controlled. Patanjali, the author of the Yoga Sutra, has also emphasized the importance of these two means for making the mind silent. We may say that these two qualities make the very essence of yoga. We shall, in the remaining pages, make a detailed study of these two. The former quality constitutes what we may call the behavioral aspects of yoga, the latter is concerned directly with steadying the. mind.

Mind usually is like a disturbed pond containing many impurities. For cleaning such a pond, we have first of all to stop the inflow of fresh impurities, and then to remove existing impurities. The mind has similarly to be tackled in two ways, and these are the ways of vairagya and abhyasa. Vairagya is the cessation of raga, and means an absence of the urge or longing for enjoyment. It indicates a complete lack of the tendency of mind to be swayed away by objects of experience. It means a total lack of ambition or desire for achievement.It is,however, a very rare quality.Our minds are usually overtaken by the process of desire-desire to attain success, to become Important, to have power, and soon. We usually get caught up easily in an endless circle of achievement and further achievement. Vairagya can dawn only upon a mind which has come to realize the futility of the process of desire and achievement. There are three techniques in yoga in terms of which the state of vairagya may be analysed. They are respectively called yama, niyama and ptatyahara. We shall describe these three aspects of vairagya in brief at this stage.

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