Older mothers and global/national responsibilities

Much of the debate about elderly motherhood has focussed on the anomalous situation of a woman simultaneously qualifying for an old age pension and child benefit. It is an engaging topic, but the discussion needs to be widened to include a consideration of global/national responsibilities: the relationship of a woman who provides an egg to, following its fertilisation, the woman in whom the embryo is implanted....[Read More]

Merck receives EU approval for new infertility drug

The European Commission has granted approval of ELONVA, a first-in-class drug manufactured by White House Station pharmaceutical company, Merck. ELONVA is used for controlled ovarian stimulation in women embarking on IVF (in vitro fertilisation) treatment for infertility. With this approval, Merck has marketing authorisation for the drug in all EU member states....[Read More]

Study shows rapid decline in women's eggs after 30

The first study to chart the fate of a woman's supply of eggs from conception to the menopause, carried out by researchers of the University of St Andrews and Edinburgh University, UK, shows that the average 30-year-old woman will have just 12 per cent of her original ovarian 'store' of eggs left. The study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, also shows that by the age of 40, only three per cent of the estimated two million eggs a woman is born with are left. The rapid decrease...[Read More]

Correction: HFEA publishes a Grade A Incident report

Last week BioNews reported that the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) had for the first time decided to publish its report and the Licence Committee minutes relating to Grade A incidents, two of which occurred earlier last year at Guy's Hospital Assisted Conception Unit (ACU). It has been brought to our attention that there were a number of inaccuracies in this article. The corrected version of the article is published below:...[Read More]

Unnatural selection?

I had wanted to donate my eggs to a woman with fertility problems ever since having children of my own. I frequently tell my three children that I always wanted to be a mother and that every day they make my dreams come true. How wonderful it would be to help make someone else's dreams come true too....[Read More]

Fertility watchdog to review donation rules

The UK's fertility watchdog - the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) - agreed at an open Authority meeting last week to review a range of its sperm, egg and embryo donation (SEED) policies during 2010....[Read More]

Embryo donation is not like adoption

The recent report by the Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) (1), stating that the use of the term 'embryo adoption' is misleading, addresses a question which has been asked since the first successful donation of an embryo. Should treatment with donated embryos be approached as any other assisted reproductive technology (ART), or should it be seen as another form of adoption? Children conceived through embryo donation do resemble adopted chi..

A link between male infertility and epigenetic disorders in ART babies?

The aim of assisted reproductive technology (ART) is to achieve a single most important goal, the birth of a healthy child. ART is responsible for the birth of over 200,000 children each year worldwide. In the most common form of infertility treatment - IVF (in vitro fertilisation) - the woman's eggs are collected and then combined with the man's sperm in a petri dish. The successfully fertilised eggs are then transferred into the woman's womb. In ...[Read More]

Children's human rights and assisted human reproduction

A recent article by journalist, Allison Cross, described how a shortage of Canadian donor sperm could be prompting women and their partners to turn to the Internet to find free donors: 'Many of these people want 'do-it-yourself' donor insemination, without intervention by doctors'...[Read More]

Controversial egg modification technique could increase IVF success in older women

A controversial new technique to improve the quality of eggs from older women undergoing IVF is being developed by Japanese scientists. Because the procedure involves using eggs from two women to create a single viable egg for fertilisation, it has sparked a media furore over the potential creation of what have been inaccurately dubbed 'three-parent embryos'....[Read More]

Lords attack cross-generation embryo and gamete donation

In a debate in the House of Lords of the UK parliament last week, Tory Lord Earl Howe criticised revised regulations that allow for embryos, sperm and eggs to be stored for up to 55 years for prematurely infertile parents. Previous legislation set the maximum storage time at ten years....[Read More]

Freezing eggs leads to 'scrambled generations'?

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Storage Period for Gametes and Embryos) Regulations 2009 came into force on 1 October 2009 under negative Parliamentary procedure. Soon after, however, a prayer was moved for the regulations to be annulled and a debate took place on 21 October 2009 in the House of Lords....[Read More]

A new era for the HFEA

When it comes into force on 1 October the new Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) Act will herald the single greatest change to affect the UK fertility sector in nearly two decades, since we - the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) - came into being as the UK regulator....[Read More]

Experts attack 'fertility tourism' industry

British couples travelling abroad to take advantage of commercial surrogate arrangements are engaging in a form of 'exploitation', Professor Naomi Pfeffer, an expert in the ethics and regulation of controversial developments in medicine, said at a fertility meeting this week....[Read More]

The three ages of modern womanhood: don't get pregnant, won't get pregnant... can't get pregnant…

Don't get pregnant: Pregnancy within or without marriage is not perceived to be the norm in a young modern woman's life in the UK or the western world in general...[Read More]

Why the controversy over intergenerational gamete donation?

Professor Lisa Jardine, the chair of the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), has called for a fresh debate on two allegedly controversial aspects of gamete donation, namely the provision of gametes to a known relative of a different generation, and the provision of semen by a man to his sister if she is using a donated egg...[Read More]

Disgraced Korean scientist faces four years in prison

Disgraced scientist, Hwang Woo-suk found last Monday that he faces a possible four year jail term for alleged embezzlement, and the violation of Korean bioethics law....[Read More]

The problem with 21st Century Motherhood

Did the death of Maria Bousada change public attitudes to the modern phenomenon headlined as 'Oldest Mums'? The world's media certainly made hay and the news reverberated for a few days; and it seems likely that the Channel 4 documentary 'the Worlds Oldest Mums' was rescheduled to screen early to catch the media wave which the death generated. The aftermath, though, of this tsunami seems to have largely been relative indifference....[Read More]

Expert urges women to test fertility at 30

Many women are risking their chances of being able to have children by leaving it too late, according to Bill Ledger, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Sheffield. He told the Daily Telegraph that women who chose to delay motherhood until their 30's and beyond in order to establish their careers were ignoring the implications this could have for their fertility....[Read More]

HFEA calls for debate around payment for sperm and egg donation

A public debate is urgently needed to decide whether people should be paid for donating eggs and sperm to infertile couples, according to Lisa Jardine, Chairman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). In an exclusive interview with the Times, Professor Jardine said that the lack of egg and sperm donors in this country was driving couples abroad for fertility treatment in often unregulated clinics, and that the HFEA could potentially consider a reversal of the ban on paymen...[Read More]