Why are babies born young? This sounds like an odd question. People would say "of course babies are born young". However, this goes to the core of the question of human (or animal) development. Why is it that as time passes people develop initially through puberty and then for women through menopause and more generally getting diseases such as sarcopenia, osteoporosis, diabetes and cancer, but most of the time babies start showing no signs of this. Lots of research into this has happened over the years and now I think it is clear why this is. It raises some interesting questions. Biological youth is about how well a cell functions. Cells that are old in a biological sense don't work that well. One of the ways in which cells stop working is they fail to produce the full range of proteins. Generally the proteins that are produced from longer genes stop being produced. The reason for this relates to how the Genes work (the Genome). Because the genome is not gettin
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Oddly enough, it was on November 16 last year, just two days after Southall's hearing got under way, that Mr Hemming chose to make an extraordinary speech in the House of Commons, in which, from behind the protection of Parliamentary privilege, he compared Dr Southall to Matthew Hopkins, the witchfinder -general, and to Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor who experimented on children. He also chose to name the Alexanders and the other families, presenting their anonymisation at the hearing as a GMC attempt at secrecy, when it fact it was a requirement of the family courts in the cases.
(That speech can be found here: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmhansrd/cm061116/debtext/61116-0014.htm#06111632000928 )
It would seem likely that Mr Hemming, or one of his fellow activists, was instrumental in placing this latest timely story in the Mail, no doubt as a crude piece of propaganda designed to generate media support and interest once the hearing resumes on November 7.
The issue before the GMC concerning the Alexander family has, however, nothing to do with the wild allegations they have been making for years, and that have been repeated in the Mail. The GMC has, in fact, considered and dismissed as unsustainable the family's claims that Dr Southall secretly experimented on their son, Lawrence, and that this might in some way have been responsible for the disabilities he now suffers as a 21-year-old.
Instead, the GMC is considering only the somewhat technical issue of whether or not Dr Southall and his colleagues were right (almost 20 years ago) to have kept special case files in certain cases and whether or not these files were available as part of the general medical records of these patients.
The real charges against Dr Southall concerning the Alexander family (in GMC documents referred to as "A") can be read here:
http://jonathangornall.squarespace.com/southall-gmc-2006-day-1/
... and details of the "A" family case here:
http://jonathangornall.squarespace.com/southall-gmc-2006-day-5/
The Mail story itself is fantastic garbage. At one point it states: "The present inquiry, overseen by Attorney General Baroness Scotland, wants to find the answer to a crucial question: were Lawrence's parents — and many others — falsely smeared as child abusers so that Dr Southall could put their children into care and use them as guinea pigs in deeply contentious medical experiments, which many would argue were also deeply immoral?"
This is simply a wild misrepresentation of the purpose of the inquiry, set up (after agitation by Mr Hemming and his colleague Penny Mellor) by the previous attorney-general because of the suggestion (made by Mr Hemming, etc) that information contained in so-called s/c files might not have been before juries in child-abuse cases. The report of the attorney-general on this review is expected shortly.
As for Mr Hemming's glib assertion that professionals as Dr Southall are not accountable, well, they clearly are: Dr Southall is before the GMC, after all, and, to date, thanks to the activists with whom Mr Hemming consorts, has so far faced an astonishing total of more than 30 separate investigations of one kind or another.
Quite clearly Mr Hemming would like to see him answering more charges than those the GMC has seen fit to bring, but thankfully Mr Hemming is only an MP and not in charge of the GMC. Perhaps Mr Hemming will not allow the GMC to do its job and not make further attempts, as he did last year, to interfere unfairly with that process.
The cover up must stop.
Oh please.
Perhaps Mr Hemming would like to take this opportunity to set out clearly his allegations against Dr Southall. I don't think this forum is protected by Parliamentary privilege, but I'm sure that won't prevent Mr Hemming demonstrating the courage of his convictions. Well, Mr Hemming?
As to your comments about the timing, I could equally point to "coincidences" regarding Prof Stephenson's recent piece on child protection published in ADC as being pro Southall propaganda being published, coincidently, just before Dr Southall's hearing starting.
Finally and much more importantly, if you are questioning the veracity of the piece that was written by Sue Reid, take it up with her.
As far as your doctor friend is concerned perhaps you might want to investigate the claims he has made at the GMC and on his CV regarding UNICEF, maybe when you've had your answers you will have a clearer idea as to who tells porky pies, because it most definitely is not the parents or their now grown children
"What a tremendous coincidence that the Alexander story should re-surface in the Mail just a week or so before the resumption of David Southall's GMC hearing, in which the Alexanders are one of four families with complaints!"
Oh, what a tremedous coincidence that Mr Gornall failed to say he had published a pro Southall artcile in Hospital Doctor just prior to the Southall hearing.
How marvelous to see that Mr Gornall belongs to the band of "do as I say and not as I do" brigade.
Does anyone else see the sheer hypocricy?