May 2008 Archives
~ Norman Vincent Peale
LONDON (AP) -- British lawmakers voted Monday to approve controversial plans to allow the use of animal-human embryos for research. The proposed laws, the first major review of embryo science in Britain for almost 20 years, have provoked stormy debate -- pitting Prime Minister Gordon Brown and scientists against religious leaders, anti-abortion campaigners and a large number of lawmakers.
Brown has said he believes scientists seeking to use mixed animal-human embryos for stem cell research into diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's are on a moral mission to improve -- and save -- millions of lives.
The process involves injecting an empty cow or rabbit egg with human DNA. A burst of electricity is then used to trick the egg into dividing regularly, so that it becomes a very early embryo, from which stem cells can be extracted.
Scientists say the embryos would not be allowed to develop for more than 14 days, and are intended to address the shortage of human embryos available for stem cell research.
By allowing such mixed embryo experiments, Britain is expected to maintain its reputation as a leading center for stem cell research.
Unlike the United States, where such research is tightly controlled, British scientists say the progressive environment in the U.K. has led to many firsts, including the world's first test tube baby and cloned animal.
Legislation in Britain might also influence other European countries where such research is pursued. Chinese laws on stem cell and embryology research also closely mirror those in Britain.
"I believe that we owe it to ourselves and future generations to introduce these measures, and in particular, to give our unequivocal backing within the right framework of rules and standards, to stem cell research," Brown wrote Sunday in an op-ed piece for The Observer newspaper.
But opponents warn that an easing of laws on creating the embryos could lead to the genetic engineering of human beings.
Legislators voted 336 to 176 against a proposed ban on research using animal-human embryos and by 286 to 223 against a separate proposal covering a specific type of animal-human embryos.
Human Genetics Alert, a science watchdog in favor of the ban, claims the laws could lead to the creation of genetically modified "designer babies."
"Once we start down the road to human genetic modification, it will be very difficult to turn back," the group warned in a briefing paper for lawmakers.
Opposition Conservative lawmaker Edward Leigh, who tabled an amendment seeking to ban the practice, said the technique was a step too far for science.
"In many ways we are like children playing with land mines without any concept of the dangers of the technology that we are handling," he said in the House of Commons.
Britain's Human Fertilization and Embryology law, which regulates all stem cell and embryology research, was drafted in 1990. Brown has said it must be completely redrawn to take account of scientific advances.
Debate on other aspects of the bill are to be debated Tuesday. A final vote is expected in the coming weeks.
Source
With a stroke of the pen, a stranger transforms the afternoon for another man in this emotionally stirring short film by Alonso Alvarez.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Little Jodie Fletcher (2) from Co Down is the UK's first 'designer baby' ... a perfect genetic match for big brother Josh who suffers from rare bone marrow condition
They look like any typical brother and sister playing happily together in the back garden of their Ulster home.
But one day so-called designer baby Jodie Fletcher, from Moira in Co Down, could save her brother Josh's life.
Two-year-old Jodie, who is the first designer baby in the UK, was conceived using a type of IVF treatment which ensured she was the perfect genetic match for her six-year-old brother.
Josh suffers from a rare, incurable genetic condition called Diamond Blackfan Anaemia (DBA) which means his bone marrow doesn't make red blood cells.
Without a bone marrow transplant, he is at risk of developing leukaemia or bone cancers.
Neither Josh's parents, Joe and Julie, nor his older brother Adam (9), are a suitable match.
But little Jodie, who was born in July 2005, holds the key to her brother's cure as cells from her umbilical cord and some of her bone marrow could save his life.
As MPs last week began debating changes to the controversial Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, Moira couple Joe and Julie say they will never regret their decision to battle for a 'saviour sibling' for their sick son.
There are some vocal critics against the concept of designer babies, and Joe and Julie agree that people are entitled to their opinion.
But Joe is clear: "The only other option is for Josh to die or live the rest of his life with transfusions.
"If he doesn't have a bone marrow transplant, he will have transfusions for the rest of his life and he will have iron overload.
"He is at a higher risk of leukaemia and bone cancers, and ultimately the iron damage will kill him.
