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Choosing children is not a straightforward business
(sz) How much right do parents have to shape their children? Except in cases of downright neglect, we generally allow them a pretty free hand. The religious, the musical and the sporty all push their offspring down certain paths and—even if just by spending time that could have been used for other pursuits—close off others.
But new reproductive technologies allow parents to choose their children, rather than merely make choices on their behalf. Take Londoners Tomato Lichy and Paula Garfield, who are both profoundly deaf, as is their daughter Molly. They would like another child and, as Ms Garfield is over 40, are considering in vitro fertilisation (IVF) in order to have one. They want that child to be deaf too. That way the new arrival would fit into the family and share in deaf culture, speaking sign language as a mother tongue.
In principle at least, if the couple do choose IVF they could peek at the possibilities before choosing which child to bear. In “pre-implantation genetic diagnosis” (PGD), doctors take a cell or two from each of the embryos produced in vitro. They check which ones carry particular genes of interest before selecting embryos to put in the mother’s womb. If the genes that cause the couple’s deafness can be identified, PGD could grant them the child they want.
But not in Britain. The law governing fertility treatment is now being updated in a bill before Parliament, and using PGD to pick embryos with faulty genes in preference to those without them is to become illegal. Since deafness is generally considered a defect—a proposition the couple lambast as discriminatory “audism”—Mr Lichy and Ms Garfield would have to take their chances with normal conception or IVF, or else screen and discard the very embryos they prefer. more…

From: »The Economist«

(sz) NuSep (ASX: NSP), a publicly listed company based in Australia and the United States with a 30 year heritage in biological separations, today unveiled the IVF sperm separation device, the SpermSep CS10.
The SpermSep uses an electrical field to separate normal sperm from damaged sperm. SpermSep has the potential to increase the success rate of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) treatments.
“We are extremely excited to announce these results from this revolutionary new device. Male infertility is a factor for more than 40% of infertile couples. The SpermSep rapidly (5 minutes) isolates normal healthy sperm from DNA damaged sperm providing renewed hope for couples who have previously struggled to conceive a child,” said John Manusu, Managing Director of NuSep.
“A clinical trial of the SpermSep has recently concluded at Westmead Fertility Centre, Sydney. Three out of nine women who had sperm prepared with the SpermSep became pregnant and there have been two live births to date. This compared very favorably with treatment using the current technology,” he added.
Developed together with Professor John Aitken from the University of Newcastle, the device works on the principle that sperm with the most negatively charged membranes are likely to have the least DNA damage. The SpermSep is a consecutive processing, single use product which eliminates the potential for sample mix-up a potential problem with the existing process. more…

From: »The Sydney Morning Herald«

(sz) A task force has been established to provide infertile couples in poor countries with access to affordable reproductive treatments such as IVF, a European group of fertility experts announced today. They are aiming to roll out a network of cheap clinics that could offer IVF, for example, for as little as US$200 a time.
With the average marriage in sub-Saharan Africa yielding six children, and many national governments in the region striving to reduce birth rates, the move is likely to be controversial. But in much of the developing world, children are important — not only because many children tend crops and do other work, but also because of the stigma of childlessness that can lead to women being socially excluded.
An estimated 186 million women of reproductive age in the developing world suffer infertility problems — in some countries in sub-Saharan Africa, almost one-third of women are unable to conceive.
Assisted reproduction technologies (ARTs) such as IVF are available in richer countries, although at a cost of up to US$10,000 per attempt, or ‘treatment cycle’, the price tag is far beyond what can be afforded in developing countries. more…

From: »nature.news«

(wz) Swelling numbers of infertile couples are turning toward egg donation as a means to become pregnant and are in turn creating an acute shortage of ethnic minority donors, say physicians at the Reproductive Science Center (RSC) of New England.
As a result, RSC doctors are calling for young women of Jewish, Asian Indian and other Asian ethnic groups in New England to consider becoming egg donors as an altruistic act for couples who may have no other options for conceiving.
“Due to the shortage in New England, Asian donors are traveling to Boston from as far away as California,” said Dr. Samuel Pang, medical director of RSC. “That puts additional financial strain on a recipient, who is responsible for paying for the donor’s transportation and hotel fees.”
Cultural, religious and social traditions are often a barrier to egg donation in certain ethnic communities, Pang said. For instance, in some cultures, infertility is seen as a failure, which hinders couples from going to their friends and family about becoming possible egg donors. Traditional Asian communities might reject the idea of egg donation, because of the importance of bloodlines within their culture.
The increasing demand for egg donors is in part due to the recent success of egg donation rates. About 12 percent of IVF attempts in 2005 involved the use of donated eggs in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The number of IVF attempts that involved either donated eggs or donated embryos increased from about 5,000 attempts in 1995 to more than 16,000 attempts in 2005. more…

