- A controversial new method of in vitro
fertilisation involving the use of tissue from rats' testicles has aroused
widespread condemnation.
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- Dr Severino Antinori announced that he
has enabled four previously infertile men to father healthy babies by maturing
their sperm with material from rats' testicles.
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- The sperm was later used to bring about
pregnancy via in vitro fertilisation - conception in a test tube.
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- Three of the babies were born in Italy
and one in Japan, he told doctors attending an international conference
on assisted procreation in Venice.
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- Controversial doctor
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- Dr Antinori is a Rome gynaecologist who
has been in the headlines before for helping post-menopausal women to become
pregnant.
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- He has also expressed a desire to create
the world's first human clone.
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- However, while his new technique may
attract condemnation, it does not fall foul of a new draft Italian law
that will limit artificial procreation to the use of sperm by a husband
and no other donor.
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- A Rome university professor, Aldo Isidori,
said the technique involved maturing cells that do not mature naturally
so it could create genetic abnormalities.
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- Other doctors also warned there could
be unforeseeable consequences.
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- But Dr Severino defended his technique,
saying he had matured the sperm in a test tube, while a colleague in Japan
had used a live rat for the experiment.
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- He assured doctors there could be no
transfer of disease or genetic change from rats to man using rat tissue
as a culture medium.
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- 'Fewer defects in test tube babies'
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- The Venice conference also heard a report
from a Viennese fertility specialist, Dr Wilfried Fiechtinger, who runs
a sterility clinic in the Austrian capital.
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- He said the number of malformations in
test-tube babies born in Austria during the past decade is generally one-half
of that observed in normally conceived babies - 1.5% instead of 3%.
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- The conference was organised by an association
bringing together 5,000 fertility clinics operating in more than 100 countries
around the world.
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