Posted on 03/15/2006 9:28:48 AM PST by hocndoc
The coalition has been building for quite a while. Take a look at http://thehumanfuture.org/
the blog on that site, http://www.thehumanfuture.blogspot.com/
and http://www.thecbc.org/ the Center for Bioethics and Culture, especially the interviews with Christine Rosen, William Hurlbut, and others.
The UN's statement on human rights and bioethics research in 2005 was driven by the consensus that 3rd world countries would be placed at risk by research while not benefit in proportion to that risk.
Data, GS:
http://www.gynsurgery.org/cgi-bin/ols.items.html?45.csv
""Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome. Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome follows the development of multiple ovarian follicles. This may be the result of either overstimulation or increase ovarian sensitivity to FSH as in PCOS. Following this multiple follicular development, an as yet undefined factor results in increased capillary permeability with a displacement of intravascular fluid. The women develops dependant oedema, ascities and in the more severe cases pleural effusions and pulmonary oedema. The depletion of the intravascular volume can result in venous thrombosis, pulmonary emboli, renal failure and death. The condition has been reported as mild in approximately 8% of gonadotrophin treatment, moderate in 4% and severe in less than 1%. Figure ii shows an ultrasonic image of a hyperstimulated ovary.""
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/327/7420/920
http://ivfphoenix.com/fertility/Medications.htm
Discussion by the ethics committee of the American Society Reproductive Medicine concerning oocyte donation - limited risk, but it's there and one of the justifications for compensation:
http://www.asrm.org/Media/Ethics/financial_incentives.pdf
The risk of any serious harm from OHSS is EXTREMELY low, and COMPLETELY avoidable with proper monitoring. It takes several days of stim drugs to start developing even mild OHSS, and if drugs are stopped or greatly reduced at that stage, further progression is nearly impossible. I'm not aware of any deaths of donors, and the risks of OHSS in patients cannot be imputed to donors. The hormonal conditions necessary to establish a pregnancy (often provided via exogenous progesterone in IVF cycles) aggravate OHSS, leading responsible clinics to convert planned fresh embryo transfer cycles into later frozen embryo cycles, when OHSS appears to be developing, so that it can be nipped in the bud. Since donors are never trying to get pregnant themselves in connection with the egg retrieval cycle, AND are all in excellent health to begin with, which is definitely not the case with the patients, donors' risk of any serious OHSS problems are tiny compared to the already small risk in patients -- if they show sign of it getting at all serious during stimulation, the cycle is cancelled, and if they have developed mild OHSS by the time of egg retrieval, they are, promptly after egg retrieval, put on hormonal medications that will reliably shut down the OHSS process.
Naturally the ASRM wants to cite some risk to justify compensation, since sizeable compensation is required to attract the kind of donors that most patients want, and the busybody activists are always wailing about this. And the ASRM wants to protect itself from liability by putting out overkill warning statements. After all, we live in a country where a manufacturer of fold-up baby strollers felt the need to apply a warning reading: "Do not fold stroller with child inside." This does not suggest to me that fold-up baby strollers are dangerous.
This is a free country, where we let people take risks, even big stupid ones that serve no serious purpose. Why aren't these activists lined up outside the offices of plastic surgeons who are inducing insecure teenagers to get breast implants and nose jobs? These procedures carry a signficant risk of serious complications, and the breast implants guarantee that the implantee will never be able to get a readable mammogram, so that if she ever comes down with breast cancer, it's likely to be detected quite late.
I don't understand the anger that causes you to designate these women as "busybodies." Where does that come from? Do you generally detest activists or is this just misogyny, GS? Or are you a female? (Not that women can't be misogynistic, it's just that I had assumed that you were male.)
Every single point you make could be made for paired-organ donation, with the exception that you might know of donors of kidneys or other organs who died. I don't. But I do know of some who suffered morbidity.
And the fact that only one gender will be exploited. Unlike abortion, which involves a child, the exploitation of women by means of inducing them to donate oocytes is a particularly female issue.
History has shown - just in the last 2 years in the form of Hwang and Wilmut - that men will abuse and coerce in order to gain glory and power.
Women are susceptible to guilt and pressure to act altruistically in the cause of their loved ones. The financial incentives could be overwhelming for some, especially in less advantaged countries. I'll assume that no lead professor would follow Hwang down the road to coercion of female students and employees, but that may be a mistake on my part.
Government is not the best tool to protect people from themselves, admittedly. And for the most part, oocyte donation wouldn't be equivalent to slavery - except in developing nations, perhaps. But, in the case of third parties such as labs dependent on tax funds and on businesses which hope to benefit from government, it's appropriate for "busybodies" to influence laws and regulations as it is for those labs and businesses or their representatives.
Thanks so much for the links-the callous disregard that some have for those most innocent human lives leaves one speechless. Thank God there are still people out there who are willing to work to put a stop to the madness, whatever their reasons are.
