The UK's Department of Health is to review the legislation covering the information available to people conceived through egg, sperm or embryo donation. Currently, such children born after the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act will be able to enquire if they were conceived through embryo or gamete donation once...
The Department of Health announced last Friday that it would be accepting recommendations made in a review of consent to the storage and use of human sperm and eggs. The review was conducted by Sheila McLean, professor of Law and Ethics in Medicine at the University of Glasgow and recommended...
A second UK clinic is offering boys suffering from cancer the chance to have their glandular material frozen in the hope that it will later help then to father their own children. The procedure is already available at the CARE clinic in Nottingham. Dr Simon Fischel, the director, said they...
In a development that has horrified infertility specialists, a 66 year old entrepreneur is offering the eggs of female models to the highest bidder online. Ron Harris - a former horse breeder, playboy film maker and fashion photographer - has set up a web site (www.ronsangels.com) which launches on 25 November. The...
This week's BioNews includes news from the UK that the government is planning to put an end to sperm and egg donor anonymity. The news has been greeted with a considerable amount of concern, particularly from infertility clinics and patients worried that a change in the law will mean a...
Health ministers are looking at ways of giving children born as a result of donated gametes the legal right to track down their biological parents. The government has confirmed that it will publish a consultation paper in the autumn on what information should be given to children born of sperm...
Italy could soon have legislation to govern the until-now unregulated practice of assisted reproduction. A bill was passed on 26 May by the parliament's lower house. If the bill becomes law, access to in vitro fertilisation (IVF) would only be available to heterosexual couples - regardless of marital status - with proven...
A federal body to regulate genetic and reproductive technologies is likely to be established in Canada this autumn. The federal Health Minister, Allan Rock, will table legislation to set up a licensing authority and to prohibit the same practices that an earlier bill attempted to outlaw in 1996. The 1996...
Last week's announcement that a Montreal-based biotechnology firm had successfully cloned three goats has rekindled concerns about human cloning in Canada. Despite the existence of a voluntary moratorium on human cloning, in late April the Canadian Health Minister Allan Rock announced the federal government's intention to introduce legislation criminalising certain...
The first British study of the emotional and social development of children born as a result of sperm or egg donation has found that the absence of genetic ties improves the well-being of all the family members. The research was carried out in the wake of the growing use of...
Stay up-to-date on all the latest developments in the fields of human fertility and genomics. And be the first to hear about upcoming events and other announcements.
