The HandsOff Newsletter features articles concerning policies, controversies, and ethics relevant to the demand for human eggs. Additionally, as a service, the Newsletter may include articles concerning biotech patenting, animal-human hybrid creation (chimerism), stem cell research and reproductive cloning in so far as they may be relevant to considerations of research cloning.

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HANDSOFF LETTER:

Dear HandsOff Supporter,

We are writing to thank you for your past support to HandsOffOurOvaries. By joining us and hundreds of others around the world, our message to protect young women egg donors is being heard! Women who have suffered from severe side effects of the highly invasive egg retrieval process, are contacting us to share their experiences. They report a wide range of serious health problems and seek our help to understand what they have gone through and to alert other women to these risks.

But we have more work to do. HandsOffOurOvaries has decided to extend its efforts to educate all potential egg donors as we explained in our November e-newsletter. We want to inform all women of risks regardless of the purpose for which they are undergoing superovulation, whether it be for cloning research or for reproduction.

With this expansion of our activities, comes more work. Our message is in high demand! That is the good news. The bad news however, is that our precious few resources are stretched too thin. Just this past year HandsOff participated in a briefing on Capital Hill on International Women's Day, addressing harmful egg harvesting practices for cloning research. We assisted our colleagues and supporters in Australia, providing them with resources to battle their government's decision to lift their ban on therapeutic human research cloning. HandsOff had a strong presence in the state of Missouri, trying to help voters understand the burden placed on young women whose eggs are needed for research. HandsOff participated in many international events, conferences, and media interviews from South Korea, to much of Europe!

But we need your support now to get our message out further. The harm to women is real. HandsOffOurOvaries has been the one voice, united together across political, religious, and geographical lines to get the facts out.

Please consider sending an end of year donation (PayPal Link). Here are some specific ways your financial support helps us.

• $25.00 or $50.00 helps support our administrative costs of postage and phone
• $250.00 keeps our website and email newsletter up and running each month
• $500.00 covers printing costs for pamphlets and brochures for students
• $1000.00 allows one of our expert Directors to travel to a conference to present our message
• $10,000 allows us to host another briefing with policy makers and legislators
• $25,000 would allow us to hire staff to manage day to day operations

Currently, HandsOff is run without the benefit of paid staff and is largely volunteer and Board of Director operated. We could do so much more if only we had your support today—so much more to help women who already have been harmed and those women still in harm's way.

Online gifts using your credit card can be made at www.handsoffourovaries.com
Checks can be sent, payable to Every Woman First to:
2257 Rosemount Lane San Ramon, CA 94582

Thank you for supporting our efforts. There is truly no other organization out there like ours, doing this important and necessary work.

Sincerely,

Diane Beeson, Ph.D.
Emilia Ianeva, Ph.D.
Jennifer Lahl, B.S.N., M.A.
Abby Lippman, Ph.D.
Nicole Marchand
M. L. Tina Stevens, Ph.D.
Josephine Quintavalle

Board of Directors

NEWS:

Therapeutic misconception and stem cell research: some are making too good a case for stem cells' medical benefits. by Mildred K. Cho and David Magnus for Nature Reports Stem Cells, September 27, 2007.

"...The term "therapeutic misconception" was originally coined in 1982 to describe a fundamental confusion among research subjects and researchers alike between the goals of research (generalisable knowledge) and the goals of clinical care (improving the health of an individual patient)...

...The therapeutic misconception is a particular concern for stem cell researchers for two reasons. First, like gene transfer (formerly misleadingly known as "gene therapy"), stem cell research is a frontier field. The potential for therapeutic misconception is especially large because of the promises already made, such as promotion of California's Proposition 71 to fund stem cell research by slogans such as "save lives with stem cells", and use of the term "therapeutic cloning" before any therapies exist.

Second, some stem cell research will depend upon participation of a class of individuals who are not patients and also not research subjects—egg donors—and for whom a different type of therapeutic misconception can exist. We have argued that this group be called research donors to distinguish them from research subjects. Like organ donors, their participation provides risk but no possibility of benefit. The need for recognising this category of research participants can be seen by considering the difference between women who donate oocytes that fail to be fertilised when undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) and those who donate specifically for research

For full story visit: Nature.com TOP

HANDSOFF MESSAGE:

Tell us your Story

What was your experience with egg "donation"? Was it problem free? Have you experienced any of the following symptoms since donating?

Weight gain, Extreme PMS, Hemorraging, Hormonal imbalance, Migranes, Memory Loss, Ovarian cysts

Whatever your experience, we would appreciate hearing your story. If you know others who have undergone egg harvesting for fertility or research we would appreciate hearing their story, too. Contact us to talk