ABORTION FOR THE PLEASURE AND WELL-BEING OF THE ELDERLY
Dr. Archibald Puck, the renowned British gerontologist, announced that his medical research team had successfully developed and brought into operation a completely safe and effective method of abortion. He revealed that this new method is integral to a revolutionary geriatric process that will “vastly improve the life expectancy, vitality, and the sexual pleasure of the elderly.” Dr. Puck announced that the breakthrough had been achieved after fifteen years of government funded research and that “it holds the promise of tremendous social advances worldwide.”
The British Academy of Gerontology confirmed Dr. Puck’s astonishing revelations before a stunned assemblage of medical professionals at Oxford Commons this morning. Dr. Reginald Nero of the Academy said that this new technology will “greatly improve England’s faltering medical reputation after decades of decline from the stagnation of socialized medicine.”
Continuing on, Dr. Puck explained that the new process first requires the acquisition of “superfluous” human fetuses. He stated that the most desirable “incubators” for producing these are girls in their very earliest years of puberty with the ideal age being twelve or thirteen. He emphasized that “the conception, pregnancy, and abortion segment” of the process using these youngsters “will not interrupt or penalize their school life or social development in any way” as government expansion of the publicly acclaimed “Sex and Maternity” program for children had already been unanimously approved by Parliament and had proved a stunning success.
It was reported that fetuses, called “excret”, are harvested from these girls at the sixth month of their pregnancy and then immediately rushed into revolutionary “placenta replicator- incubators” which permit them to continue development to full term. This is accomplished by a technique which provides an environment similar to that from which they were removed. According to Dr. Puck, “vast quantities of oxygen and hormones along with nerve stimulation exercises” are applied to these growing organic masses, each of which in separate crystal enclosures clearly has an outward appearance of the human form.
Commenting further, Dr. Puck said that after reaching full term at nine months, the excret are “painlessly terminated by quick freeze” with brain and nerve matter removed and then rapidly distilled in a process which bonds the residuals with other treated and reconstituted body components including extracted heart tissue and complete sexual organs.
This amazing process culminates in an innocuous clear tablet that is designed for the oral ingestion of the elderly. These tablets, along with various descriptive process charts, were presented for display at the Academy luncheon. Dr. Faust confirmed that startling results have been verified with “the rapid restoration of sexual vigor and vitality in eighty year old men and women who were able to cavort joyously like teenagers.” The demand for these pills is expected to be tremendous.
A “social welfare” department head, who insisted on anonymity, later claimed that she is already besieged by youngsters hoping to be mechanically impregnated in the government supervised program. The entire process is free of pain for the girls, she explained. Quite the contrary. She said that each girl experiences “a tremendous surge of technically induced pleasure and euphoria” throughout the entire conception procedure as well as during the abortion process six months later. In addition, she also explained happily that a four thousand pound stipend is granted to each youngster after the abortion is completed.
It was disclosed that women impregnated in the historically “normal” manner and who suddenly face horrific personal problems causing undue anguish ,such as being jilted by paramours, upset by dress size increases caused by pregnancy, or who might be falling behind in monthly car payments, will have first priority for these special abortions under pending regulations. This “should help keep a kettle top on the population growth of the financially and intellectually challenged” Dr. Faust laughingly offered.
Dr. Faust commented that necessary prioritizing of female incubators to favor those having personal problems will “unfortunately limit” the number of pubescent girls who will be accepted to the program, possibly disappointing their own birth mothers who stand to also share by law in the financial bonanza. However, he said that a minimum percentage of youngsters supplying excret is essential and that this minimum “will be maintained for both technical as well as social development reasons for the young.”
Dr. Puck, commenting during the luncheon following , reported that many other new and promising developments “may very well come from this process.” As an example, he indicated that experimentation had already begun on the birthing and factory raising of excrets with the purpose of utilizing them as living organic entities to be used for “dangerous, tedious, or other difficult labors not truly suitable for humans.”
The British Government has allocated the considerable sum of forty million pounds for continued work by Dr. Puck’s group on these new applications.
Thanks for the ping!
I am female and VERY familiar with the ovarian stimulation/egg retrieval process. I don't need any nanny-government telling me that they'll decide for me whether I'm allowed to sell my eggs, or whether I'm allowed to pay another women to sell her eggs to me.
Your scenario of impoverished third world women being "exploited" by being paid huge sums for their eggs is just plain silly. The large amounts of money being paid to egg donors are to the likes of Ivy League college grads. Nobody is going to pay even a tenth of what those women are getting, for eggs from just anybody who happens to be female and which will be used in large volumes for research rather than reproduction. Poor women (and men) are already being exploited in far more dangerous ways than egg donation -- they often have no choice but to work in jobs that carry an unusually high risk of premature death or serious disability.
