The new test has already been approved by the UK's fertility regulator and tried seven times, resulting in five currently healthy pregnancies. However, critics of destructive embryo research condemned it. Josephine Quintavalle, of the UK lobby group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said, "I am horrified to think of these people sitting in judgment and deciding which embryos should live and which should die," she said. "The goalposts are already getting wider and wider." ~ London Times, Guardian, June 19
Two of America's leading medical organisations have banned members from participating in interrogations and torture in places like Guantanamo Bay. A new policy by American Psychiatric Association prohibits psychiatrists from direct participation in interrogations, including "asking or suggesting questions, or advising authorities on the use of specific techniques of interrogation with particular detainees."
The American Medical Association has adopted a slightly more flexible resolution which allows doctors to help develop interrogation strategies for "general training purposes", provided those strategies do not threaten or cause harm, are humane, and do not violate detainees' rights. "Physicians must not conduct, directly participate in, or monitor an interrogation with an intent to intervene, because this undermines the physician's role as healer," says AMA ethicist Dr Priscilla Ray.
The association representing American psychologists has so far refused to take so firm a stand. The director of ethics for the American Psychological Association, Stephen Behnke, says that the participation of psychologists can help to humanise the process of interrogation. He says his colleagues should not be involved in direct interrogation of detainees, or in tactics that could lead to cruel and abusive treatment of detainees, but that participation has been customary in police work and can be done ethically. ~ New York Times, June 7; AP, June 13; Democracy Now, Aug 11, 2005
CUBA'S HEALTH SYSTEM DENOUNCED BY DISSIDENT
And on the other side of the wire at Guantanamo Bay, a prominent Cuban doctor has written a scathing denunciation of her country's use of hospitals, doctors and medicine to earn foreign exchange. The report by Dr Hilda Molina, a former member of the Cuban National Assembly and a distinguished doctor, was smuggled out of Cuba and published on a Norwegian website. In it she claims that over the last 12 years or so the government has established a system of "medical apartheid" in which top quality care is denied to Cubans and provided to medical tourists.
It is impossible to verify any of the unscrupulous practices alleged by Dr Molina, and they will surprise many, as Cuba is reputed to have an excellent health care system. She writes: "Since February of 1994, the negative practices I outlined earlier have become standard in all Cuban hospitals that sell medical services to foreign patients. The main objective of many Cuban hospitals is generating foreign currency, by any means necessary. International relationships are driven by business logic and the need to make a profit. Acting as intermediaries, unscrupulous foreigners promote Cuba's services and recruit patients, many of whom are subject to deception or fraud."
Often, she charges, even foreigners are given substandard treatment and false information about their conditions to increase their medical bills. As a neurologist, Dr Molina was using injections of embryonic tissue into the brains of patients with Parkinson's disease, a hazardous technique which is controversial enough on its own. But she claims that the government tried to force her "to perform numerous embryonic transplants on foreign patients to make the procedure a major source of foreign income". An even more disturbing allegation is that one doctor attempted to export foetal tissue from aborted babies. In the belief that tissue from dismembered aborted babies was inferior in quality, he organised unnecessary Caesareans.
From Dr Molina's report, it appears that the ultimate source of the problem is a shotgun marriage of Communist central planning with privatisation. In an isolated country desperate for foreign exchange, hospitals have been told that they can no longer depend on the government for financial support and that they must support themselves by selling services to foreigners. In her eyes, it is a base betrayal of what her government had always preached: "a central objective of the Revolution is the entitlement of free, quality medical care for everyone". ~ Civita, June 13
CLONING UNETHICAL, FOR THE TIME BEING, SAY IVF EXPERTS
Ethicists at the world's leading association for reproductive technology have decided to extend a moratorium on reproductive cloning, but only for a single year. The executive committee of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology declared that in the light of mixed record of success with animal cloning, it would be "totally irresponsible, as well as unethical, to start human reproductive cloning". A five-year moratorium began in 1999 and was extended last year by one year. ~ BioNews, June 19
EGG FREEZING MOVES CLOSER
Another new product unveiled at the ESHRE conference could allow women to freeze their eggs so that they can become pregnant at a time of their choosing. Dr Masashige Kuwayama, of the Kato Ladies Clinic in Tokyo, says that a technique first used for cattle and sheep might lead to a dramatic improvement in success rates for pregnancies from frozen eggs. Existing techniques result in a pregnancy with only 1 in 100 eggs. The Japanese method, which uses a kind of antifreeze to keep ice crystals from forming in the egg, will increase this rate to 10 in 100. ~ BBC, June 19
TOWARDS A WORLD WITHOUT AUTISM
A British IVF clinic want to create autism-free babies for couples who fear that they might have an affected child. A team at University College London says that boys are four times more likely to have autism than girls, so embryos would be screened to eliminate the boys. A prospective couple would only be allowed to have the procedure if autism had inflicted severe suffering upon the family.
