In news almost as disconcerting as the UN climate change fiasco that has undercut public perception of scientifically-legitimate statistics on global warming, a new debate is brewing around global progress (or lack of it) in reducing maternal deaths worldwide.

The prestigious medical journal Lancet reports that it was pressured not to release its findings of a substantial decrease in maternal deaths worldwide, until after this week’s meetings on public health funding worldwide and preferably not until September 2010 when funding was confirmed.

We reported earlier on the UN report saying that while death among babies had been reduced, maternal mortality rates hadn’t budged. In all honesty, the findings didn’t make sense to us, but we assumed their veracity.

The British medical journal Lancet rushed out a paper on Sunday that found the number of women who die in pregnancy or childbirth has dropped by more than 35 percent over 28 years.

Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, said he was disappointed when maternal health advocates pressured him to delay publishing the report until September, after several critical fundraising meetings. He also wrote a commentary in Lancet on the pressure.

“Activists perceive a lower maternal mortality figure as actually diluting their message,” he told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “Advocacy can sometimes get in the way of science.” via AP

Especially in our Internet-driven world, the UN and NGOs generally run the risk of doing serious damage to legitimate causes, by demanding that politics triumph over scientific facts.

We will always support science over made-up stores, in every channel of Anne of Carversville, even when we are passionate about the issue, as we are over maternal health.

I pride myself on creating an atomosphere of curated ‘trust’ with readers. We will also pursue the facts of this serious allegation. Anne

Read On No Progress in Maternal Mortality in India, written Dec 2009 by AOC

UN press release from Oct. 2009 World must recommit to slash amternal mortality as goal lags far behind