Y2K Bug Blamed For Miscalculated Down Syndrome Risk 273
Albanach writes: "The BBC are reporting in this story that the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield, England is blaming the Millennium Bug for getting wrong 150 tests for Down Syndrome with four mothers going on to give birth to affected children." The article actually idicates that four women were pregnant with Down Syndrome babies, and that two of them brought the pregnancies to term.
hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
-teknopurge
Re:hmmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:hmmm... (Score:1)
This isn't a Y2K-specific bug but just bad data-management in software. Data entry can screw up in many places, a similar bad effect may have happened if someone had misentered a birth-year of '71 as '17 (giving a mother's age in the 80s).
The key is to develop software that flags "silly" values, positive or negative. And even then you're going to miss some, so some calculation steps should be displayed in the output.
Just clumsy programming, not Y2K. Move along. (I guess we're desperate for some Y2K bugs, tho.)
It's only a screening test (Score:4, Interesting)
The screening test does not tell you whether or not the fetus actually has Downs -- for that, you need further tests, such as amniocentesis. It's this chance for further testing that was missed.
Re:hmmm... (Score:2)
i find it hard to belive the doctors wouldn't notice a mistake such as that....
Oh, that's easy enough. If the results were simply presented as "Yes/No" there's no way to tell. The source for the patient's age could have been correct but the age used in the determination was, obviously, wrong. What the programmer should have done is display the patient age as used in the calculation. It is still possible that the programmer attempted to do so yet ... made an error. No way
to tell without more information.
Though I'm not a doctor and I haven't played one on TV, I do program OB/GYN databases and have done Y2K updates on them. I always tried to make sure that a screwy result would stare the user in the face.
--
Re:hmmm... (Score:2)
I am not pro-life or anything (Score:5, Insightful)
... (Score:1)
Re:I am not pro-life or anything (Score:2)
Re:I am not pro-life or anything (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure that non-retarded people live much more fulfilling lives, so while someone with a mental problem may be happy, they'd have been more independant, and likely much happier, if they were healthy.
For instance, my relationship with my fiance is the best thing that's happened to me, I wouldn't be independant enough to support myself, let alone able to find a lover and have a meaningful relationship.
Not to mention, don't the parents ever want the kid to move out? Wouldn't the kid be unhappy when his parents die and he has to move to a home? And wouldn't he, to the degree he'd be able, feel upset about being such a burden?
I've made MY decision. I've asked family to withdraw life-support if I'm ever badly brain-damaged. The most painful thing for me would be to go through life, remembering everything I could have been. Can you imagine knowing you had once been able to program, but now not been able to comprehend a mouse, or read even simple books?
No way! Better off dead!
Re:I am not pro-life or anything (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I am not pro-life or anything (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I am not pro-life or anything (Score:2, Informative)
Do you even know what it means to be retarded? Or has the term's over-use to mean "stupid" completely blinded you to what REAL retards are like?
Re:I am not pro-life or anything (Score:2)
If you were unable to comprehend a mouse, would you be able to know you had once been able to program?
Re:I am not pro-life or anything (Score:2)
He had met his wife while in the army, and later that whole period of his life was gone.
He knew just enough to know how much he'd lost.
Re:I am not pro-life or anything (Score:2, Interesting)
Is the statement that you wouldn't want to live if you sustained a brain injury a justification for killing a child before they have the opportunity to make that choice?
A woman who suffers from tuberculosis is pregnant. Her husband has syphilis. There are three children in the family. One is blind, another deaf, and the other suffers from tuberculosis. Yet another child died in infancy. Under the circumstances, what would you recommend? An abortion?
Congratulations, you?ve just killed Beethoven.
Euthanasia is one issue; infanticide is something else entirely.
Re:I am not pro-life or anything (Score:2)
This gets even better now, because we're much closer to being able to tell if the baby has a problem, instead of just playing the odds.
If geniuses were always retarded in other ways, aborting a retarded baby would risk our only supply of geniuses, but there are plenty of geniuses who don't have any great physical or mental flaws.
I stand by my position of aborting babies that tests show will be retarded.
Re:I am not pro-life or anything (Score:2)
all the exceptionally smart people i know (i humbly include myself in this group, for anecdote's sake) suffer from a slight to not-so-slight case of manic depression. this is considered abnormal psychology, sometimes resultant from physiology. so would you abort this group? keep in mind that manic depression is a highly negative trait, not always treatable with medication...
or how about homosexuality? it doesn't contribute to the greater good, and it could have physiological cause. does this mean we should terminate all potentially gay children?
eugenics is a bitch to live with.
personally, i live with some severe lows, i keep an eye on what sharp objects i have easy access to at times, and live without medication. why? because the medication will "fix" the problem in my brain, which i feel is what makes me "smart." do i think i'm better for it? definitely!
please don't prejudge people; let them become people and decide for themselves whether their lives are worth living or not.
Re:I am not pro-life or anything (Score:2)
but i found, especially back in HS, that everyone in my classes went through bouts of this sort of thing. just came with the territory, i suppose. maybe it was the stress of "honors" or something else, but it sure seemed consistent.
lots of possible causes, but i feel it most probably is physiological. i'd like someone to refute me with studies, though.
