British Scientist’s Work Has Enabled the Birth of Four Million Test-Tube Babies
[WSJ] Robert Edwards, a feisty British embryologist who fundamentally transformed human procreation, received the 2010 Nobel Prize in Medicine Monday for the development of clinical in vitro fertilization.
“By a brilliant combination of basic and applied medical research, [Dr.] Edwards overcame one technical hurdle after [...]

[AP] China’s plans to vaccinate 100 million children and come a step closer to eradicating measles has set off a popular outcry that highlights widening public distrust of the authoritarian government after repeated health scandals.

Since the Health Ministry announced the World Health Organization-backed measles vaccination plan last week, authorities have been flooded with queries and [...]

October 15 & 16, 2010, Princeton University - Open Hearts, Open Minds & Fair Minded Words - A Conference on Life & Choice in the Abortion Debate 
The conference is inspired by President Obama’s call for those on different sides of the abortion issue  to work together where we agree and engage in “vigorous debate” with “open [...]

Coalition government promises to abolish respected regulator in effort to cut back on quangos.
[Nature] In the ethically fraught field of human-embryo research, Britain’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has long been regarded as a world leader in regulating and advising scientists.
But now the HFEA faces the axe, and researchers and politicians are chorusing their [...]

[NYTimes] On a clear and mild March day in 1993, the Operation Rescue leader Randall Terry spoke at a rally in southern Florida against abortion. “We’ve found the weak link is the doctor,” he told the crowd. “We’re going to expose them. We’re going to humiliate them.” A few days later, Dr. David Gunn, an [...]

[AP] Scientists announced a bold step Thursday in the enduring quest to create artificial life. They’ve produced a living cell powered by manmade DNA.
While such work can evoke images of Frankenstein-like scientific tinkering, it also is exciting hopes that it could eventually lead to new fuels, better ways to clean polluted water, faster vaccine production [...]

[CNN] Scientists appear to have broken another barrier in stem cell research by creating a better research model to study human illnesses – a pig – actually 34 pigs.  It’s an important advance for research because pigs are much more like humans than other lab animals are.
The scientists did not clone the pigs – instead [...]

Church backs science to provide alternative to embryonic stem cells
[AP] The Vatican is pushing for research of adult stem cells as an alternative to the use of embryonic stem cells, which the Catholic Church opposes because it maintains that the destruction of the embryo amounts to the killing of human life.

On Friday, the Catholic Church [...]

[msnbc] The number of women dying in childbirth worldwide has dropped dramatically, a British medical journal reports, adding that it was pressured to delay its findings until after U.N. meetings this week on public health funding.
A new, separate report by a group headed by the United Nations reached a very different conclusion on maternal mortality, [...]

[AP]  An American infertility clinic is offering free human eggs to one British participant for attending an informational seminar Wednesday in London.
The promotion, which has been described by some as a raffle, has sparked an ethical debate in Britain about whether women should be paid for their eggs — which is illegal in the European [...]