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Latest Surrogacy News
In-Vitro Fertilization Guidelines
The Early Show,
April 5, 2004 Dr Emily Senay
A microscope image of a
human egg being fertilized by in-vitro
fertilization (Photo: AP)
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(CBS) More than
a million babies have been born with the help of
fertility technology since the birth of the first
test-tube baby 25 years ago. Now there are new
guidelines being proposed to regulate the growing
and increasingly sophisticated fertility industry.
The Early Show medical correspondent Dr.
Emily Senay reports.
Advisers to President Bush are urging a closer look
at the previously unregulated fertility industry.
They want Congress to indicate what kinds of
technologies doctors will be allowed to use to help
infertile couples have children, and they want more
data, patient education and self-monitoring from
fertility doctors.
The advisers are also calling for new research into
the long-term health of babies born with the aid of
techniques like in-vitro fertilization. That's where
doctors help with conception outside of the body by
uniting egg and sperm under a microscope, and then
implanting the resulting embryo in the womb to
attempt a pregnancy.
These techniques have helped many infertile couples
and resulted in countless happier families. But very
little follow-up study has been done on these
children, and nobody knows exactly how their health
compares to that of other babies.
As we get better at these fertility techniques and
genetic science advances, controversial new
possibilities like genetic screening, genetic
manipulation, and sex selection are becoming a
reality, not to mention the use of these techniques
for controversial practices like human cloning and
the creation of human embryos to use in stem cell
research. These new guidelines represent an effort
to keep track of these new possibilities and provide
a way for Congress to prevent irresponsible use of
the science without interfering with research that
could lead to new innovations in health care.
The report calls for a ban on some new technologies
and procedures, including human cloning for making
babies. One of the main recommendations is that the
creation of embryos for reproduction should only be
allowed by the union of a sperm and an egg.
Cloning doesn't involve sperm at all, but takes DNA
directly from an adult donor cell to replace the
genetic material of a female egg, thus creating an
embryo that is genetically identical to the donor.
The new guidelines say no to this kind of
reproductive cloning, and also suggest a ban on
other unethical practices like cloning a human in
order to harvest organs, or combining animal and
human DNA.
When it comes to stem cell research using human
embryos, the recommendations suggest a limit on
using embryos older than 14 days for research. They
stop short of suggesting a total ban on therapeutic
cloning for research.
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