Re:I am not pro-life or anything (Score:2)
Baloney.
If we don't know about Beethoven, it's impossible to kill him.
I don't buy that argument, and I don't buy the counter-argument either, ie. that we can post-predict to abort Stalin.
Personally, I think that the choice to have an abortion is up to the patient, not some bystanders on the street waving placards. You may disagree with that opinion, but there's no way in hell anyone will ever convince me to change it.
Re:I am not pro-life or anything (Score:2)
Sure, he has happy days. There are some things he enjoys doing, but overall, he's the least happy of the children, by FAR.
Combine this with someone a bit less retarded, who can tell how far behind everyone else they are, and I think that they'd be profoundly unhappy, despite happy instances in their life.
I *AM* pro-life. (Score:2, Insightful)
I have no problem seeing how far behind others I am in some areas. It's highly unlikely I would ever be able to marry. I have tremendous problems speaking when I'm confused or in a noisy room (sometimes I can't speak at all for even a few days). I'm barely able to work, but somehow manage to make it through a workplace designed for non-autistics. (computer programming is a blessing for people like me)
Should have I been aborted? I don't think so. Was I a lot of work for my parents? Yes - I was a very difficult child to raise (I didn't speak much of my childhood; I bit other kids and I banged my head against the wall at times). Was I a happy kid? Sometimes - it depended on if I was being abused by the other kids or not. Autism wasn't hell - the way I was sometimes treated was.
I am very happy now. I love life. The sensory "issues" that I have sometimes make life difficult, but being able to see the mountains the way I can - getting lost in the sensations - makes up for it. Enjoying rocking back and forth or simply humming to myself brings me a lot of joy - and I won't let anyone take this away from me, even if they think I'm "less human" then they are.
Please don't assume anyone with a disability is unhappy. We might actually enjoy life. Some of us don't, and I realize that, but many so-called normal people commit suicide - surely they weren't happy either. From someone who has lived with prejudice my whole life: Don't you dare judge the value of someone else based on what you think you see.
I will also say that it is very possible for a mentally retarded child or "severely" autistic one to be happy and enjoy thier life. Who are you to take that away from him, simply because it would take "work?" Who are you to judge who is valuable to society and who isn't? I wonder how many slashdotters who, although very intelligent, did very poorly in sports and PE. Are they all less human because of this? Are they more expendable? Wouldn't it be horrible to know you were bad at sports? How is this any different then being "slow" intellectually?
I will also mention that the Nazis, through euthenasia, killed first the mentally and physically handicapped. I fear I would have been one of the ones killed if I lived then. They did this before they started killing the Jews.
Re:I *AM* pro-life. (Score:2)
By mildly, I was assuming that autism was usually so bad that you're essentially a vegetable. If I was wrong, I'm sorry.
Now, to the bulk of the post.
Right, I can't say that my accomplishments are more important than yours, I can't say that my hobbies are more worthwhile, even if yours might seem that way to me personally. (Not to say that they do.)
I also don't think I'm happied, sitting down, doing what I enjoy, than you are, sitting down, doing what you enjoy.
Happy moment, for happy moment, I think we're equal.
But I question the ability of some to seek out those happy moments. This boy I'm talking about likes to play certain simple games, but these all require another person. When his caretaker gets tired of playing the game, he's unable to entertain himself.
All else being equal, I think he'd be happier without autism.
Being that I am unwilling to end someone's life because they don't agree with me (MS supporters would be first, by a mile, if I did) I wouldn't threaten you or anyone else, no matter how deficient in any area you appeared (to me) to be.
But I would take steps to make sure my children, to the best of my ability, remained as healthy as possible. This includes preventing them from smoking, drinking bleach, having a lobotomy, or whatever.
I would also try to keep them healthy proactively, but aborting one I feared would be handicapped. Again, all else being equal, I think they'd be happier without a disability.
btw, you should read _Distress_ (or DistressED, I'm not sure) by Greg Egan. He's a cool author who's written neat stuff, but specifically, this book talks about people choosing to be autistic, and the reasons behind it.
It's a great look at why we feel the need to defend the way we are as being "the way."
OT: I may go away for the weekend (starting tonight), if you wish to talk to me, please email me as well as posting.
Re:I *AM* pro-life. (Score:2)
I would. I have no intention of advocating post-partum abortions.
But at the level where a baby isn't a baby, where it's just a zygote, or even earlier, a few eggs and a billion sperm cells. Why not select one over the other?
Why is it magically different right after conception?
I too have alergies, though fairly mild. I wouldn't mind not having them. If my parents had to select a different sperm cell to do it, I'd overall be okay with that. I'm here, not because I was destined to be born, but by accident. If *I* wasn't born, another baby would have been, and they'd be the one thinking about how they were here by fluke...
It's like the argument "what's the chance we'd end up in a universe that can support life?" Merely that fact that we're here, able to discuss it, means that it's 100%. A billion universes could exist, or have existed, without life, and we'd never know.
Re:I am not pro-life or anything (Score:2)
However, all else being equal, I'd choose the zygote that was the least likely to cause my child to be born with Downs, or Autistic, etc.
Once you have them, I think you're responsible for looking after them, children don't come with a money-back guarantee.
