Last week, in the sleepy Swiss town of Lausanne, nearly 4000 doctors, scientists, nurses and counsellors met to catch up on the latest research in reproductive medicine. The delegates were treated to 250 papers and presentations on everything from anonymous egg donation to genetic causes of poor sperm production.
Given its subject matter and the sheer amount of material presented, the annual conference is always of enormous interest to journalists. But, unfortunately, some were a little lacking in imagination, preferring to cover topics like sex selection and reproductive cloning and coming up with a plethora of scare-mongering articles.
What some journalists missed was an array of interesting research and enlightened discussion about clinical practice and service provision from around Europe and the rest of the world. What do you do in Spain, for instance, when the law prevents embryo destruction but couples wish to have their frozen embryos discarded? Or take sperm donation in Sweden, where anonymity was abolished in 1985, but 89 per cent of parents have not told their child about the circumstances of their conception. Should parents be coerced into telling?
Then came the research, including a new technique for detecting Down's syndrome in embryos; news on why IVF patients should give up smoking before treatment; and findings on a link between low weight in mothers and coronary heart disease in their children.
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