In Vitro Fertilization Comes to America: Memoir of a Medical Breakthrough - Tapa blanda

The scourge of infertility defeated doctors and scientists down the ages. But since the breakthrough with in vitro fertilization (IVF) and other assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) after 1980, almost every patient who hopes to have children can be helped. This book is the amazing story of how IVF came to America. It is told by Howard W. Jones, Jr., M.D. who, with his late wife Georgeanna Jones, M.D., was the American pioneer of ‘test-tube babies.’ For them, it was a ‘retirement job’ after finishing careers at Johns Hopkins University where he was an internationally-acclaimed reproductive surgeon and Georgeanna was the first director of gynecological endocrinology. That they succeeded so well against the odds late in their careers and in the teeth of opposition from right-to-life groups depended on a number of chance opportunities and the building of a ‘dream-team.’ Following the lead of Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards (Nobel Prize, 2010) and the birth of Louise Brown in Great Britain, they achieved the first test-tube baby in the Americas - Elizabeth Carr, born in Norfolk in 1981. IVF clinics have subsequently sprouted across the globe, and now account for over 60,000 births annually in the USA, and more than five million babies have been born worldwide. The rapid social acceptance of IVF owes a great deal to these doctors, and Howard Jones, now well past his hundredth year, still inspires researchers to improve treatment options, and debates the ethics of ARTs. When IVF was still in its infancy, the Joneses were invited to join a panel at the Vatican City to advise Pope John Paul II about IVF. They were unable to persuade that pontiff, although Howard harbors a hope that Pope Francis will eventually open his arms to the new treatment. No one has been more influential than him in propelling IVF forward in the USA, and this memoir is Howard’s account of how the controversial research he steered became one of the great medical victories of our time.

Howard W. Jones, Jr., was born December 30, 1910 in Baltimore, Maryland. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree (cum laude) in 1931 from Amherst College and his M.D. in 1935 from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He was a surgeon and a member of staff in the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at Johns Hopkins until retirement at age 65. He held key positions in the development of ethical standards for assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), and is a past chairman of the American Fertility Society (now A.S.R.M.) Ethics Committee on Reproductive Technology. He and his late wife, Dr. Georgeanna Jones, were the only American gynecologists invited by the Vatican to participate on a panel to advise Pope John Paul II concerning ARTs. A role early in his career in treating gynecological cancer was important in the development of the Pap smear and other technologies that have reduced the death rate from cervical cancer. One of his patients was Henrietta Lacks whose cancer cells proved to be immortal and are known as HeLa cells. While at Johns Hopkins he became involved in reconstructive surgery of the internal and external genitalia of individuals affected by disorders of sexual development. He was also involved with sex reassignment surgery in individuals suffering from transsexualism. Following retirement from Johns Hopkins in 1978, the Drs. Joneses moved to the Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia, where they established the first in vitro fertilization (IVF) program in the United States. This challenge resulted in the birth of Elizabeth Jordan Carr, the first IVF baby in the Americas.