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Rectal
temperature
taking

Pain
killers
and
Olympic
athletes

fluid from membranes surrounding the fetus within the mother's uterus)
will enable them to determine before birth whether future family members
will be predisposed to having kidney cancer. While they admit that
inheritance of this kind of cancer is rare and thus far only one
affected family has been discovered, the doctors hypothesize that some-
day similar techniques will enable them to find the seeds of other kinds
of cancer in the unborn. Thus, once these "tainted" babies are identi-
fied, abortion can be carried out.

I am particularly interested in this latest method of cancer
prevention since my own university medical appointment is as Associate
Professor of Preventive Medicine. I began to become somewhat concerned
years ago when geneticists began practicing preventive medicine by
identifying and aborting infants presumably affected with mongolism
and Tay—Sachs disease, since mistakes occurred frequently enough so
that normal babies were also destroyed.

I became even more concerned when some cancer surgeons proposed
preventing breast cancer by performing bilateral mastectomies on healthy
young women whose families had a history of breast cancer. And my alarm
level became even higher recently when prestigious medical centers
around the country began to abort fetuses of the "wrong" sex. Now,
latest macabre achievement, aborting fetuses who may someday develop
cancer, makes me suspect that the field of preventive medicine is now
becoming one of the most dangerous specialties of modern medicine. As
a matter of fact, the term "preventive medicine" is rapidly becoming a
codeword for abortion. I used to think it was a good idea to tell your
doctor as much as possible about your family history. But now, I'm not
so sure.

this

From London comes a report that rectal measurement of a newborn's
temperature is a dangerous and unnecessary practice. Drs. J. D. Frank
and Susan M. Brown of the Hospital for Sick Children report that three
infants suffered rectal perforations probably caused by the use of the
rectal thermometer. Pediatric News (March 1980) says that l0 similar
incidents of rectal perforation from thermometers have been reported
since 1957 and death occurs in almost half the babies so afflicted.
Axillary (armpit) temperature-taking is recommended, but perhaps the
best solution is to ask if this routine every—four—hour procedure is a
medical necessity or a medical ceremony.

Some of the most important medical news is found on the sports
pages, particularly during Olympic competition. I know that sports
writers try their best to present and interpret this medical news,
but their prose usually leaves me with more questions than answers.
Take the case of figure skater Randy Gardner who was forced to with-
draw from the Winter Olympics (forfeiting his and his partner's chance
of a gold medal) because of a groin injury. Gardner had suffered this
trauma (a pulled adductor muscle high in the left thigh) two weeks
before the competition. One of the major drugs used in his treatment
was Xylocaine, a pain-killer like Procaine or Novocaine, which
frequently is used in dental anesthesia.

Although this kind of numbing treatment is not all that unusual,
particularly for star athletes, it always has seemed strange to me that
a doctor would want to knock out the mechanism (i.e., pain and discom-
fort) by which the body informs itself whether an injury is healing.
And in the absence of pain, what is there to prevent an athlete, or
indeed anyone suffering an injury, from returning to the arena, thus
adding further insult to the original injury?

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