In this e-newsletter:
1. Summary of the HFEA Ethics and Law Horizon Scanning Seminar
2. Mini e-tutorial: how to install the ESHRE RSS feeds
3. 'Introduction to the news media' day - for scientists
4. ESHRE campus / educational activities
5. ESHRE news
6. News in reproductive medicine
7. ESHRE calendar
Last week on 24 February 2010 the HFEA held its Ethics and Law scanning seminar in London.
In the morning three presentations were held on fertility treatment abroad. Nicola Dawson's talk was particularly interesting. A former patient herself, she went to Spain to receive treatment using donor eggs and sperm which resulted in twin girls who are now 17 months old. She is a telephone help liner for the charity Infertility Network UK and a member of the Board of Trustees.
Mrs. Dawson highlighted the lack of information for ART patients and how patients end up using internet forums and other non-conventional routes as their main information sources. Patients seem to prefer non-anonymous donation and would rather not share eggs to allow for genetically identical siblings. She also pointed out that many patients were not informed of the complexity of certain treatments and the implications these may have on their relationship and family.
"With waiting times of up to 18 months in the UK for donor eggs, it is not surprising that many patients decide to receive treatment abroad" she said. In Spain she received guaranteed treatment within 4-6 months.
The discussion that followed was related to the future role of the authority.
Comments included that the HFEA should be a leader in informing and advising patients. This would have to include the provision of a clear terminology in the field. Francoise Shenfield, an ESHRE Executive Committee Member and coordinator of ESHRE's TF on Cross Border, suggested raising public awareness of cross border treatments and even provide a code of practice in the field. "ESHRE is currently trying to coordinate such an initiative", she said.
It was suggested that the HFEA could play an active role in regulation by supporting the education of GP's in the country and by providing a voluntary code of conduct for fertility clinics and centres.
Olivia Montuschi from the Donor Conception Network raised the issue that donor conceived adults and children do not have a voice in the matter of patients seeking treatment abroad. "No one asks them how they feel about this and how their rights may change depending on where they have been conceived" she said.
Konstantinos Rokas, who is currently doing research on the legal problems, related to parentage that couples face when travelling abroad, said that he is finding many conflicting laws in ART in Europe. He asked whether ART should not be regulated on the EU level instead of having different national legislations. A chapter of his PhD thesis will focus on substantial provisions of law for ART.
During the workshops in the afternoon the groups identified several core issues that were of relevance to the authority's Ethics and Law Advisory Committee (ELAC):
1) Dissemination of information to patients - including ethical and legal issues when travelling abroad
2) Surrogacy - apparently this topic has already been on the authority's radar for some time
3) Public engagement beyond the current stakeholder groups
4) Selection procedure of donors - who decides which donors should be used and what are the criteria?
5) Donor anonymity - how is it ensured that the contact details of donors are updated?
6) Interfamilial donation - what are the legal and ethical boundaries?
7) Shortage of donors - this is particularly a problem in the UK, which is reflected in the long waiting lists
8) Commercialism in cross border care - who regulates clinics across boundaries and ensures high quality treatment of patients when they cross these?
9) New technologies - how can we avoid to let new technologies slip into practice without proper testing and research?
10) Social freezing of eggs - how is the HFEA going to address this issue in future? One major point discussed here was storage regulation.
Overall it was a useful event, where different groups could engage interactively with the HFEA and comment on the work the authority has done so far.
The HFEA said they were taking these comments very seriously and will include them in their discussion in the following ELAC meeting in March. They also announced that since this event proved to be so successful, they would plan it again, probably next year.
Usually one browses through the net and interesting sites are added to the bookmarks or favourites. Often they are never looked at again and the site drowns in a number of bookmarked sites in the favourite menu. Here RSS feeds can help.
They provide a link to the routinely visited sites and you can immediately see if anything new has been added to that site. This is particularly useful for news sites and other websites that are being updated daily or weekly.
