Sterilization

As Christina Cordero remembers it, the doctor would not take no for an answer. "As soon as he found out that I had five kids, he suggested that I look into getting it done. The closer I got to my due date, the more he talked about it. He made me feel like a bad mother if I didn't do it. " The "it" is tubal ligation. He wanted to sterilize her. Cordero, who is now 34, was serving time for auto theft at a California prison. She finally said yes, a decision she regrets seven years later.

News that Congress reached a budget deal has been met with glee by D.C. pundits, but there is an unresolved issue on the minds of many in the Maryland medical community - will they see sense and lift the ban on federal funding for Syringe Services Programs (SSPs)? Currently Congress refuses to provide us with one of the cheapest, most effective tools as we struggle against the spread of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C in our communities. In response, over 70 scientists and health practitioners from Maryland have written to Sen. Barbara Mikulski, asking her to help end the ban. Such action is essential not just for our state but for the country as a whole.

Doris Graybill is probably too modest to admit it, but the Carroll County General Hospital employee is an unsung hero.Thanks to her, doctors and surgeons are assured that the operating room and surgicalinstruments they use to operate on patients and deliver babies safely are properly cleaned and sterilized."

As Christina Cordero remembers it, the doctor would not take no for an answer. "As soon as he found out that I had five kids, he suggested that I look into getting it done. The closer I got to my due date, the more he talked about it. He made me feel like a bad mother if I didn't do it. " The "it" is tubal ligation. He wanted to sterilize her. Cordero, who is now 34, was serving time for auto theft at a California prison. She finally said yes, a decision she regrets seven years later.

LIMA, Peru -- For Magna Morales and Bernadina Alva, peasant Andean women who could barely afford to feed their families, it was a troubling offer but one they found hard to refuse. Shortly before Christmas, government health workers promised gifts of food and clothing if they underwent a sterilization procedure called tubal ligation.The operation went well for Alva, 26, who received two dresses for her daughter and a T-shirt for her son. But Morales, 34, died of complications 10 days after the surgery, leaving three young children and a husband behind.

GAVLE, Sweden -- No one could have known, of course. But the view all these years from Maria Nordin's balcony has been a bittersweet reminder of the life she so much wanted but was never allowed to have.The blessing is that her failing blue eyes -- at the center of her awful story that began 54 years ago -- now prevent her from seeing more than a few yards away.The playground five stories below, with children dangling from tire swings and mothers trading neighborhood gossip, is beyond her sight.

Current law states:"A person may not be required to perform or participate in, orefer to any source for, any medical procedure that results in artificial insemination, sterilization, or termination of pregnancy."Law enacted by General Assembly and signed by Gov. William Donald Schaefer states:"A person may not be required to perform or participate in any medical procedure that results in artificial insemination, sterilization, or termination of pregnancy."*The new law, said Delegate Samuel I. Rosenberg, D-Baltimore, abortion-rights advocate, "strikes the proper balance between the religious beliefs between every health practitioner of this state and the medical obligations of that health practitioner."

UPPSALA, Sweden -- Checks for more than $22,000 each have been mailed to about 200 Swedes who were forcibly sterilized in decades past after authorities deemed them socially undesirable and unfit to bear children.But the start of compensation in no way signals closure on one of the most devastating scandals to shake modern Sweden.Since the disclosure by an investigative journalist nearly three years ago that Swedish authorities sterilized more than 63,000 citizens -- 90 percent of them women -- from 1935 through 1975, fresh revelations have been made by media here of other efforts to perfect Sweden's genetic stock.

MIAMI -- One evening seven years ago, Su Xi Tu's wife was taken against her will to a family planning clinic in China, where her 4-month-old fetus was aborted. Then, birth-planning authorities turned to Mr. Su, demanding that he be sterilized for China's welfare.Mr. Su fled. Now 43, he is in North Miami Beach, safe, at least temporarily, from China's "one-couple, one-child" dictate.Hundreds of other Chinese citizens are holed up in countries such as Peru and Panama, waiting for a chance to fly to the United States and ask for political asylum.

KOSICE, Slovakia -- A case making its way through the courts in Slovakia is giving a new sense of hope to Europe's most persecuted minority. But it also could be the catalyst that unleashes the Roma people's many decades of pent-up frustration. The number of Roma (Gypsies) in the European Union roughly tripled in January, when Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU, making the outcome of this case consequential for all Europeans - as it should be for people everywhere who care about justice.

