We’re Sorry Mr. Goldis, but…
Dear PRI:
Recently your organization posted a simplistic, and childish set of paragraphs on the ‘whole world being able to fit in state of Texas.’ I suppose your employees end each day holding hands and singing ardor filled renditions of ‘teaching the world to sing in 3 part harmony’??
Perhaps the urge to reproduce could be sublimated into reproductive advocacy 2000 years ago when the world was less subject to population pressures than now just as the mantra for continued immigration may have been appropriate for the US’s industrial expansion of the 1920’s period, but is less appropriate as economic forces change the employment landscape and the question becomes better use, a more educated base, of the current population.
Perhaps the idea of different responses to changing conditions, is alien to your mentality. Perhaps the idea of unlimited population growth which seemed so tribally comforting [sic] as an adolescent has petrified into a growing employment opportunity rationalization, [sic] and there you sit, pumping out paperwork encouraging an idea anachronistic by over 2 millennia, because you cannot adapt to present circumstance, and can only repeat childish refrains of ‘happy world, grow grow grow’.
So, continue on with your goal of producing, in the words of Governor J. Brown, “a denuded ant colony teeming with 10 to 12 billion desperate and hungry souls.”
How nice you need not have to deal with the consequences, in your lifetimes, of your moronic, nursery-rhyme belief systems. If you’re lucky, that is an education you will avoid.
Sincerely, Bjorn Goldis.
Psychobabble and pop anthropology aside, Mr. Goldis is simply wrong. As regular readers of PRI Review know, the world’s population will never double again and, even it if did, we would be better off, not worse off, as a result. I’m afraid Mr. Goldis will have to deal with the consequences in his lifetime of his beliefs. Bankrupt social security systems, failing economies and empty schools are what lie in store for populations which fail to replace themselves.
Dangers of Norplant Revisited
It has been four years since the Population Research Institute petitioned the FDA to remove Norplant from the market in the United States, citing the numerous side effects women experience with this drug delivery system, as well as the abusive way clinical trials for Norplant were carried out on women in the developing world. We continue to receive letters from women who have suffered from this device.
Dear Sir/Madam:
I recently stumbled across the Population Research Institute’s page on the Internet. Until now, I had not heard about the Norplant issue. I also had Norplant inserted in 1994. Following insertion I bled for approx. 6 months, I became anemic and my doctor finally removed it, I remained on iron therapy for an additional 6 months. Three years later, after years of pain because my uterus had collapsed (also pulling down other organs) from the added weight of bleeding for all that time, I had to have a hysterectomy at the age of 28.
The pain of the [Norplant] removal was unbelievable, although I was told at the time of insertion that it would be a painless procedure, but the tubes had shifted and some had traveled. The doctor had to do a lot of tugging and cutting to get them out. Since then, I have told every woman I could about my experience in the hope that they would not go through what I did.
Sincerely,
R. A.
And another mother speaks
I am writing as a witness to the side effects that my daughter experienced with the Norplant implants. She was going to be married in Dec. 1993, so in August she went to the doctor for at contraceptive… he recommended the Norplant which he installed that day. She complained a lot about the amount of bleeding and we talked to the doctor quite a lot, but he insisted the bleeding would get under control. She made trips to the doctor which ended each time with the Norplant still in place. She became very depressed, gained over 50 lbs…became anemic, passed out on campus.
My daughter was a local model for five years previous to this. She is 5’10” and weighed 120 lbs at the time the Norplant was installed. She was a very outgoing student in school, honor graduate, officer in many clubs. I watched my only daughter change right before my eyes and felt as though I could do nothing to help. I also feel I may have failed her with allowing this to continue even though the doctor kept insisting that we were being extreme complaining and thinking this was the problem.…
Finally, in August 1996 he removed the Norplant. She still has medical problems and has not lost any of the weight. Please add our name to the list requesting that this be removed from the market as we do not want to see anyone else experience this.
M. H.
USAID Map of Shame
Dear Folks,
[Population Research Institute’s USAID Map of Shame (see our website)] should actually be called the Map of Pride. I’m working hard to see that International Family Planning assistance is restored to its 1995 level of $500+ million. This is the smartest investment our country can make in the future of our world. Diverting the money for food may appear noble on the surface, but only exacerbates the problem.
Todd Daniel
I’m not sure that starving mothers in Africa would agree with Mr. Daniel that providing food for their malnourished children “exacerbates” the problem. But I guess that depends on what you believe “the problem” is. For Mr. Daniel, it is evidently people. But here at Population Research Institute, we believe that people are our greatest resource. Social unrest, totalitarian governments, and civil wars which prevent access to food are the problem.
