Vitro

In 1932, Winston Churchill, appalled by the leftover bones and gristle crowding his dinner plate, predicted that in 50 years "we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium." It's taken longer than that, but at the dawn of the 21st century we're finally closing in on tasty and eerily healthy meat grown by scientists instead of Old MacDonald. "It's been a thought problem for scientists for decades," says Jason Matheny, director of New Harvest, a nonprofit organization devoted to global efforts to produce cultured meat.

WASHINGTON - A widow who conceived a baby from the sperm of her late husband is not automatically entitled to Social Security survivors benefits to help raise the child, the Supreme Court ruled Monday. The 9-0 decision rejected the claim that a biological child of a married couple, even one born years after the father died, always qualifies as his survivor under the Social Security Act. Instead, the justices upheld the government's multi-part definition of who deserves survivors benefits.

When couples with fertility problems turn to in vitro fertilization, they often assume that they can double their chances for a healthy baby by transferring two embryos to the womb instead of just one. But data published in today's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine show that what they're really doing is increasing their odds of having twins -- which is riskier for the mother and babies alike. In the early days of in vitro fertilization, doctors routinely transferred half a dozen embryos, or more, to boost the odds that at least one would grow into a healthy fetus.

The Supreme Court justices voiced doubt over whether children who are born of in vitro fertilization more than a year after the death of their father are entitled to his survivor's benefits under the Social Security Act. The dispute involves a clash over how to interpret the 1930s pension law in an era of sperm donors and modern fertility. In 1939, Congress added a provision to the Social Security Act to give benefits to the survivors of deceased wage earners, including children who were dependents.  But judges have been split in the past decade over who qualifies as a survivor under this law. At issue is whether mothers can claim benefits for children who were conceived after their father died.

The Oxnard unit of Vitro Corp. has received a $24.6-million contract to continue weapons systems work for the Port Hueneme Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center, formerly known as NEMESIS. The five-year, follow-on order calls for Vitro to provide engineering services for such Navy weapons systems as the Tomahawk, Terrier, Tartar and Harpoon missiles. A Vitro spokeswoman said she did not expect the award to lead to new hiring. Vitro, a subsidiary of Penn Central Corp.

The mother of "test tube" quadruplets wants three of the five-month-old babies adopted because she cannot cope with the stress of looking after them, health officials said today. They said Marie Charlesworth, who already had one child conceived by the in-vitro fertilization method, wanted to keep the baby girl and give up the three boys. The case has caused a storm in medical circles, with many doctors believing it underlines the need for regulation of the in-vitro fertilization profession.

In the article entitled "TV Parenting" (TV Times, May 26), pediatrician Loraine Stern is quoted as saying, "Dr. Brazelton had a short segment about vision in babies, in which he showed an in vitro view of a fetus. That's an emotional thing to do. It was a good segment, but showing photos of a fetus can be taken as a subtle anti-abortion message." She goes on to say that parents need to be vigilant about subtle messages they are being given. For that statement, Loraine Stern deserves to be president of the Let's Not Confuse Us With the Facts Club.

When David and Luz Barragan turned to in vitro fertilization five years into a childless marriage, they had no idea it would come to this. On Wednesday, the Guadalajara, Mexico, couple became the proud parents of a set of healthy quadruplets. Luz Adriana, Citali, Diego and David were born at 9:30 p.m. at UC San Diego Medical Center, according to a hospital spokeswoman. The newborns' weights ranged from 3 pounds to 3 pounds, 10.5 ounces. "I am very happy and relieved because there was a lot of risk," David Barragan said Thursday.

A tangy, sour, fermented milk drink may not sound like a likely candidate to move from health food stores to mainstream supermarkets, but that's exactly what kefir has done. The beverage is steadily gaining fans convinced of the health benefits -- proponents tout its purported ability to help cure cancer, reduce high cholesterol and treat high blood pressure -- yet the scientific studies to support the claims are still few. Kefir's closest cousin is yogurt, also made by fermenting milk with bacteria.

It should have been Myleen and Jan Sjodin's greatest happiness. Their newborn was healthy, they were in exotic India and, following Myleen's uterine cancer, their surrogacy was successful. Instead, the Toronto couple claim, it all turned into a nightmare as the doctor hiked her fees just before the baby was born, hitting them at their psychologically weakest point. She also didn't pay outside hospital bills and tried to use India's infamous bureaucracy to delay their homecoming, the couple say. "We were robbed of our joy as first-time parents," Jan Sjodin said.