This all comes down to abortion. I don't feel it's murder, if done soon enough. (How soon is soon enough is essentially unanswerable, though I feel the first trimester is safe.)
I'd fight to prevent my child from being exposed to poison which would cause brain damage, why is it unreasonable to try to ensure a healthy child in other ways?
Re:Disability is not death (Score:2)
Friends of mine said they'd kill themselves if they became a parapalegic, or went blind, or whatever. I never agreed. I love to read, I could base my life around that, or if needed, talking books, or braile, etc.
What would kill me is being too dim to do everything that makes my life worthwhile now, too dim to even understand what I used to live my life for. But, smart enough to realize everything I used to love and how I was completely incapable of it.
That's the only thing (short of being a complete vegetable) that would make me want to end it.
Re:I am not pro-life or anything (Score:2)
presumable the 2 that did abort found out through other tests later in the pregnancy.
Re:I am not pro-life or anything (Score:1)
Re:I am not pro-life or anything (Score:1)
The Good Bug? (Score:2, Funny)
Had to blame SOMETHING. (Score:2)
The implications are interesting, though. Wait until the anti-abortion crowd gets ahold of that.
"Sorry. We screwed up on the test. You should have aborted that one. Maybe next time."
Y2K bug disaster (Score:1)
"The article actually idicates that four women were pregnant with Down Syndrome babies, and that two of them brought the pregnancies to term."
Does this mean two of them were aborted? How many mothers had false positives on Down Syndrome diagnoses? I guess the Y2K bug was a real threat after all and had tragic consequences.
Re:Y2K bug disaster (Score:1)
And there are still people who think.... (Score:5, Funny)
"Whoops! Sorry, Mrs. Flittersnoop, we just discovered that your twins would have been OK, after all. It was all because of that Millenium Bug that we neglected to fix. Now, isn't that silly!"
Next week....
"Sorry to bother you, Mrs Flittersnoop, I know you're still upset over the loss of your babies. We've just received back the re-checked test results for your husband, and we're glad to say he didn't have terminal cancer, as our computers had indicated. Unfortunately, the mail didn't get sorted in time, and we've already given him euthanasia. Now, now. Don't cry! There are bound to be bugs in any computer system. Now, Mrs. Flittersnoop, be very careful with that uzi. We don't want any more accidents, now... Mrs. Flittersnoop.... Will you please stop looking at me that way.... This really isn't helping.... The EULA clearly states that we're not responsible for computer errors.... If you don't put that safety catch back on, right now, I'll have to make a written complaint...."
Um, buy a clue here (Score:3, Informative)
In other words, getting this test wrong put 150 women at greater risk for a test later in their pregnancy. Obviously the test was eventually done, that's how the four women who had fetuses with down syndrome were informed of it.
Another reason to get this test right is so that the amnicentesis can be done much earlier in the pregnancy, preferrably during the first trimester when an abortion is a viable option.
Whether you agree with abortion or not, it is the mother's choice, and I can respect the desire to limit suffering in the world, especially for your children.
GenericJoe
Re:Um, buy a clue here (Score:2, Interesting)
Neither did so; the children were fine in both cases.
In both cases the test was flawed because the fetus was unusually large and thus the doctors involved got the conception date wrong.
In both cases the doctors ignored the mother's protests that the conception date was off by a couple of weeks...
Stephen
You've got it backwards (Score:1)
Thus, women who were at risk were told they were not at risk. The effect was that some women either didn't get the real Down's Syndrome test or didn't get it soon enough (it's not clear) and two babies were born with Down's Syndrome.
The error did not cause any pregnancies to be terminated; it may or may not have prevented terminations.
Wow. I do not know how to react... (Score:2)
It's not about saving babies or not (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder how many lines of code are still there, untested, waiting for someone to run them and screw things up big time...
Re:It's not about saving babies or not (Score:1)
Absolutely. I'm glad to see this getting attention here. It is often the case that the need for quality in software takes a back seat to concerns for meeting deadlines and keeping expenses down. But here we see that with computers being used for so many important purposes, small bugs can have a profound effect on people's lives. This is something all of us in IT need to keep in mind.
I think this story is going to find its way in to my boss's inbox (anonymously). It's something to think about when you feel the need to pressure coders to get the job done now, rather than get the job done right.
What's next? (Score:1, Flamebait)
Testing (Score:2, Interesting)
My wife is a midwife (and previously worked with down's syndrome adults) and we are against most prenatal testing and find it offensive that a person who chooses to be a mother could reconsider because a doctor told her that her baby was damaged.
And no, we are not right to lifer's. We are liberal, UU's and pro-choice.
Re:Testing (Score:1)
Re:Testing (Score:1)
So I guess what I really mean by pro-choice is that the choice shouldn't be made after the fact in normal situations and the choice is to have a baby or not. Termination doesn't enter the picture. I think a lot of people miss this when they talk about this issue.
Am I Really Pro-Choice? (Score:1)
Some people call me thick-headed.
