1st September 2006 - Woman Magazine ArticleThose of you who subscribe to our monthly newsletter will know that we recently featured in an article in Woman Magazine. We were told that the article was on the subject of medical research, and that they wanted to include a short case study on a family who had made the decision not to have more children due to a genetic condition in the family. Woman has a readership of over a million so we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to increase awareness of Microvillous Atrophy and hopefully get some publicity for our Charity and the importance of becoming an organ donor. We were delighted when the journalist who interviewed Jo agreed to mention organ donation and to include our web address in the article. Although we understand that we have no editorial control over media articles, we are extremely disappointed and upset by what was published. The article itself is entitled 'Rise of the Selfish Mum' and focuses on the subject of mothers using assisted conception to have children way beyond their natural child-bearing years (as in the case of the 62 year old who gave birth in July). We feel that we were totally misled over the content of the article. Equally we are upset by the fact that our case study is under the title of 'I couldn't afford to be selfish' - which we feel to be inappropriate and misleading. We appreciate that Microvillous atrophy is a complex condition, and did not expect the article to go into complicated medical detail. However, we are upset that there is no mention of how devastating the condition is or that the gene responsible has not yet been isolated. It is particularly hard for us having watched Daniel fight so hard for his chance of life. The article also contained a number of inaccuracies, notably in the captions that accompanied the photos of Daniel. They stated 'Daniel before treatment' and 'Daniel reacted to steroids' - neither of which are correct. Also, the article said that Daniel was diagnosed in Feb 2003 - when he wasn't in fact born until Dec 2003. Finally, we feel very let down by the fact that neither our website address nor organ donation were mentioned in the article as promised. On the more positive side, the prospect of having more visitors to our website prompted us to totally redesign and update it. We also extended and improved our online forum. If you want to see Gerry's comments relating to the article please visit the forum by clicking here.
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