How ethics change with time/ Do government medical bodies know what they are really doing ?

In 1971, Cambridge physiologist Robert Edwards and Oldham gynaecologist Patrick Steptoe applied to the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) for long-term support for a programme of scientific and clinical ‘Studies on Human Reproduction’. The MRC, then the major British funder of medical research, declined support on ethical grounds and maintained this policy throughout the 1970s. The work continued with private money, leading to the birth of Louise Brown in 1978 and transforming research in obstetrics, gynaecology and human embryology. methods: The MRC decision has been criticized, but the processes by which it was reached have yet to be explored. Here, we present an archive-based analysis of the MRC decision. results: We find evidence of initial support for Edwards and Steptoe, including from within the MRC, which invited the applicants to join its new directly funded Clinical Research Centre at Northwick Park Hospital. They declined the offer, preferring long-term grant support at the University of Cambridge, and so exposed the project to competitive funding mode. Referees and the Clinical Research Board saw the institutional set-up in Cambridge as problematic with respect to clinical facilities and patient management; gave infertility a low priority compared with population control; assessed interventions as purely experimental rather than potential treatments, and so set the bar for safety high; feared fatal abnormalities and so wanted primate experiments first; and were antagonized by the applicants’ high media profile. The rejection set MRC policy on IVF for 8 years, until, after the birth of just two healthy babies, the Council rapidly converted to enthusiastic support

The discovery of spermatozoa and the doctrine of preformation They are formed of a transparent substance, their movements are very brisk and their shape is similar to that of frogs before their limbs are formed. This discovery, which was made in Holland for the first time, seems very important, and should give employment to those interested in the generation of animals. This is an extract from a letter written by Christiaan Huygens in 1678 and published in Paris in the Journal des Savants (see Gasking, 1967). It was the first published description of spermatozoa following van Leeuwenhoek’s original observations of the microscopic tadpole-like creatures in human semen which were known at the time as ‘animalcules’ or ‘spermatick worms’. Antonj van Leeuwenhoek had previously conveyed his observations in a letter to the Royal Society in 1677, which was eventually published in the Philosophical Transactions in 1679 (Leeuwenhoek, 1941). The Fellows were very interested in the ‘living creatures’ in semen and consequently the Secretary wrote back to van Leeuwenhoek with a request that he examine the semen of other species. There was a subsequent dispute over priority with Nicolas Hartsoeker, who had also reported his observations on rooster semen later in 1678, subsequently claiming that he had first discovered the animalcules (see Gasking, 1967). There is strong circumstantial evidence, though, that both Huygens and Hartsoeker had seen Leeuwenhoek’s letter prior to publishing their own letters (Cole, 1930). However, it was Johan Ham, a medical student at Leiden whose observations on spermatozoa apparently antedated those of both van Leeuwenhoek and Hartsoeker, but although van Leeuwenhoek referred to Ham in his letter to The Royal Society, the young student never published his own observations (Figures 1 and 2)

Apparently, in about 1776, a linen draper suffering from infertility associated with hypospadias became a patient of Dr Hunter’s. After instructions from the doctor, he successfully inseminated his wife at home using a syringe