It is one of my fondest hope that there should be free sharing of information and knowledge. Unfortunately much information and knowledge is locked up in books and journals that are jealously guarded by their publishing companies and only accessible by paying large fees. Some journal databases used to have accounts for individuals like ATLA but for some reasons, they have removed the individual accounts and now have only institutional accounts. This means that one has to belong to an established institution and that institution must have a library with such accounts. Otherwise, one will not have access to these books and journals. It is always my fervor wish that some organisation will set up a digital library that is accessible for all. Globethics.net which has a free ethics library has just set up a free theological library.
The aim of Globethics.net is to ensure that people in all regions of the world are empowered to reflect and act on ethical issues. In order to ensure access to knowledge resources in applied ethics, Globethics.net has developed its Globethics.net Library, the leading global digital library on ethics. Globethics.net took this initiative to ensure that persons - especially in Africa, Asia and Latin-America - have access to good quality and up to date knowledge resources. The founding conviction of Globethics.net was that more equal access to knowledge resources in the field of applied ethics will enable persons and institutions from developing and transition economies to become more visible and audible in the global discourse on ethics. There is no cost involved in using the library. Individuals only need to register (free of charge) as participants on the Globethics.net website (www.globethics.net) to get access to all the full text journals, encyclopedias, e-books and other resources in the library.
So click link and get your access to a free theological library.
There is a lot of interest in prebiotic and probiotics generated mainly by companies producing infant milk formula on the beneficial effects of these two agents. Probiotics are the 'good' bacteria that is found in the intestines. Prebiotics are food nutritients for probiotics or the 'good' bacteria. The idea of giving a baby prebiotics is to provide nutrition to the good bacteria so that it will grow in the intestine. It is postulated that the presence of good bacteria (probiotics) helps the newborn's intestine to develop their immune response to infection and maybe allegy. Human milk contains prebiotics.
The newborn intestine is sterile. Colonisation of the intetsine begins almost immediately with different bacterias, differing by whether the baby is exclusively breast fed or formula fed. Nevertheless by six weeks, the organisms in the intestines of these two groups are the same. Does this warrant the addition of prebiotic and probiotic to infant formula? Apparently these companies think so because they are marketing the addition to infant formula of prebiotics and probiotics as directly responsible to improve the child's immune response and to reduce allergy.
What are the facts?
while probiotics is useful in the treatment of infective and antibiotics diarrhea, there is no evidence available that prebiotics and probiotics improve or strengthened a child's immunity.
a Cochrane review in 2007 conclude that there is insufficient evidence to warrant routine supplement of probiotics to either pregnant women or infants for prevention of allerguc disorders in infant. The Cockrane review is a database for evidence-based medicine.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently issued an extensive Clinical Report: Probiotics and Prebiotics in Pediatrics authored by Dan W. Thomas, MD, Frank R. Greer, MD, and the Committee on Nutrition and the Section on Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition.
Medscape conducted an interview with Dr Thomas concerning this report,
Medscape: While the report makes clear that human milk is the preferred food for infants, what would you suggest primary care providers advise parents who choose to bottle-feed? Should infant formula supplemented with probiotics be recommended?
Dr. Thomas: No one can answer this question at this time. The health benefits of feeding infant formula containing probiotics and/or prebiotics are unproven. In essence, this report challenges industry and healthcare researchers to conduct high-quality, evidence-based studies to answer these questions.
The addition of prebiotics and probiotics to infant formulas is another example of industrial driven marketing based on doubtful or unproven scientific data. The inclusion of prebiotics and probiotics follow a trend of additional of supplements to infant formulas. As with prebiotics and probiotics, all these supplements have no or doubtful evidence that they are of actual value. With each inclusion, the price of the infant formula increase. This is a burden to mothers who are unable to breast feed because they could not produce milk or they have to work. In the meantime, these infant formula companies which are usually multinationals make millions.
Genetic engineers, move over: the latest scheme for creating children to a parent’s specifications requires no DNA tinkering, but merely giving mom a steroid while she’s pregnant, and presto—no chance that her daughters will be lesbians or (worse?) ‘uppity.’
Or so one might guess from the storm brewing over the prenatal use of that steroid, called dexamethasone. In February, bioethicist Alice Dreger of Northwestern University and two colleagues blew the whistle on the controversial practice of giving pregnant women dexamethasone to keep the female fetuses they are carrying from developing ambiguous genitalia. read more
While there is a need for bioethics watchdog centres such as The Hasting Center's Bioethics Forum, there is also a need to be careful while examining the evidence or the lack of it. Alice Dreger, Ellen K. Feder, Anne Tamar-Mattis (06/29/2010) posted Preventing Homosexuality (and Uppity Women) in the Womb? , the article which was picked up by Newsweek.
While everyone has been busy watching geneticists at the frontier of the brave new world, none of us seem to have noticed what some pediatricians are up to. Perhaps it is because so many people are fascinated by the idea of a “gay gene” that prenatal “lesbian hormones” have slipped past public scrutiny. In any case, we think Nimkarn and New’s “paradigm for prenatal diagnosis and treatment” suggests a reason why activists for gay and lesbian rights should be wary of believing that claims for the innateness of homosexuality will lead to liberation. Evidence that homosexual orientation is inborn could, instead, very well lead to new means of pathologization and prevention, as it seems to be in the case we’ve been tracking.
Needless to say, we do not think it reasonable or just to use medicine to try to prevent homosexual and bisexual orientations. Nor do we think it reasonable to use medicine to prevent uppity women, like the sort who might raise just these kinds of alarms. Consider that our declaration of our conflict of interest.
THEOLOGY IN THE NEWS Peter Singer's Swan Song Bioethicist asks: 'Why don't we make ourselves the last generation on earth?' By Collin Hansen
Peter Singer is a bioethicist I love to argue with. Even though we do not agree in many areas, I find his provocative thinking challenging. His latest is that since we all agree that the world is so bad and destructive, why have children? Why bring them into such a dangerous world?
Writing June 6 for The New York Times, Singer asks a characteristically provocative question: "How good does life have to be, to make it reasonable to bring a child into the world?" He wonders whether even the comparatively high Western standard of living is suitable for a fulfilling time on earth...
Singer offers climate change as one threat to the Western way of life. And he pulls no punches while offering one possible response to this potential crisis that he says threatens future generations. "[W]hy don't we make ourselves the last generation on earth? If we would all agree to have ourselves sterilized then no sacrifices would be required—we could party our way into extinction!" Whether he realizes it or not, Singer cites an ethic attested and condemned in Scripture (Isaiah 39:8; 1 Corinthians 15:32). If there is no hope for tomorrow, this dystopian ethic says, at least we don't have to worry about tomorrow. We can live it up today...
Still, Singer prompts us to reflect on why Christians nevertheless enthusiastically bring children into this world. We harbor no false hope about eradicating suffering through evolution. We understand these children to be stained with sin from the beginning. We groan along with a creation subjected to futility, currently awaiting redemption (Rom. 8:19-23). What reason do we have, then, to bring new children into this world?
Intelligent Research Dr. Alex Tang Medical Research Network page. What are the lines in altering the genetic code of human. Dr. Alex shares his view. . 