Put your best foot forward (Score:2)
Japanese culture of a century ago would have selected for small feet in their girls. This may have had interesting developmental consequences, given that the genes for characteristic features are very often multi-purpose and spread around the DNA. Hitler would have murdered Einstein in utero or sooner, given the chance. There are a lot of consequences to un-natural selection of which we are not yet aware. Even if we are fully aware of the consequences, can people be relied upon to base their kill/keep decisions on rational grounds?
I'm also pro-choice. IMHO, the child concerned should be consulted and given a choice before anything drastic is done to or with him/her. Can you pick any physiological marker during a child's in utero development at which the child stops being ``a blob'' and starts being ``human?''
Pre-natal Testing (Score:1)
More information on the complete screening process is a ds-health [ds-health.com].
Re:Pre-natal Testing (Score:1)
A few minutes per test of checking could have averted this situation entirely.
Heh... (Score:2)
If you're a doctor, you're supposed to be intelligent, if you fear something might be screwed up (Y2k was such an issue that you *CAN'T* claim you never heard of it), you take actions (paperwork instead of computer database for a short while, or even better, continue using the computer database while keeping a backup on paper and see if there's anything wrong comparing). I'm sorry but there's simply no excuses for this, oh you won't admit your mistake because you're scared you'll get sued? Well not only you'll get sued anyways, but you'll have a lot of media reporting your mistake AND your actions making you look not only incompetent (which you feared in the first place and tried to avoid), but also like an irresponsible immature child that will blame anyone but himself.
That said, I blame and will sue the heck out of the tooth fairy for not pulling out my teeth that got me a painful root canal treatment!
The Calendar says 2001--but it seems to be 1984... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is just...sad.
I'm at a client's this afternoon for a meeting. When I'm done I'll go home to my wife and three daughters. Daughter #3 has Down syndrome.
There is no such thing as impartial journalism--the words a writer uses color the facts (and opinions) that he or she presents. In an article about a simple date validation problem the writer--and the hospital--manage to convey the idea that this simple computer bug is a catastrophe. After all--two children were born with Down syndrome.
Some readers might miss a point that isn't adequately made in the article: the computer program did not tell the mother whether or not the baby had Down syndrome--all it did was some simple calculation based on age (that's about the only significant factor) and project a statistical risk for Downs. A woman in the high-risk group would be informed that she might wish to have amniocentesis performed--there is no indication (or reason to believe) that the two mothers would have agreed to have the test, or if they had the test they would choose to dispose of their babies.
I submit that there's no moral catastrophe. But this article is an obvious symptom of a serious moral disease: use technology to select characteristics we like in children, and to dispose of children we don't want. Great heavens! A child who might have an extra chromosome, or a child who might have a predisposition to red hair. Egad--a child who might not have a Y chromosome (that would be a girl, if you slept through biology). Nope--terminate her, we'll try again.
The moral issue here isn't the software bug. (The bug, IMHO, is not that big a deal--any Ob/Gyn knows the risk factors. The program strikes me as a boondoggle.) The moral issue is the tone of the article--the obvious belief of the writer that families have been injured by having their children.
Re:The Calendar says 2001--but it seems to be 1984 (Score:2)
Value of Life (Score:1)
Agreed! The problem I have is that people don't see that these "less than perfect" children can have a wonderful life and a life that positively affects those around them. These children are no less valuable. Let us not make "quality of life" judgements, rather let us value life.
Re:Value of Life (Score:2)
It not only sounds cruel, it is cruel. You're speaking with only a tiny smidgen of real-life experience, and not from any real knowledge. Educate yourself [healthcentral.com] before spouting nonsense next time.
Re:Value of Life (Score:2)
You also seem to have missed that in many cases autism is treatable. It's not easy, but it can be done. We ought not kill people who have a treatable disease when we have a chance of giving them a life instead.
Is "natural evil" a Protestant term? I've never heard it. I'm a fairly well-educated Orthodox Christian, and we would consider this term heretical. No evil is natural, strictly speaking.
Re:The Calendar says 2001--but it seems to be 1984 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Calendar says 2001--but it seems to be 1984 (Score:2)
I wish that were true. I don't mean to flame you--before Annie was born I had that innocent view of the medical world as well. I daresay you have never been offered amniocentesis, or had a child born with a serious disability.
Let's start with some simple biology. Down syndrome happens at conception. My little girl doesn't have a birth defect--she has a genetic defect. Amniocentesis, as far as I know, doesn't tell you of any condition that can be helped with prenatal care. Unless you define abortion as prenatal care. The purpose of amniocentesis is to identify genetic defects.
We've been called by the county several times to counsel parents who have had amniocentesis and heard the words "Down syndrome." The doctor's advice is always abort, abort, abort. The doctor is in full-blown damage control: the parents hear the worst possible case--how the child will have a damaged heart, damaged lungs, will require open-heart surgery within weeks, will live less than 5 years. They hear about mental retardation and the likelihood of spinal injury and the meager prospects for a "meaningful life." The "emotional preparation" they get from the doctor is a combination snow job and horror story.
What the doctor doesn't tell you is the million and one things that make Downs kids unique. That they have "loose ligaments" that make them the stretchiest and snuggliest kids in the world. (Daughter #3 crosses her legs Indian-style in front of her pillow, then bends forward onto her pillow and falls asleep--if you don't have Downs, you'll permanently injure yourself. This is how they take naps.) That there is something mysterious--something mystical--about Downs kids and animals. We have off-the-racetrack Thoroughbreds, and they're tough for experienced horse people to handle--but they'll stand for Annie, and docilely stand while she holds them on leads.
