Indian experts doubt Calcutta doctors’ test-tube baby claim

Press, 17 January 1979, Page 8

Indian experts doubt Calcutta doctors’ test-tube baby claim

i ■ (NZPA-Reuter New Delhi tl • An expert committee has raised serious doubts about ■ a Calcutta team of doctors’ claim to have delivered the ■ world’s second test-tube ■ baby last October. The committee, appointed . by the W'est Bengal state ■ government, last month des- ■ cribed the doctors’ claim as ; “incredible.” The first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, was born in England on July 25 last (year. A second British baby, i Alastair Montgomery, was (born in Glasgow on Sunday. :: In both the British cases the (implant of the fertilised egg [was performed by Patrick (Steptoe. ■ ! The Indian committee said ithq “experiment seemed unfeasible” with the facilities I i available in Calcutta where the babv was born. The team of three doctors, - headed bv Dr Saroi Bhatta- . charya. had claimed they kept the woman’s fertilised

i! ovum in a deep freeze for 53 I days before reinserting it in >|the womb. tl The three-month-girl, I ’■named Durga after the : Hindu goddess, is reported >to be well, but still being I kept in isolation. I Dr Subhash Mukerjee, one > of the three doctors, told the' - Indian science conference ; last week that the experiment did not call for , high technology — "only! i day and night work fori : years.” , In Glasgow, the i who pioneered the technique’ . which produced its second' ■ infant in Britain have said I they hope to establish a i : centre where couples could have children by their pro1 ■cess. - Dr Robert Edwards, a at Cambridge : I University, said the birth of iAlastair ’ Montgomery at , Stobhill Hospital in Glasgow - “shows clearly that we are z on the right lines.” I His partner, Mr Steptoe,

; said that Dr Edwards bad, ‘succeeded in fertilising eggs! (when the sperm count of the! Iman was so low this could! J not be done by normal: • means. This would allow 1 I such men who failed to re-[ ispond to other types of I (treatment to father children. | Young Alastair, though ai i month premature, was deliv-; (ered normally to his mother,; la 32-year-old cooking teach-( ■ er, Grace Montgomery. He (weighed 2.62 kg. i The doctors’ method in-! [volves removing an egg (Mr! (Steptoe's job) from a woman with blocked or damaged: (fallopian tubes, fertilising it I (in a dish with the husband’s sperm (Dr Edwards’s responsibility) and keeping it alive; ifor a few days until it is inserted (by Mr Steptoe): (into the mother’s womb to develop normally. As in the case of the ! Browns, the Montgomerys’ I ;storv was bought exclusively! I by the “Daily Mail” news-i

, paper. Mr Steptoe and Dr (Edwards have been criticised (for not publishing their reI search data fully, but Mr Steptoe yesterday promised (details at a London confer(ence later this month. | Dr Edwards said the two (wanted Jo establish a centre (near Cambridge so they (would be able to treat many imore patients and hoped to jbe training staff by the end 'of the year. Mr Steptoe said that private, that is fee-paying, [patients, would he accepted (as well as patients under Britain's National Heal'h (Service. James Montgomery attended the birth. His son was kept in an incubator for a few hours but on Sunda - night was removed to he I given his first feeding bv his mother. , It was the second implant Tor Mrs Montgomery, who (had had her fallopian tubes (removed and been told she (would never have a child.