The Supreme Court agreed to decide whether a child conceived through in vitro fertilization after a father's death was entitled to a Social Security survivor's benefit. At least 100 such claims are pending at the Social Security Administration while officials try to resolve how the Depression-era law should be interpreted in an era of modern reproductive technology. Since 1939, the Social Security system has provided a benefit to the family of a deceased wage earner, including his children.

Maternal mortality is rare. But the rates are increasing in the United States and elsewhere for a number of reasons. In an editorial published Thursday, British researchers point out that in-vitro-fertilization-related pregnancies are an additional risk factor for maternal death. The major causes of death to new mothers are rare catastrophes, such as hemorrhage and blood clots. The incidence of these problems is increasing, possibly because more pregnant women today have health problems, such as diabetes, obesity or some other chronic condition.

The Beverly Hills fertility doctor who assisted Nadya Suleman in conceiving octuplets and six previous children said during testimony Wednesday that his goal with each pregnancy was to produce a single baby and that Suleman agreed to reduce the number of fetuses if the treatment were to result in multiple births. "We don't really intentionally want to make it a multiple pregnancy ? our goal is a single term pregnancy," said Dr. Michael Kamrava. "However, this is not an exact science.

The Beverly Hills fertility doctor who assisted Nadya Suleman in conceiving octuplets and six previous children repeatedly failed to screen her for mental health issues and to limit the number of embryos she had implanted, an expert witness testified Monday at a medical board hearing in Los Angeles. Dr. Michael Kamrava implanted Suleman with a dozen embryos before she conceived octuplets, an expert said at the hearing ? twice the number of embryos Suleman has said in the past. Kamrava could have his medical license revoked if it is determined that he was grossly negligent in his treatment of Suleman and two other female patients: a 48-year-old who suffered complications after she became pregnant with quadruplets and a 42 year-old diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer after receiving fertility treatments.

British biologist Robert G. Edwards, whose contributions to the technology of in vitro fertilization have made more than 4 million couples parents, has been awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. Working with Dr. Patrick Steptoe, Edwards, now 85, developed the techniques for removing mature eggs from a woman's ovaries, fertilizing them in test tubes and inducing them to begin dividing before implanting them back in the mother. Their efforts yielded the July 25, 1978, birth of Louise Brown, the first "test tube baby," both demonstrating the success and the safety of the technique and bringing hope to infertile people all over the world.

In 1978, Louise Brown was born -- and won the distinction of being the world's first "test tube baby" because she was conceived thanks to then-innovative in-vitro fertilization techniques, or IVF, developed by British biologists. Since then, IVF has more than grown up. The Los Angeles Times reports Monday that the technique and one of its pioneers are making headlines anew in "IVF innovator Robert G. Edwards wins Nobel. " Use of such techniques, also called assisted reproductive technology, has more than doubled in the last decade and accounts for 1% of all infants born in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As temp jobs go, Saroj Mehli has landed what she feels is a pretty sweet deal. It's a nine-month gig, no special skills needed, and the only real labor comes at the end -- when she gives birth. If everything goes according to plan, Mehli, 32, will deliver a healthy baby early next year. But rather than join her other three children, the newborn will be handed over to an American couple who are unable to bear a child on their own and are hiring Mehli to do it for them.

Taiko and Gemma Chen may not celebrate all 15 days of the lunar new year, nor do they believe they are sweeping away prosperity by cleaning the house. But there is one centuries-old tradition the Asian American couple still swears by: having a baby in the Year of the Dragon, considered the most auspicious year in the 12-year zodiac cycle. "We're both dragons ourselves," said Gemma Chen, "so three dragons in the family would be really, really lucky. And we're 36, so we can't wait another 12 years.

Every woman — and man — is at some risk of getting breast cancer, and some of that risk is passed from parent to child. Variants in two genes, known as BRCA1 and BRCA2, greatly increase the risk of developing the disease. So far, scientists have identified dozens of BRCA mutations that confer an added risk. Children of carriers — either the mother or the father — have a 50% chance of inheriting these mutations. Enter modern medicine to take chance out of the equation.

One of the early fears about in vitro fertilization at its inception more than 30 years ago was that the procedure might cause genetic or other health problems in children conceived in that manner. It's clear that IVF is very safe. However, several studies suggest a slightly higher risk of birth defects and some types of illness among children born via IFV that parents should be aware of. The latest study indicates cancer may occur more often. Previous studies looking for a link between cancer and IVF have found nothing.