Is every obstetrician in America needlessly, hopelessly, cruel? No--but every obstetrician in America is in, by far, the most expensive medical specialty due to the crushing liability premiums they pay. If there is any possibility of any kind of problem they have a built-in incentive to encourage--to the point of a really hard-sell--abortion. That's why they push amniocentesis--and if you refuse amniocentesis, they will haul out legal forms and insist that both you and your husband sign waivers of any right to sue.
The reason I think the article conveys the view that children are now disposable commodities is that the author never even suggests that having a child with Down syndrome might not be a bad thing. Instead the fact that two kids with Downs were born is written as a failure, as a breakdown of the government system, and as a reason to call for a new "reference" program against which all other such programs will be compared.
I'm--obviously, right?--close to the subject. So perhaps I'm quick to hear the echoes of Peter Singer's "end the suffering" (by which he means, "off the imperfect") palaver. Down syndrome represents tragedy and suffering: suffering is bad; thus, end Down syndrome. (Singer says this with more or less those words.)
I'm not going to say that Down syndrome is completely without suffering. In fact, Daughter #3 is still up (it's 11:12 pm) telling knock-knock jokes, way past her bed time. So there's going to be a little suffering on her bottom if she's not in bed in about thirty seconds....
Re:The Calendar says 2001--but it seems to be 1984 (Score:3, Insightful)
As a parent I know how hard it can be to be impartial to that question when you see your beautifull child every day.
this is a serious question, and I am really curious.
Re:The Calendar says 2001--but it seems to be 1984 (Score:2)
Er--ah, um. Actually, it was my wife who got pregnant. (Although she kept saying, "you did this to me!" all through labor....)
All jesting aside, I can't answer the question in the abstract. The question I can answer is "if you knew Daughter #3 would have Down syndrome, would you have aborted her?" The answer is a simple "no." When the doctor offered amniocentesis my wife refused. When the doctor more or less insisted, she refused. When the doctor suggested that she should return with me for "counseling" she asked if he thought she was incompetent--all amniocentesis does is give you the bad news. Since abortion was simply out of the question, she refused.
That said, Down syndrome is not, by any means, the worst possible disability. There are other trisomies (where there are three chromosomes in a "pair"); there is Tay-Sachs; there are other genetic defects; there is cerebral palsy. Handicapped kids frequently start in "early intervention" programs within weeks of birth--of the kids in Annie's first class fewer than half are alive nine years later. We know mothers and fathers with preschoolers that can't lift their heads off the floor--we know parents of "kids" who are in their twenties and still wearing diapers. None of them would "dispose" of their kids--none of them would give them away.
The closest I can come to answering your question is to tell you about my brother and sister-in-law. She comes from a family with a genetic condition that prevents the body from absorbing iodine--boys usually get it, girls usually carry it. If they have the disease they develop terrible rickets (bowing of the legs) and have to have a series of orthopedic operations through their growing years. When Dave and Suzanne married they had to face the question: do they have children or not? They have two daughters--and their second daughter (in a very rare circumstance) has the disease. Every summer they fly to St. Louis (he's in the Air Force, so every summer they're flying from somewhere new) for observation and study of her condition, and usually surgery to insert pins into her legs.
I think they made the right choice.
Re:Adoption? (Score:2)
Hi!
Yes--there are unfortunate children without quality homes. I don't know if my brother and his wife considered adoption--but my brother and I grew up with a neighbor who was adopted (as a young teen), and we had several adopted kids when we were camp counselors. I'm certain they were aware of adoption as an option.
But while my sister-in-law's family has an inherited genetic condition, it is not an insurmountable obstacle. Yes--you might say, "gee--I don't want this genetic trait to continue." But think about that in the context of a family--how do you say to your brother (or your father), "I don't want to have any children like you." Kind of a tricky issue.
Re:The Calendar says 2001--but it seems to be 1984 (Score:1)
The moral issue is the tone of the article--the obvious belief of the writer that families have been injured by having their children.
I agree with your sentiment. However, I do not interpret the tone of the article in the same way that you are. When the article states that the hospital is sorry for what happened, I don't agree with your interpretation as "We're sorry you had to have a baby with Down's Syndrome." If that were the case, it would indeed be a depressing article.
My interpretation: (reread the article so you can see where I get this). Regardless of a woman's stance regarding abortion in these situations, it is always going to be traumatizing to discover that your child may have Down's Syndrome. The point of the article, and the reason the hospital extends its apologies is that many women were told that there was no risk. Later, the verdict was changed. They were told that there is a significant chance of their baby having Down's. This gives them much less time to prepare mentally for whatever alternative they might choose. Worse yet, it is now so late in the pregnancy that the absolute test for the syndrome puts both mother and baby at risk!
These women deserved the apology they got, with no moral reproof towards the hospital or journalist.
