Whose life is it, anyway?

Trait selection in babies "is a service," says Dr. Steinberg. "We intend to offer it soon."

Whoops, someone noticed that some of this reproductive technology stuff might not be ethical.

Talk about controlling parents!

Eugenics is a done deal. The cat's out of the bag. There's no going back. (Don't think about the 14th Amendment that overturned Dred Scot and took the slaves from their "owners.")


Of course, the "Progressives" and human-plus groups only commit *good* eugenics. All they want is control and more money.


The "Progressives" started raising the alarm a couple of years ago, when they were pushing for a change in the Bush embryonic stem cell policy. The logic was that the reason there is no regulation is that the government isn't paying for enough research.

At the same meetings, they were adamant that their group must have the power maintain control. (Alta Charo, Laurie Zoloth, Jonathan Moreno, Insoo Hyun and the rest of the "Ethicists for Hire" crowd.)

Funny, in all these links, I didn't find a single comment about the doctors who lost a discrimination suit in California for refusing to fulfill a patient's request for IVF -- even in the midst of the hulabaloo about the mother of octuplets.

HT to Vox Popoli

In vitro fertilization and the beginning of life

The Los Angeles Times (a one time free registration may be required) finally notices that couples who initiate in vitro fertilization are "finding themselves ensnared in a debate about when life begins."

The proposed Colorado amendment states, "The term 'person' or 'persons' shall include any human from the time of fertilization." If it is passed, the courts would have to interpret the meaning of those words, says Kristi Burton, sponsor of the initiative and founder of Colorado for Equal Rights, which focuses on the rights of unborn children. The goal of the amendment, says Burton, a college student, "is to respect and protect all life."

Fertility advocates are skeptical that "personhood laws" wouldn't limit their choices for reproductive healthcare. In August, Resolve released a statement opposing the Colorado amendment.

"The motivation is abortion," says R. Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. "If the Supreme Court allows states to declare embryos as personhood, you would be in a position to say immediately that all abortions have to stop."

The reproductive rights of infertile women may not be the target, says Dr. William Schlaff, director of reproductive endocrinology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, "but the implications are massive depending on how this law would be used if adopted."

For instance, what happens to embryos determined to be afflicted with serious genetic diseases? "What do you do with that embryo then?" Schlaff asks.

Says Burton of the initiative's possible ramifications: "All those things would have to be dealt with later on. . . . We don't see it as preventing infertility treatment."

As for the Rathans, over the course of several weeks, the couple ruled out discarding the embryos. They discussed donating them to research but heard that option was a logistical nightmare. They pondered giving the embryos to another infertile couple.

"Before I became pregnant, I thought the decision would be easier for me," Gina Rathan says. "But when it actually happened, I realized these are three potential lives."

Finally, the couple paid for three more years of cryopreservation.

30 years: In Vitro Fertilization,Bioethics and Public Health

My own first child is a little older than Louise Brown, the first child born from in vitro fertilization (IVF). This incidental pioneer celebrates her 30th birthday this month, calling for reviews and editorials on what her birth has meant to culture and to individuals, such as this one from the UK's Telegraph.

It's good to hear that Ms. Brown has a child of her own, "naturally conceived" with her husband. Full circle.

New York Times article on cloned humans

The New York Times (free one time registration required) has a news piece on the Stemagen cloned human embryos, with reference to "making copies of people" and implantation of cloned embryos for reproduction.

One of the men who donated the fibroblast skin cells is also the owner of Stemagen.

The NYT has more on the story behind the cloned human embryos:

The Stemagen scientists, led by Andrew French, an animal cloner recruited from Australia, used skin cells from Dr. Wood and another Stemagen employee as the DNA source. They used 29 eggs donated by young women at the fertility clinic that Dr. Wood manages.

Five blastocysts were developed. One was shown to be a clone by genetic testing, the scientists reported, and two others also showed good evidence of being clones.

Dr. Wood said the key to success might have been choosing egg donors who were known to be fertile and healthy because they had previously been successful donors at his fertility clinic.

The women were also donating at the same time to couples wanting babies. Some eggs went to the couples and the others to the research, with the consent of both the donors and the couples. The donors were paid for the eggs that went to the in vitro fertilization but not to the research, Dr. Wood said.

Therapeutic cloning has been hampered by lack of access to healthy eggs, in part because it is often considered unethical to pay women for such donations. Dr. Daley of Harvard said Stemagen’s “egg sharing” approach appeared to be a reasonable way to obtain eggs.

The media will have fun with this story.

Human embryos cloned in California

Scientists at Stemgen, a La Jolla, California laboratory have published a report on the successful cloning of human embryos in the journal, Stem Cells. (The article is available free, due to the open access policy of the journal.)

