Despite the marketing, egg freezing is not all it’s cracked up to be
IVF has become an almost routine procedure since the birth of Louise Brown in 1978. So much so that women are increasingly delaying childbirth for various reasons,... Read more.
Sex education programmes are largely ineffectual and do not reduce teen pregnancy or STI rates, says large new research review
Newly released this week, to muted publicity, was a comprehensive, reliable and rigorous Cochrane review of studies reviewing school-based interventions on sex education.... Read more.
A watershed Supreme Court ruling has shaken up consent laws – and may have unexpected spin-offs
Recent headlines in The Times and Guardian along the lines that ‘Doctors must warn patients of all the dangers before every treatment’ reflect one of the biggest... Read more.
Three parent baby report leaves many unanswered questions
News has broken this week of the birth of the first baby to be created with DNA from three people, using a controversial new technology. The story has gained particular... Read more.
How to make a story out of a non-story: hype, hubris and motherless embryos
I did not plan to write a blog on the ‘motherless babies’ story. I assumed that mainstream journalists would read at least some of the detail of new research... Read more.
The same sex parent debate is not about parenting but about missing parents
‘Talk to any child with gay parents, especially those old enough to reflect on their experiences. If you ask a child raised by a lesbian couple if they... Read more.
Young women are unknowingly putting their health at risk for £500
Journalists and commentators covering the ‘three parent’ embryos news consistently fail to consider, let alone ask the scientists about, an important ethical... Read more.
Mother permitted to give birth to her dead daughter’s child
Following a Court of Appeal battle a 60-year-old woman has been granted permission to take her dead daughter’s frozen eggs to a US fertility treatment clinic,... Read more.
Good news on three-parent embryos… or maybe not
According to media reports, it is now safe to produce three-parent embryos! We are well on the way to providing new treatments for women who have inheritable mitochondrial... Read more.
Ethical objections to embryo research can trigger genuine progress
An admission from scientists in the latest issue of the journal Nature, that production of three-parent embryos may not accomplish the stated goals, reminds me... Read more.
