After receiving thousands of complaints of adverse side-effects, the FDA has decided to conduct a hearing on the safety and effectiveness of Essure. The controversial sterilization implant involves pushing micro coils made of nitinol (a nickel-titanium alloy) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fibers into a woman’s fallopian tubes via a hysteroscope and catheter. This scars the […]
This week the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) met to discuss allowing the creation of human beings with three genetic parents to proceed to clinical trials. That is, whether to allow human “three-parent embryos” to be implanted and possibly grow to term. There are currently two different techniques for manufacturing three-parent embryos, the purpose of […]
While some European ethicists and politicians have called for an end to the creation of “three-parent” IVF embryos, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced it is considering allowing the practice – without having held a public consultation. Researchers say that the technique “modifies standard IVF technology” to create an embryo from the eggs of […]
The UK rubber stamp Embryo Authority has approved the manufacture of three-parent human embryos. The process is done by removing the nucleus from the egg of one woman, putting it into the enucleated egg of another, and then fertilizing with sperm. Voila, three biological parents. The approach is supposed to enable women with mitochondrial disease—who […]
It is difficult to imagine that any public official could possibly march to the left of Barack Obama or HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, but last week Federal District Court Judge Edward Korman did just that when he approved the sale of Plan B to children of any age. Previously, Sebelius ordered that based on the […]
Plan B (also known as the morning-after pill) was approved by the FDA at the end of the Clinton administration in 1999. Since 2009, it has been available behind the pharmacy counter without prescription for women 17 years of age and older. This week, the FDA considered a request from Plan B manufacturer Teva Pharmaceuticals […]
It was early in the morning in Venice, California. A multi-agency raid by police in full SWAT gear, automatic weapons drawn and tear gas at the ready, made some serious arrests. Contraband was destroyed and cash confiscated. A drug raid? A terrorist sleeper cell? More “illegal” gold and silver currency a-la Von Nothaus? No, the […]
