annaj

Hmmm, maybe PGC and thanks, but I suspect not. The man himself has gone uncharacteristically quiet (is it bedtime in Singapore?) so we may never know...

No need for sarcasm. Your admiration of robust science and belief in evidence based medicine is hardly a secret, I'm just saying I'll treat this paper objectively and see what I make of it. At first glace it looks really interesting and compelling, but the whole point of objective reading and critical appraisal is not to be swayed by the headline, or abstract, but to assess the research on its merits. Edited for rogue apostrophe.... again.... must try harder.

Thanks Huguenot, I've got the original reference from Pubmed. I'm preparing for a critical appraisal exam at the moment, part of the monster, four-part "exit exam" that will finally mark the end of my training and qualify me for a consultant post, so I'll get a copy of the full text at work tomorrow and appraise it for my weekend homework. I'll let you know what I think.

His book is great Jimmy, and his website is worth keeping an eye on. He sometimes borders on arrogant, but I guess that can happen when you know you're almost always right. I tolerated genetics at medical school, but wouldn't say I "got it" and now am very rusty as it's not really anything to do with my day to day work, so I'm grateful for the refresher course your post provided and for you saying what I wanted to, but couldn't quite put together.

Sorry, can I just do a complete u-turn on my last post. I've just checked with my sister, who works in sexual health and is up to date on all this stuff, and apparently now comic relief are funding charities that support contraception and termination, depsite the objections of the catholic church and faith schools. A few years ago they pulled funding from a few charities and offered catholic organisations a deal to guarantee that none of their money would go to causes they didn't agree with, but apprently now they've stopped all that and many catholic organisations are boycotting comic relief as a result. Which, as far as I can see, is a good reason to support them!

Also, there is the whole tricky issue of them withdrawing funding from good developing world sexual health charities that offer termination, among other services, under pressure from the catholic church and faith schools. I'm never comfortable with charities that have religious affiliations, even less so with one that claims to be independent, but then bows to pressure.

Genetics are really not my area, but I know what you mean about media science, JimmyP. Are you a Ben Goldacre fan? Edited because I dithered over "genetics are" or "genetics is" and then mockney posted between JimmyP and me so it didn't make sense anyway.

Fantastic post JimmyP, thank you!

Xena, it wasn't me that brought up age and fertility, but since you've addressed your post to me I thought I'd respond. Fertility declines with age in both men and women. As you said, woman are born with all their eggs stored in immature forms in the ovaries. Until the late 90s they theory was that delcine in female fertility was due to problems with implantation in the mature uterus. However, work in the late 90s showed that egg quality starts to decline with age and chromosome degeneration can be seen in the eggs of older women. Fertility in women decreases significantly over the age of 35. Women over 35 are also more at risk of miscarriage and certain chromosomal abnormalities, such as Down's syndrome. More recently decline in male fertility with age has also been recognised. With increasing age sperm volume, motility and morphology all decrease. Although in men these effect seem not to be significant until later and fertility does decrease until the age of 40-50. So, how fertile a couple are will depend on many factors. Age of both partners is important, but there are a host of other intrinsic and environmental factors that are also important. I have to say there's an awful lot of pseudoscience on this thread. Huguenot, I would be really interested to read the reserch you mentioned about environment changing genetics, but until I've seen some evidence I'm going to remain sceptical at best about statements like financial security and lower stress leading to lower rates of genetic mutation.

Hurrah! As a night shift worker I can tell you that he often spends his days doing laps on his noisy little machine as well. Well done SCSB79 and the Safer Neighbourhood team.

Huguenot, have you got a reference for that research? Sounds interesting. Mark, the ten additional years of learning and working that each generation of B parents had would not change their genetics. Experience and learning changes behaviour, but not genes. Genetic mutation usually happens during cell division. There are two types of cell division one which produces an exact copy of the cell with all its genetic material and one which produces a cell with exactly half the genetic material of the original. It is the second type of division, meiosis, that produces eggs and sperm. Put simply, I'm not really much of a scientist, each human cell contains 23 pairs of chromosomes that hold all of our DNA. During meiosis the chromosomes line up in pairs and the cell splits in two with one of each pair going into each cell. So, each egg or sperm contains half the parent's DNA and, because the order in which the chromosomes line up is not fixed, each egg or sperm is different. Mutation is most likely to happen during the process of cell division when, again a massive over simplification, chromosomes can split unevenly or become damaged. Genetic disorders either occur as a result of this kind of mutation, Down's syndrome for example is the extra duplication of one particular chromosome, or through so called Mendalian inheritance, were one or both parents passes down a defective gene. Mockney, radiation, infections and drugs can all affect and even stop normal development in the womb leading to birth defects, but these are congenital (present at birth) rather than genetic. A person with the typical limb shortening deformity caused by their mother taking thalidomide during pregnancy can have a child with entirely normal limbs, because it was their development affected by the drug not their DNA. Back to your question Mark, child A and child B would be very different, because as you said they would have been born 500 years apart and had entirely different experiences and influences, but the things that we experience and learn do not change our DNA.

