Japan's sterilised 'eugenics' victims to get payout

Yahoo – AFP, April 24, 2019

Victims of Japan's 'eugenics' programme complain the compensation offered
is not enough (AFP Photo/Toshifumi KITAMURA)

Thousands of Japanese people -- some as young as nine -- forcibly sterilised under now-defunct eugenics laws, will receive government compensation after lawmakers passed historic legislation on Wednesday.

Following the unanimous vote, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe voiced "sincere regret" and said the government "apologised wholeheartedly" over the notorious policy.

Some 16,500 mentally disabled people were sterilised without their consent under the law that remained in force until 1996, according to health ministry data.

Each victim will receive 3.2 million yen ($29,000) under the measures passed on Wednesday -- an amount derided by campaigners as "failing to meet the seriousness" of the damage suffered.

The issue hit the headlines last year after a Japanese woman, now in her 60s, sued the government over a sterilisation operation carried out in 1972 after she was diagnosed with a mental disability.

Lawyers and campaigners have long criticised the government and parliament for failing to compensate victims long after the eugenics law was abandoned in 1996.

About 20 victims have so far filed lawsuits across the country seeking compensation of up to 38 million yen.

The first verdict over the issue will be announced on May 28, and plaintiffs' lawyers have vowed to seek compensation they say matches the gravity of the harm suffered.

"It is understandable that lawmakers have been hurrying to enact the law to pay one-off compensation to ageing victims," lawyers said in a statement before the legislation was passed.

But without sufficient compensation, it is not a "true solution to the issue," they charged.

Tokyo has pledged to pay the compensation "swiftly" but the government will likely continue to battle in court against victims claiming more.

Germany and Sweden had similar eugenics laws and governments there have also apologised and paid compensation to the victims.

Under Japan's law, some leprosy patients were also forced into abortions under policies that forbade them from having children.

In 2005, a Japanese court for the first time ordered the state to pay damages to a former leprosy sufferer affected by this law.

Indonesian third-grader's 'school crawl' becomes sensation

Yahoo – AFP, December 20, 2018

Mukhlis Abdul Holik's heartwarming story has become a sensation across
Indonesia (AFP Photo/CANTIGIE NUR FERDINAND)

Sukabumi (Indonesia) (AFP) - Indonesian third-grader Mukhlis Abdul Holik begins the long haul to school with a knapsack strapped to his back and hands stuffed into a pair of sandals -- to guard against road burn.

It is no ordinary trip for the eight-year-old. He has severely deformed feet and legs so tiny that he only reaches up to his classmates' waists when standing.

With his mom in tow, the gap-toothed pupil crawls from his West Java village across rocky paths and an old wooden bridge that he navigates on his hands alone, as his sneakers dangle in the air.

Holik crawls from his West Java village across rocky paths and an old wooden 

bridge that he navigates on his hands alone, as his sneakers dangle in the air 

(AFP Photo/CANTIGIE NUR FERDINAND)

Holik's heartwarming story has become a sensation across the country of 260 million, and earned him a meeting with Indonesian president Joko Widodo, after media covered his trip to school and back -- a distance of nearly six kilometres.

"The road is steep but he crawls every day," said Holik's mother Pipin, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

"If we've got money, then he can take a motorcycle taxi but if things are tight, he's got to crawl. He never complains.... rain or shine, he always goes to school."

Holik declared himself "very happy" after meeting Indonesian President 

Joko Widodo (AFP Photo/CANTIGIE NUR FERDINAND)

Holik met the country's leader on December 3 -- the UN's International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

"I asked Abdul when we met if he wanted anything from me," Widodo said in a statement.

"I thought he'd want me to give him a present. But he didn't want anything. He just said he wanted to go to university."

The pupil declared himself "very happy" for meeting his idol Widodo, who got a full report on Holik's ambitious future plans.

"I want to be a firefighter, a doctor and an astronaut," he told AFP.

Cheap 3D printed prosthetics could be game changer for Nepal

Yahoo – AFP, July 21, 2017

Leprosy sufferer Ram uses his new 3D printed prosthetic hand

Ram's new hand was manufactured on a 3D printer in Nepal's capital for just $30, an innovation that could be a game changer for many in the impoverished Himalayan country.

