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A Belgian woman has become the first to give birth to a child after having ovarian tissue that was removed and frozen nearly 14 years earlier transplanted back into her body:
The 27-year-old had an ovary removed at age 13, just before she began invasive treatment for sickle cell anaemia. Her remaining ovary failed following the treatment, meaning she would have been unlikely to conceive without the transplant. Experts hope that this procedure could eventually help other young patients. The woman gave birth to a healthy boy in November 2014, and details of the case were published on Wednesday in the journal Human Reproduction.
The woman, who has asked to remain anonymous, was diagnosed with sickle cell anaemia at the age of five. She emigrated from the Republic of Congo to Belgium where doctors decided her disease was so severe that she needed a bone marrow transplant using her brother's matching tissue. But before they could begin the bone marrow transplant, they needed to give her chemotherapy to disable her immune system and stop it from rejecting the foreign tissue. Chemotherapy can destroy the ovarian function, so they removed her right ovary and froze tissue fragments. At that time, she was showing signs of puberty, but had not yet started her periods. Her remaining ovary failed at 15. Ten years later, she decided she wanted to have a baby, so doctors grafted four of her thawed ovarian fragments onto her remaining ovary and 11 fragments onto other sites in her body. The patient started menstruating spontaneously five months later, and became pregnant naturally at the age of 27.
Original Submission
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2015, @07:05PM
That's a false dilemma. It isn't like the cost of this research would have otherwise gone to adoption programs.
Besides, it is simply folly to deny the fundamental drive that many, probably even a majority, of people have to produce genetic offspring. After all, the point of genes is to produce more of the same genes.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday June 12 2015, @07:13PM
That's a false dilemma. It isn't like the cost of this research would have otherwise gone to adoption programs.
The research money may not have gone to adoption but the money that pays for the actual treatments certainly could have. And the child that may have been adopted in the absence of treatment certainly is affected. So, no, the dilemma is real.
(Score: 2) by iwoloschin on Friday June 12 2015, @07:21PM
But you're assuming that people want to adopt, versus raise their *own* children. It's not that I can have fertility treatments or adopt. It might be that I can have fertility treatments or I just never bother with children.
You can phrase it any way you want, but reducing it to two choices creates a false dilemma.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2015, @07:03AM
Besides, it is simply folly to deny the fundamental drive that many, probably even a majority, of people have to produce genetic offspring.
Then they are mere beasts who don't even try to overcome their irrational (because infinite growth isn't sustainable in the long run) instincts. Chances are, our genes aren't so special that they need to be passed on. You can't take over your child's body when they're born, so the fake 'immortality' argument goes out the window. Furthermore, at around 7 billion people, we have more than enough. Finally, we have plenty of people who don't have loving homes.
No one is trying to "deny" that the ignorant majority has such a drive, but we should attempt to educate people all the same.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2015, @07:05AM
After all, the point of genes is to produce more of the same genes.
There is no objective "point" to genes. We have merely made some observations about what tends to happen in reality, but at the end of the day, it's a mindless process.