The BBC reports today that a baby given just a 1% chance of survival by doctors is thriving, thanks to pioneering treatment given to him during pregnancy. Professor David James, from Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham gave the baby a blood transfusion at 16 weeks gestation helping the mother and child overcome a disorder based on blood type incompatibility. https://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1099000/1099124.stm
The Sunday Times reported that scientists in Tokyo have succeeded in growing sperm in mice in a laboratory for the first time. The technique clones embryo cells and turns them into sperm and human trials are men are planned. Although cloning humans is banned under Japanese law, the new technique gets round the restriction because it uses cloning to produce the seed for a new baby rather than the baby itself. https://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/12/31/stifgnfar01003.html
Mother Jones magazine has obtained FDA figures listing 30 cases of uterine rupture associated with the use of the drug Cytotec (the drug used with Mifepristone in RU-486 abortions) to induce labor in expectant mothers, including 8 cases in which the fetus died in utero. https://www.motherjones.com/mother_jones/JF01/labor.html
Catholic World News reported that last Thursday Italy’s health minister Umberto Veronesi offered his support for a plan to conduct scientific research using cloned human beings and their stem cells. https://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=10832