Chinese prisoners are still a source of organs for foreigners with bundles of cash, according to this dramatic BBC TV report. Reporter Rupert Wingfield-Hayes used a hidden camera to film his interviews with hospital authorities in Tianjin.
EGG DONATION REASONABLY SAFE, SAY EXPERTS
The risks of egg donation for cloning research are real, but not large enough to worry about, according to a panel of experts who spoke at a seminar in San Francisco recently. Apparently it was the first medical meeting in the US convened to discuss potential health risks for women. “They’re finally focusing on women,” said Susan Berke Fogel, coordinator of a group called the Pro-Choice Alliance for Responsible Research. “Every other slide show until this showed us the eggs as if they just magically appeared.”
The experts agreed that there was little risk of infection, infertility or cancer, but that there is a significant risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, which occurs in about 100 to 200 cases in 100,000. In rare instances, women have died. But, according to Dr Marcelle Cedars, of the University of California, San Francisco, the worst cases occur when an embryo is implanted immediately after egg retrieval. This would not happen if women were donating eggs for therapeutic cloning.
California has just passed a law banning payment, other than for reasonable expenses, of egg donors. The panel felt that it would be impossible to eliminate all potential dangers, and that these donors should be carefully screened and given elaborate informed consent forms.
Michael Cook edits BioEdge, a bioethics newsletter, and MercatorNet, an on-line magazine whose focus is human dignity. He writes from Sydney, Australia.
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