A woman is pregnant with Britain’s first designer baby selected to prevent an inherited cancer, The Times can reveal. Her decision to use controversial genetic-screening technology will ensure that she does not pass on to her child the hereditary form of eye cancer from which she suffers. Although they did not have fertility problems, the woman and her partner created embryos by IVF. This allowed doctors to remove a cell and test it for the cancer gene, so only unaffected embryos were transferred to her womb. The couple are the first to take advantage of a relaxation in the rules governing embryo screening. When the technique was developed in 1989 it was allowed only for genes that always cause disease, such as those for cystic fibrosis. However, it was approved last year for the eye cancer, which affects only 90 per cent of those who inherit a mutated gene. The pregnancy will increase controversy over the procedure, which the Government’s fertility watchdog authorised on Wednesday for genes that confer an 80 per cent lifetime risk of breast and bowel cancer. Critics argue that the action is unethical because it involves the destruction of some […]
WASHINGTON — Who should get the first flu vaccine during a worldwide outbreak – the 60-year-old grandmother with a weak heart and lungs or the healthy 4-year-old with decades ahead of her? Government guidelines put the ill grandmother at the head of that line, for now. Younger, healthier people should be moved ahead, argue bioethicists at the National Institutes of Health, raising new issues to consider as federal officials review the nation’s pandemic guidelines. ‘Death seems more tragic when a child or young adult dies than an elderly person – not because the lives of older people are less valuable, but because the younger person has not had the opportunity to live and develop through all stages of life,’ Drs. Ezekiel Emanuel and Alan Wertheimer wrote for Friday’s edition of the journal Science. It’s a different way of weighing the agonizing decision of how to ration scarce vaccine if a super-strain of influenza sparks a worldwide epidemic. If that flu arises, it will take manufacturers months to brew inoculations for everyone. First doses will go to workers in vaccine factories and to people caring for the ill, a Bush administration decision widely shared by health […]
With mountains of discarded stuff heading for landfill, why add to the waste by buying new gear? Cash-strapped Hugh Reilly set out to furnish his flat – for nothing – with other people’s cast-offs Published: After moving into a bare flat in Spitalfields, east London, I was presented with a furniture dilemma. Like most postgraduate students, I survive on limited means, so the prospect of forking out for overpriced furnishings and domestic appliances filled me and my bank balance with dread. Then a friend told me about Freecycling. ‘People just give away household stuff they no longer use or want rid of,’ he said, ‘and most of it’s perfectly good stuff.’ It seemed too good to be true. I looked into it and was surprised by what was on offer. Sofas, fridges, cookers, beds, TVs, CDs, books, even motor vehicles – you name it, if someone wants to get rid of it, someone else will pick it up.’ Freecycle began in 2003 in Tucson, Arizona, with the aim of reducing the amount of waste and preventing the desert landscape being taken over by landfills. Since then, Freecycle has snowballed. There are now more than two million […]
WASHINGTON — About 18 percent of Americans in 2002 said they had a disability, and 12 percent had a severe disability, according to a report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Among people with disabilities, more than half of those 21 to 64 years old had a job, more than 4-in-10 of those ages 15 to 64 used a computer at home and a quarter of those age 25 to 64 had a college degree. ‘The demographic snapshots contained in this report help planners and decision-makers assess the needs of this important segment of our population,’ said Census Bureau Director Louis Kincannon. Americans with Disabilities: 2002 was compiled from the Survey of Income and Program Participation. Approximately 51.2 million people said they had a disability; for 32.5 million of them, the disability was severe. About 56 percent of people ages 21 to 64 who had a disability were employed at some point in the one-year period prior to the interview. People with a severe disability status reported the lowest employment rate (42 percent). This compared with the employment rates of people with a nonsevere disability (82 percent) and those with no reported disability (88 percent). […]
CARACAS, Venezuela — While U.S. consumers struggle with soaring energy prices, Venezuela’s gas is now the world’s cheapest at 12 cents a gallon and Washington’s regional foe, President Hugo Chavez, vows to maintain subsidies that keep fuel dirt-cheap. ‘Those gringos have everything — so why does their gas cost so much?’ asked Tinoco between chuckles as he navigated a midday traffic jam. ‘Don’t they have oil reserves?’ Chavez, a self-proclaimed socialist and critic of President Bush, has even begun subsidizing fuel for poor U.S. neighborhoods as U.S. consumers brace for average summer gas prices of $2.71 a gallon — 34 cents higher than last summer. In Venezuela, the world’s No. 5 oil exporter, drivers fill their tanks for less than the price of a cheap breakfast, and love to point out that gasoline costs less than mineral water. The nation’s gasoline is now the world’s cheapest, according to an International Monetary Fund report released in April that shows Venezuelan gas prices as about a third of those in oil-producing giant Saudi Arabia. Shiny SUVs and rusty 1970s-era sedans share the streets of Venezuelan cities as drivers shrug off fuel costs. Low-priced fuel is considered […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
