with Tom Smith

IT seems that the millennium bug is taking another form. It is infecting some people's minds as much as it is creating chaos in the computer industry.

Unfortunately, there appears to be little anyone can do about countering this infection. There is no antibiotic or medical procedure that can put right the complications that this nasty little virus can create. Also, unlike the temporary effects of the computerised form of the millennium bug, the consequences of this infection will last for decades, perhaps generations.

The malaise to which I'm referring is striking down probably hitherto sane and right-thinking couples who are determined to parent the first baby of the millennium on January 1, 2000.

To do this firstly involves a relatively simple mathematical calculation: counting nine months back from January 1, 2000. Last week an unknown number of couples would try to conceive a baby. Nothing unnatural in this you might say. However, an Italian gynaecologist, Professor Severino Antinori, has taken over from nature and this last week will have artificially inseminated 14 Italian women. He is determined to deliver the first 14 babies of the millennium by caesarean section.

One doctor in this country has said that: "caesarean births have a two to five times higher maternal mortality rate." Another has condemned Professor Antinori for attempting to perform caesarean operations on 14 women on the same day.

The safety of the medical conditions at that time would have to be brought into question. Many doctors have also said that such a thing would not be allowed to happen in this country.

I have to question the motives of those determined to embark on this scheme. Quite apart from the lottery-style scenario, only one baby can be the first one after midnight, it would appear that money is the driving factor.

The first-born baby of the new millennium would attain a certain curiosity factor, what are the child's parents intending to do? Put the infant on display? Take it touring around the world to be gawped at by mindless individuals who have nothing better to do? Who knows?

Why not go one step better? How about the first twins of the millennium, the first triplets, the first quadruplets?

Is there anything the mind of mankind will not conceive of (sorry about the pun) to generate unearned money?

Has anyone thought about the effects of this thoughtless contrivance on these millennium children? Will they not question that their existence was simply because of a quirk of the calendar?

Surely it is far better to leave the matter in the hands of God and nature. In my opinion mankind loves opening Pandora's Box: BSE, GM Foods and the like, the only thing left in that particular container was hope.

I have to say that in the final analysis all this effort may be to no avail, for there is a respected school of thought that believes the millennium will not start until January 1, 2001.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.