"These people who are saying this is abhorrent or whatever -- the option they are giving him is hospital for the rest of life and then death."
While Josh seems like a perfectly healthy and energetic little boy, he attends hospital every three weeks for a blood transfusion which means he suffers from iron overload which damages the body's organs.
He now takes tablets to help remove some of the iron, but before that medication was available the iron had to be flushed out of his system.
Julie explained: "We used to have to infuse him every night for 12 hours with needles in his body and lines.
Joe added: "It wasn't nice at all.
"There was all this screaming and shouting and holding him down and sticking needles in him." While Josh was undergoing the distressing infusions each night, his parents read about Jayson and Michelle Whitaker, an English couple who had IVF treatment using a screening process called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD).
VIABLE
With normal IVF, doctors select the embryos which are the most viable, whereas with PGD the embryo which is the closest match to the sick child is implanted in the mother's womb.
But until Jodie was conceived in October 2004, PGD was illegal in the UK.
"The Whitakers hit the headlines because they realised you could do IVF and get a designer baby," Julie said.
"Their wee boy had the same condition.
"They were quite big in the news because what they wanted to do was against the law so they had to go to Chicago for the embryo selection."
But the Whitakers thought if another couple fought the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the rules might be changed.
They put Joe and Julie in touch with leading fertility expert Dr Muhammed Taranissi.
But the devoted mum and dad also prepared themselves for the possibility that their application to the HFEA would be unsuccessful and they re-mortgaged their house thinking they too would have to go to the States.
The HFEA made a groundbreaking decision to change its rules in July 2004.
The couple celebrated when they heard the news, but their battle wasn't over as permission is granted on a case by case basis.
The HFEA initially wanted the Fletchers to check every bone marrow register around the world for a match for Josh.
Joe said: ""I have nothing but disgust for the HFEA. If you have a bone marrow transplant from a sibling for DBA the odds then are a 95pc chance success rate.
"If you go outside the family it's 40pc.
"They didn't mention that of course, but there was no way we were doing it."
The couple said the HFEA suggested they could have an abortion if they conceived naturally or by ordinary IVF and later found that the unborn baby wasn't a genetic match.
"They suggested that as an option yet they were the ones saying what we were trying to do was beyond the pale or wrong," Joe said.
Despite being very similar to regular IVF, some vocal campaigners have condemned PGD as morally wrong. Labour backbencher Geraldine Smyth has described saviour siblings as 'appalling', while Josephine Quintavalle of Comment on Reproductive Ethics (CORE) has said: "The concept that a baby should be created with this specific purpose in mind goes beyond the comprehension of compassionate and civilised citizens."
But when this opinion is raised, Julie points at Jodie and Josh playing with their brother Adam and asks: "How can that be appalling?
"We wanted another baby anyway. We just went that step further when we were having that baby to ensure it was a match."
Joe added: "People said to me you shouldn't be doing this, but if the devil had appeared to me in a puff of smoke and said I can get rid of Diamond Blackfan, I would have said where do I sign?
EMBRYOS
"That's just the stage you get to.
"Josephine Quintavalle has said some stuff about us -- never having met us --- saying we only want a spare parts baby and that the child should be loved for herself but of course she is.
"They used to trundle out the same spokeswoman every time who was anti what we did and she always went on about the embryos that are lost.
"She is not going to stand up there and say all you tens of thousands who have done IVF, you are all sons of the devil or whatever way you like to put it -- which I have had quoted to me.
"It just happened with us that our genetic match, Jodie, was the most viable embryo as well.
Josh is yet to undergo the bone marrow transplant which should give him the all clear from DBA.
Doctors, funded by money raised by charity DBA-UK, are currently working on alternatives.
Josh is soon due to undergo an MRI scan to assess if the iron overload has damaged his body.
Joe said: "We know he has iron overload, but we don't know if any of his tissues are damaged as a response to that.
"If it turns out that he has any damage to his heart or his liver through the iron, it will not necessarily force us to go for the transplant, but will make it more necessary.
"If he doesn't have any iron damage to his body, it means we can sit back and let the research go for a couple of years and see what happens."
Josh is now old enough to understand his condition.