Remove all restrictions on selling eggs, and the going price for them will drop to a level which is substantially identical to the alternative employment options available to the same women -- e.g. the Ivy League junior with a 3.9 average can make $30,000 at a summer job with a big investment bank or law firm, or she can make $30,000 for selling her eggs; the Indonesian peasant can make $200 for a couple of months working in a factory with no safety or air quality controls, or she can make $200 for selling her eggs.
You must not have been watching the Korean debacle - almost 200 women, 3000 oocytes wasted and no clones, one parthenote yielded stem cells. But no one's really sure because the record keeping wasn't very good and one of the lab assistants tried to wipe the harddrive.
The stories from China concerning organ donation are horrifying and I'm reading hints concerning oocyte harvesting that are discouraging. The developing nations are all too familiar with the power of the research dollar.
The oocytes for IVF for the purpose of producing a product in the form of the perfect baby are never going to approach the numbers needed for research. And the criteria will not be the same.
At least two women died from this:
Biotechnological research and development often affects women more directly than men. In the case of human embryonic cloning, women’s health and safety have already been affected—adversely.
--snip--
Two women (one in London and one in Dublin) are known to have died recently from complications associated with egg extraction.
snippets from:
http://www.handsoffourovaries.com/manifesto.htm
There's no evidence that any of the Korean donors were harmed. None have come forward to say they were harmed, and a number have passionately defended Hwang. They were doing what they wanted to do and they know it.
As for a future market for massive numbers of eggs for research, it's not likely. Researchers are very far along with generating eggs from other cells (so far only in animals), and with in vitro maturation of oocytes (some work already being done on human oocytes). Before too much longer, there will be a virtually inexhaustible supply of eggs (probably including many genetically identical batches or even continuous lines, which would be much better for most research projects), and they'll be much cheaper than paying even third world peasant women to go through the donation process. The drugs needed to stimulate ovaries to produce large numbers of eggs at a time are VERY expensive -- think $2-3000 per cycle. There's plenty of incentive to find a way to produce them in the lab, especially since some methods used to produce them in labs would also be applicable to the lucrative fertility market, as it will be possible to produce eggs which genetically belong to the woman with fertility problems, thus eliminating the need for donors even for reproductive purposes.
Oocyte donation doesn't involve killing people. The horror of the Chinese organ selling business is that prisoners are being executed to order, so that their organs can be harvested for sale. Not even remotely comparable.
I guess you haven't heard about the abuse of lab assistants or all the lawsuits in Korea for lack of informed consent. 20% of those women are said to have suffered side effects. (blog.bioethics.net article here) Or all the girls who are being enticed at colleges. See this Google News search.
And, besides with umbilical cord and menstrual blood, there's no reason for oocyte harvesting, except to produce a child. As if there are not enough children who need to be loved and cared for.
That NEJM article is a political diatribe, not scientific research. And it is not the opinion of the NEJM editorial board, it is a signed opinion piece. Most medical journals routinely publish opinion pieces from opposing viewpoints on controversial issues, and the NEJM is no exception. The article is generalizing the most extreme and rare reactions to egg retrieval among PATIENTS, many of whom have significant health problems to begin with, to DONORS, who are universally young and healthy. And as I pointed out before, the most serious cases of OHSS are in patients who proceed with transfer 3-5 days post-retrieval, and are taking additional hormones (mainly progesterone) to try to establish and maintain a pregnancy -- donors don't do this.
As for "unpredictable"? Well, anything can be done in a careless and dangerous manner, but since most physicians in this highly competitive and lucrative industry aren't interested in getting their licenses yanked, that would be pretty rare. E2 levels need to be checked at least every other day from the 5th day of stimulation onwards, and daily if their is any indication that levels are climbing too high; if they are, gonadtropin dosing is reduced sharply, or if it looks like serious trouble is developing, discontinued completely and the cycle cancelled. Sometimes patients will put pressure on a physician not to cancel a cycle, especially if they are self-pay and have already shelled out thousands of dollars for drugs; in cases where the OHSS risk looks borderline, and has been fully re-empasized to the patient, and where the patient's financial situation is such that a cancellation would likely mean ending any chance of genetic offspring, some physicians would bend their usual criteria for OHSS-related cancellation. I can't imagine any would be self-destructive enough to do that with a donor (who in most contracts, would still get some compensation if a cycle is cancelled for medical reasons).
As for Hwang's donor pool, I don't know anything about the donors who weren't junior researchers in his lab, but those who were have been defending him. If some outside donors experienced "side effects", so what? Most women experience unpleasant "side effects" with every natural menstrual cycle, sometimes quite debilitating. If there were serious side effects among the donors, I'm sure that would have been noted and described by the investigating committee.
Poor and young/naive people are "exploited" all day every day, and egg donation is a such a low risk and so well compensated, that it shouldn't be on anyone's radar screen. There are at least a thousand more serious risks that they're routinely lured into for little or no compensation. The people who are wailing about the "risks" and "exploitation" of egg donation are politically motivated cranks, just like the global warming alarmists; their true agenda is very different from the one claim, of wanting to "protect" women.
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