Once a farmer, Ram lost his hands and toes within a few years of contracting leprosy, forcing the father-of-three to turn to begging in a desperate bid to feed his family.

That's where he was spotted by US-born Matthew Rockwell, the founder of Disaster Hack, a non-profit technology startup that is making functional prosthetic hands for those who couldn't otherwise afford them.

Disaster Hack makes its money doing tech consulting and teaching people to code, while running altruistic ventures on the side like teaching Nepalis IT skills and manufacturing low-cost, basic prosthetics.

Rockwell -- who flits between Nepal and the US, where he is part of the tech team behind the annual Burning Man festival in Nevada's Black Rock Desert -- brought a 3D printer to Kathmandu after a powerful earthquake struck the country in 2015.

Soon, he began printing new hands for those in need: a girl who lost both limbs after being electrocuted by hanging power lines, a construction worker whose hand was crushed beyond repair.

Disaster Hack founder Matthew Rockwell (R) attaches a 3D printed prosthetic 

hand to leprosy sufferer Ram's arm in Kathmandu

"We've only distributed to five so far but we have a list that keeps on growing," said Rockwell, sitting in a cramped office in Kathmandu, the 3D printer whirling behind him.

Recycled materials

Rockwell only has the capacity to make hands at the moment -- a leg requires a more heavy-duty printer -- but he has identified more than 7,000 people in Nepal who could benefit from Disaster Hack's creations.

"A traditional prosthesis costs anywhere between $1000 to $3000 to $5000," Rockwell explained.

"Now we're able to produce prostheses for right around $30 so it (3D printing) lowers the cost dramatically for a functional prosthesis."

Rockwell hopes to bring down the cost even further by recycling plastic bottle tops to make the wire that feeds the printer.

Nepal's healthcare sector is chronically underfunded and ill-equipped but 3D printing can reduce both the cost and time it takes to bring medical equipment to those who need it most.

Nepal's healthcare sector is chronically underfunded and ill-equipped but 3D 

printing can reduce both the cost and time it takes to bring medical equipment

to those who need it most

The 3D printed hands being manufactured by Disaster Hack take nearly a full day to print, and are comprised of roughly 20 different parts.

Rockwell hopes the mostly volunteer-run project will sow the seeds for something bigger.

He has now trained 20 prosthetists at hospitals in Nepal in 3D printing, and signed a deal with Kathmandu's largest university to set up the country's first biomedical 3D printing lab.

Meanwhile for Ram, a new hand could mean a chance to give up begging.

"What should I say, I have nothing to eat. If I stay here I make 100 rupees ($0.97), 50 rupees," he said from his daily spot on the corner of a busy intersection.

He lifted the new prosthetic hand, and as he slowly contracted the plastic fingers to make a fist, a smile spread across his face.

Dutch vote for disabled access in public buildings

DutchNews, January 21, 2016

Photo: Depositphotos.com

MPs are poised to vote in favour of a UN treaty to ensure public buildings and public institutions are accessible to people with a physical disability, website Nu.nl says on Thursday.

‘This is an historic day for people with disabilities,’ Labour MP Otwin van Dijk told the website. ‘The Netherlands will today become one of the last countries to ratify the treaty. It is about time.’ 

The two coalition parties were divided over the issue and the health ministry had proposed a compromise in which companies would only have to adapt their premises if there was a formal request. 

This did not go far enough for the plan’s supporters. ‘Why should someone with a handicap have to beg to be admitted to a bar, a tram or a shop?’ Van Dijk, who himself uses a wheelchair, said.

The new requirement will be introduced in stages from 2017.

Toilets to be upgraded at tourist sites in China

Want China Times, Xinhua 2015-03-01

A renovated bathroom at Guilin Central Square, Guangxi,
Feb. 26. (File photo/Xinhua)

China will build 13,000 new toilets and renovate another 9,000 in 2015 at tourist sites to upgrade the notorious facilities, tourism authorities announced on Thursday.

The campaign is part of China's three-year "toilet revolution" aimed at building a total of 33,000 restrooms and renovating 24,000 by 2017, said Li Jinzao, head of the China National Tourism Administration.

