Hwang Woo-Suk, the Korean scientist at the centre of the faked cloning scandal last year, has returned to the lab and resumed his research on animals. Hwang, who was sacked from his position at Seoul National University following the scandal, is thought to have secured private funding...
Just two weeks after Australian Prime Minister John Howard ruled out the possibility of a 'conscience vote' on the use of cloning procedures for medical research, he has changed his mind. Howard had refused to lift current prohibitions on cloning for embryonic stem (ES) cell research...
US researchers have identified a gene that has evolved rapidly during human evolution, a discovery they say could shed light on what makes us different from animals. The team, based at the University of California, Santa Cruz, identified the crucial brain gene by comparing the human...
Voters in the US state of Missouri will decide in the November ballot whether embryonic stem (ES) cell research should be allowed to take place in the state. The Missouri Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative - or Amendment 2 - would amend the state's constitution to allow...
In BioNews 371 we published a story about a British woman who died at the Leicester Royal Infirmary having undergone a standard IVF procedure. It has been brought to our attention by University Hospitals Leicester (UHL) that there were a number of inaccuracies in the article, including the name of...
Comment
Egg sharing and reimbursement of IVF
by Professor Guido Pennings
Egg sharing remains a highly controversial procedure. The discussion on whether or not egg sharing in return for a free or reduced IVF cycle constitutes a kind of payment has been going on since the very beginning of the practice. However, from an ethical point of view, it might be...
The case for genetic testing oversight
by Dr Kathy L Hudson
While some have warned of the emergence of 'genetic exceptionalism' - the fear that genetic medicine will be treated differently than, and regulated separately from, conventional medicine - the sad reality is that genetics has been ignored by US health oversight agencies such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS...