The UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has banned clinics from offering 'egg giving' schemes. Egg giving is a type of egg donation where patients waiting for IVF treatment first undergo one cycle of egg retrieval in which all the eggs collected are donated to another patient. The woman...
Diane Blood has re-registered the birth of her two sons, born following the use of sperm taken from her dead husband. In September 2003, she succeeded in her five-year campaign to have her late husband's name on her children's birth certificates. Until 1 December, Liam and Joel Blood's birth certificates...
The ongoing debate on whether European Union (EU) funds will be able to be used for human embryonic stem (ES) cell research has failed to be reconciled today. The Council of Ministers has failed to agree on funding in a final attempt to resolve the issue before a moratorium on...
US lawmakers have reached an agreement on part of a bill that would ban patents on 'human organisms'. The compromise was sought following claims that the original language in the Commerce, Justice and State Department appropriations bill might 'intentionally or inadvertently' harm technologies using embryos or embryonic cells. The proposed...
US researchers have identified a gene, which, when altered, causes coronary artery disease and triggers heart attacks. Scientists at the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland found that all members of an extended Iowa family who inherited a mutated MEF2A gene were affected by the disease, whereas all those who...
A Chinese biotech firm has been granted permission to market the world's first commercial gene therapy medicine, New Scientist magazine reports. The country's medicines authority has approved Gendicine, a new cancer treatment, after promising results in a clinical trial. It will be launched in January by the firm SiBiono GeneTech...
UK firm TriStem claimed last week that it has developed a 'body repair kit' by taking blood cells and turning them into different types of tissue. TriStem founder Ilham Abuljadayel told New Scientist magazine that she has managed to turn white blood cells into heart, nerve, bone, cartilage, smooth muscle...
UK and Canadian scientists have identified a new gene involved in breast and ovarian cancer, which they say provides a link between the inherited and non-inherited (sporadic) forms of the diseases. The gene, dubbed EMSY, appears to trigger sporadic breast cancer by shutting down the BRCA2 gene, which is one...
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The ethics of 'egg giving'
by Juliet Tizzard
This week, the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) banned a form of egg donation called 'egg giving'. Aimed at women who would not otherwise be able to pay for IVF treatment, egg giving offers a reduced price IVF cycle in return for donated eggs. The women undergoes one...