Li released the target at a national kick-off meeting, adding that insufficient and unhygienic toilets have damaged China's national image and left tourists unhappy.

The official urged local tourism authorities to consider the special needs of the elderly, women, children and disabled when building and renovating toilets.

Over 3.7 billion trips were made to China's tourist sites last year, and some 128 million were from overseas visitors.

A cleaner at work at a toilet in Xujiahui Park in Shanghai, Oct. 21, 2014.
(File photo/Xinhua)

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Wheelchair basketball gives new hope to disabled Afghan women

Yahoo – AFP, Mushtaq Mojaddidi, 29 Oct 2014

An Afghan member of the Mazar-i-Sharif wheelchair basketball team plays against

 the team from Kabul during the final of the country's third annual competition in

Kabul on October 29, 2014 (AFP Photo/Shah Marai)

Kabul (AFP) - They have lost limbs to landmines and been disabled by mortar shrapnel, but Afghanistan's wheelchair women basketball players refuse to call themselves victims.

Clashing wheelchairs, hooting supporters and balls swishing through hoops brought a drab grey court in downtown Kabul alive Wednesday, in the final of the country's third annual competition organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

At the end of the forty minutes of play, the scoreline read Mazar-i-Sharif 26, Kabul 9 -- but for many of the athletes who took part it was also a personal triumph over years of adversity.

Mariam Samimi, a member of the winning side, was just six when she stepped on undetonated ordnance in her native northern province of Balkh, blowing off her toes.

It was 1996 and the height of Afghanistan's civil war, when prosthetics and good medical treatment were in short supply.

Now a trained social worker as well as a competitive athlete, the 23-year-old said she wanted others to know that a disability does not mean having to give up on your dreams.

"Don't be disheartened, always have courage, and do not say I can't do it. Be confident all the time, don't feel that you are disabled and (that) I should be at home," she said.

Afghanistan has been at war since 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded to prop up the communist government.

Members of the Kabul wheelchair basketball team (R) greet members of the 

Mazar-i-Sharif team in the final of the country's third annual competition in Kabul

on October 29, 2014 (AFP Photo/Shah Marai)

After the Soviets withdrew in 1989, a civil war began. The hardline Taliban seized power in 1996 but were ousted in 2001 by a US-led coalition.

The Taliban have waged a guerrilla war ever since against Afghan and foreign troops.

The country is one of the world's most heavily mined nations, with dozens of people still killed or maimed every month.

It is also one of just three countries where polio is still a problem, due to the disruption of health services and Taliban opposition to vaccination.

Nineteen-year-old Kamila Rahimi, who helped her side to victory with five goals, has been unable to walk since she was a toddler due to the disease. When she's on the court, it doesn't matter.

"I feel very happy to be playing basketball because I like the company of my teammates. When I laugh, they laugh with me, when I cry, they cry with me," she said.

In the final Kabul took an early lead but were comfortably beaten in the end by a more polished Mazar side, as several players were forced to give up on their hijabs while whizzing around the court.

The best players from the two-day tournament, which included the western city of Herat, will go on to play for the national team, said Alberto Cairo, head of the ICRC orthopaedic programme in Afghanistan.

Twenty-three-year-old Aziza Ahmadi, who was paralysed in her left foot when shrapnel from a mortar attack on her Kabul home hit her 18 years ago, said she hoped to make the grade.

"My dream is to go to play in European countries like Italy, Germany and France," she said with a smile.

Paralysed man walks again after breakthrough spinal treatment

Yahoo – AFP, James Pheby, 21 Oct 2014

Undated picture released by the BBC shows Bulgarian man Darek Fidyka (R) walking

 with the aid of leg-braces and parallel bars at the Akron Neuro-Rehabilitation Center in 

Wroclaw, Poland after revolutionary treatment to repair a severed sinal column. (Photo

by BBC Panorama)

A paralysed Bulgarian man can walk again after receiving revolutionary treatment in Poland in a breakthrough hailed by one of the British scientists responsible as "more impressive than a man walking on the Moon".

