Good news for medical research from Norway

Norway's double morality stand on IVF and stem cell research may be on its way to being overturned by the present coalition government.

For two decades, Norway has been profiting from IVF-related research on fertilised eggs performed elsewhere to build up its own IVF treatment practices. The research ban on fertilised eggs was put into force in 1987, and in 2003 the previous government extended the research prohibition to include a ban on developing - or importing from abroad -human embryonic stem cell lines for research purposes as well. The newly revised law proposal on biotechnology, presented by the minister of health and care services on 26 January, suggests altering these prohibitions to make it possible for IVF related research on fertilised eggs to take place in Norway, and to allow the use of supernumerary eggs from fertility treatments to develop human embryonic stem cell lines for research purposes, subject to the consent of donors. There is little reason to believe that these parts of the bill will not receive a majority vote in parliament.

The most controversial part of the revised law proposal, however, relates to whether couples who are healthy carriers of serious forms of hereditary disease should be given publicly paid access to PGD abroad, in combination with IVF, to ensure the birth of a healthy child - a child which following embryo HLA (human leukocyte antigen)-typing could also serve as a donor of stem cells to a sibling affected by the disease in question. Since 2003, there has been a ban on PGD with the exemption of cases involving X-linked forms of hereditary diseases. This paragraph was, however, put to Ôtemporary sleep' in 2004 due to a case of beta-thalassemia involving a seven-year-old Turkish Norwegian boy. This case led to a heated debate and change of stance in parliament on PGD. It also resulted in the establishment of an independent ethics panel to handle future PGD applications. To this date, more than 50 such applications have been handled by the panel, of which four involve HLA-typing as well.

For the time being it is not clear whether the HLA-part of this revised law proposal will be supported by all members of the ruling coalition. In parliament, however, there are good reasons to believe that there will be a majority vote in favor of this part of the revised bill as well, due to support from the rightist progress party.