Gifts from God (Score:5, Interesting)
Although I had never met the boy, I went to the memorial service to support my friend. It was a very informal event. His family, friends, teachers and therapists were all present. One by one they took the podium to say a few words about how Michael had enriched their lives with his joy, enthusiasm, and love. Not a single person in the room -- and certainly not his parents -- regretted having known him, or begrudged him their efforts on his behalf. As far as these genuinely good people were concerned, the rewards for having done so far outweighed what it cost them, and Michael's presence in their lives was a gift from God. It was extraordinarily moving.
Having made the choice myself, together with my wife, to maintain life support for a very prematurely born infant when we were given the choice to terminate it, knowing full well that he would likely be severly disabled, I cannot regard the decision to abort a potentially disabled child as anything but evil. They really are gifts from God. Raising them makes you a better person. Throwing them away as if they were nothing more than organic trash is sick. The fact that society seems to assume that anyone would want to do so is a sign of a very sick society.
In other matters, I suspect the reliance on a computer program to diagnose risk factors is a consequence of the UK's wonderful national heath system. Yes, a living, breathing OB/GYN certainly would have known the risk factors for Down Syndrome and other diseases without the aid of a computer. But I suspect that MDs are dispensed with for routine pregnancy counselling and diagnoses in order to save money, being replaced with relatively untrained personnel running expert system. Disturbing as the implications of this story are, it's a good example of why this is a rather bad idea.
Re:Gifts from God (Score:2)
Yes, because you always badmouth the dead on their funeral day...
Honestly I think it's cruel to bring a child to the work with a debilitating dieseas that will kill him (if from the complications if nothing else) before his 20th birthday, especially if he will spend most of his youth half dead and in pain.
Somehow to me it seems less cruel to give your child a fighting chance at leading a full and happy life. To be able to play with the neighborhood kids in the backyard and to go to the regular school instead of the "special" school where half of the kids are truely retarded.
This also applies to crack babies of poor single urban drug addicted mothers, but in all cases I think it's the mother's decision and not mine.
But that's just my opinion, and I'm donning my asbestos underwear before hitting the submit button.
In other matters, I suspect the reliance on a computer program to diagnose risk factors is a consequence of the UK's wonderful national heath system. Yes, a living, breathing OB/GYN certainly would have known the risk factors for Down Syndrome and other diseases without the aid of a computer.
That's a huge assumption there. Human doctors are certainly not infallable, in fact I'd like to see the statistics on the number of misdiagnosed cases with a human OBGYN vs a Computer program. What's more, a computer program is more likely to notice very obscure diesease risk factors for dieseases that the human doctor hasn't seen since his medical school days. Personally I'd like to see a combination where a doctor checks what the program thinks, then gives his patient a once over to be sure it's sane before handing them the diagnosis.
Re:Gifts from God (Score:2)
Of course they do, but in my extensive experience never to the extent of having non-MDs make diagnoses, with or without expert systems. If nothing else, the fear of a malpractice suit in the event of a misdiagnosis would prevent it. In the American system, I'm also reasonably sure it would be considered unethical.
Re:The Calendar says 2001--but it seems to be 1984 (Score:1, Offtopic)
The "Y2K1" bug, not the "Y2K" bug (Score:2)
Sanity Checks (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a good example of how software is not tested. According to the article the problem was due to the mother's age not being correctly calculated. My question is, were there any sanity checks on the mother's age in the first place? Probably not.
It seems logical that for a critical application you would try to have as much sanity-checking code as possible. It should be plainly obvious that no one should have a negative age or be giving birth if they are over 100 years old. And sanity checking code is easy.
The common excuse, though, is the ol' "garbage in, garbage out". Which is fine -- but what if you don't know you have garbage? The software -- if it can -- should at least give a warning.
This gets down to one of the basic questions for software testing: What inputs can you rely on?
Software engineers know by now (at least mostly) that all user input has to be checked and validated. But what about system data, especially something as basic as the date?
The only way to protect against unexpected bad data is to do sanity checking at all steps in the process. If you know even a little bit about the domain, you can usually set reasonable bounds.
Software isn't really engineered unless it makes these kinds of checks.
Would you take a look at this... (Score:1)
What, exactly, is wrong with aborting based on Downs syndrome as opposed to ordinary abortion? (I'm not talking about whether abortion as a whole is right, perhaps another thread should discuss that). A genetic test can be taken and decided upon long before the legal threshold, so what is the difference? If you are allowed to choose not to have a baby, aren't you allowed to choose not to have one based on the results of whether they have a very disabilitating genetic disease?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Would you take a look at this... (Score:1)
Re:Would you take a look at this... (Score:2)
"Eugenics", when applied to human beings, is rightly considered a dirty word by most civilized people I would hope. The Nazis showed us how slippery the slope is.
(I'm not talking about whether abortion as a whole is right, perhaps another thread should discuss that).
I enjoy a good righteous flamefest as much as the next guy, but be aware that's exactly what your asking for here.
It's not a test for Downs Syndrome (Score:1)
Retribution (Score:1)
If that happens, a lot more software is going to be tested if it is going into a potentially life threatening situation.
Also, if they used a library for their date functions, does that make the library author responsible too?
Travis
Befor pregnancy. (Score:2)
The womens decsion as to whether they should get pregnant was , partially, based on these tests.
This mens that the women where actually thinking about the ramifications of being pregnent, and kudos to them.