Who knew that the devil actually had a plan before inhabiting the body of Sister Mary Eunice? Unless that plan included slashing the throats of patients and investigators, and trying to seduce Dr. Arden, it seemed like the spirit was just winging it. In reality, every move she's made so far has been calculated. The demon wants to run Briarcliff. Last week, her actions led to Sister Jude packing her bags. This week, she exercised her control over Dr. Arden. After Grace is found bleeding, with her girl parts "scooped out," Sister Mary Eunice blames Arden for the failed sterilization attempt.

The federal Food and Drug Administration identified 89 medical facilities in Maryland that bought drugs from the Massachusetts manufacturer being investigated for a national fungal meningitis outbreak. The facilities are among more than 3,000 in numerous states that the FDA said received drugs from the New England Compounding Center as evidence of widespread sanitary issues at the company continues to come to light. The list of facilities in Maryland covers a large swath of the medical community.

For more than 10 years, Hellas in Anne Arundel County has been a standby Mediterranean restaurant and bar. The restaurant is big enough to accommodate groups, and the menu is heavy on filling, homey dishes like ravioli, lasagna and Greek specialties. But what recently brought this family-owned mainstay to my attention was its wholehearted embrace of craft beer — Hellas beefed up its bottled beer selection, and added a 20-line draft system. Michael Stavlas, whose family owns the restaurant, said there are also plans to add a beer cellar menu.

A key federal official has come down in favor of raising relatively small batches of sterile Asian oysters in the Chesapeake Bay while expanding government efforts to restore the bay's native oysters. But he said yesterday that he will continue talks with Maryland and Virginia to try to reach a consensus on a government policy for bringing back the depleted shellfish. Col. Dionysios Anninos, commander of the Norfolk District of the Army Corps of Engineers, said a five-year study by the two states and the federal government had failed to resolve concerns about the risks of allowing large-scale farming of the non-native oyster.

Salary: $70,000 Age: 38 Years on the job: 18 How he got started : After serving in Desert Storm, Walden took a job as a technician in the central sterilizing department of a hospital in the Philadelphia area. While working full time, he completed his bachelor's degree in criminal justice and health care administration at Temple University. He later moved to Maryland and took a job at Johns Hopkins Hospital in its central sterilizing department. He switched to his job with Sinai Hospital five months ago. He's certified by the International Association of Healthcare Central Service Materiel Management and the Certification Board for Sterile Processing and Distribution.

KOSICE, Slovakia -- A case making its way through the courts in Slovakia is giving a new sense of hope to Europe's most persecuted minority. But it also could be the catalyst that unleashes the Roma people's many decades of pent-up frustration. The number of Roma (Gypsies) in the European Union roughly tripled in January, when Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU, making the outcome of this case consequential for all Europeans - as it should be for people everywhere who care about justice.

Will science one day be able to predict which individuals will turn to a life of crime? That is one of the more fascinating asides to the furor surrounding President Clinton's embattled nominee for U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Henry Foster Jr.Dr. Foster was attacked by conservatives primarily for having performed abortions during his career. But in addition to that hot-button issue, opponents also seized on reports that, early in his practice, Dr. Foster also participated in a program that sterilized severely mentally retarded women.

In 1968, when Pope Paul VI issued an encyclical upholding the Catholic Church's ban on artificial means of birth control, talk of a population explosion was frequently countered by arguments that impressive advances in food production proved the Earth could easily accommodate the expected growth. Now, 25 years later, the signs are not encouraging. Sometime soon, the Earth will reach its "carrying capacity," the point at which its resources cannot sustain greater numbers of people.Many people who watch critical indicators think this point is now within sight.

Getting a tattoo is a lot like getting married. You enter into the relationship assuming it will be permanent. So, you shouldn't do it while drunk, on the spur of the moment or with the first person who comes along. You should take your time, do research and pick just the right place for the big moment. And it never hurts to keep in mind one of life's most useful rules: Safety first. A good tattoo shop ought to be easier to find than Mister or Miss Right. But with shops popping up everywhere, how do you know whether you've picked a real pro or some guy whose last gig was on Cellblock B?

Dr. Donald S. Carter, a retired ear, nose and throat surgeon, died Saturday of lung disease at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. The Towson resident was 74. Born in Baltimore and raised in Pikesville, Dr. Carter was a 1946 McDonogh School graduate, where he was a cheerleader and an infantry lieutenant at what was then a military academy. He earned a degree from Duke University, where he was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. He earned his medical degree from the University of Maryland.