Word: vitro
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...last resort; with success rates running below 5%, most doctors put couples through the full gamut of conventional therapies before turning to IVF. Today a couple in their 30s with undiagnosed infertility is likely to be told to skip invasive tests and exploratory surgeries and go straight to in vitro or related technologies. Streamlined procedures and lowered costs are part of the reason. But it was the development of two variations on the basic IVF procedure -- GIFT and ZIFT -- and the impressive success rates they have produced that have made believers of most doctors...
These experiments are sure to arouse protests. Today most in vitro clinics are very careful never to purposely destroy viable embryos. Even when couples agree to freeze embryos, they are required to sign an agreement specifying what will happen to any embryos they don't need: they can be donated to couples that can't produce their own or donated to research. But the premise of pre-embryotic genetic testing is that defective embryos will be destroyed. If the problem is a debilitating disease like Tay-Sachs, this may be justifiable. But what if couples choose to reject embryos whose...
Even more provocative is a new area of research that combines the techniques of in vitro fertilization with the latest advances in genetic screening. Abnormalities like sickle-cell anemia or cystic fibrosis are present in the genetic code from the moment of conception. Since embryos in their earliest stages are fairly forgiving -- they can lose a cell or two without impairing their subsequent development -- it is theoretically possible to remove a cell from, say, a 16-cell embryo, test it for a suspected defect, and get the answer before that embryo is inserted into the uterus for implantation...
Society has just begun to wrestle with the financial burden of assisted reproduction. "It takes courage and cash," says Dr. Georgeanna Jones, whose work with her husband, Dr. Howard Jones, in Norfolk, Va., produced the first IVF baby in the U.S. A single in vitro cycle can cost $6,000 to $8,000, a burden most medical plans are not eager to share. Nine states have passed laws requiring insurance companies to cover the cost of infertility treatments, but resistance in the remaining states is strong. The question, says Leroy Walters, at Georgetown University's Kennedy Institute of Ethics...
...Federal Government has tried to steer clear of infertility issues. Under pressure from right-to-life lobbies, it quietly cut funds for in vitro research in 1980, despite a Health Department study that called such a ban "neither justifiable nor wise." Last fall Congress appropriated $3 million for three contraceptive centers and five infertility centers. But because of the government's ban on funding IVF research, the scientists haven't been able to begin their work. "Britain and Australia are surpassing us in research because of the restraints we face in this country," says Harvard's Ryan. "The U.S. government...