The Party for the Animals has become a force to be reckoned with since its formation in 2002. In 2003, it fell only 2,000 votes short of the number need to win a seat in the 150-seat parliament. Recent polls suggest that its support has tripled since them. Ms Thieme criticises other politicians for ignoring animal welfare. "They say: people are more important. People should come first. But if you always follow that line of reasoning, animals never make it onto the agenda," she said. ~ AP, Nov 19
Rejecting a call from British O&G doctors to consider legalising infant euthanasia, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics has recommended that active killing of newborn babies should not be allowed, no matter how serious their condition. However, the Council, whose reports are highly respected by the UK government, made its own controversial recommendation: to give only palliative care to all babies born before 22 weeks. It is extremely rare for babies born before 22 weeks to survive.
Only about 1% of babies born between 22 and 23 weeks live to leave hospital, says the Council. Normal practice should be not to give intensive care at this age, unless parents request it after a thorough discussion of the risks and if the doctors agree.
Natural instincts are to try to save all babies, even if the baby's chances of survival are low," said Professor Margaret Brazier, who chaired the committee that produced the guidelines. "However, we don't think it is always right to put a baby through the stress and pain of invasive treatment if the baby is unlikely to get any better and death is inevitable."
For babies born between 24 and 25 weeks, parents should have the final say in whether to give intensive care, says the Council.
Hanging over the report is the tragic case of Charlotte Wyatt, who was born in 2003 at 26 weeks. She was in very poor health and her doctors decided not to resuscitate her. However, her parents, who were devout Christians, objected and fought the case in the courts. The judge backed the doctors' opinion, but Charlotte managed to survive, although with severe handicaps. The case put so much strain upon her parents' marriage that they split up. Now neither of them appears to have the financial or personal resources to cope with Charlotte's care. She may end up as a ward of the state.
Dr Vivienne Nathanson, the head of ethics at the British Medical Association, welcomed a framework for working with premature babies. "But," she said, "we would not be so happy about an overall recommendation on resuscitating babies at 22 weeks. We don't believe you can make broad judgments. It has always been our position that every case is individual and every case should be judged on its own merits."
Although the Nuffield Council has dismissed the idea of infant euthanasia, support is growing. The leading news magazine The Economist supports a national debate. It suggests that caring for disabled children is extremely stressful for parents and expensive for the government. "Tiny babies do tug at the heartstrings but raising a severely impaired child is heartbreakingly hard. It is brave of doctors to dare to question whether they should save the life of each and every one," it asserts. ~ Nuffield Council, Nov 15; London Telegraph, Nov 16; Economist, Nov 9
ADVANCES FOR ADULT STEM CELLS
Adult stem cells have helped ease the symptoms of muscular dystrophy in golden retrievers, according to a report in the journal Nature. The study focused on Duchenne muscular dystrophy, the most severe and most common form. Lead researcher Giulio Cossu, of the Stem Cell Research Institute at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute of Milan, says that he hopes to launch a small clinical trial with children in the next year or two.
The researchers used stem cells from the affected dogs and from healthy dogs. The best results were obtained with cells from the healthy dogs. If the same method were used with humans, it would avoid the controversial method of destroying embryos to produce stem cells. ~ AP, Nov 16
Scientists in Minnesota have found that cord blood cells can morph into lung cells. In the long term, this could be good news for people suffering from emphysema or cystic fibrosis. In the short term, the technique could be used to develop medicines for asthma or for studying lung development. Sarah Haecker, of the company BioE, which sponsored the research at the University of Minnesota, says that cord blood cells "are not an embryonic stem cell, but have characteristics like an embryonic stem cell, and they are not an adult stem cell because they are much younger. So they have the best of both worlds." The research was published in the journal Cytotherapy. ~ Minnesota Daily, Nov 14
IRISH JUDGE RULES IVF EMBRYOS NOT PROTECTED BY CONSTITUTION
Frozen embryos do not have a right to life under the Irish constitution, the Irish High Court has ruled. This was the outcome of a lawsuit brought by a 41-year-old mother of two to have three frozen embryos returned to her after her marriage had broken up.
A 1983 amendment to the Irish Constitution protects the life of the "unborn". But Justice Brian McGovern found that voters who approved it did were only thinking of a foetus in the womb. "Until the law or the Constitution is changed, this issue remains within the sphere of ethics and morality," he wrote.
Pro-life supporters were disappointed by the ruling and may appeal. "The embryo is not potential human life -- it is human life with potential, albeit fragile and dependent," objected Dr Berry Kiely, spokeswoman for the Pro-Life Campaign. "The suggestion that an embryo should only enjoy protection rights when implanted in a woman's womb is arbitrary and ignores the fact that each of us began life as a human embryo."