The authors are very clear: these are human embryos produced by somatic cell nuclear transfer or cloning. The embryos were clones of the men who donated the fibroblast skin cells.

This study demonstrates, for the first time, that SCNT can be utilized to generate cloned human blastocysts using differentiated adult donor
nuclei remodeled and reprogrammed by human oocytes. Evidence of successful SCNT was shown with DNA fingerprinting analyses of three SCNT cloned blastocysts where embryo genomic DNA was that of the donor fibroblast cell line and were not fragmented oocytes or of parthenogenetic origin.

. . .DNA fingerprints from three SCNT blastocysts were consistent with those of the somatic cell donor employed with no evidence of contamination from the egg donors, indicating that embryonic development was being controlled by the donor cell genome.

The cloned human embryos were produced using donated oocytes less than 2 hours old and the DNA from the skin cells of men. (The eggs were donated by women for the use of other couples, see below.) The use of male donor DNA allows for easier distinction from any possible parthenogenetically produced embryos, which would be female. Any embryos that are male serve to prove the success of the experiment.

In this case, the cloned embryos were actually compared to parthenogenetically produced embryos created by stimulating oocytes to become embryos. These embryos only contain the DNA of the women who donated the eggs. Parthenotes are not clones, because of the rearrangement of genes that happens when the eggs are produced with half of the normal chromosomes which would be matched by the haploid sperm if fertilization took place.

It appears that the group had a very high success rate, with approximately 2/3 or 16 of 25 of the enucleated oocytes producing very early embryonic organisms, which (who) demonstrated cell development and division similar to embryos produced by in vitro fertilization. 10 of the embryos developed to day 3 and 5 of those went to day 5, with the formation of blastocysts. Blastocysts are embryos that have developed enough cells to form a layer of cells around a hollow center, and eventually the inner cell mass, the differentiated grouping of embryonic stem cells at one spot within the sphere. All 5 of the blastocysts formed inner cell masses. The authors do not report any stem cell lines from these embryonic stem cells, but note that they are trying to do so - either from these embryos or from additional cloning.

The Discussion includes speculation that the success rate was so high because the oocyte donors were young women who were able to produce so many eggs through stimulation of their ovaries that there were more than enough for the use by the parents (couples?) to whom they were donating for the production of embryos for implantation and pregnancy. Although the article states that all 3 of the parents were able to get pregnant from the eggs that went to them, that could not have been known at the time the eggs were taken to the experimental lab. Some went to the in vitro lab and some went to the experimenters within less than 2 hours. It takes at least a few hours after in vitro fertilization to determine whether any embryos were formed.

If embryonic stem cell lines are developed from this technique, perhaps some group will compare them to embryonic-like stem cells developed by reprogramming.

First babies from "Lab Grown Eggs"

Well, the news out of Great Britain that apparently healthy twins were born from a new technique involving maturation of human oocytes - "eggs" - outside of the body will probably be hailed as the solution to the problem of where to get the eggs for embryonic stem cell and cloning research. It won't solve the problem that I asked earlier today as to whether and why it's important or ethical.

It's interesting that the article emphasizes the danger of Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome:

In mild and moderate cases, affecting up to 20% of women undergoing ovary stimulation, this leads to symptoms such as swelling and breathlessness that resolves.

However, in about 1% the symptoms can become so severe that they are deadly. Among women with PCOS [Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome], the rate is nearer 5-10%.

Thanks to Wired Science blog for the tip.

"Real-life male pregnancy would be revolutionary

Or, "gender in a blender."

Can someone give me a "duh"??

Jen Graves, of the (adults only) Seattle Stranger, has written a very long and informative essay on pregnancy, women, and men - especially the possibility of men becoming pregnant. Trust me, we have the technology.

As a matter of fact, Ms. Graves tells us that there have been over 200 ectopic, abdominal pregnancies in the last 20 years: where women (still) have had babies implant on their intestine or abdominal walls and both the babies and their mothers survived.

I am impressed that Ms. Graves calls her baby a baby (because he or she had a heatbeat - and I should write her and tell her that until 8 weeks, the child was an "embryo," not a "fetus" - but most of us call them "babies"), no matter how wrong it might seem to others from a political correctness factor. I can identify with her wish to make permanent and public her exclusive relation ship with her "partner," Patrick. I am so sorry that she lost her first pregnancy in the first month or so, that she mourns that baby, that people expect her (like all of us who have lost a baby before birth) to get over it and get pregnant (at least partly to replace the lost child).I hate it that her friend, Linda's baby ,Patrick, died so young of bacterial meningitis.

She shows her love and confusion and Patrick's incredible patience and insight by describing their conversations and text messaging over the possibility of his becoming pregnant with "her" child.

