Christian Bioethics Group in Korea Files Suit

Korea Times reports:

A coalition of some 20 religious, medical and law research groups plans to lodge a petition with the Constitutional Court against the bioethics law, claiming the law runs counter to the spirit of the Constitution. A member of the Korean Christian Bioethics Association said the group will review whether it is realistic to file the petition from a legal point of view. ``The most problematic aspect of the law is that embryo will be allowed to be used for research purposes,'' said Kim Il-su, professor of Korea University and co-chairman of the association. ``As embryos are recognized as life, it is against the spirit of the Constitution regarding respect for human dignity and life to use human embryos for research,'' he said.

All In The Family

A 55 year old woman gave birth to her three grandchildren, the Washington Post reports today. The woman had offered to be a surrogate for her grandchildren when her own daughter had tried unsuccessfully for several years to become pregnant through in vitro fertilization. Ethicists' opinions on the surrogacy arrangement were varied. For more info, read on: [link] -- Linda Glenn

The Enemy of My Enemy is ... My Enemy

Panos Zavos is on everyone's list of the top five, um, eccentrics in the human cloning race. He's fooled millions - twice - with promises that the first human clone's birth is imminent, and with preposterous claims about his own skills at cloning. He would be funny, if he weren't so dangerous. The emergence of Zavos has done more than anyone to convince the world that scientists who work with nuclear transfer are crazy. For example, today's British papers are all reporting that "cloning pioneer" Zavos is accusing Britain of "promoting infanticide." You'll love this:

[Zavos] branded UK rules governing reproduction as “super-conservative” and warned they were forcing many adults into having multiple abortions because it was illegal for them to choose the sex of their baby. He said British couples were visiting his clinic for “family balancing” treatments, having terminated a number of pregnancies because the gender of their unborn baby was not what they wanted. At the Kentucky Centre for Reproductive Medicine and IVF, where Zavos is associate director, treatments offered include pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, where the sex of embryos can be screened to ensure couples have a child of the desired sex.

You just know sex selection advocates want to stuff this guy into a small, dark closet ...

Extra Traits, No Charge

This article in the San Jose Mercury news reveals that a physician whose fertility clinic transfered the wrong embryos (leading to an unanticipated custody battle) and then lied to the patients involved continues to practice medicine and was even listed as a recommended provider by RESOLVE until the reporters contacted them asking for comment. Many of us have criticized the infertility industry for failure to self regulate in the face of insufficient oversight, but this story really brings it home. Several years after investigators concluded there was serious wrong doing and that the physician is a risk to public health, he continues to offer his services.

Little Updates from Thanksgiving Weekend

Several of the things that happened while we were gobbling:

Tulane may not be setting up the Big Easy Bioethics Center just yet but it is at least setting up a pretty interesting speakers' series. Don't go drunk, except maybe to the enhancement lecture.

There aren't many people working on the bioethics of IT-driven genomics, although much is being written in the popular literature. Most recently the fields have begun to set up conferences at which a lexicon is developed as well as a kind of institutional history of the ways in which all of the relevant fields (and there are many) have begun to converge. Ok a little plug: one of us has written a book about computational genomics and ethics, but only four people in his immediate family read it.

A symbol was paraded of the UK's problem establishing any kind of marrow registry enrollment among those of minority ethnic background. Asian families in particular do not often donate bone marrow.

Speaking of children in the UK who require special assistance, this piece in the News Telegraph chronicles the NHS' controversial decision to fund preimplantation diagnosis (and IVF) for families who seek to have a child in part to secure a donation. Covering the same story of Zain Hashmi, the piece highlights the problem for those of minority ethnic background.

China has a mess on its hands with DNA identification:

A non-regular investigation conducted recently in Zhejiang Province indicated that the requests for DNA identification of ones own children are rapidly increasing at a rate of 40 - 50% every year.

So George Annas isn't the only bioethicist playwright (although he is damn good): Christmas Carol has been adapted by Santina Maiolatesi of Chesapeake Research Review (along with Doris Baizley). No word on who will play Mini Tim.

Swiss News agency The Local discusses the off-label prescription of medications in children in the EU, in particular in Sweden, at Karolinska Institutet and elsewhere, noting a new European Commission regulation that requires that medical companies "begin testing medicines intended for children on children."

An Orlando judge has upheld the living will of a 73-year-old Florida man, after it was argued that his wife's durable power of attorney (a general, not a healthcare document) might trump the living will. His wife argued vehemently that she could not agree to disconnect his life support systems. The effect of the news is hard to judge, but it appears that we are in for more confusion about what these documents mean and how they relate to the legal system and to other legal instruments. Helpfully, the Florida legislature has not offered any specific instructions on how to interpret the role of any other documents, so the judge gets to make up new policy de novo!

Another piece on how sperm donors from Denmark are so hip.

Drug Policy Alliance offers its interpretation of the Monday Supreme Court deliberations on medical marijuana, which are to involve questions both of states' rights and of the scope of drug and medical policy.

Kangla Online reports that Imphal, India based Regional Institute of Medical Sciences has been admitted to the UNESCO bioethics world network. Imphal is in the northeast of India, a nation that is becoming an international bioethics powerhouse, in part due to the incredible focus on sex selection in the nation but also due to pretty innovative approaches to law and philosophy of medicine there.

You think you could be an unethical sort? The kind of person who would put the ring of Gyges to its most obvious use? Would you torture prisoners? You are human, so the answer is probably yes, or so new research on cruelty suggests.

The Next Pointless Reproductive Scandal...

We were going to skip this one but if it merits an MSNBC column, we'll mention it. Enter Aleta St. James, the 56 year-old mother who has a new pair of twins thanks to the soap opera that is assisted reproductive technology in America.

Ivy League Eggs Wanted

Egg donation is still very much a business on campus. Click here for full size to read it, though it says exactly what you think it says. These guys didn't get enough business from their ad in the campus paper, so they've put up flyers. Thanks Andy Gurmankin.

Four Parents, Sort of

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has found one of those "lots of people in the mix" IVF cases, in this case fairly garden variety 90s courtroom drama about who gets or is responsible for les enfant. Pennsylvania, though, has had some pretty interesting cases in which the typical "I agree not to ask for the child to whom I am contributing DNA or a womb" agreements are nullified. In addition, Pennsylvania had an extraordinary case in the 1990s involving a man who killed an infant whom he had made with the assistance of a surrogacy shop in Indiana. The man in that case had not been in any way screened to determine whether he might, as he evidently would have, posed a risk to a child. That case sparked a fight in middle Pennsylvania over whether surrogacy should be made illegal. It makes for an interesting set of problems that culminate in the new Erie case.

IVF Risks and Benefits

Liza Mundy chronicles this year's ASRM discussion of the recent New England Journal discussion of IVF risks. The framing of the Slate piece is ASRM's colorful bazaar atmosphere and the even more wild atmosphere of IVF (according to Mundy). But the article is a really outstanding overview of the state of the debate, complete with references to all the studies. Anybody planning to teach IVF ethics issues to undergraduates or laypeople should read this piece.

Major IVF Study by Genetics & Public Policy Center

Kathy Hudson and the gang reviewed an enormous pool of data - 2,500 papers - on comparative IVF/non-IVF incidence of hereditary or other disorders and found that there are slightly elevated, and greatly elevated risks. It will be interesting to see how this data is institutionalized in clinical ART care!