Important Research is Medical - No?

As an academic and researcher in an area usually placed in the field of humanities and social sciences, I often have to answer sceptical questions about the point, importance and use of research in this general field. The contrast often held out is medicine – that's where, most people seem to think, really useful and important research is done. Research that delivers some real value for the tax-payer bucks poured into medical and science schools and research funding. In the media, such general points are usually followed by some examples of ridiculously useless humanities or social science research projects. Well, if only for that reason, it is nice to present this example (reported in Swedish media today) of where – apparently – the money paid by society and donors to advance the no doubt very important field of neurosurgery is going. Doesn't it feel comforting to know that the prospects of seriously injured comic book characters have now taken a major step forward?

Uterus Transplantation: Clinical Trial Planned in One Year from Now

In October last year, I reported about the plans of a Swedish team of medical researchers, based in my city, to conduct uterus transplantation. At the time, they had just initiated the final stage of animal experiments on large primates, to validate safety and effectiveness of the procedure.

Today, BBC aired an interview with a woman who has agreed to donate her uterus to her own daughter, who suffers from the Mayer Rokitansky Kuster Hauser syndrome (MRKH) – one of the conditions targeted by this new procedure. The news is also presented in The Telegraph, and in Swedish media (here, here). The trial is planned to take place about one year from now at the Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg (my home town).

I am unsure about how far the primate trials have proceeded, but before any trial is initiated, the responsible surgeon – Mats Brännström – will, by Swedish law, have to secure ethical permission. There are several potential risk factors with the actual surgery (as acknowledged by Brännström), and also uncertainty as to how the chances of establishing a pregnancy may be affected by the various parts of the procedure, such as drugs taken to prevent the new uterus to be attacked by the recipient's immune system. Presumably, the fact that the donor is a close relative of the recipient is a part of the actions taken to reduce this last risk factor (since less of the drugs will be needed than if the donor had been genetically more distant from the recipient).

My own guess is that the team will have to present very strong evidence to the Ethics Review Board, since the procedure is not life-saving. For other ethical considerations, see my earlier post!

Continued Debate on the AJOB Matter: Laurence B. McCullough Responds to Dreger

Re. the worries around the editorial practice and policy of the American Journal of Bioethics voiced by Hilde Lindemann, the response to this by the editors of AJOB, as well as further more specific allegations made by Alice Dreger in the ensuing debate: The latest development is that Laurence B. McCullough, one of the authors of a paper, the publication of which in AJOB spurred this whole controversy, has now responded to Dreger's claims in the commentary thread at the Leiter Reports blog – in rather sharp terms at that.

Stay tuned......