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What’s special about selling gametes?
Dominic Wilkinson posted yesterday on the issue of whether payment for egg and sperm donation should be legalised. This question attracted significant media attention yesterday after Lisa Jardine, of the HFEA, called for debate on the existing UK ban on payment for donors. Today's Guardian contains a piece highlighting several ways in which people can…
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Feetility – should we pay egg and sperm donors?
Lisa Jardine, the head of the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, has called for public debate about paying egg or sperm donors. Currently donors are given a maximum of £250 in reimbursement for expenses. But donation rates have fallen in recent years, at least in part related to changes in rules in 2005 preventing…
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A tiny step forward
Researchers have managed to produce live-born mice (original article) descended from induced pluripotent stem cells (IPS cells), cells taken from adult animals and treated to become stem cells. That individuals could be produced from embryonic stem cells was already known, but this proves that the IPS cells can produce all kinds of cells in an…
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In a world of low risk obstetrics, is home birth unethical
It is reported that women who give birth at home with an independent midwife are nearly three times more likely to have a stillbirth than those who give birth in hospital; many other outcomes were “significantly better”. Perinatal deaths following home birth were associated with an underestimation of the dangers of high risk pregnancies…
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Revisiting the Moon
40 years ago marked the pinnacle of human space exploration. 500 million people around the world watched or listened as the first human to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong, stepped out onto the dusty lunar surface, proclaiming “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Over the next three years, 11…
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The Poverty of Philosophy at Melbourne
A war of words has broken out in the pages of The Australian between friends of the University of Melbourne School of Philosophy and the Dean of Arts at the University of Melbourne, Mark Considine. See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25816073-12332,00.html and http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25759103-12332,00.html. At the end of 2007 six of the school’s thirteen permanent faculty members took voluntary redundancy packages.…
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Animal experimentation vs factory farming
Recent figures showing a large increase in the number of animal experiments in the UK have spurred strong complaints from animal rights campaigners (link). Nearly 3.7 million experiments were performed on animals last year, an increase of 14% over last year and the largest yearly increase since the 1980s. There has been a longstanding debate…
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The Independent Safeguarding Authority
Anyone who wishes to work with children, including even a parent who wishes to help out in the school their child attends, is required to undergo vetting by the Independent Safeguarding Authority. The politicians responsible say that this will protect children from paedophiles. Philip Pullman (children’s book author) has refused to be vetted because…
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Pandemic ethics: Mild flu and Tamiflu – the patient’s dilemma
In recent days there have been reports of a jump in the number of cases of H1N1 influenza (swine flu) in the UK. There have been 29 deaths associated with pandemic influenza in the UK, and there are 652 people in hospital in England with the flu. Faced with the prospect of primary health care…
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Arificial sperm: a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle?
Professor Karim Nayernia and his team at Newcastle University produced sperm cells from embryonic stem cells (here and here)Italian newspapers ( here and here) (English ones were more restrained here) ran articles about this research claiming that in the next future men will be not necessary in human reproduction because it will be possible to…