Click here to read Reproductive Technologies 101, an overview of reproductive technologies

Journal of Medical Ethics (Volume 36, Issue 3, March 2010) is now available by subscription only.

Articles include:

• “Homeopathy is Where the Harm Is: Five Unethical Effects of Funding Unscientific ‘Remedies’” by David M. Shaw, 130-131.
• “Evolution of Hospital Clinical Ethics Committees in Canada” by Alice Guadine, Linda Thorne, Sandra M LeFort, and Marianne Lamb; 132-137.
• “Sex Rights for the Disabled?” by Jacob M Appel, 152-154.
• “The Cost of Autonomy: Estimates from Recent Advances in Living Donor Kidney Transplantation” by Phedias Diamandis, 155-159.
• “Dignity: Not Such a Useless Concept” by Suzy Killmister, 160-164.
• “Assisted Suicide by Oxygen Deprivation with Helium at a Swiss Right-to-die Organisation” by Russel D Ogden, William K Hamilton, and Charles Whitcher; 174-179.
• “Advance Commitment: An Alternative Approach to the Family Veto Problem in Organ Procurement” by Jurgen De Wispelaere and Lindsay Stirton. 180-183.
• “Quality Improvement in General Practice: Enabling General Practitioners to Judge Ethical Dilemmas” by Larua Tapp, Adrian Edwards, Glyn Elwyn, Soren Holm, and Tina Eriksson; 184-188.

As an IVF clinic ‘raffles’ a human egg to promote a way of paying for eggs from the US, we hear from experts on both sides of the controversy. (The Mirror)

In the spring of 2006, Heather Cox got an unexpected phone call from a Toronto fertility clinic. Three years earlier, she had donated eggs anonymously to a gay couple through the clinic. Now the same couple wanted a full sibling for their child. Would she consider providing eggs again? (The Walrus)

To save her son Henry, Laurie Strongin received 353 IVF injections, but couldn’t conceive a genetic match. Today, she supports controversial stem-cell technology. (The Globe and Mail)

A British fertility clinic said Sunday it was raffling off a human egg this week to promote its “baby profiling” service, which it insists is legal under UK law. (AFP)

IVF clinics are facing an official clampdown on creating test-tube twins and triplets because of growing fears about their health and the cost to the NHS of caring for them. (Telegraph)

In the United States, “missing girls” usually refers to runaways or kidnap victims. In the Asia-Pacific region - especially China and India - the phrase takes on a different meaning. There, tens of millions of girls have died as young children due to neglect, have been killed as infants, or were never born due to sex-selective abortions. (Psychology Today)

Free fertility treatments for Quebecers who want a test-tube baby are to be delivered just in time for this year’s St. Jean Baptiste celebrations. (Montreal Gazette)

Young adults who were conceived through in-vitro fertilization are doing as well as the average young American as far as physical health, though their rates of certain psychological problems appear elevated, a new study finds. (Reuters)

A bioethics expert is suggesting that women rethink possible plans to donate their eggs to fertility clinics for research or use in pregnancy. Jennifer Lahl of the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network says egg donation is potentially harmful for women. (LifeSite)

A Florida woman tweeting her abortion is trying to take the shame out of the procedure. It’s a high-tech twist on an evolving mission, one that’s had limited success. (
Newsweek)

The Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society (CFAS) supports fully the provision of publicly funded in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) treatment across Canada. Infertility has been defined by the World Health Organization as a disease of the reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a clinical pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse(1). Since infertility has been defined as a disease, and its associated diagnostic and surgical management deemed “medically necessary” by provincial medical insurance plans, full infertility treatment including IVF and ICSI must also be made available as a funded service, and easily accessible to all Canadians. (Newswire.ca)

Back when I was a medical reporter for The Times, Laurie Strongin and her husband, Allen Goldberg — and most of all their son Henry — became the faces I saw whenever I wrote about medical milestones. I met them when they were one of the first two families to try a new technology, called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or P.G.D., to have a baby who could donate the bone marrow that Henry, who was born with a genetic disease called Fanconi anemia, needed to live. (New York Times)

Professor Stephen Wilkinson, of the Centre for Professional Ethics at Keele University in Staffordshire, argues that unless there is a serious sex imbalance in the population (e.g. many more boys than girls) or the decision is motivated by sexist attitudes or beliefs, parents should be allowed to decide the sex of a future child. (Keele University Press Office)

In what doctors described Wednesday as a world first, a Danish woman has given birth to two children after her fertility was restored using ovarian tissue that was removed, frozen, thawed and then reimplanted after cancer treatment. (PhysOrg)

Thousands of preserved human embryos will be disposed of next week following the implementation of a federal law that bars fertility clinics from conducting this medical procedure on religious grounds. (Khaleej Times)

When Nikolas Evans was assaulted in a fight last year outside a bar in Austin, Texas, his mother’s dreams for her 21-year-old son — a college student with “a good head on his shoulders” — evaporated.
Returning from a night of drinking, Nikolas and a friend were attacked on their way to catch a bus ride home. The fatal blow came when the slight son she called “Pea” was violently knocked sideways by an assailant and struck his temple on the ground. (WHAS11)

Children born from assisted reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilization are generally as healthy as naturally conceived children but tend to be lower in birth weight and have slightly more genetic differences, according to researchers who spoke Monday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. (Wall Street Journal)

JAMA (Vol. 303; No. 7; February 17, 2010) is now available by subscription only.

Articles include:

• “Dynamics of Obesity and Chronic Health Conditions Amongh Children and Youth” by Jeanne Van Cleave, Steven L. Gortmaker, and James M. Perrin; 623-630.
• “Heritable Disease and Sperm Donation” by Kent D. W. Bream and Jason P. Lott, 617-618.
• “Disruptive Innovations and Health Care Reform” by Darrell G. Kirch, 620-621.
• “Rising Autism Rates Still Pose a Mystery” by Mike Mitka, 602.

An estimated 500,000 frozen embryos are stored nationwide as the byproducts of advanced fertility treatments, commonly known as in vitro fertilization, or IVF. Although most who create the embryos will use all of them in an attempt to have a child, sometimes there are extras. Anna and Sarah were once two of them. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

British couples are to be offered a groundbreaking genetic test that would virtually eliminate their chances of having a baby with one of more than 100 inherited diseases. (Times Online)