Aspies For Freedom

The abnormalities afflicting the child, Jaime, were described by Justice Eberhard as follows: “At birth she had a right facial palsy, seizures, generalized hypotonia, megalencephaly of the left occipital lobe of her brain, prominent dysmorphic features, hearing loss, anotia - an absent right ear and microtia - a malformed left ear.”

The girl has visual and hearing problems.

audio cast and photos of parents and the baby girl  http://www.cbc.ca/news/adr/personal/

Can't blame them for not using birth control - he had a vasetomy. It would be crazy to make doctors responsible for future children.

about the drug :
"Accutane is available only under a special program called iPLEDGE. You must be registered in the program and sign documents stating that you understand the dangers of this medication and that you agree to use birth control as required by the program. Read all of the iPLEDGE program brochures and agreements carefully. Ask your doctor or call the drug maker if you have questions about the program or the written requirements.

Accutane can cause severe, life-threatening birth defects ...
You must have a negative pregnancy test 30 days before you start taking Accutane. ... All pregnancy testing is required by the iPLEDGE program.

You must agree in writing to use two specific forms of birth control beginning 30 days before you start taking Accutane and ending 30 days after you stop taking it. Both a primary and a secondary form of birth control must be used together."

Was all this drug  info given to the mother?  Did she agree to it in writing? If it is mandatory to be in this iPLEDGE program-and use 2 forms of birth control - should the doc be responsible now? The mother said that he didn't tell her about using 2 forms of birth control.
I am not taking the drug, but I looked it up and found this info. Whose responsiblity is it to find out the side effects of meds and make the choice to take the drug?
The doctor is being sued and there is discussion about whether doctors should be responsible for patients behavior.. etc..

Is any form of birth control 100% safe-( except complete hysterectomy or abstinence?).
It sounds like a fairly dangerous drug to me-and perhaps the benefits do not outweigh the risks.

Vasectomy should be enough birth control. I see your point though . I guess it would depend on if the doctor explained everything to her.

A Vasectomy should be enough because it is more effective than any other sort of birth control besides castration. I just don't see how a doctor is responsible for a failed Vasectomy. Have they also checked whether the child is really the child of the man who got the Vasectomy? It could be that the Vasectomy didn't fail, but monogamy did. That's not to sound cruel, but it's much more likely for a person to lie than a Vasectomy to fail.

I don't think the court can order genetic testing to prove that the father is the father.  He had the vasectomy four years before the pregnancy.   After the vasectomy he would have had to have a test for sperm count or should have.  

They just probably want some money to pay for the kid's hearing aids which are difficult to fit because the kid is missing one ear and part of the other.

The doctor is responsible for ensuring that his patient had informed consent, in this case she didn't.

Even if it was a case that the father was someone else, the doctor should still have given his patient ALL relevant information.

I know when I get a flu shot, the nurse will ask me if I am pregnant or think I could be.  Then I have to sign a consent form to say that I understand the side effects.  More doctors should do this for medications that have a high likelihood of causing birth defects.  Just saying that the doctor did or didn't is not good enough because who can remember after 4 or 5 years.

Yes, even if she asked for a particular medication, the doctor could have refused to prescribe it and could have explained why to her. I suppose she thought she wouldn't get pregnant anyway but there are several reported cases of women still getting pregnant by their husbands some time after a vasectomy.

From the pictures on the webcast, I could see the mother had fairly bad skin but it's a shame some other kind of treatment regime wasn't used instead. That pimple cream they keep advertising on infomercials might have done well enough (forget its name but the ads are everywhere)

Some doctors will not prescribe accutane to women who claim they are abstaining from sex.  They insist that they take oral contraceptives.

If it's such a dangerous medication, I think it should be taken right off the market. Then we wouldn't have tragedies like this little girl having severe birth defects. There should be other ways of treating pimples that don't cause such harm.

Yikes... is all I can say about this whole mess...
Um...at least the family is doing something and she is learning sign language so she can communicate with her parents =) thats good atleast right?

TTFN
Me