THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 21, 1996 TAG: 9609210242
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARIE JOYCE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 32 lines
The Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School is featured prominently in a new Time magazine special edition. The article highlights progress in fertility treatment by focusing on two families who were helped by the Norfolk clinic and research facility.
``The Frontiers of Medicine,'' the special edition, which hit homes and newsstands this week, looks at the latest improvements in many areas of medicine, including cancer therapy, treatment for mental illness and improvements in stroke intervention.
The article on fertility highlights Jones patients who used in-vitro fertilization, in which an egg and sperm are joined in a laboratory dish and the resulting embryo placed in the uterus.
One family, the Redingtons, of Hot Springs, Va., benefited from a technique that injects sperm directly into an egg. The institute used sperm that the husband, Jim, banked before he received treatment for testicular cancer.
Also featured are the Abshires, a Louisiana family who benefited from the Jones Institute's pioneering work in pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. That work resulted in the birth of Brittany Abshire, the first baby guaranteed free of Tay-Sachs, a fatal genetic disorder. The family already had lost a child to the disease.
While celebrating achievement, the article also highlights the expense and low success rates of some procedures. It also touches on disturbing moral questions raised by the new technology.
KEYWORDS: JONES INSTITUTE FOR REPRODUCTIVE MEDICINE by CNB