I disagree (Score:1)
Random Sampling (Score:2)
To the kill the tards contingent (Score:1)
What happened, exactly? (Score:2)
If I've gotten something wrong, please correct me.
The bug affected an initial screening process that used blood test results and the mother's age and weight to determine the risk of Down's Syndrome. It sounds to me (I'm unclear on this) like the error was caught and 150 women who had been told that they were in the low-risk group were actually high-risk. Four of them turn out (this is where I start to get confused -how?) to have had Down's Syndrome babies. Two of them (I guess) still had amniocentesis and aborted the babies and the other two had their babies.
OK, I'm realizing I'm confused about this too. Anyone have a clearer understanding?
Aww, dammit! (Score:2)
The bias in this mere report is disgusting. One can hear the shock and horror in timothy's voice: "and that two of them brought the pregnancies to term."
OH NO!
Look, I've known many retarded people in my life, including a family member and his friends. Most of them were sweet, kind, and gentle people who weren't half as dumb as people make them out to be. I think the world isn't harmed when a sweet, kind, and gentle person is born, since
-Kasreyn
Re:Does it matter? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Does it matter? (Score:2)
*Sarcasm Mode Off*
Seriously, the number of erronious diagnoses is terrifying enough. The fact that people make life or death decisions, based on inaccurate data plugged into faulty & badly-maintained machines, is ghastly.
However, when you consider that the potential impact even one child can have on the world ("Lorenzo's Oil", "My Left Foot" both spring to mind, as does the drive to cure polio, smallpox, etc), directly, indirectly, or any combination thereof, it is crazy to automatically assume that hardships automatically rule someone out of revolutionising society.
"But those are so infrequent!", you might argue. I suspect that might be because the wall that all of us, myself included, put in front of people in such emotionally troubling circumstances is so tall that only a few can gather the strength to climb over.
But some do! Maybe, just maybe, we need to think about lowering that wall. See if more can cross this formidable barrier, and see if their courage in doing so, never mind any achievements they make, can inspire sourage in others.
I don't want to start a flamewar here, either, and I fully understand that there are going to be contexts in which all I've written above just doesn't apply, or where other considerations make any kind of alternative choice impossible. Some times we're faced ourselves with a wall that's just too tough to climb, or just not worth it to us. That's a personal, individual choice. Nobody else can make it.
My only concern is with "snap decisions" based on data which may (or may not) be wildly inaccurate, and which - even if accurate - may be misleading. Not all pain is bad, and not all suffering is evil.
We, who live in a world in which most suffering can be removed by a pill or with money, easily forget that. Too easily. Sure, pain isn't "nice", and nobody wants it, but it can lead to growth in a way that all the luxuries in the world can never do.
My single bone of contention in the entire issue is when people avoid -any- pain, simply because they blind themselves to the potential. Now, this is NOT the same as seeking pain. Those who seek pain should either receive treatment or go into politics. I'm specifically talking about the pain that accompanies learning, growth, wisdom and experience. Nothing else.
Facing that type of pain will result in gain. Any child, however "disabled" or genetically malformed, that somehow manages to accomplish that single feat, even if they barely survive the week, will have had a richer, more rewarding life than many.
If both parents -and- child achieve the impossible, work together to climb their respective walls, and survive the ordeal, at the very least, their lives will be richer than all the money in the world could ever dream of buying.
Re:Suffering is good, right Mother Theresa? (Score:2)
And guess what...a child who ISN'T genetically malformed will be more likely to accomplish MORE than a single feat, and survive more than a week.
Yet, the facts are indisputable. Those who overcome great hurdles in life are the ones who accomplish any feats at all.
You claim that the healthy can achieve more, but where are your achievers? Name ONE, just one, achiever who has accomplished, in ANY field of your choice, ANY measure of success, and has NEVER contended with adversity, in the process.
To achieve is to be focussed, beyond mere normal measure. If "normal" people could achieve such focus, there would be no homeless, no starving, no welfare cases, no addicts, no grunts, no plebs. These roles are filled by the "normal", because the lack of adversity is the greatest disability of all. It doesn't kill the body, but it murders the mind and massacres the spirit.
Re:Does it matter? (Score:2)
These became understood because, eventually, people realised that there were just too many people in the "mentally disabled" category who were mentally as superior to the average "person in the street", as that average person was above a single-cell amoeba.
Asperger's Syndrome, a "mental disability", afflicts maybe 60%+ of all computer programmers. In the 1970's, these people would have been considered "retarded". These days, many earn 5 digit salaries, and a far higher percentage are millionaires than almost any other category.
What is defective one week is in MASSIVE demand the next, and is the life-blood of civilisation by the end of the month.
THAT, alone, is reason enough to question any assumptions about "retards". Have they some talent, as a consequence of their "disability", which could utterly crush the smug prejudice of the "able", =yet again=???
It is my belief that you should spend less time looking down on these people, and more time working with them. Maybe you can find the next Professor Hawking, who hasn't exactly been slowed by his genes, now, has he.
There are no Down's Syndrome Savants! (Score:1)
Re:Sometimes dead is better (Score:1)
Re:Why post this article? (Score:1)
Not only that, but it irks pro-grammar and pro-spelling advocates to boot.