This is why the ESHRE feed on news in reproductive science and medicine is so useful, it brings updated information to your computer every two days and you don't need to do anything!
When you subscribe to a feed, you tell your feed reader that you want it to periodically poll a certain site's RSS feed file. As with all feeds you need to look for the orange RSS symbol. Just click on it here or alternatively go to the ESHRE website or our press room.
This will take you to the next page, where at the top you can see the line 'Subscribe to this feed', click on it and you will receive a small screen where you can click 'subscribe'. The feed will now appear as a separate side menu next to your favourites. Every time the feed is updated it will show in bold in the side menu.
Those of you who are familiar with iGoogle or Google Reader can use these feeders as alternatives.
Please contact karen@eshre.eu if you have difficulties in installing the feed.
We are happy to announce that 10% of our members are now following us on Facebook!
This is a great achievement considering we only went live 4 months ago.
3. Introduction to the news media day - for scientists
Science reporting in the media is becoming increasingly important with a growing appetite for science news by the general public. However, research in this field also shows that there is a serious threat to the quality and independence of science reporting posed by the wider crisis in journalism. The economic and institutional constraints under which science journalists now operate have led to extreme workload increases, less time to seek out stories, check facts and do basic research, and an increasing reliance on press release material from a very limited pool of news resources. With this comes a growing homogeneity in science coverage.
For details on this research you can visit the Science Centric website and the announcement of the study 'Mapping the field: Specialist science news journalism in the UK national media', conducted by Cardiff University.
Essentially it is becoming more important for scientists and clinicians to engage with the media. ESHRE is currently looking into possibilities of providing its members with services or activities where researchers and doctors can learn how to interact with journalists and how to hold press briefings during our Annual Meeting. Information on this will follow in due course.
In the meantime we would like to inform you that the Science Media Centre (SMC) is organising a free Introduction to the
news media event on Friday 12 March 2010 at the University of Edinburgh from 1 pm - 5 pm (followed by drinks).
This event is a beginner's guide to the media, which will give you an insight into the way the news media works.
You will get a whistle-stop tour of some of the key issues, hearing from journalists, press officers and other scientists about:
This session will not prepare you for a confrontation with the media and is not skills based media training. It will give you a flavour of the media to help you understand its demands and make it easier for you to work with journalists. If you are interested in this event please email your name and institution to introduction@sciencemediacentre.org.
4. ESHRE campus and educational activities
Access to workshop presentations
Many of our members have expressed the wish to access campus presentations on the ESHRE website. During the first year after the event, ONLY PARTICIPANTS of the respective workshop will have access to the documents.
One year after the event the documents will be made available to MEMBERS ONLY. Non-members will have to become members in order to receive access.
Presentations and pictures are now available for the Istanbul workshop
Those of you that participated in the ESHRE campus symposium "Prevention and treatment of infertility in modern society" held in Istanbul, Turkey 4-5 February 2010 can access the presentations and pictures of the symposium here. Please login first on the homepage.
Call for abstracts
Call for abstracts for the campus 'The management of infertility - training workshop for junior doctors, paramedicals and embryologists' to be held in Kiev, Ukraine 26-27 May 2010. Deadline for abstract submission is 1 May 2010. You can only submit abstracts online.
Press releases February 2010
World first: woman gives birth to two healthy babies in separate pregnancies after ovarian transplant. Read more>
Risk of stillbirth is four times higher after IVF/ICSI compared to pregnancies achieved spontaneously or after non-IVF fertility treatment. Read more>
Our Journals
Human Reproduction
Editor’s choice March 2010
Zhu, J.L., Parental infertility and developmental coordination disorder in children
Related news: Fertility problems may not affect kids' coordination
Pelkonen, S., et al., Perinatal outcome of children born after frozen and fresh embryo transfer: the Finnish cohort study 1995–2006Related news: Embryo freezing does not adversely affect perinatal outcomes
Griffiths, A., et al., A cost-effectiveness analysis of in-vitro fertilization by maternal age and number of treatment attemptsRelated news: Older mothers can pay five times more for IVF babies-study
Aaronson, D.S., et al., A novel application of 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy: non-invasive identification of spermatogenesis in men with non-obstructive azoospermia
Related News: New Study Demonstrates Novel Use of Metabolic Imaging to Locate Sperm in Infertile Men
Molecular Human Reproduction
New Research Horizon Review
Verri, A., et al., Klinefelter's syndrome and psychoneurologic function
You can find more news and articles in our Press Room and in our Journals.
