Life insurance companies may be forced to stop using the results of genetic tests if they continue to flout a voluntary agreement not to use genetic screening before government approval. Lord Sainsbury, the Science Minister, has written to the Association of British Insurers (ABI) to make clear that the government...
The Japanese government announced its intention to double spending on genome-related research over the next five years. Announced by five science-related ministries, the five year plan will focus particularly on analysing the human genome and creating a database of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the Japanese population, which could lead to...
Lord Robert Winston is to receive the Royal Society Michael Faraday Award for the furtherance of the public understanding of science. The award has been made in recognition of Winston's wide-ranging effort in communicating reproductive science to a large public audience through his media appearances and his numerous publications. The...
Culturing embryos to the blastocyst stage during in vitro fertilisation (IVF) increases the likelihood of pregnancy in patients for whom standard IVF has failed, according to a paper published in the August issue of Fertility and Sterility. Dr Jose R Cruz and colleagues at The George Washington Medical Center in...
Four women have become pregnant by a new technique that can recover sperm in men who have been shown by traditional analysis to have no sperm. Perfected by Simon Fishel - director of the CARE clinic in Nottingham - initial trials of the new technique have succeeded in finding sperm in a...
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Insurers in trouble over gene tests
by Juliet Tizzard
The insurance industry is in trouble again. In the field of genetics, in particular, insurers have traditionally had a reputation for putting financial gain before ethics. This week's news that insurers are using information from different genetic tests in insurance policies has been regarded by many as no great surprise...