The proposal to the UK's fertility watchdog, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, is a controversial one because autistic children can live long and healthy lives. A spokesman for the British Council of Disabled People said: "Screening out autism would breed a fear that anyone who is different in any way will not be accepted. Screening for autism would create a society where only perfection is valued." ~ London Times, June 18
SEX SELECTION MARKET GROWS IN US
Overseas couples who want to choose the sex of a child are spending US$20,000 in American IVF clinics because the US is one of the few countries in the world where sex selection has not been banned. The leading practitioner is Dr Jeffrey Steinberg, of the Fertility Institutes of Los Angeles and Las Vegas. His websites proudly advertise that his services have been featured on CNN, Newsweek and 60 Minutes. He is obviously aiming at the Chinese market -- where sex selection is officially discouraged nowadays. A link to "sex selection" even features a Chinese flag. He says that this page generates 140,000 hits from China each month -- only from Canada is there more interest.
Even amongst IVF doctors, however, sex selection is controversial. Dr Yury Verlinsky, a Chicago specialist notorious for his radical experiments with human embryos, says "We don't do that. Sex is not a disease." However, Dr Steinberg calmly responds that people will become less alarmed as his specialty becomes more common. "It's new. It's scary. We understand that," he says, soothingly. ~ AP, June 14
FERTILITY RENEWAL HOPES DASHED
A year ago, a Harvard study suggested that the medical dogma that women have a limited supply of eggs was wrong, exciting much comment in the media. Jonathan L. Tilly claimed that he could inject infertile mice with blood cells and that germ cells in the blood could become new eggs. This raised hopes that women might be able to overcome the age barrier for having children and that infertility due to chemotherapy could be overcome. Alas, a paper from another Harvard researcher disputes this in the journal Nature. In any case, many scientists had been sceptical of the revolutionary discovery. The review of Tilly's far-reaching claim found that his eggs could not develop into the mature eggs which are needed for a successful pregnancy. ~ Boston Globe, June 15
IN BRIEF: stem cells, cord blood, Indian euthanasia
European Parliament: The European Parliament has approved funding for embryonic stem cell research. Although the funds will only be available to the three EU members which permit research on embryos at the moment, critics fear that it will put pressure on other countries to update their legislation. The various bills authorising the funding passed by slender majorities in the 732-seat parliament and they still have to be approved by the European Council. The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano complained that Strasbourg had endorsed a "tragically utilitarian" approach towards the creation and destruction of human embryos. ~ RTE News, June 15; CWNews.com, June 16
Cord blood sceptics: Pregnant women in Britain have been warned that storing cord blood from their baby's umbilical cord may be a waste of money. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said that there was "insufficient evidence" to recommend storing cord blood so that its stem cells could be used to cure Alzheimer's, diabetes and ovarian cancer. About 11,000 British couples have paid around £1,500 each to store blood for 20 years. ~ Guardian, June 14
Indian euthanasia: The law commission of India has recommended that terminally ill patients should not be forced to accept medical treatment. This has prompted a debate about the related subject of euthanasia. Critics point out that in a large and poor country patients and their families could be tempted to take the easy way out. ~ NDTV.com, June 13
The locked door to transforming one type of cell into another may have opened a crack. In a development which could have manifold ethical, political and scientific implications, Austin Smith of the University of Edinburgh says in Nature that he has identified a gene which directs cell development. The discovery could eventually make it unnecessary to destroy embryos for their stem cells. "Until a couple of years ago I thought the idea of reprogramming was ridiculous because we had no scientific idea of how to achieve," says Smith. But after experiments with mouse embryos, he has changed his mind. It looks really encouraging. We could find a way to do this," he says.
Stem cell expert Hwang Woo-suk and five other scientists who allegedly faked stem cell research went on trial this week in Seoul. They have been charged with fraud, embezzlement of US$3 million in public funds and breach of South Korea's bioethics laws. Hwang has denied the charges. "I was not involved in the process; I only received results," Professor Hwang told the court about his sensational articles on human cloning. If the accusations of falsified research were true, he said, that would mean that "my whole research team conspired to deceive me, but I still don't believe this is the case". Once hailed by the government and others as "the pride of Korea", Hwang could face several years in jail if he is found guilty.