Big Bioethics News Week
FDA shuts down 1,677 onlinepharmacies
The FDA said it has shut down1,677 sites for selling counterfeit or substandard medication, or for sellingdrugs without appropriate safeguards. (CNN)
Britain is planning to become the first country in the world tooffer controversial “three-parent” fertility treatments to families who want to avoid passing on incurable diseases.The methods, currently only at the research stage, would involve transferringgenetically modified embryos into women, raising serious ethical questions. (Reuters)
Japan has given the green light to the world’s first clinicaltrial using stem cells harvested from a patient’s own body, officials said Thursday, testing a treatment that may offerhope to millions of people robbed of their sight. (AFP)
Hobby Lobby may be exempt from arequirement in U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2010 healthcare overhaulto provide free contraception coveragein its employee health insurance plans, a federal appeals courtruled. (Reuters)
Circulating blood cells collected from the tail of a donor mousewere used to produce the clone. The femalemouse lived a normal lifespan and could give birth. (BBC)
The NIH announced Wednesday that it will retire about 310government-owned chimpanzees from researchover the next few years, and keep only 50 others essentially on retainer. (ABC News)
HIV-positive mothers who take antiretroviral therapies whilepregnant can be prevented from transmitting the virus to their babies 99% of the time. But what about infants whosemothers do not receive the drugs? Energized by the case of the ‘Mississippibaby’ who seemed to be cured of HIV after aggressive treatment was begun withinhours of birth, researchers are hopingto show that these infants, too, can get off to a healthy start. (Nature)
A biotech entrepreneur in SanCarlos, California, who had trained as a clinical geneticist in the 1980s, wentfrom doctor to doctor looking for a diagnosis. He bought lab equipment so thathe could study his daughter’s DNA himself and in the process, he became a symbol for the do-it-yourselfbiology movement. (Nature)
UN: HIV in children down by half ormore in 7 African countries
That’s right. The UnitedNations revealed Tuesday that seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa have seennew HIV infections among children drop by half or more since 2009. (UPI)
New advancements in embryoscreening technique result in improved safety and chance for success in IVF
Delaying embryonic screening for chromosomal abnormalitiesuntil the fifth day of development, the blastocyst stage, significantly improvesimplantation rates and leads to more successful pregnancies. (Sacramento Bee)
The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that generic drug manufacturers could not be sued by patients who claim thatdrugs they took were defective. The decision is a significant victory forthe generic drug industry, but further narrows the recourse for people who areinjured by such drugs. (New York Times)