From: »Medical News Today«

(sz) A research team supervised by Universite Laval scientist Marc-Andre Sirard has identified genetic markers that allow the selection of eggs with the best chance of leading to successful pregnancy after in vitro fertilization (IVF). This finding could both increase the success rate of single embryo transfer and diminish the risk of multiple pregnancies. The details of the method developed by the researchers, for which an international patent application has been filed, are explained on the website of the scientific journal Human Reproduction.
Eggs recovered in the course of the IVF process are surrounded by follicular cells that are removed before the actual fertilization procedure begins. “While in the ovaries, these cells and the eggs are in very close interaction,” explains Sirard. “A first experiment we conducted on bovine follicular cells led us to believe that these cells might possess specific markers that would be able to give us information about the quality of an egg.”
With the help of 40 women recruited in a fertility clinic, researchers compared follicular cells surrounding eggs that ultimately led to successful pregnancies - i.e. “good” eggs - to cells surrounding ovules that did not result in pregnancy. This comparison led to the identification of five genes expressed more abundantly in follicular cells surrounding good eggs. more…

From: »Medical News Today«

(sz) New fertility legislation will make it illegal to use embryos with a known genetic abnormality in IVF treatment when ones without the same defect are available.
For a long time, the debate about the genetic testing of embryos has focused on whether we should stop people creating the “perfect” person: blonde, blue-eyed, with athletic prowess and a high IQ.
The Nazi spectre of eugenics has frequently been invoked.
Now a deaf couple have turned this on its head: far from wanting a flawless child they actively want a baby which suffers the same hearing difficulties as they themselves.
The couple have become icons in a deaf movement which sees this impairment not as a disability but as the key to a rich culture which has its own language, history and traditions: a world deaf parents would naturally want to share with any offspring.
Moreover, they argue that to prefer a hearing embryo over a deaf one is tantamount to discrimination.
But to others - both those who can hear and those who cannot - deliberately bringing a child with a disability into the world when one without could be born verges on the morally repugnant. more…

From: »BBC News«

(sz) Brazil’s Supreme Court is set to decide if scientists in Latin America’s largest country can conduct embryonic stem cell research, which many say can lead to cures for degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
The court’s 11 justices are scheduled to rule Wednesday on a 2005 petition by then-Attorney General Claudio Fontelles, who argued that a new law allowing embryonic stem cell research was unconstitutional because it violates the right to life.
The law opened the way for research with embryos resulting from in-vitro fertilization that are frozen for at least three years.
“Brazil has the potential to be a significant leader in this field,” said Bernard Siegel, the executive director of the Florida-based Genetic Policy Institute. “And if the Supreme Court decides to allow this kind of research, then Brazil will become the Latin American leader in this field.”
He said Brazilian scientists have done “pathfinding” work with adult stem cells for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases and Type 1 diabetes. If given the green light to use embryonic stem cells, “then there is no reason why they won’t be able to make important breakthroughs,” he added. more…

From: »CTV« (Canada)

(cz) Fertility Centers of Illinois S.C., (FCI) along with several other large infertility practices nationwide, have been selected to participate in a Phase III Clinical Trial for an investigational drug that supports pregnancy and is used with In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). FCI seeks up to 200 patients to take part in the study and is offering one cycle of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) at no cost to all that meet the study criteria.
All patients taking part in the study will be required to take daily injections of gonadotropins to prepare the eggs, similar to a typical IVF cycle. Half of patients will be randomized into a group taking the FDA approved drug and the other half will take the investigational drug. Randomization to the progesterone treatment group will occur after a patient has reached egg retrieval. more...

From: »Medical News Today«

(sz) MPs are planning a change in the law to allow babies to be conceived from artificial sperm, a move described by opponents as playing God with human DNA.
A furious debate is building over how far to leave the door open to its use in IVF treatment, ahead of a Commons vote due shortly on the government’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill. The legislation currently allows …#8239;so-called artificial gametes in research, but imposes a blanket ban on their use in creating a human pregnancy.
The technique involves the creation in a lab of sperm grown from embryonic cells taken from the would-be parent. Although the science is in its infancy, it could ultimately help people rendered infertile by cancer treatment, or fortysomething women who can no longer produce their own eggs, to have children who are genetically related to them.
A cross-party group of MPs led by Liberal Democrat Evan Harris will table an amendment to relax the ban. ‘There is no good explanation for not allowing this option for people who have survived cancer and cannot have children,’ Harris told The Observer. ‘This is a good bill, but the government needs to recognise a few improvements are still needed - such as allowing the use of artificial gametes - before we can say the UK has rational and progressive regulation.’
Dawn Primarolo, the Public Health Minister, confirmed last night that she was considering pleas from MPs and scientists to relax the ban. There was a ‘powerful argument’ that the new technique could help solve a shortage of sperm donors, she said, but she was sympathetic to arguments that a decision should not be rushed.
So far pregnancies have been successfully created only in mice: of seven born alive, all died prematurely. Experts believe it could be 10 years before a human pregnancy could be safely attempted. But scientists have cultured human sperm using stem cells - immature building blocks containing DNA - taken from bone marrow. more…

From: »The Observer«

(sz) The Vikings are returning for our women - but this time we’re welcoming their Nordic invasion.
A leading IVF clinic is shipping in Danish sperm after suffering a dramatic fall in donors.
Doctors claim laws removing anonymity are putting off volunteers as it means offspring can track them down in the future.
But they found the solution in Denmark - regarded as “the fertility kings of Europe” - where such legislation does not exist.
Charles Kingsland, of Liverpool’s Hewitt Centre, said: “We’ve seen a 90 per cent drop in volunteers since 2005. We do advertise in areas where we think there would be a good catchment. But we still need donors.” more…

From: »The Daily Mirror«