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Surprising Science

Cash for Sterilization

The controversial American charity organization Project Prevention offers cash payments to drug addicts and alcoholics who are willing to forgo having children.
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“A drug addict has become the first man in Britain to take part in a controversial project which saw him get cash to be sterilized. The 38-year-old, who wishes to be known to only as John, was given £200 in exchange for a vasectomy. John—who has been addicted to opiates for 15 years and has been involved with drugs since he was 11 or 12—said the cash incentive spurred him into going ahead with the procedure. The addict, who is featured in BBC London’s Inside Out programme tonight, said: ‘It was kind of what spurred me into doing it in a way. It was something that I’d been thinking about for a long time and something that I’d already made my mind up that I wanted to do. Just hadn’t got round to it.'”

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