Darek Fidyka was paralysed from the chest down following a knife attack in 2010, but can now walk using a frame after receiving treatment in which nerve cells from his nose were transplanted into his severed spinal column, according to research published in the journal Cell Transplantation on Tuesday.

"When there's nothing, you can't feel almost half of your body. You're helpless, lost," the patient, who is now recovering at the Akron Neuro-Rehabilitation Center in Wroclaw, told BBC's Panorama programme.

"When it begins to come back, you feel you've started your life all over again, as if you are reborn. It's an incredible feeling, difficult to describe," the 40-year-old said.

Specialist olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs), which form part of the sense of smell, were used in the treatment as they are pathway cells, enabling nearby nerve fibres to be continually regenerated.

The treatment involved two operations.

Pawel Tabakow, consultant neurosurgeon at Wroclaw University, led a team of surgeons in removing one of the patient's olfactory bulbs before transplanting cultured cells into the spinal cord.

Scientists think that the cells, implanted above and below the injury, enabled damaged fibres to reconnect.

"What we've done is establish a principle, nerve fibres can grow back and restore function, provided we give them a bridge," said Geoff Raisman, chair of neural regeneration at University College London's Institute of Neurology, who led the British research team working on the joint project.

"To me, this is more impressive than a man walking on the Moon. I believe this is the moment when paralysis can be reversed."

Tabakow said it was "amazing to see how regeneration of the spinal cord, something that was thought impossible for many years, is becoming a reality".

'Door will open in life'

For two years after sustaining the injury, Fidyka showed no sign of recovery despite intensive five-hour physiotherapy sessions.

Undated picture released by the BBC shows Bulgarian man Darek Fidyka (R), who 

suffered a severed spinal column that rendered him paralysed, talking with Polish

 neurosurgeon Pawel Tabakow (C) and Geoff Raisman (L) in Wroclaw, Poland  (Photo

by BBC Panorama)

The first signs of improvement came three months after the surgery, when his left thigh began putting on muscle.

Three months later, Fidyka was able to take his first steps with the aid of parallel bars and leg braces. He can now walk outside using a frame and has also recovered some feeling in his bladder and bowel.

"I think it's realistic that one day I will become independent," said the patient.

"What I have learned is that you must never give up but keep fighting, because some door will open in life."

The research was funded by the UK Stem Cell Foundation and the Nicholls Spinal Injury Foundation (NSIF), set up by chef David Nicholls after his son Daniel was paralysed in a 2003 swimming accident.

NSIF has given £1 million ($1.6 million, 1.26 million euros) to researchers in London and £240,000 to the team in Poland. Both camps say they will not seek to profit from the research.

"It would be my proudest boast if I could say that no patient had had to pay one penny for any of the information we have found," said Raisman.

NSIF said it would acquire any patents and make them freely available.

"When Dan had his accident I made him a promise that, one day, he would walk again," Nicholls told the BBC.

"I set up the charity to raise funds purely for research into repairing the spinal cord. The results with Darek show we are making significant progress towards that goal."

The UK Stem Cell Foundation said the team was now searching for the best source of olfactory ensheathing cells and developing prototype nanofibre biomaterials on which transplanted OECs could grow.

They hope to raise enough money to hold clinical trials on 10 patients in Britain and Poland.

Related Article:

"The Quantum Factor" – Apr 10, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Galaxies, Universe, Intelligent design, Benevolent design, Aliens, Nikola Tesla (Quantum energy), Inter-Planetary Travel, DNA, Genes, Stem Cells, Cells, Rejuvenation, Shift of Human Consciousness, Spontaneous Remission, Religion, Dictators, Africa, China, Nuclear Power, Sustainable Development, Animals, Global Unity.. etc.) - (Text Version)

"... DNA is a Dynamic Molecule, not a static one.

Humanity is stuck in the 3D portion of their biological thinking. In your 3-D life, you simply accept the chemistry you're given. You act as though the three percent gene producing part is all there is. You believe it is a chemical protocol that is unchangeable and simply "you." You don't see it for the way it's designed. It's dynamic and always has been. It's not set, but will continue to simply repeat what it does unless there is another quantum influence on it.

