2024-02-06 13:28:41
The Ministry of Human Capital that directs Sandra Petovello signed an agreement with the Child Nutrition Cooperating Foundation (CONIN), headed by the pediatrician Abel Albinoa militant of the ultra-Catholic Opus Dei and known for his statements against the termination of pregnancy or how HIV is transmitted. As reported this Tuesday by the organization, both parties are committed to working in the fight against malnutrition in early childhood.
As during the presidency of Mauricio Macri, The national government once again trusts in the work of Dr. Abel Albino to address child malnutrition in the country. However, at that time, many doctors and scientists questioned the so-called “Conin methodology” to combat child malnutrition.
The main criticism was the lack of scientific evidence to support their interventions, which are much closer to healthcare than to the interdisciplinary approach recommended by the WHO. During its previous agreement with the government of the day, the Argentine Society of Pediatrics (SAP) expressed its discomfort about the “alleged formulas to combat malnutrition” that Albino argues, “lacking scientific evidence and far from a comprehensive conception of health.”
The foundation
The Conin Foundation arrived in the province of Mendoza with Albino in 1993. Since that date, according to its website, 17 thousand children have recovered in the one hundred centers they have in eighteen provinces. But there is no way to verify these data, since there are very few studies published in scientific journals.
A search in the PubMed database returns only two works carried out in Argentina. The first, from 2006, evaluated only 75 patients and the data presented do not allow conclusions to be reached. The second, from 2009, evaluated 478 boys from 5 to 17 years old (186 who attended Conin and 292 who attended another center). The conclusion was that “there were no differences in weight and height between the boys in the two groups, only a brief difference in the maturation of the children treated at Conin.”
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But despite the lack of scientific evidence, the Foundation bases its reputation “on the successful model of Conin Chile, devised by Dr. Fernando Mönckeberg, who managed to break the scourge of child malnutrition in his country.” For the Argentine pediatrician Gerardo Weisstaub, from the Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology of the University of Chile, it is true that Conin was very important in the trans-Andean country in the 70s but it was one more link in the chain of policies and programs that made that Chile eradicated child malnutrition between 1960 and 2000.
Who is Abel Albino
Albino in 2018, during the first debates in congress on the Voluntary termination of pregnancystarred in one of his most controversial episodes: at that time he explained that the “condom is useless”. Regarding the HIV virus, he maintained that it is capable of passing through porcelain, so contraceptive methods could not prevent infection. “It is 500 times smaller than the sperm. So the prophylactic is absolutely useless, because it fails in 30%, during pregnancy. Imagine what can happen with AIDS. One is not absolutely covered,” she maintained.
Scientists criticize the ‘Albino method’ to combat child malnutrition
After such statements, the rejection was immediate. Albino’s proposal for preventing HIV and unwanted pregnancies is “sexual abstinence.” in his book To govern is to populate: responsible parenthood or assisted fornication? proposes, to reduce malnutrition, combat promiscuity and calls for criminal cases for doctors who demand tubal ligation and states that “a woman must strive to offer her man both her physical and moral virginity.” In another section, he writes: “In marginalized sectors, very frequently, the exercise of sexuality develops in a promiscuous and animalistic way.”
The pediatrician studied Medicine at the National University of Tucumán and then at the National University of Cuyo. He later specialized in Pediatrics in Chile and in 1992 he traveled to Navarra to deepen his knowledge in Molecular Biology. In 1993 he returned and founded Conin in Mendoza.
According to a note made by NOTICIAS in 2015, his detractors base their criticism on testimonies from women who say they have received a strong religious decline when they were treated by him. On the other hand, there are those who highlight his social work and the help that he has been providing for years in the area of child malnutrition.
MDS/rb/fl
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