An upcoming article in the journal Fertility and Sterility shows that some disabled parents in the US are using pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to create children like themselves. The two disabilities mentioned are deafness and dwarfism. A survey of 190 American IVF clinics recently found that 3% had deliberately used PGD at some stage "to select an embryo for the presence of a disability".

Most IVF clinics turn down such requests, but two leading IVF specialists were quoted in the New York Times as saying that they would refer families to more obliging doctors. The Times interviewed Mary Ellen Little, a dwarf who has two daughters with dwarfism. The second was deliberately selected. Some disabled parents feel that having children who share their problems will strengthen family ties.

"The small number of PGD centers selecting for mutations doesn't bother me greatly," writes Dr Darshak M. Sanghavi in an op-ed article. "After all, even natural reproduction is an… click here to read whole article and make comments

After a year of debate, Australia has legalised therapeutic cloning. In a rare conscience vote (meaning that members of Parliament are not bound by party discipline), a private member's bill passed by a margin of 20 votes. Both the Prime Minister, John Howard, and the newly-elected leader of the Opposition, Kevin Rudd, voted against it, but this had little impact on the way their colleagues voted. The bill had already passed in the Senate.

A last-ditch effort to amend the bill to remove the possibility of using eggs from aborted girls failed. Supporters argued that the bill would then have to be returned to the Senate, where it might end up stranded in yet another debate. In the end, everything medical researchers and the IVF industry wanted was delivered, apart from permission to create hybrid human-animal embryos.

Australia's leading IVF scientist, Professor Alan Trounson, of Monash University predicted that scientists will be using therapeutic cloning within a year to search… click here to read whole article and make comments

A senior US government scientist has pleaded guilty to failing to disclose US$285,000 in payments from the drug company Pfizer. Dr Trey Sunderland of the National Institutes of Health, an expert in geriatric psychiatry, received the money for consulting work on Alzheimer's disease. He had negotiated two five-year contracts with Pfizer without seeking approval and without disclosing it, as required by Federal law.

The maximum penalty for violating conflict-of-interest rules is a year in prison and a US$100,000 fine. Dr Sunderland will probably be told to forfeit what he received. Prosecutors are seeking a two-year suspended sentence. Congressmen are asking why he still has not been fired from his position with the NIH.

No one has been prosecuted for conflict of interest since the early 1990s. Recently, new restrictions on consulting have been introduced by the NIH. Many scientists complain that these are so harsh that they may leave the agency. The regulations bar employees from working for, or owning… click here to read whole article and make comments

A British company has asked American authorities for permission to trial a cure for stroke using brain cells from an aborted foetus. Although opponents of the experiment say that it is a "sick proposal", the company, ReNeuron, says that the foetal cells will multiply rapidly and repair brain areas damaged by strokes. The procedure has already worked with rats, it says.

Safety is a major concern for ReNeuron. The transplanted cells are genetically modified and could potentially multiply wildly and form tumours. However the company says that this is completely under control. It also claims that only one batch of foetal tissue will be needed to treat unlimited numbers of stroke patients. "We only take one single piece of tissue and for that we can grow up enough cells to potentially treat all eligible patients," says Dr Eric Miljan, ReNeuron's head of stem cell discovery. "And we never have to go back to that tissue again. We can provide a… click here to read whole article and make comments

"A polemic without precedent" was how Le Monde described an attack by the Catholic Church's hierarchy on a fund-raiser for muscular dystrophy. For about 20 years, the French Muscular Dystrophy Association has run a popular annual telethon to bankroll medical research. Last year it raised US$138 million in donations. However, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, the archbishop of Lyons, has pointed out that some of the funds will be channelled into human embryonic stem cell research. "For us, these embryos are not things, but human beings," he told journalists. "And from the depths of our faith, we cannot accept that they are selected, destroyed, the objects of experimentation." France allows embryo research on "spare" IVF embryos.

French politicians, who apparently are unaccustomed to denunciations from clerics, unlike their counterparts in "Anglo-Saxon" countries, were infuriated. "It's not up to the church to put any pressure on families who have recourse to genetic diagnoses, and even less to to make the totality of donors… click here to read whole article and make comments

Echoes of Hwang: Another article in Science about embryos has been found to contain fraudulent data. Michael Roberts, of the University of Missouri-Columbia, has acknowledged that a former overseas post- doctoral fellow had digitally altered images of mouse embryos for an article in the February 17 issue of the journal. click here to read whole article and make comments

 Another IVF health hazard unknown to patients but widely discussed amongst fertility experts has been dragged from the shadows. According to British specialists, the powerful drugs used to stimulate egg production can actually make women less fertile and keep them from getting pregnant.

The doyen of British IVF, Lord Robert Winston, told the Sunday Telegraph: "The trend is to get as many eggs as possible, but that may be counterproductive. From the research we've done, the main risk is that doing this produces chromosomal damage in at least half, if not 70 per cent, of eggs. New studies are needed to prove the drugs are causing the damage, but it is my strong suspicion that this is the case."

The first meeting of the will call upon the IVF industry to rethink its dependence upon high doses of drugs. This is a high-profile gathering, with the CEO of the UK's fertility regulator attending, along with a number… click here to read whole article and make comments

 After eating humble pie over the publication of fraudulent research by disgraced South Korean stem cell researcher Hwang Woo-suk, the journal Science has made some New Year's resolutions. An independent panel of three senior editors at Science, a former editor at Science now working at its rival Nature, and two stem cell biologists investigated the debacle and gave Science a mark of "above average but needs to try harder".

From now on, the chastened journal will give high-risk papers special scrutiny, perhaps requiring higher standards for primary data, a clearer description of the roles of authors, and a more thorough evaluation of digital images.

The editor of Science, Donald Kennedy, said that more robust safeguards were needed because scientific fraud was only going to grow worse: "the environment for science now presents increased incentives for the production of work that is intentionally misleading or distorted by self-interest". The reviewers pointed out that special care needed to be… click here to read whole article and make comments

 The Australian Parliament is creeping towards closure on the contentious issue of therapeutic cloning. A private member's bill authorising it passed the Senate last month, and it is now being debated in the House of Representatives. Insiders expect the bill to pass comfortably, but the issue has provoked some interesting observations from MPs. Nearly 50 plan to speak.

Teresa Gambaro told the House that she was a Catholic, but plans to support the bill because of her father, a victim of Parkinson's. "He pleads with me to help him," Ms Gambaro said tearily. "I can't look him in the eyes and say I won't be supporting this bill."

Sophie Mirabella, on the other hand, condemned the bill. Therapeutic cloning is a step in the wrong direction, a depraved practice reflecting nothing more than the turpitudes of modern scientific egos in their race to the bottom of the ethics ladder," she said.

And Lindsay Tanner, reputedly… click here to read whole article and make comments

More than a third of doctors who sit on review boards overseeing the integrity of clinical trials do not bother to disclose a financial stake in the outcome, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine has shown. However this does not shock cancer patients. In the same journal another study found that 80% were "not worried at all" if a doctor profited from a tested drug. In fact, most patients said that they opposed bans on such relationships. The author of the study said that this was quite understandable since participants in clinical trials "are very vulnerable, have a serious problem and want someone to care for it." click here to read whole article and make comments