Category: Population

The article below may be copied or published but must remain intact, with attribution to the author. I also request that the words “First published in the Durango Herald” accompany any publication. For more information, please write the author at: richard@population-matters.org.

 

Invent

© Richard Grossman MD, 2008

 

            A number of years ago I came up with a brilliant invention—a rip-stop condom. Like rip-stop Nylon, it was thin but had a mesh to make it stronger.

I enjoyed the challenges of patenting this invention. The next step was to sell the patent to a manufacturer. The companies I talked with wanted proof that my design was superior to current condoms.

The Akron Rubber Development Laboratory was happy to help test my design. We worked together for several months until I realized that my invention was actually inferior to what was already on the market. I had to give up my dream of making it big in condoms.

            We have many different family planning methods available, but none is perfect. Some have side effects that make them unacceptable to some people. Other methods require a high level of compliance, such as taking a pill every day. One, the male condom, has a high failure rate due to ruptures.

Some methods are so expensive to be prohibitive for many people. For instance, it costs a woman several hundred dollars to get one of the two IUDs that are available. Even birth control pills cost several hundred dollars each year. This high cost may be justified by the price of bringing a new contraceptive product to the market—many millions of dollars.

Fortunately there are imaginative, dedicated people working on finding better family planning methods. Some of them have better ideas and better backing than me.

A few years ago I met Dr. Marcus Filshie at dinner during a medical meeting. I had never thought about the Filshie clip as having been invented by a real person, but I was to learn more at lunch the next day. His invention proved to be more successful than mine.

            Dr. Filshie finished his training in obstetrics and gynecology shortly after The Population Bomb hit the bookstores and raised interest in human population. He worked in Uganda, Africa, where miscarriages are a major problem. Without good medical care, an early pregnancy loss can lead to life threatening hemorrhage or infection. It is essential to remove the dead tissue from the woman’s uterus before it causes a problem. The traditional medical way is with a D&C, but that is “resource intensive”. This minor surgery is usually done with general anesthesia in a hospital. In a developing country there are just weren’t enough facilities or trained people.

Dr. Filshie investigated ways to simplify the care of women with miscarriage. He refined an easy-to-learn technique by perfecting the use of simple instruments that don’t require electricity. It is so straightforward that medical assistants can perform it safely, freeing physicians for more complicated care. He described this technique in a paper published in the prestigious medical journal “Lancet”. His article drew the attention of a medical think tank, the Simon Population Trust, which funded an instructional video illustrating care of a miscarriage.

            The Trust decided that a safe, effective method of doing tubal ligations would benefit women’s health by reducing unwanted fertility. A clip already in use for female sterilization had a high failure rate. The Trust sponsored Dr. Filshie’s research to invent a better clip that is easy to apply using minimally invasive surgery.

            This little clip is titanium around soft Silicone rubber. If a woman wishes sterility, one can be put on each Fallopian tube. This can be done right after the birth of a baby through a small incision in her belly button, or by other surgical techniques. Over 4 million women worldwide have had voluntary sterilization with these clips.

Although Filshie clips are not available in Durango because of cost (destroying a tubal segment with electricity is less expensive), they have at least two advantages over other methods of female sterilization. These clips have a very low failure rate. Furthermore, they only destroy a short segment of the woman’s tube. If she changes her mind and wants another baby, the chances of success with reversal surgery are quite good.

            Worldwide it is estimated that there are two hundred million couples who want to limit their fertility, but don’t have access to modern contraceptive methods. Offering them modern contraceptive choices will go a long way toward slowing the population explosion and toward solving the climate change crisis. Even in this country there are people who have difficulty finding and affording a method that will work well for them. There definitely is need for innovative people to find new ways to help control fertility.

The article below may be copied or published but must remain intact, with attribution to the author. I also request that the words “First published in the Durango Herald” accompany any publication. For more information, please write the author at: richard@population-matters.org.

 

Educate with These Projects

© Richard Grossman MD, 2008

 

            This month the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) publicized their report “Climate Change and Water”. It says that there is “…abundant evidence that freshwater resources are vulnerable and have the potential to be strongly impacted by climate change, with wide-ranging consequences on human societies and ecosystems.”

            The report goes on to state that our current freshwater control technology is likely to be inadequate to deal with events in the future. The intersection of decreasing supplies of petroleum, increasing human population and climate change is liable to be calamitous. “Climate change challenges the traditional assumption that past hydrological experience provides a good guide to future conditions.”

            Life is impossible without water! How can we prepare the next generation to deal with this huge problem? What can we do to help our kids and grandkids get ready for their future?

            A series of programs teaches students not what to think about water and other environmental issues, but how to think about them. They have been carefully developed by teams of educators and scientists from all over the country. The projects succeed in helping kids from kindergarten to twelfth grade learn about the world they live in.

            Project WET (Water Education for Teachers) is taught all over the country, and in many other countries, too. Project WET promotes appreciation, knowledge and stewardship of water resources by making classroom-ready teaching aids available to teachers.

            The WET guidebook includes over ninety activities. Each is labeled for an age range, if it is best indoors or outside, for a large or small group, etc. Each has a teacher-friendly introduction as well as a detailed description of how to guide the activity.

            “Dust Bowls and Failed Levees” is an example of one of these activities. Designed for high school students, its subtitle is “Witness, through literature, the effects of droughts and floods on human populations.” Students read passages from Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, and try to imagine how a modern author might document the tragedy of Katrina.

            The activity “Where Are the Frogs?” is aimed at middle school students. It shows the effect of acid rain on the growth of plants such as marigolds or beans. (Frogs are also affected by acid rain but it is better to observe the effects on plants in the classroom). First, the lesson explains what an acid is. Students then prepare solutions of weak and stronger acid that are used to water the plants. They observe growth over a month. The experimental procedure is given in an activity sheet that includes a data collection page. (These activity sheets, but not complete lessons, may be found on internet at: www.projectwet.org).

            The water cycle is illustrated for younger kids by “The Incredible Journey,” an activity for a large room or playing field. Skills involved include organizing (mapping); analyzing (identifying components and relationships) and interpreting (describing). Students (or chance) determine the movement of water within the hydrosphere.

            What about other environmental issues? They are dealt with in the other Projects: Learning Tree (www.PLT.org, dealing with plants, trees and forests), WILD (www.projectWILD.org, concerning wildlife) and Project Food, Land & People (www.foodlandpeople.org, focusing on the interdependence of agriculture, human needs and the environment). Although similar in basic structure, each has its own history, literature and website.

            Too many kids in the USA spend too little time outside nowadays. They grow up neither understanding nor respecting the great web of nature. As adults they will be much more likely to destroy our planet than people who appreciate its intricate workings. This is why I feel that quality nature education is so important. The Projects offer superior learning opportunities.

            Recently I was one of several people from Durango who attended a facilitator training. Our goal is to prepare teachers all over the state so they will be comfortable teaching the Projects. Most of the others at the training are professional educators, including two professors from Fort Lewis College, so it took intensive concentration (and my wife’s help) to get me up to speed.

            Here in southwestern Colorado we are lucky to have an employee of the Colorado Division of Wildlife who oversees these Projects. As Southwest Regional education coordinator, Leigh Gillette added a big spark of enthusiasm to our training. If you would like to learn more or to teach from these resources, call her at 375-6709.

          Unless kids learn to value the natural world, they will not be willing to protect it when they are adults. These four Projects help children understand the complexities of nature.