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In the News

  • Spectator: Why does the government want a gay quota for BBC management?
    May 16th, 2016

    Why does the government want a gay quota for BBC management? by Ross Clark, Spectator

    Of all the things wrong with the BBC, it would be hard to argue that a shortage of gay people making and presenting programmes is one of them. As Andrew Marr observed a decade ago: ‘The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It’s a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities, and gay people. It has a liberal bias, not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.’

    Why, then, is the government intent on making the BBC even more gay? In one of the less-reported sections of this week’s white paper on the future of the corporation, John Whittingdale lays down a target that 10 per cent of senior leadership roles at the BBC be filled by LGBT staff by 2020.

    Read more.

  • Guardian: Fears that maternal health funding cuts could put lives at risk
    May 16th, 2016

    The UN estimates that globally 303,000 women – almost all in poorer countries – die as a result of complications from pregnancy and childbirth each year. Most of these deaths are preventable. The figure has fallen considerably from 532,000 in 1990, but progress has begun to plateau.

    In September, the UN general assembly agreed to reduce the global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births. The ratio currently stands at 239 per 100,000 live births in developing countries and 12 in wealthier countries.

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  • Fast Company: Katrine Bosley's Race To Make Gene Editing A Medical Reality
    May 16th, 2016

    There’s no cure for Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), a retinal disease that results in severe vision loss at a young age. Its cause is well understood, though: a genetic mutation. If you could find a way to cut out that gene and replace it with a "clean" version, you could cure it. You might also be able to apply the same method to thousands of other diseases caused by gene mutations.

    Five years ago, this was a medical pipe dream. But if Katrine Bosley, CEO of Cambridge, Massachusetts, biotech company Editas Medicine, pulls off her ambitious plans, it could be real as soon as next year. After a successful IPO raised $94 million in February—on top of $163 million in earlier funding from Bill Gates, Google Ventures, and others—Editas is the richest of a small group of startups vying to be first to market with therapies that use a groundbreaking gene-editing technology called CRISPR. In addition to leading the funding race, Bosley is also likely to be first to begin clinical trials; she’s planning to test a therapy for LCA on humans in 2017 (none of her competitors have set a deadline for similar testing). As drug-development timelines go, it’s wildly aggressive—CRISPR’s gene-editing potential was only discovered in 2012.

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  • IB Times: Poland divided over abortion policies, supporters and protesters launch separate campaigns
    May 16th, 2016

    In Poland, campaigners against abortions are demanding almost a complete ban on it, barring when the life of the expectant mother is in danger. They are also calling for stricter punishments for those who perform illegal abortions.

    The anti-abortion groups held rallies across several parts of the country, including the Polish capital of Warsaw, on Sunday (15 May). However, protest rallies were also held by groups that are against such a tightened abortion law.

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  • Telegraph: Midwives should support mothers, not take a stand on abortion
    May 15th, 2016

    When you think of a midwife, what comes to mind? In my case, that of the veteran of her calling whose contemptuous response maximised the misery of my swift, violent and agonising labour so efficiently that 25 years on, the shock of it remains etched on my brain.

    Most gravid mothers have sweeter experiences. There is a reason why BBC One’s vastly popular Call the Midwife has been commissioned for a sixth series, and it is that we love to believe that midwives, like nurses, are angels of resourcefulness and patience, never happier than when delivering an infant with nothing more sophisticated than a boiling kettle and some back copies of the Racing Post, drunken husband slumped in an adjacent armchair.

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  • Independent: Fertility watchdog ‘increasingly concerned’ about dubious treatments sold by private clinics as experts warn childless couples are being exploited
    May 15th, 2016

    The UK’s fertility watchdog is becoming “increasingly concerned” that private clinics are offering ‘add-on’ treatments which have not been properly tested to see if they actually work, it can be revealed.

    In a series of interviews with The Independent, leading experts variously claimed some clinics were giving out “expensive, potentially harmful stuff like Smarties”, announcing breakthroughs that were closer to marketing “hype” and that half of the people treated did not actually need any help to have a baby.

    A Cambridge university immunologist also said the use of immune-suppressant drugs by clinics was based on a flawed theory that this could help prevent miscarriage and broke the medical maxim to “first do no harm”.

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  • Telegraph: BBC is 'too Christian' and 'could broadcast Muslim prayers' to reflect growing multi-culturalism
    May 15th, 2016

    The BBC’s religious output is too Christian, an internal review by the Corporation has concluded, opening the way for more programmes on other faiths.

    A report by Aaqil Ahmed, the BBC’s head of religion and ethics, has suggested Muslim, Hindu and Sikh faiths should get more airtime.

    One Muslim leader suggested the review could lead to Friday prayers from a mosque being broadcast in the same way that Christian church services currently feature in the BBC’s schedules.

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  • Telegraph: York Minster brings in Zen Buddhism, quietly
    May 15th, 2016

    In a history stretching back 1,400 years, York Minster has witnessed wars, plague, revolution, siege and fires - but perhaps nothing quite like this.

    Arguably England’s most venerable church, it is renowned around the world for its daily cycle of prayer and choral worship.

    But, in what will be seen as a striking departure from its Christian traditions, senior clergy at the Minster have quietly introduced a new form of spiritual enrichment altogether: Zen Buddhist meditation.

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  • Times: Parents step up cheating for places at best schools
    May 15th, 2016

    Almost 200 parents were last year caught trying to cheat to get their children into high-achieving state schools, the highest number yet recorded.

    Councils across England and Wales withdrew offers after discovering that parents had given false addresses on application forms in an effort to secure places in good schools.

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  • Mail: End the time limit for abortions, says midwives chief
    May 14th, 2016

    Britain’s biggest maternity union has joined forces with abortion providers and radical feminists in an ‘extreme’ campaign to abolish the legal limits on abortion.
    The Royal College of Midwives, which represents nearly 30,000 midwives and health workers, is calling for women to be allowed to terminate an unborn child at any stage of pregnancy – and face no criminal sanctions.

    Abolishing abortion law would do away with the current time limit of 24 weeks of pregnancy, after which a woman can only have a termination for medical reasons.

    The campaign comes after a 24-year-old woman was recently jailed for deliberately inducing a miscarriage when she was eight months pregnant.

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