Therefore you live with the 3 percent as though it were all there is, and since it just "came with your body" and seems to control everything, you never talk to it. Many of you come in with pre-dispositions based upon the karma which is put upon you from your past lives. You don't come in clean [without karmic energy]. Instead, you arrive with pre-dispositions, fears and phobias. Some are positive. Perhaps you come in as a prodigy continuing your last life... the 8-year-old who can paint like a master and do brushstrokes that take 30 years to develop. What does that tell you about what must be in the DNA?

Perhaps you come in as the composer, the pianist, the prodigy, the violinist, just waiting until your hands can go on the fingerboard or can reach up and fret the notes. Perhaps you come in knowing how to play the piano, just waiting for your hands to get big enough to do what you used to do... without any lessons. How do you explain that, dear ones? The answer is that all this is contained in the dynamic quantum instruction sets of your DNA... the part you never talk to it.

Cell Division - a static process?

Let me take you to the cellular division process. We've said this before, but you need to hear this to understand how it works. A cell is ready to divide. The Human body is designed to rejuvenate... all tissue. You've been told that there's some tissue that does not rejuvenate, but that is incorrect. It all rejuvenates at different speeds at different times and in different ways. It rejuvenates. So now you know that the Human body is designed to live a long time. Unfortunately, the energy that you have created on this planet and what you've gone through, has beat it up. You don't live much more than 80 years. That was not the design.

The Biblical personalities were sometimes prophets and sometimes masters and sometimes just there... and lived for hundreds of years. Did they really? Or perhaps this is that just a metaphor? Did they get that right in the Bible without a error in transcription? I'm going to tell you the truth. It's very accurate. Thousands of years ago you lived a very long time, Lemurian. If you knew your lifespan, you'd gasp. But not anymore. Instructions have been given over time to DNA, literally, by the energy of the planet... en energy that you have created through consciousness.

A cell divides. Right before it divides, it needs the blueprint to clone itself. The blueprint is available from the stem cell. The stem cell gets its information from the quantum part of the DNA, which has never changed since you were born. It's remained static, since nothing has ever changed it... and the fact that you don't believe it's changeable and have just accepted aging. There's not a conscious effort to do anything with it, and it just lays there like it always did.

The diving cell "talks" to the stem cell and says, "Do the same thing you always did? Change anything?" And the stem cell talks to the cell that is dividing, saying, "Make another one just the same." Then you rejuvenate just like the last one, accepting everything you received when you were born. ..."

Norwegian missionary doctor awarded 'Love of Lives Medal'

Want China Times, CNA 2014-08-24

Norwegian missionary doctor Olav Bjorgaas, second from left, poses
with officials for photo, Aug. 23. (Photo/CNA)

Norwegian missionary doctor Olav Bjorgaas has been awarded the "Fervent Global Love of Lives Medal" by a Taiwanese non-profit organization in recognition of his contributions to Taiwan.

Chou Chin-hua, founder of the Chou Ta-Kuan Cultural and Educational Foundation, and Guo Ying-lan, chairwoman of the foundation, presented the medal to Bjorgaas in the Norwegian city of Stavanger Aug. 22.

Bjorgaas, 88, was first dispatched to Taiwan in 1954 to care for leprosy patients at the Lo-Sheng Sanatorium in Taipei.

He later founded the Pingtung Christian Hospital and Taiwan's first nursing home for disabled children.

Until his retirement and departure from Taiwan in 1984, he had cared for over 6,000 leprosy patients and 18,000 polio patients.

The Chou Ta-Kuan Cultural and Educational Foundation was established in memory of child cancer fighter Chou Ta-kuan, who died in 1997 at the age of 10.

The "Fervent Global Love of Lives Medal" was set up by his parents to commemorate Chou's love of life and striving spirit and to encourage people to cherish and respect life.

Leprosy: Myanmar struggles with ancient scourge

Yahoo – AFP, Kelly Macnamara, 21 Aug 2014

A patient sits on a bed at the Mawlamyaing Christian Leprosy Hospital

in Mawlamyaing on March 13, 2014 (AFP Photo/Ye Aung Thu)

High in the hills of Myanmar's war-torn borderlands, a clutch of new leprosy cases among communities virtually cut off from medical help is a sign that the country's battle with the ancient disease is far from over.

