18 November
The European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) attended SciTech Europe – a conference on research and science innovation across Europe. ESHRE publicly engaged in some of the pressing issues society faces today discussing key policies and challenges particularly in the health sector such as Europe’s demographic challenge and disease.
The SciTech event took place in Brussels on 12 November 2009. ESHRE, as one of the main contributors to the health stream, invited different speakers in the area of reproductive medicine and science.
Dr. Luca Gianaroli, ESHRE’s current chairman, highlighted the drastic change in cumulative fertility in relation to a woman’s age. ‘From the age of 20-24 to the age of 35-39 her chances of conceiving within one year drop from 86 % to a mere 52 %,’ he said. He further showed the impact of policy change on fertility rates in Europe, taking Italy as an example. The restricted law in Italy lead to a drastic decline in fertility and successful pregnancies after fertility treatment in the year 2000. ‘We need to understand that nature can be driven by policy in a country,’ Dr. Gianaroli emphasized.
Prof. Lone Schmidt from the University Hospital of Copenhagen then talked about ‘Infertility and Society’ illustrating the dramatic decline in total fertility rates since 1970 across Europe. According to Prof. Schmidt ‘postponing childbearing has a severe impact on the prevalence of infertility. There is a need for two simultaneous strategies, fertility treatment and prevention’.
She highlighted that the proportion of couples remaining childless increased substantially when childbearing is postponed by 6 years from 12 % to 18% as well as the proportion of couples ending with fewer children than wanted from 15 % to 24%. One solution to this problem is assisted reproduction with Denmark as the leading example. Here 8 % of all children are born after fertility treatment. ‘However, fertility treatment does not overcome the age related decline in fecundity,’ she added.
Hence, strategies to increase fertility awareness amongst the European population are essential. ‘There is a huge knowledge gap with women and men overestimating pregnancy chances according to age and the possibilities available with assisted reproduction,’ she added. Prof. Schmidt proposed to inform and work closely with different key groups such as politicians, health policy makers and health professionals.
Prof. Carlos Simón was the last speaker in the ESHRE session with a presentation on embryonic stem cells for therapy, a hot topic discussed not only in reproductive medicine but in other parts of medicine.
‘The concept is to treat with cells what we cannot treat with drugs. So far all diseases you may think of have been treated in the animal model,’ Prof. Simón explained. The use of embryonic stem cells for the development of pluripotent cells is an important topic that interests the European Community.
‘The next development on the agenda is to extract embryonic cells without disturbing the embryo in its development,’ he added. Scientists believe that stem cell therapy can potentially change the treatment of human disease. New stem cell technologies may be used in the future to treat cancer, Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis and spinal cord injuries to name but a few.
The conference ended with a panel debate where renowned figures such as Prof. Joep Geraedts, past chairman of ESHRE, Prof. Jean-Pascal Van Ypersele from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), Prof. Deliang Chen, Executive Director of the International Council for Science and others invited the audience to discuss ‘How can we create the conditions to allow science and technology to flourish? What social, economic and environmental challenges must we overcome?’
The conclusion of the meeting was that although Europe is generally being compared to the US in terms of scientific output, it is necessary to maintain a global perspective. A second point emphasized by Prof. John Wood, the chair of the panel, was the necessity to engage society and the public. ‘It cannot be emphasized enough how important good teachers and good scientists are,’ he explained.
Prof. Geraedts added that global change can also be addressed by prevention, in the case of the population decline in Europe. ‘it is important to include the media, in order to increase the respect for scientists and to disseminate the scientific messages in a correct manner to the public’.
The European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology was founded in 1985. Its mission is to promote the understanding of reproductive science and medicine. It does this through facilitating research and subsequent dissemination of research findings in human reproduction and embryology to the general public, scientists, clinicians, patient associations, politicians and key policy makers across Europe. Furthermore ESHRE promotes improvements in clinical practice through organising teaching, training and continuing medical education activities, developing and maintaining data registries and implementing methods to improve safety and quality assurance in clinical and laboratory procedures.
ESHRE represents over 5,300 members (infertility specialists, embryologists, geneticists, stem cell scientists, developmental biologists, technicians and nurses) and its membership is distributed over 114 different countries.
For more information
please contact: Hanna Hanssen
Communications Manager for ESHRE
Meerstraat 60, BE-1852 Grimbergen
Tel: + 32 (0)2 269 09 69
Mobile: + 32 (0) 473 35 33 81
Fax: + 32 (0)2 269 56 00
E-mail: hanna@eshre.com / www.eshre.com