Three fundamental patents are held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), based on the work of the scientist who first isolated embryonic stem cells, James Thomson. Now the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, of California, and the Public Patent Foundation, of New York, argue that anyone could have done it. Their contention is supported by some of Thompson's scientific competitors. In April, the US patent office issued a preliminary ruling rejecting the patents, but the university is appealing it.

The patents were issued in 1998, 2001 and 2006. They deal with the processes used to extract stem cells from embryos and also cover the stem cells themselves. Other researchers have to pay a licensing fee to use the cells, no matter where the cells are obtained. Some scientists contend that the stranglehold of WARF is driving research overseas.

Doug Melton, of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, says that Thomson's achievements came from his access to money and materials, not groundbreaking science: "He deserves recognition because he undertook the arduous and timely task of getting fresh and high quality human embryos to use as starting material in his work and sufficient funding for such research, not because he did anything that was inventive."

A study in the New England Journal of Medicine says No. It suggests that PGS actually lowers an older woman's chance of becoming pregnant. Based on a study of 408 women aged 35 to 41, Dutch researchers found that women whose embryos were screened had a substantially lower pregnancy rate than those who did not: 25% versus 37%.

Peter Baumann, a psychiatrist, and the founder of Verein SuizidHilfe Schweiz, received a three-year prison sentence, with two years commuted. His crime was to help three depressed patients take their lives rather than help them to surmount their condition. During the trial Dr Baumann described the prosection's allegations as "paranoid illusions".

Dr Baumann became a member of the largest Swiss suicide group, Exit, in 1998, and accompanied 14 suicides. In 2002 he founded his own organisation.

Of course, the offer is merely hypothetical at the moment. No one even knows if the frozen eggs will be viable or whether Flavie will be interested. More current are the arguments supporting Melanie's very public announcement. The doctor involved, Professor Seang Lin Tan, was nonchalant about the controversy. "Ethical considerations change with time. The soonest the daughter will contemplate using the eggs will be 20 years from now. Who knows what the ethical attitudes will be even 10 years from now?" he asked.

De Sherman Silber, of the Infertility Center of St Louis, suggested that it was a mark of progress. "Those who object would probably have objected to the invention of fire by mankind hundreds of thousands of years ago." And bioethicist Arthur Caplan says concerns are unwarranted. "The dilemma of giving birth to one's genetic sister I think is overdone. I suspect parents will adapt quickly, adoptive parents who raise their sister's kids, or even a younger sibling."

Ms Millecam was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999 and in the ensuing two years was treated by 28 different practitioners and institutions. Despite the admonitions from mainstream doctors, she spurned all conventional treatment and used instead a faith healer, salt therapy, a psychic healer and so on. She died in 2001. Now the government, nudged along by a media campaign, wants much greater control over alternative medicine. Three doctors may also be disciplined over her death. One has been deregistered.

"There have been serious medical problems in women involved in selling eggs," she says. The growth in IVF, combined with cheap international air travel has promoted clinics which trade eggs across borders. "They actually function as brokers between people in countries where they can't get ova and where it's very regulated, and countries where it's not," she says.