Turning a blind eye

Our “resident” cardiologist, Dr. Willie Ong who writes a regular column for The STAR Lifestyle section, shared a very timely Valentine’s Day medical advisory: If you must give something sweet as Valentine’s gift to your loved one, dark chocolate is it. This is because for Doc Willie — as we fondly call him — dark chocolate is good for the heart.

As the main character in the award-winning 1994 Hollywood movie Forrest Gump quipped: “Life is like a box of chocolates…You will never know what you’re gonna get.” So if we are given a box of chocolates, look for the dark ones.

Doc Willie also advises us to drink dark chocolate or black chocolate which has 70 percent cocoa content.

A member of the Philippine Heart Association, Doc Willie recently had another very interesting advice, a timely one for this occasion.

While we celebrate the so-called “day of hearts” or Valentine’s, Doc Willie warned strong emotions could cause a person to suffer from what he termed as “broken heart” syndrome. According to him, the “broken heart” syndrome is manifested in symptoms similar to a heart attack like chest pain and difficulty in breathing due to excessive physical and emotional stress.

But what worries me more than “broken heart” syndrome is the unreported incidents of forced abortions in our country. Worse, the abortion cases mostly involve teenage girls as soon as they become fertile.

From what I gathered, most of these forced abortion cases were due to the use of a banned medicine which is apparently bought from the undisturbed black market.

And this seems to be validated by a recent study showing a rising trend in pre-marital sex among young Filipinos. Based on a survey last year, the study showed more than 19,000 Filipinos between ages 15-24 were having pre-marital sex. At the same time, the survey indicated an increasing number of people meeting partners and sharing sexually explicit material online.

These were the findings indicated in the 2013 Young Adult Fertility and Sexuality Study (YAFS 4) as jointly undertaken by the University of the Philippines Population Institute (UPPI) and the Demographic Research and Development Foundation, Inc. (DRDF). YAFS 4 is funded by the Australian government through the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Department of Health – Philippine Council for Philippine Health Research and Development.

There were 19,178 respondents, with each one interviewed by researchers for at least an hour. Each of the 17 regions had about 1,000 respondents. 78 provinces, 681 cities and municipalities, and more than 18,000 households were covered from December 2012 to March 2013.

InterAksyon.com reported UPPI’s Maria Paz Marquez presented last week their study’s findings that showed one in every three Filipino youths aged 15 to 24 has engaged in premarital sex. According to Marquez, this is equivalent to about 6.2 million young Filipinos who have engaged in sexual intercourse before or without benefit of marriage.

Marquez noted with concern the trend of teenage fertility prevalence in females 15 to 19 years old has worsened. From 4.4 percent in 2002, the percentage of females 15 to 19 years old who are already mothers has increased to 11 percent in 2013.

She further noted with alarm that from 1.9 percent in 2002, the percentage of females 15 to 19 years old who are pregnant with their first child has increased to 2.6 percent in 2013. From 6.3 percent in 2002, the percentage of females 15 to 19 years old who have begun childbearing has increased to 13.6 percent in 2013.

A more worrisome number was highlighted by the study project coordinator Dr. Josefina Natividad, who noted 78 percent of those who engaged in premarital sex for the first time were unprotected against the risk of pregnancy and/or sexually transmitted infection (STI). There were 73.4 percent of males and 83.8 percent of females who did not use any form of protection during this first sexual act.

Marquez said this suggested that most of those who engaged in premarital sex neither wanted it nor planned it. She added that condoms and the withdrawal method were the more common forms of contraception because these needed less preparation as compared to the pill, for example.

But what these surveys did not show is the scary and sinister activity that is apparently going on unchecked by our government authorities, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and law enforcement agencies. There is a lucrative illegal sale of abortion-inducing medicine.

A 14-year-old girl was rushed to a government hospital due to profuse bleeding. The girl was on her tenth to twelfth week of pregnancy. Without intending to be gossipy, my son who is on medicine clerkship at the hospital overheard the girl’s boyfriend talking on the mobile phone about giving “Cytotec” to the patient. 

With generic name of misoprostol, Cytotec tablet is a type of medicine called a prostaglandin analogue. It is used in the treatment and prevention of ulcers in the stomach and peptic ulcers. Misoprostol, however, causes contractions of the womb. As a consequence, the womb expels the fetus.

Fortunately, my son told me, the doctors were able to save the life of the young pregnant girl but not her baby.

From Google, I found out there can be far more serious side effects of Cytotec, including a torn uterus (womb), when misoprostol is used for labor and delivery. A torn uterus may result in severe bleeding, having the uterus removed (hysterectomy), and death of the mother or baby. These side effects are more likely in women who have had previous uterine surgery, a previous Cesarean delivery (C-section), or several previous births.

Checking with the FDA, I was told Cytotec has long been banned in the Philippines and in other countries. If banned, then where do they get it? Of course, some people are making money from it in the black market.

Under our country’s laws, hospitals are supposed to report to the police cases of forced abortion. But apparently, no determined actions are being taken to check this illegal trade of Cytotec.

Love may be blind but turning a blind eye on this unchecked illegal act is a crime. More felonious are those engaged in making money out of the illicit sale of this drug.