It took six days by plane, boat, motorcycle, bus -- and an arduous mountain trek -- for a group of medical workers to treat two leprosy patients in a remote corner of the country, where conflict and neglect are the legacy of decades of military rule and even access to basic medicines is a distant dream.

But the charity-funded medics were also on the lookout for evidence that the disease had spread.

A patient has a meal at the Mawlamyaing

 Christian Leprosy Hospital in Mawlamyaing

on March 13, 2014 (AFP Photo/Ye

Aung Thu)

They soon found three more leprosy sufferers, including one man who had such a severe case he required hospital care.

"I promised him that I would come back for him or I would send someone to pick him up," said Doctor Saw Hsar Mu Lar, after the May expedition, as he returned to his hospital in Mawlamyaing, Mon state -- one of only two specialising in leprosy in Myanmar.

Weeks later the patient was still waiting to travel as tensions between the Myanmar army and local rebels closed transportation routes.

Myanmar reached so-called 'elimination' status for leprosy in 2003 -- meaning less than one person per 10,000 has the illness.

But there are still around 3,000 new cases found each year and medical workers warn that the debilitating disease could be on the rise once more as the country's creaking healthcare system fails to reach those at risk.

Decades of civil war in ethnic regions have also left vast swathes of its border areas cut off from all but the most basic medical help, meaning the disease could be passing undetected.

"There can be pocket areas, hidden areas," Saw Hsar Mu Lar told AFP.

"We have to tell the world that it's not finished yet."

A curable curse

Leprosy is one of the world's oldest -- and most feared -- diseases.

The bacteria affects the skin and deadens the nerves, meaning sufferers are prone to injure themselves, which results in ulcers and can lead to limb loss. Symptoms can take as long as 20 years to appear.

It is not particularly infectious, passing only through close contact over long periods, and modern medicine is able to cure patients relatively quickly.

A patient sits in a room at the Mawlamyaing Christian Leprosy Hospital in

Mawlamyaing on March 13, 2013 (AFP Photo/Ye Aung Thu)

But Myanmar has one of the world's least developed medical systems, with government funding consistently among the lowest of any country, even with recent increases under a post-junta semi-civilian government.

State health workers are technically in charge of outreach and aid groups are banned from conducting leprosy awareness campaigns or looking for new patients -- although they can treat people they find through dermatology clinics and during follow-up field trips.

The respected local aid group that organised the border expedition asked AFP not to give specific details of their work fearing that it could jeopardise future missions.

Saw Hsar Mu Lar's Mawlamyaing Christian Leprosy Hospital, with its bright, simple wards, trained staff and plentiful supply of drugs, is a medical haven -- funded mainly by international donations.

Most of the patients AFP met were farmers or had turned to begging to make ends meet.

"We had no medicine at our village even though we had a clinic," said 40-year-old Mu Hai, who had travelled from western Rakhine state for treatment.

The hospital's matron, Ni Ni Thein, is worried. In 2011 they saw 58 new leprosy cases, but that rose to 62 in 2012 and 68 last year.

"Now cases are increasing... the complication rate is increasing," she said, adding that the age range for the disease had also appeared to have widened, with one four-year-old treated this year.

The fight to stop leprosy has been a major international success, with around 16 million people cured by multi-drug therapy (MDT) medicine in the last two decades.

But experts warn against complacency.

A patient drinks a beverage at the

 Mawlamyaing Christian Leprosy Hospital

in Mawlamyaing on March 13, 2013

 (AFP Photo/Ye Aung Thu)

Myanmar is one of 18 countries that together account for almost all new cases of the disease.

The number of new cases it finds annually is dwarfed by its populous neighbour India, where there were some 127,000 new patients identified in 2011 according to World Health Organisation figures.

But while India managed an over 50 percent reduction between 2004 and 2011, Myanmar struggled to reduce its new incidences by 18 percent.

The WHO's goodwill ambassador on leprosy, Yohei Sasakawa, said stagnation in Myanmar's new case numbers over several years could indicate authorities are not doing enough to root out the disease.

