Podcaster
Episoden
Über diesen Podcast
Dr. Howard Jones and his wife Dr. Georgeanna Seegar Jones helped to
create the first test tube baby born in the United States. The book
“Pandora’s Baby: How the First Test Tube Babies Sparked the
Reproductive Revolution” showed how they never shied from
controversy. Long before Dr. Howard Jones opened America’s first in
vitro fertilization clinic, he was doing sex change operations at
the Johns Hopkins University Medical Center. He was also one of the
doctors who cared for Henrietta Lacks, whose immortal cancer cells
are the focus of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” the
best-selling book by Rebecca Skloot. In the 1960s, he conducted
laboratory studies of sperm and oocytes – immature eggs – with the
British scientist Robert Edwards, who helped create the world’s
first test tube baby, born in England in 1978. Even though Dr.
Jones had grown accustomed to public rancor over his research and
operations, nothing was as fierce as the American opposition to his
in vitro fertilization clinic. He opened the clinic in 1979 after
he and his wife Georgeanna retired from Johns Hopkins. They were
offered positions to chair the obstetrics and gynecology department
at the newly created East Virginia Medical School. After the Jones
Institute opened in Norfolk, Virginia, picketers tried to block
patients from entering. In the beginning, the Joneses would only
allow women without fallopian tubes to participate in studies to
ensure that any potential pregnancies resulted from in vitro
fertilization and did not occur naturally. The Joneses had 41
failures before their first success. Dr. Seegar Jones had a hunch
that hMG – human menopausal gonadotropin – which prompts the
release of several eggs, would increase the odds of success. They
gave patients seven ampules per cycle, which would prompt the
release of about three eggs. They had 12 failed in vitro attempts
before the first patient, Judith Carr, got the drugs and then got
pregnant. Ms. Carr had a Cesarean section because they wanted to
make sure the baby was not hurt in the birth canal. Elizabeth Carr
was born healthy on the morning of December 28, 1981. Howard and
Georgeanna Jones were saluted in a Life magazine cover essay, “Test
Tube Triumphs” and featured in over a thousand newspapers across
the country. With great foresight, Dr. Jones saw a need for an
ethics panel and started the ethics committee of the American
Fertility Society. Drs. Howard and Georgeanna Jones participated in
the Academy of Achievement’s 1983 Summit at Coronado, California,
and spoke to the student delegates about their vision and knowledge
as founders of the first successful in vitro fertilization clinic
in the United States, and the public controversy surrounding their
work. Dr. Georgeanna Seegar Jones, a renowned endocrinologist, died
in 2005, at age 92. Dr. Howard Jones is now 101 years old.
Kommentare (0)