Medicine and books: Assisted Reproductive Technologies: Analysis and Recommendations for Public Policy

New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, $12, pp 474 ISBN 1 881268 03 9 This report is a well referenced synthesis of many perspectives, which presents the views of some religions, doctors, infertile patients, and the courts, within the context of applications of assisted reproductive technology. It deals with the complex issues of gamete donation, the parental rights and responsibilities of patients and gamete donors, the recording of information relating to births arising from assisted reproductive technology, and also the issues raised by health insurance and money-back payment treatment plans that are unique to the United States. Many well reasoned recommendations about the public policy implications of assisted reproductive technology are explained in the report, which will be useful for medical students wanting to understand the debate about the technology, scientists involved in related research, lawyers with an interest in the area, and medical practitioners seeking an overview of the subject. Despite the breadth of the report, it is disappointing that the task force did not make any recommendations about non-therapeutic embryo research. June bestsellers BMJ Bookshop 1   How to Read a Paper: The Basics of Evidence Based Medicine T Greenhalgh BMJ Publishing Group, £14.95, ISBN 0 7279 1139 2 2   Winning the Publications Game T Albert Radcliffe Medical Press, £15, ISBN 1 85775 183 3 3   Notes for the MRCGP, 3rd ed (updated for the new modular MRCGP exam) K T Palmer Blackwell Science, £19.95, ISBN 0 86542 777 1 4   Therapeutic Uses of Cannabis BMA Board of Science Harwood Academic Publishers, £11.99, ISBN 90 5702 3180 5   Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine R A Hope, J M Longmore, T J Hodgetts OUP, £13.95, ISBN 0 19 262115 7 6   General Practice Employment Handbook N Ellis Radcliffe Medical Press, £16.50, ISBN 1 85775 234 1 7   British National Formulary No 35 (March 1998) BMA/Royal Pharmaceutical Society, £14.95, ISBN 0 85369 411 7 8   Evidence Based Medicine: How to Practice and Teach EBM D L Sackett, W Scott Richardson, W Rosenberg, R B Haynes Churchill Livingstone, £14.99, ISBN 0 443 05686 2 9   Washington Manual of Therapeutics, 29th ed Charles F Carey, Hans H Lee, Keith F Woeltje Lippincott-Raven, £24.95, ISBN 0 7817 1678 0 10  ABC of Major Trauma D Skinner, P Driscoll, R Earlam BMJ Publishing Group, £16.95, ISBN 0 7279 0917 7 There was also a reluctance to recommend legislative limits for the number of oocytes and embryos transferred in a treatment cycle of in vitro fertilisation. The transfer of unlimited numbers of oocytes and embryos results in excessive numbers of multiple gestations, which are managed by fetal reduction when this approach is acceptable to the patient. Minimising the number of oocytes or embryos transferred requires further non-therapeutic embryo research to determine more accurately the viability of the embryos produced. The report leaves this conundrum unresolved. It is also proposed in this report that the New York State Department of Health monitor whether programmes are observing the guidelines for embryo transfer drawn up by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. These guidelines are intended to minimise the multiple births resulting from assisted reproductive technology, and thus reduce the dangers posed to the health of patients and their offspring. This recommendation may have the benefit of increasing patients’ involvement in the management of their own treatment, their participation in the choice of treatment options, and their shared responsibility in the treatment outcome. Treatment with assisted reproductive technology may then become a less proscriptive process. This book is a valuable source of information for those with an interest in assisted reproductive technology, but, inevitably in such a diverse and rapidly changing area, some questions are left unanswered.