TEST tube baby pioneer Robert Edwards, the man who gave the world in vitro fertilisation (IVF), has been awarded this year鈥檚 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine.
Edwards and his colleague Patrick Steptoe, who died in 1988, announced the birth of Louise Brown, the first IVF baby, on 25 July 1978. Since then, 4 million babies have been born thanks to the technique.
Yet Edwards and Steptoe faced widespread hostility during their quest to develop IVF. Opposition came from religious leaders who expressed moral outrage, politicians keen to reduce the world鈥檚 population, and scientists who warned that the technique would be unsafe.
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Not all that hostility has gone away. After hearing the news of the Nobel award, Monsignor Ignacio Carrasco, the Vatican鈥檚 spokesman on bioethics, told Italy鈥檚 Ansa news agency on Tuesday that the decision to honour Edwards was 鈥渃ompletely out of order鈥�. He is responsible for the 鈥渓arge number of freezers filled with embryos in the world鈥�, of which most will probably 鈥渆nd up abandoned or dead鈥�, Carrasco said.
However, the panel at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden that awards the prize was in no doubt about the importance of Edwards鈥檚 achievement. His discovery 鈥渞epresents a monumental medical advance that can truly be said to confer the 鈥榞reatest benefit to mankind'鈥�, says its citation.