Irish Examiner getting its opinion editorial from Sinn Fein Press Office?

mike65

"de papure" has a singularly poor 'editorial' piece

21 February 2007


Down Syndrome cases - Time for full Sellafield fire investigation

IT has long been feared that a nuclear accident in Britain would have dire consequences for Ireland.

Bringing a chilling sense of reality to that scenario, the spectre of an accident which happened 50 years ago is today haunting the daughters of girls who attended one of the country’s top convent boarding schools.

In the autumn of 1957 fire broke out at the notorious Sellafield atomic station. The incident was swept under the carpet by Britain and remained an official secret for 40 years. Now called Windscale, it is still notorious despite the name change.

Coincidentally, several pupils at St Louis’ convent secondary school in Dundalk became ill at the time and were taken to hospital. It subsequently emerged that a number of girls from the school later had Down Syndrome children.

Ireland has the world’s highest rate of Down Syndrome but it is alarming that a cluster has now emerged among daughters of women who attended the school.

This highlights the need for a full investigation

I'll let you spot the errors but while googling a bit on this 'story' I spotted this press release from the Shinners

Published: 19 February, 2007

Sinn Féin Newry and Armagh Sinn Fein Assembly election candidate Mickey Brady has highlighted the proliferation of cases of children with Down's syndrome in the area said that there is a need for focused investigations and research into the issue.

Mr Brady said:

"I believe that there is a pressing need for specific investigations and research into what many believe are a highly localised excess of Down's syndrome births, in particular to young mothers in this area. Within the last two weeks four such cases have been recorded in the area.

"A study in 2000 investigating a reported cluster of children with Down's syndrome born to mothers who attended a school in Dundalk, that also examined data from the Newry and Mourne area, said that chance was the 'most likely explanation for the cluster'. However, more recent research undermines the validity of this finding.

"Data from the Newry and Mourne area for live births 1961-80 were used in the Louth research that concluded that the figures 'do not suggest an unusual level of risk' and that 'certain assumptions had to be made to derive the maternal age distribution of live births in Newry and Mourne District, but these are unlikely to seriously underestimate the observed rates'. However, I do not think that it is sufficient, as the Louth Report did, to 'effectively dismiss' environmental factors such as an influenza epidemic (1957) or contamination from the Windscale (Sellafield) nuclear reactor fire (1957) might be implicated in causing the Down's syndrome cluster.

"A study carried out into the increase in Down's syndrome in West Berlin in 1987 (Little) pointed to the Chernobyl (1986) incident and the fallout. The West Lothian region of Scotland also reported excess of Down's syndrome cases and associated them with Chernobyl. One of the key criticisms of the Louth Report was that the research was too narrow to form the basis of a judgement. The target group for the Chernobyl research covered women who began bearing children between 1992 and 2002.

"Many people, including myself, are not convinced. I believe that given the clustering of Down's syndrome cases in the Newry area and along the East Coast that we need specific investigations and research into possible environmental factors." ENDS

A co-incidence? Bearing in mind this Louth/DS story has been out of the news for some years?

Mike.

lostexpectation

no, maybe a report was released or its going through an orieachtas committee at the moment, if its worthwile news why not...

Snickers Man

OK the obvious error is that it was called Windscale way back then and its name was changed to Sellafield to 'decouple' it from the dreadful reputation Windscale had built up for itself.

The other point to note is that Ireland has a high rate of Downs Syndrome births because we don't have abortion. In places like the UK, pregnant women over 35 are automatically offered a test for Downs Syndrome (because the chances of having such a baby increase for older mothers) and if there is a chance that the baby will be DS, they are offered an abortion.

Woman's right to choose; health service bureaucracy's tendency to use its influence to cut costs.

And as this is the media page you must have some idea about how these things work. Sinn Fein PR person writes press release, sends it into paper. They're wondering what to pontificate about this week so they pick up on a hoary old story and let rip.

I'm sure they've doen the same for other parties down through the years as well.