The BBC are reporting in this story that the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield, England is blaming the Millennium Bug for getting 150 tests for Down Syndrome with four mothers going on to give birth to affected children.
WTF does that mean?
Re:Why post this article? (Score:1)
-chill
Re:Why post this article? (Score:2)
As do I. This is the exact interesting mix of ethics in technology (lumped in with gaming news and gadgetfetishism) that I come to Slashdot for. I condone this story wholeheartedly.
Oh, BTW (From Webster's Unabridged) -
Condone \Con*done"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Condoned; p. pr. & vb. n. Condoning.] [L. condonare, -donatum, to give up, remit, forgive; con- + donare to give. See Donate.]
1. To pardon; to forgive.
--
Evan
[OT] Condone (Score:1)
From WordNet (r) 1.6 [wn]: condone v : excuse or make allowances for; be lenient with; "excuse someone's behavior" [syn: {excuse}] Condone is actually more or less to encourage, and is not a negative word as many seem to think.
Re:Why post this article? (Score:1)
For crying out loud, how is this redundant when I posted it before the comment [slashdot.org] that was moderated up?
Get a clue, moderators. Jeez, I love /.
-- Brian
Re:Doesn't Make Sense (Score:2)
most operating systems (okay i've only tried windows, freebsd, qnx, beos, dos, and linux) report this date as '1994' (probably my BIOS reports it wrong). so this would make these mothers' ages VERY young indeed
-sam
Re:Doesn't Make Sense (Score:1)
Re:Oh no! (Score:2)
Re:Oh no! (Score:1, Flamebait)
The suggestion is in the writeup on slashdot. I basically got a whiff of genocide from timothy's writeup; I don't know about you.
- A.P.
Re:Oh no! (Score:2)
Yep, no bias there alright... (Score:2)
Translation: Damn, didn't catch those ones in time. Got an axe?
"The later the test is carried out in a pregnancy, the greater the risk to the mother and her unborn child."
I find this one QUITE amusing. Seeing as how if the test is carried out late in pregnancy it will be after the legal limit and the mother can't have the child killed, I believe it is the exact opposite, and later testing vastly reduces the risk for the child. =P
"They were put in the unacceptable position of being given reassurance by the test and then having that taken away from them."
I see this as monstrous. "Oh, thank god my baby will be (note capital N) Normal! I wouldn't want him to be one of those RETARDS, those FREAKS.
Karmatic retribution?
BTW any woman who hasn't heard how risk of Down's increases with age must either:
* have lived in a cave for the past 10 years
* cared so little for her baby or herself that she was too stupid to do any research
So in this case I'm torn between being saddened by the two aborted children, or relieved they were not raised by such incapable mothers.
-Kasreyn
Re:This is not a bad thing. (Score:1)
You suck (Score:4, Insightful)
This story is providing a nice little showcase of how pro-lifers are so fixated on a single topic that they are incapable of grasping a reality with a broader context. Thanks, I've never been more confidently pro-choice.
Has anyone noted the article explicitely states that 2 pregnancies were terminated despite the false negatives?
Re: You suck (OFFTOPIC POST) (Score:2, Insightful)
Let me put it another way. The story is about mothers who want additional information about their babies prior to birth. Some of those mothers will use this information to prepare as much as possible for the fact that they're going to have a baby with special needs. Others will decide other options, possibly to abort the baby. Let's suppose that it's a different set of tests. It's a set of tests that you do after the baby is born to determine whether or not that child is going to be autistic. (To my knowledge no such test exists - this is hypothetical.) Wouldn't you be offended at the idea that some are running these tests for the purposes of trying to determine whether or not to kill their children?
The point is that you shouldn't jump down the pro-lifers throats because they think that a murder might be committed. That's what they think, trying to protect the person being murdered is a more than reasonable reaction. If you disagree with them, disuss why you think that it's not a murder. Discuss why you think it is a legitmate choice.
Can't we once and for all, address what the real issue is in abortion: Is a fetus a life? Every thing else depends on how you answer that question. So let's talk about that question.
Re:i feel bad for thoes parnets.... (Score:1)
No, problem can't be fixed (Score:2)
Consider this:
The problem is not for the parents, the problem is for the children who were murdered. I'm pro-choice: I think that the children should be consulted and given their rightful choice before anything drastic is done to them.
Babies have survived ``miscarriage'' at less than 18 weeks and grown up to be healthy adults. Babies as young as 8 weeks from conception have demonstrated some awareness of invasive abortion procedures, and made what any sane observer would classify as attempts to live. A baby is a baby from the start, not a blob.
Before anyone trots out that fish-stage recapitulation crap, remember that it has been known to be a fraud for over 100 years but is still used as an excuse to murder children today. Why? Why lie?
My sweet and cheerful little Downes-syndrome niece, Joey - now 11 but with a mental age somewhere near 5 or 6 - would be dead if my sister wasn't pro-choice like me. Maybe you would be dead too, if someone had decided that the odds of you being Downes were too great.
It's not ``terminated,'' Coward, it's killed. Are you interchangeable? Can I kill you if I don't like you, and make a replacement, no worries? Are you sure?