Award granted to IVF pioneer is “completely out of order,” he says
Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life, says giving the Nobel Prize for Medicine to Robert Edwards, who pioneered IVF treatment, is “completely out of order,” the BBC reports. Nearly four million babies have been born using the fertility treatment since 1978, which he said has led to the destruction of human embryos. Without the treatment, there would be no market for human eggs “and there would not be a large number of freezers filled with embryos in the world,” he told Italy’s Ansa news agency, adding that in-vitro fertilization represents “a new and important chapter in the field of human reproduction.” His statements were his own personal view, he said. According to the Nobel medicine prize committee, Edwards’ work brought “joy to infertile people all over the world.”