Canada turns a blind eye to egg 'donor' grey market
The Canadian ban against women selling their eggs as a source of eggs for fertility treatments is reported to be systemically flawed in practice, according to an expose article published in the April 2010 edition of the Canadian magazine The Walrus. Journalist Alison Motluk interviewed egg 'donors' and recipients, fertility experts and regulators, revealing that the Canadian ban is as farcical as its loose interpretation of the word 'donor'. The article attributed the discrepan...
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Problems with legislating against 'reproductive tourism'
by Dr Zeynep Gurtin
Earlier this month, the Turkish Ministry of Health revised its regulations pertaining to assisted reproduction technologies (ARTs). The new regulatory structure considerably extends the specifications and requirements for the practice of ARTs in Turkey, and introduces a range of additional prohibitions. Two new developments are particularly striking. The first stipulates that all women in their first cycle of IVF can only have a single embryo transferred, with a maximum of two embryos for wom...
Dialogue around cousin marriage is a positive step, but it must be based on fact not fiction
by Professor Marcus Pembrey
A report and analysis promoting Baroness Ruth Deech's views on cousin marriage, published in the Times newspaper on Saturday, makes some serious errors and does nothing to either clarify the true health impact of cousin marriage or help couples at risk of recessive genetic conditions...
Cord blood in the car park: Cord blood stem cells, contamination and DIY collection exposed
by Dr Karen Devine
Back in 2002, I recall a story in Red magazine about a father who had allegedly collected the stem cells from his newborn baby's umbilical cord in the delivering hospital's car park. It said he had been handed the placenta - wrapped in newspaper - by the midwife and told that if he wanted to save the cord blood, it would have to be done outside. You might say that this is rather a strange place to procure such precious cells that have the ability to treat a range of blood cancers and disorder...