Huguenot, sorry, had to run out to lunch just as we reached that precious middle ground and now I have to work, but I'm glad we made it. As I understand it, Amnesty supports the 1 in 10 campaign relating to services for women in Britain, but is also running its own campaign about rape as a weapon of war along with its many other human rights campaigns. Right, got to go, lives to save and disease to stamp out and all that...

And as note, Huguenot, The Haven also provides services for men.

My interpretation of the campaign, as I've said, is that they are lobbying for improved provision of services for victims. This, to me, seems straight forward, reasonable and not particularly sinister. I deal with the staff at the Camberwell Haven regularly and know how over-stretched their resources are. For me this is a very simple case of saying rape and sexual violence are common, much more common than you might think, and we need to provide better care to victims. That's why I'm confused as to why it is seen as so controversial.

Huguenot, I wasn't for a moment suggesting that anyone should make accusations or seek justice through the forum, I don't know how you got that from my post. I was saying that Rosie and Legal-Eagle have both come forward and said that they and/or their friends fall into the 10% and there will be other women out there reading this who do too, but who don't wish to go public. If my language was too emotive or dramatic I apologise, this is an emotive subject. Edited for clarity

Dave, this is the source quoted by The Havens. British Crime Survey 2000 The 1 in 10 figure comes from Keypoint 3. 9.7% of women reported some form of sexual victimisation, including rape, in their adult life. Rape, sexual assault and sexual victimisation are all defined in the report. For me, the widespread disbelief of the 1 in 10 figure is exactly why this campaign is important.

Dave, I could be wrong, but I think Rosie explained the source of the figure much earlier in the thread. I take your point about needing more detailed and specific statistics to plan changes in the criminal justice system, but, again, that's not what this campaign is about. The Havens are the only specialist centres in London for victims of rape and sexual assault. There are only three centres for the whole of London and they often can't see people immediately, because they're already dealing with another case or cases. And that's just London. There are areas of the country with even worse provision. That is what this campaign is trying to address. Edited to say the Haven website also quotes the 1 in 10 figure and references the British Crime Survey 2000

Huguenot, I can see that you would be upset by being allied with some of the other voices on here and I agree that seeing the debate in terms of sides is not helpful, but you seem not to be hearing what we're saying. No-one has suggested that all men, most men, or even many men are rapists. No-one has produced any figures whatsoever relating to how many men (or women) commit sexually violent crimes. The only statistic being quoted by the campaign is the 1 in 10, which relates to how many women have suffered. It is your interpretation that this is anti-men based on, as far as I can see, nothing. Just to be absolutely clear. I do not hate men. I do not believe that all men are rapists. I know, from reading your previous clear and well informed posts on other subjects, that you have an excellent grasp of statistics and seriously don't understand why you keep accusing us of saying all men are rapists, when all we're saying is that 1 in 10 women have suffered rape or sexual violence. Those to things are not the same and you know that. I understand you argument about single issue debates and your points about society and respect for one another in general, but the problem is that there is a specific deficit in services, so a specific campaign is required. And again just for clarity. This campaign is for better provision of support services, across the country, for women who have suffered rape and sexual violence. It is not anti-men. I won't speak for BN5, he's more than capable of defending himself, but I will say that this line in one of your previous posts chilled me to the bone and was one of the reasons I stepped away from the debate. Yes, there is a grey area, and yes, there are girls who wake up with regrets and cry rape, occasionally, and it is despicable and belittles those who really suffer. But there is also a line and it is often crossed and rape by a date, boyfriend or husband is still rape and can be just as damaging as the dark alley attack by a stranger. Throughout your posts, with phrases like "normal social challenges" and the line quoted above you give the impression, whether intentionally or not, that you think that women who report these offences are somehow exagerating or just not coping with life's ups and downs. That for something to be rape it has to be in a dark alley, for something to be domestic violence it has to involve a black eye in the back room of an East End pub. Surely, you understand it's more complicated than that? You said in your last post that this is all about bullying and power and you are right, and because of that violence can be subtle, hidden, insidious, escalating and spread out over years, but no less wrong and no less damaging than a brutal on-off attack that we would all recognise. Just one final thought, and you'll just have to trust me on this, out there across East Dulwich (and where ever else people post or read from) there will be women sitting with their hands posied over keyboard, hesitating, wondering whether to share there experience. RosieH has been brave, as has Leagle-Eagle, but the others are holding back. Maybe because they don't want to reveal their personal life, maybe because they don't want to relive whatever they experienced, or maybe because they are desperately afraid that someone out there, who has never gone through what they have, will tell them that it wasn't that bad. They are the 1 in 10 and they are out there and this campaign is about making it ok for them to come forward and giving them somewhere to go. Edited to say this took me a long time to write and so I hadn't seen Huguenot's last post, but I don't think it changes anything I've said.