I'm seriously impressed with Patrick. Not because he considers or because he rejects the idea of having a child implanted within his abdominal cavity, taking female hormones and/or having a planned C-section. I'm impressed that he can bear the stress the whole conversation must place on his own gender identity that his "partner" wrote this article for publication and considers herself to more typically follow the pattern society expects of fathers than of women. (Yes, of course she implies that mothers are inferior and subservient to the role of motherhood.)
And I love "what if" stories.

However, the over all impression that I get - even though I want to give her all the credit I can for her grief - is that of a selfish, self-centered woman who should be neither mother or father with this attitude toward parenting. Being the polly-anna that I am - and with the deep seated belief that we humans are well suited - designed or evolved, if you will - to parent and love our children -- and with my very sexist idea that women are either naturally or "nurturally" susceptible to gushing over and eventually falling in love with small humans, I'm convinced that she would have more jealousy and resentment of Patrick's status as child-bearer than she could ever imagine.

Go read it - it's not much longer than my post!

Language change alert ("Embryonic" at 8 weeks)

We were due, I guess. We went through the redefinition of pregnancy (implanted in a uterus"), embryo (after 14 days or implanted in a uterus), cloning (therapeutic cloning, then somatic cell nuclear transplantation, nuclear transplantation, patient specific stem cells, production of "early stem cells, etc.)

And now, we're supposed to move the line of "embryonic" to eight weeks of gestation.

And we should just forget all the past promises about "14 days," implantation, along with our objections to killing the youngest of our children.

Some of us have warned that embryonic stem cell research, with it's high risk of teratomas - tumors that (to paraphrase a popular slogan) "contain all the cell lines in the body," would lead to further maturation of human embryos into the fetal stage of development. Since the goal is usable tissues and stem cells, it made sense to us that researchers will eventually get around to demanding for funding to grow the embryos in human or surrogate wombs in order to "save lives," and further their grant requests.

There have been previous examples (I'm on my way to a meeting, so the references will have to wait 'till tonight) in production of "embryonic" nerve tissues being used to treat a few children with neurological metabolic diseases. In fact, the "embryonic" tissues used to harvest these cells must come from children who are aborted at 7 to 9 weeks, technically fetuses, not embryos.

Further evidence of the possible direction of stem cell research - if we allow it - comes to us this week, from the online journal, PLOS-Medicine.

Here's the press release that showed up in my Google alerts file, from Eureka News Alerts, "Human stem cell transplants mature into neurons and make contacts in rat spinal cord.":

Human stem cell transplants mature into neurons and make contacts in rat spinal cord

Human nerve stem cells transplanted into rats' damaged spinal cords have survived, grown and in some cases connected with the rats' own spinal cord cells in a Johns Hopkins laboratory, overturning the long-held notion that spinal cords won't allow nerve repair.

A report on the experiments will be published online this week at PLoS Medicine and "establishes a new doctrine for regenerative neuroscience," says Vassilis Koliatsos, M.D., associate professor of neuropathology at Johns Hopkins. "The spinal cord, a part of the nervous system that is thought of as incapable of repairing itself, can support the development of transplanted cells," he added.

"We don't yet know whether the connections we've seen can transmit nerve signals to the degree that a rat could be made to walk again," says Koliatsos, "We're still in the proof of concept stage, but we're making progress and we're encouraged."

In their experiments, the scientists gave anesthetized rats a range of spinal cord injuries to lesion or kill motor neurons or performed sham surgeries. They varied experimental conditions to see if the presence or absence of spinal cord lesions had an effect on the survival and maturation of human stem cell grafts. Two weeks after lesion or sham surgery, they injected human neural stem cells into the left side of each rat's spinal cord.

After six months, the team found more than three times the number of human cells than they injected in the damaged cords, meaning the transplanted cells not only survived but divided at least twice to form more cells. Moreover, says Koliatsos, the cells not only grew in the area around the original injection, but also migrated over a much larger spinal cord territory.

Three months after injection, the researchers found evidence that some of the transplanted cells developed into support cells rather than nerve cells, while the majority became mature nerve cells. High-powered microscopic examination showed that these nerve cells appear to have made contacts with the rat's own spinal cord cells.

###

The research was funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the Muscular Dystrophy Association and the Robert Packard Center for ALS Research at Johns Hopkins.

Authors on the paper are Jun Yan, Leyan Xu, Annie M. Welsh, Glen Hatfield and Koliatsos, all of Hopkins, and Thomas Hazel and Karl Johe of Neuralstem of Rockville, Md.