Sperms final sprint
American scientists discovered a mechanism that activates sperm to move towards the egg. Sperm respond to the substance anandamide in the female reproductive tract, which activates proton channels on the sperm's surface. Once the sperm releases these protons to the outside, the pH inside the cell increases which in turn initiates tail movement. Read more >
Count your sperm at home
A microfluidic chip has been developed by Dutch researchers, that counts sperm in up to 12 seconds with the same error margin as conventional devices. The sperm sample is dropped together with a known concentration of polystyrene beads on the chip. Both are then drawn along a small channel aligned with two electrodes by pressure flow. The chip then compares beads to sperm cell concentration and provides a sperm count. Loes Segerink, the main author of this paper, stressed that the device is foreseen as part of a hospital controlled treatment, but could later be adapted as a home-test kit for self-use. Read more >
How are our health systems performing in the EU?
The Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare announced the EuroHOPE study, which will evaluate the performance of health care systems in seven European countries. Finland, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, the UK, Hungary and Italy will analyse performance, quality, use of resources and costs of treatment in acute myocardial infarction, stroke, hip fracture, breast cancer and low birth-weight premature infants. The aim of this study is to measure cost-effectiveness between countries, for different diseases and between hospitals. Read more >
EU-wide proposal to extend maternity leave to 20 weeks
On 11 March 2010 the European Parliament will vote on the new Maternity bill, which foresees an extension of 14 to 20 fully paid weeks of maternity leave as proposed by the Women's Rights Committee. 6 weeks of these are to be taken after childbirth. Paid paternity leave was proposed for two weeks. The European Commission recommended full but not mandatory payment.
Read more >
Free IVF treatment for all under 40?
The NHS is currently discussing a new IVF bill which would give women under 40 six free cycles of treatment compared to the one in five couples that currently qualify for free treatment through the so called 'postcode lottery' system. The proposal comes from the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE). Doctors in other medical areas have voiced their concern that this bill would have an impact on life saving treatments, where money is scarce as it is, for example costly cancer drugs. Read more >
More news can be found in our PRESS ROOM or you can subscribe to our RSS feed for professionals in the field of reproductive science and medicine.
Poor ovarian response (POR). Inter SIG Campus and consensus conference
(organised by all SIGs)
19-20 March 2010, Bologna, Italy
Approaching accreditation of a PGD centre
(organised by the SIG Reproductive Genetics)
22-23 March 2010, London, United Kingdom
Sperm and testicular tissue banking
(organised by the SIG Andrology)
25-26 March 2010, Granada, Spain
Basic genetics for ART practitioners
16 April 2010, Porto, Portugal
Array technologies to apprehend developmental competence and endometrial receptivity: limits and possibilities
(organised by the TF Basic Reproductive Science)
22 April 2010, Brussels, Belgium
The management of infertility – training workshop for junior doctors, paramedics and embryologists
(organised by the SIG Reproductive Endocrinology, SIG Embryology and the Paramedical Group)
26-27 May 2010, Kiev, Ukraine
Preimplantation genetic diagnosis
1 July 2010, Rome, Italy
More information on all workshops is available in our Calendar.
Mark your calendar for our 26th Annual Meeting / Rome, Italy / 27 to 30 June 2010
The Edinburgh castle picture was kindly provided by Wikimedia.