In his 26-page judgement Justice McGovern suggested that the case demonstrated the need for comprehensive fertility regulation in Ireland. "It seems to me the absence of any rules or regulations in this jurisdiction means embryos outside the womb have a very precarious existence," he wrote. ~ London Times, Nov 16; Irish Times, Nov 16; Family & Life, Nov 16
DISASTER TRAINING NEEDED, SAYS KATRINA DOCTOR
The experience of Hurricane Katrina shows that American doctors need training if they are to cope effectively with future disasters, says a New Orleans oncologist. Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr Tyler J. Curiel suggests that the doctor and two nurses charged with the euthanasia of four patients in a chaotic hospital panicked. Doctors and nurses at other hospitals, including the one in which he was working, also laboured under extremely adverse conditions, but neither medical staff nor patients ever mentioned euthanasia.
Teamwork is essential, he says. "Disaster training must include attention to the organisation of an effective administrative operation in a chaotic setting." Fail-safe communications must be installed; legal training must be given; competent staff should be identified. "Ethical decision making, professionalism, and personal integrity must be emphasised." ~ New England Journal of Medicine, Nov 16
CHINA ADMITS ORGAN TRADE
After years of rumours, the Chinese government has finally acknowledged that it has been engaged in selling the organs of executed prisoners to medical tourists from abroad. "Apart from a small portion of traffic victims, most of the organs from cadavers are from executed prisoners," said Deputy Health Minister Huang Jiefu "The current organ donation shortfall can't meet demand." New rules will limit transplants to Chinese citizens, which could scupper a thriving market for foreign patients.
China appears to be finding it difficult to establish a consistent policy for organ transplants. On the one hand, according to People's Daily, 1.5 million Chinese need an organ transplant every year, but only 10,000 receive it. On the other hand, the number of executions may fall by as much as a third because of tighter oversight of the death penalty. No figures are released, but estimates of the number of executions range from 1,800 to 10,000. Where the extra organs are to come from is unclear. In July, a law was passed that all organ sales were to be illegal, but how vigorously this is enforced is impossible to know. ~ Houston Chronicle, Nov 17; China Daily, Nov 15; The Age, Nov 18
IN BRIEF: fertility; Dawkins; celebration; stem cell tumours
Fertility: A British doctor has developed a do-it-yourself fertility test so that women won't miss the last train to motherhood. Professor Bill Ledger, of Sheffield University, says that it can change women's lives because they will realise how much time is left on their biological clock. "A lot of my life is spent running a fertility and IVF practice and I see so many intelligent and well- educated women in their 40s who find that IVF cannot dig them out of the infertility trap they have fallen into by leaving it too late to have kids," he told the Daily Mail. "The double whammy is, not only are they unable to conceive naturally but IVF doesn't work well for over-40s." ~ Daily Mail, Nov 18
Dawkins on eugenics: Adolph Hitler gave eugenics a bad name, says Darwinian philosopher Richard Dawkins, and it's about time to put the idea on the table again. " I wonder whether, some 60 years after Hitler's death, we might at least venture to ask what the moral difference is between breeding for musical ability and forcing a child to take music lessons... hasn't the time come when we should stop being frightened even to put the question? " ~ Sunday Herald (UK), Nov 19
Silver anniversary: The University of Cambridge and the journal Nature are sponsoring a 25th anniversary celebration of the landmark discovery of embryonic stem cells from mouse embryos. The symposium will take place at Cambridge in late December.
Stem cells and tumours: Stem cells are responsible for colon cancer, according to research published in Nature. This supports other research on leukemia, breast and brain cancers which suggests that not every cell in a tumour will cause cancer, but only its stem cells. "Colon cancer stem cells are the driving force initiating and sustaining these tumours. Since this is the heart of the tumour, you have to find and kill each of these colon cancer stem cells to truly cure the disease," says Dr John Dick, of the Ontario Cancer Institute, the lead researcher. ~ ctv.ca, Nov 20.
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A male nurse has been convicted of killing 28 patients -- making him Germany's worst serial killer since World War II. Stephan Letter, 28, injected patients in a nursing home with a lethal cocktail of tranquillisers and muscle relaxants between February 2003 and July 2004. He was found guilty of 12 counts of murder, 15 counts of manslaughter and one count of mercy killing. Most of his victims were over 75, but they included two women aged 40 and 47.
The Dutch Party for the Animals could win one or even two seats in tomorrow's national election. "We see this as a follow-up to liberating slaves, giving rights to women, and finally giving rights to animals," says party leader Marianne Thieme. She would like to see a constitutional amendment guaranteeing animals the right to freedom from pain, fear and stress caused by humans.