His dad explained: "Josh understands almost everything.
"He wants to have the bone marrow transplant. He wants to be healthy and not to have Diamond Blackfan. He knows that Jodie's giving him a little bit of her blood to help make him better and he also knows that when it happens he's goes to be sick for a few weeks and it's not going to be very good for him."
TRANSPLANT
If the family decides to proceed with the transplant, they will have to stay in England for six months because of the risks involved.
But despite the decision facing them, they are positive and can joke about how they've made history with their designer daughter.
Joe said: "The thing is, there was no designing done at all.
"It's not like you say I want an IQ of 145, 5'8", blonde hair and blue eyes.
"At the DBA-UK conference this year there were three babies conceived through IVF/PGD as a direct result of us getting things changed.
"It gives me a nice warm feeling to see them running about because of what we did."
And Julie adds: "I used to joke because when Jodie was born she had big ears and was baldy, and I used to say do you think I would have designed her like that?
"But she's grown into her ears now!"
l To donate to research into DBA click www.dba-uk.org
Source
Happy Birthday ANDY!
~Siddhartha Gautama
~Eleanor Roosevelt
Zingo™ provides topical, local analgesia to reduce the pain associated with peripheral IV insertions or blood draws, in children three to 18 years of age. Zingo is an easy-to-administer, single-use, needle-free system containing 0.5 mg sterile lidocaine powder.
Mark Hughes, MD, PhD, director of Genesis Genetics Institute in Detroit and director of the Applied Genomics Technology Center of Michigan, spoke at the opening session of The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' (ACOG) 56th Annual Clinical Meeting.
Here are some of his remarks:
"The rapid growth and clinical adaptation of genetically based information and technology are fundamentally changing the practice of medicine, especially for ob-gyns.
Knowing the roadmap of the human genome gives us powerful tools to help our patients in ways we might barely have imagined just a few years ago.
In ob-gyn this information presents especially complex practice dilemmas.
Just because we technically can do something doesn't mean we should.
Through the ages, technology has been the fuel that drives the engine of science, and science is the vehicle that propels the progress of medicine, and medicine routinely drives us into bioethical corners.
Preimplantation genetic diagnosis was invented 18 years ago, and it's come a mighty long way.
It is now possible to detect quite complex problems in the smallest unit of life (one cell), in the smallest unit of inheritance (one gene), for the smallest part of a gene (one DNA nucleotide), out of 3.3 billion letters that comprise the human genome.
Even in 100 years of medical advances, diagnostics will not be smaller than examining--overnight--one molecule. The technology itself will surely evolve with time, but we are now at the limits of the biology that can produce severe pathology in our patients.
Their anxiety is significant. Do they want diagnostic testing such as chorionic villus sampling (CVS) or amniocentesis, and what will they do with the information after they have it?
By testing a fertilized egg prior to implantation, modern science can now eliminate this risk and this stressful time for couples.
Who decides what's ethical and what isn't? It varies from one country to the other."
~John 20:29
~ Helen Keller
I'd like to help save the lives of people who need a marrow transplant from an unrelated donor, so I'm sharing the opportunity with you.
Did you know:
- Every day, more than 6,000 people search the National Marrow Donor Program® (NMDP) Registry for a life-saving donor.
- Only 3 in 10 patients get the transplant that could save their lives.
- Seventy percent of patients will not find a match in their family.
You can change that!
From May 5 to May 19, the Thanks Mom awareness and recruitment campaign of the NMDP has an ambitious goal: to add 46,000 new members to the Registry of marrow donors and raise $100,000.
I encourage you to join me in making the Thanks Mom campaign a success. What better way to say "Thanks, Mom" for giving you the gift of life than to share that gift with another.
- Join the Registry of people who stand ready to save a life. http://join.marrow.org/ThxMGarden413500
- Give a gift. http://foundation.marrow.org/garden
- Spread the word about the NMDP mission of supporting people in need of a life-saving marrow transplant. http://www.donorgarden.org/?src=Garden_Email_with_flower_ID
- 315,619,200 seconds
- 5,260,320 minutes
- 87,672 hours
- 521 weeks (rounded down)
