2017: YOUR YEAR, CHASE THOSE DREAMS!

Happy new year to you and all my readers out there. Welcome to 2017, a new year that is no doubts filled with mixed feelings, expectations, dreams, goals and so on.

Yes, here we go again. It’s really a new year and just like yesterday, 2016 was here and it went past before our very eyes as though it wasn’t here at all and gbam!  We are in 2017 already.

As fast as 2016 went, for some of us, it was either a great, good, lovely, slow, fast, awesome or whatever you decide to name it as not everyone had their dreams and expectations met hence it is a ‘carry over’ of such dreams, goals or expectations for many.

But then what can you do but to ‘deal with’ whatever your experiences were in 2016 and move on with positive mindsets for this brand new year 2017.

Whatever your dreams are, don’t give up on them yet. You may ask the ‘why’ questions and I am quick to respond to such ‘whys’ with “because you still have life”. 

 

Carry on with life and be more optimistic that things will turn out better this year as long as you work harder and not give up or give in to challenges that will definitely show up in this ‘course of life’. I call them ‘challenges’ and not ‘problems’ because when you see any obstacles as challenges, you are bound to look beyond them and envisage the victories ahead without any thoughts of giving up on that goal.

For many families, they hoped and expected babies in 2016. While some of these families had their babies, some others didn’t get and of course felt broken as it was another year of unfulfilled dream and expectation despite the many prophecies that may have come their way.

The other day, a friend, Charles Novia posted on his facebook page on the issue of childbearing saying “If you can't have babies, go adopt. Who says your loins have to be the blood father or your womb the blood mother? This is the 21st century. Change your way of thinking about life and what the society wants from you. I have been talking with a few old folks and it gets lonely when you get old. It's really lonely. The only joy some of the old folks derive is that they have grown up children and grandchildren still visiting or taking care of them. They can't describe the joy. What if they never had kids? There's always the old persons homes for those kind, who may wish to live there. But it's by choice in Western Societies in some instances. Old Age Living is mostly communal in Africa. But it is better enjoyed when those folks have kids. Don't be lonely”. Enough said on that for now. 

 

For some other families and individuals, maybe it was just a new car or better jobs they wished for but they went through the year hopeful each month but could barely fuel their worn-out cars till the end of the year not to talk about getting a new one. Again they heard as ‘happy new year’ rent the air on the 1^st of January with no new cars, jobs or houses to show for all their toil through the past year.

Again, for some persons who are faced with health challenges, they believed and hoped all through the year for healing, having done all they know to do medically, spiritually and financially, yet they are still ill leaving them dejected into the New Year.

I could go on and on given the many unfulfilled dreams and expectations. But there’s no point reeling them out. Suffice to say here that we all have to hope again, believe again, try again and be very positive.

No matter what the economy says, just believe in this year 2017 that it is indeed a year for your divine laughter. Don’t give up! Not yet!! Not ever!!!   

Once again, happy New Year!

SOME ANSWERS TO 'THREE-PERSON BABY' ADVANCED IVF CONCERNS/QUESTIONS

A health and science reporter James Gallagher writes on the concerns about engaging in a three-person baby form of  having children, an advanced form of IVF pioneered by the UK given the basis that it was the first country to introduce laws allowing the creation of babies from three people even though the first of such babies was born in Mexico.

It was gathered that despite the technique being designed to eliminate disease, it has however been used as an unproven fertility booster in Ukraine as it was stated that the idea of a three person-baby IVF was devised to prevent the repeated heartache of losing children to illnesses caused by defective mitochondria.

However, as much as a couple of people are embracing this idea of  making  babies from three person, it is also fast becoming a major worry because apart from many couples being duped, scientists as well as ethicists warn that it is a dangerous experiment on mums and babies.

The tiny structures in our bodies convert food into useable energy and are passed on only through the mother's egg. Three-person IVF takes the DNA from mum and dad and puts it in an egg from a donor woman. The resulting child has 0.1% of its DNA from the donor.

The advanced form of IVF was developed at Newcastle University in the UK and the final safety checks were completed in June. So the Mexico birth and the procedure being offered as a fertility treatment has caused concern.

"We appear to be in a race to the bottom," warned Dr Marcy Darnovsky from the US Centre for Genetics and Society.

Criticising doctors offering the technique, she added: "They are ignoring ongoing policy debates and conducting dangerous and socially fraught experiments on mothers and children. And they appear to be actively seeking a media splash on the way down."

"Use of these biologically extreme procedures for infertility is based purely on speculation."

It is argued that some cases of infertility are caused by a "poor" environment inside the egg such as insufficient or old mitochondria or an imbalance in the chemicals necessary to trigger embryo development. And that the three-person technique could overcome those deficiencies.

Dr Dusko Ilic, from King's College London, said there was no way to stop IVF clinics offering the procedure.

While the UK was the first country to create laws to legalise three person IVF, it is legal by default in many countries with little-to-no regulation.

Dr Ilic told the BBC News website: "IVF clinics are jumping on the bandwagon and rushing ahead, whereas the Newcastle team did all the hard due diligence work.

"The major worry is how technically skillful these clinics are, what quality control measures are in place and what information they provide to desperate patients seeking help.

"Are those patients aware of all risks involved?" For example in the Mexico birth - the details of the family and an photograph of the baby were made public without any consent.

James Lawford Davies, a partner at the law firm Hempsons, said: "One example of the way UK regulation protects patients is through the confidentiality which attaches to their identity, the details of their treatment, and their children.

"Any such disclosure would be a criminal offence in the UK."

When the UK allowed the procedure to prevent inherited mitochondrial disease, it did not allow three-person IVF to be used in fertility treatment.

"There was little evidence at the time the law was being changed that the methods were likely to help infertility," said Prof Robin Lovell-Badge, from the Francis Crick Institute.

Such an untried form of conception was thought to be too risky - except in the case of mitochondrial disease where the harms were even greater.

Prof Lovell-Badge said the UK had a reputation for looking "deeply into the issues of science and safety" and that such procedures may be permitted in the future if they were shown to be safe.

He told the BBC: "We can't control this in countries where there are few or no regulations and poor oversight.

"Unfortunately the clinics in such countries have become used to being unregulated, and it is the patients who are at risk of being duped into paying for methods that have little or no benefit or that are even harmful."

Sarah Norcross, the director of the Progress Educational Trust, said fertility clinics had a reputation for "rushing" new techniques to patients.

She advised: "For British women who wish to avoid passing mitochondrial disease to their children, the temptation to travel overseas to access these treatments must be enormous.

"We would caution against this. At present, there are too many unanswered questions about what has been achieved - and how - for us to be confident of patient safety.'