On the Web:

http://neuroscience.jhu.edu/VassilisKoliatsos.php
http://www.plosmedicine.org
http://pathology2.jhu.edu/disease/home_files/page0003.htm

There is nothing alarming - and quite a bit that's encouraging - in that press release. However, reading the actual published articles leads to the discovery that the stem cells in question come from human fetuses. I'm afraid that I don't know of any way to harvest neural stem cells from human fetuses without harming those unborn children.
Here's the first article, "Extensive Neuronal Differentiation of Human Neural Stem Cell Grafts in Adult Rat Spinal Cord."

And the second, which explains where we are going:"Making Human Neurons from Stem Cells after Spinal Cord Injury"

Spinal cord cells were obtained from cervical and upper thoracic spinal cord of an eight-week-old human embryo and expanded in monolayer culture in defined medium with the mitogen FGF2 (a member of the fibroblast growth factor family).

(Emphasis mine)

In the future, perhaps fetal neural stem cells can be developed from cells harvested from placentas collected after the birth of children or as a by-product of amniotic fluid tests done for medical indications and then used as we use other cellular and tissue transplants of adult stem cells and specialized tissues.

Perhaps Dr. Atala and his research group could follow this line.

However, I expect to see a call for more money for fetal stem cell research and for a demand for an expansion of the time that human "extracorporeal" embryos can be maintained.

And won't it be interesting to see how these nascent human beings are grown to eight weeks or so?

Trading eggs for fertility treatment

Women who are desperatly trying to get pregnant, but who cannot afford to pay $5,000 - $6,000 for in vitro fertilization may be offered lower IVF fees in exchange for donation of some of their oocytes for research in the UK. The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority approved the trades for one lab last July, but are now seeking public comment, according to an Associated Press article.

The limiting factor for embryonic stem cell research has never been the restrictions placed on US Federal funding. The problem is obtaining eggs from women.

So far, the track record for altruistic donations is mixed. On one hand, hundreds of women volunteered to donate eggs in South Korea for research by the now-disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk, who fraudulently claimed success in therapeutic cloning.

But Dr. Robert Lanza, vice president of research and scientific development at Advanced Cell Technology Inc. of Alameda, Calif., said he has given up trying to get donations without compensation. After more than a year of pursuing that strategy and about 100 advertisements, ACT was able to get only one woman to donate eggs, he said in an e-mail.

And Kevin Eggan of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, who's been seeking eggs since May in return for reimbursing out-of-pocket expenses, said recently that the effort had generated some calls but no donors yet. The approach must be given more time to work, he said.

Murdoch, who also directs a fertility treatment center in Newcastle upon Tyne, said that when her lab asked fertility-clinic patients to donate eggs, it received only 66 over seven months. That's just not enough, she said.

In contrast, if her new plan attracts two women a week — chosen because they appear likely to produce lots of eggs — it would provide 20 eggs each week. That's still not a lot, but the supply should be steady, she said.

Her "egg-sharing" plan resembles an arrangement that's used occasionally at fertility clinics. In that plan, a woman shares her eggs and treatment costs with another woman who wants a baby.

Murdoch's group has permission from Britain's Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority to set up the arrangement for stem cell research. Now it's a question of raising money to finance it. Murdoch said she hopes to start offering the deal to British women in a few months, and that she has already heard from dozens of women eager to participate.

Though the HFEA approved Murdoch's plans in July, it has since started gathering public and expert opinions on whether egg sharing should be permitted. "If the consensus is that this is not a good idea, we can change the policy, and rescind the license," said John Paul Maytum, an HFEA spokesman.

Babies on "spec"

Jennalee Ryan, in San Antonio, Texas, is offering pre-frozen embryos to momas and daddies who like the selection in the Abraham Center for Life catalog.

In the terms used for new homes, she's not building custom babies or even semi-custom babies, she's offering "spec" babies. If the babies were dresses, these might be called "designer babies," but we're getting close to "off the rack," as noted by Washington Post reporter, Rob Stein, at the link above. If we were at a restaurant, we'd be restricted to the menu, with no a la carte or "on the side" requests! The "product" is sitting there in the freezer, not being made to order.

BTW, Mr. Stein quotes an ethicist from the University of Texas at Austin,

"I know some people say: 'This is shocking. Embryos made to order,' " said John Robertson of the University of Texas at Austin, who advises fertility specialists on ethical issues. "But if you step back a little bit, you realize that people are already choosing sperm and egg donors in separate transactions. Combining them doesn't pose any new major ethical problems."

Mr. Robertson makes sense, and he is technically correct. There is no difference between selecting a sperm donor or oocyte donor for artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization, as has been done for years. Except in this case, we are actually creating embryonic humans in a high risk environment, since the "good" ones are sold and/or frozen, the "failed" ones are discarded.

It should be noted, however, that Lawyer Robertson is the current chair of the Ethics Committee of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, and hhas argued in favor of sex selection by abortion. (report available here and the transcript is here.)