One problem is that the numbers affected seem small compared to other health challenges like HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.

"It is quite easy to be brought down the priority list," he told AFP during a recent mission to the country.

'He shall dwell alone'

Even if patients are cured, many around the world still fall victim to the stigma that clings to the disease, ending up living in segregated colonies.

Public vilification dates back over two thousand years.

The Bible says of leprosy sufferers: "he is unclean: he shall dwell alone".

A patient sits in a corridor at the

 Mawlamyaing Christian Leprosy Hospital

in Mawlamyaing on March 13, 2013

(AFP Photo/Ye Aung Thu)

Saw Roger was chased out of his village when he started to show signs of leprosy aged 18 in the 1950s.

"I lived only with the animals in the jungle and I was frightened. I used to go into my village under the moonlight and I took rice and fish paste before going back into the dark forest," the 76-year-old told AFP.

After two years sleeping in the woods, Roger was found by missionaries and taken to the Mawlamyaing hospital.

Roger, whose legs, left hand and eye have been ravaged by the disease, has found sanctuary there ever since.

Passing the time reading and leading the church choir, he said he has found happiness despite a lifetime of travails caused by the illness.

"I can continue to look forward," he added.

Australian couple 'leave disabled baby with Thai surrogate'

Yahoo - AFP, 1 Aug 2014

The "Hope for Gammy" fundraising page has so far raised more than $98,000 for
a Down's Syndrome baby who was left with his surrogate mother (Photo: Gerard Julien)

Well-wishers on Friday had raised nearly $100,000 for a baby reportedly left with his surrogate Thai mother after his Australian parents discovered he had Down's Syndrome and returned home with his healthy twin sister.

Pattaramon Chanbua from Chonburi province, southeast of Bangkok, agreed via an agent to be a surrogate for the couple for a fee of Aus$16,000 ($14,900), giving birth to twins -- a boy and a girl -- in December, according to press reports.

But when the Australians discovered the boy, named Gammy by his surrogate family, had Down's Syndrome they abandoned him in Thailand and returned to Australia with only the healthy girl, Australia's ABC said.

"The money that was offered was a lot for me. In my mind, with that money, one, we can educate my children, two, we can repay our debt," said Pattaramon, already a mother to two children, in an interview with the broadcaster in Chonburi.

But instead the 21-year-old was left to care for the boy who also suffers from a life-threatening heart condition requiring expensive treatment she cannot afford, according to ABC.

"I don't know what to do. I chose to have him... I love him, he was in my tummy for nine months," she said in the interview.

Pattaramon has never met Gammy's Australian parents, according to Thai newspaper Thairath, which broke the story of Gammy last week, and their identities remain unknown.

"They (the surrogacy agency) told me to carry a baby for a family that does not have children... They said it would be a baby in a tube," she said.

A spokesman for Australia's foreign affairs department told AFP Canberra was "concerned" by the reports and was in consultation with Thai authorities over surrogacy issues.

"The alleged circumstances of the case raise broader legal and other issues relating to surrogacy in Thailand," he said.

Many foreign couples travel to Thailand, a popular medical tourism hub, to use its in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) services despite the unclear legal situation surrounding surrogacy.

Tares Krassanairawiwong, a Thai public health ministry official, said it was illegal to pay for surrogacy in Thailand.

"Surrogacy can be done in Thailand but it has to comply with the laws... A surrogate has to be related to the intended parents and no money can be involved."

The reports about Gammy's abandonment have triggered hundreds to donate to a fundraising page created for him last week.

By late Friday the "Hope for Gammy" page had raised more than $98,000.

It also carried scores of comments, many of which expressed outrage at the boy's abandonment by his parents.

"May this selfish and heartless couple be exposed and shamed for this horrible neglect!" said one.

Related Articles:

Baby Gammy may be given Australian citizenship, government suggests
Abandoned baby draws attention to surrogacy law

Baby with Down's syndrome left in Thailand by Australian parents

Fears of Australia surrogacy ban over abandoned Down Syndrome baby

Baby Gammy along with his mother and siblings at home

in Thailand. Photograph: ABC TV.