Slightly off topic, but... the photo in my last passport was taken in a digital booth with a really bright flash and I hadn't been quite facing straight on when it was taken, so it looked like I had different coloured eyes. MrJ thought this was hilarious and every time I had to show my passport (and bear in mind that, in addition to holidays, we travelled together for a couple of months crossing borders every week or so) he would stand behind me and as I opened it and busrt into song... "This is ground control to major Tom" Every single time. For five years. And I still married him. Thus proving that love is not just blind, it's also deaf and perpetually optimistic.

*Stands and appluads RosieH*

Hang on.... *runs to check calendar* Yep, I'm in. Must try and swap out of that early shift the next day though...

Very soon I'm going to walk away from this thread, because I'm finding it so bizzare and upsetting. But I'll have one more try first. Mickmac, your opinion that nice women get married and have children leaving only bitches to work is so simplistic, generalised, presumptive, ridiculous and just plain wrong that it's hard to know where to start in replying. Are you honestly saying that all nice women get married, have children and stop work and only manipulative, dominating bitches have careers and don't marry or have children, because no-one will have them? Can't you see what total nonsense that is? I am married and have a very demanding career that, in addition to direct patient care sometimes in life and death situations, requires me to manage around a dozen junior staff memebers directly whenever I'm on duty as well as negotiating with thoses senior and junior to me in other specialties. I pride myself on treating my team well, never raising my voice and making those around me feel valued and respected. I know, because annonymised feedback is part of my annual review, that I am regarded as professional, trustworthy and approachable by those who work for me and with me. Which of your tiny, narrow, sexist definitions do I fit? Neither? Exactly. If you're still not conviced, please ask your wife, who I don't doubt is every bit as lovely as you describe her, to read what you posted and tell you, honestly, what she thinks and what her female friends would think of your opinion. Now, to get back to the real deabte, Huguenot, amongst your female friends there may or may not be 10% who have or are suffering domwstic violence. If there are not it doesn't make the statistics invalid or incorrect for the wider population. But you know that, you understand statistics, so I'm not sure why your choosing to misunderstand in this way. Also, as others have already said, there may well be those amongst your friends who are, or have, suffered and would never dream of telling you or going public. That is kind of the point. Like BN5 I work in front line healthcare and in my expereince domestic violence is common, occurs in every social group, happens mostly to women and is often unreported. So, sadly, I am all to ready to believe the 1 in 10. As for the arguement that the campaign ignores other forms of violence, specifically violence against men, well, yes, it does, because that's not what it's about. Listen carefully, this is a specific, single issue, campaign, lobbying for better, and more consistent, provision for support services for women who have suffer rape and domestic violence. That is a good thing.

Oh, yes. Hate him. Hate him. Hate him.

I'm utterly baffled by the responses on this thread. Are people really saying that they disagree with, or begrudge, a campaign to provide more support services for women who have suffered rape, sexual violence and assault? Really? Because that's how it reads and that's.... well.. bonkers. Do any of you actually know what so called female circumcision (more accurately called female genital mutilation) involves? Or how common it is in some cultures still? I really don't understand.

Fairly clear in the original post and link I thought. What did you think it meant?