If you’ve ever visited Shanghai, then no one has to explain the meaning of overpopulation to you. With six billion people on the earth, we are definitely bursting at the seams. But another population explosion is taking place, one that doesn’t get very much media attention, considering that it is linked to a very hot topic right now.

Pre-embryos are multiplying by leaps and bounds. Housed in their tiny petri dishes, living in a frozen state of suspended animation, the pre-embryo’s future is often uncertain. Will it one day find a home in a nice warm womb and grow into a full fledged baby? Will it be destroyed, melted, flushed down the toilet? Or will it remain in liquid nitrogen for all eternity, in its frozen world, technically alive but then again, not quite.

Last year, the first national census of frozen human embryos in US fertility clinics revealed that we have a whopping 400,000 of them, tallied from 430 facilities that responded to the survy. Numbers of frozen embryos at 58 other facilities were estimated by the census takers and included in this total. However, a 32 additional clinics did not respond, and those numbers are unknown. So the 400,000 is a conservative estimate at best, considering that the number has probably increased in the 18 months since the survey was performed.

Great Britain did a similar survey in 1996, which revealed 50,000 pre-embryos, cooling their heels in liquid nitrogen. This total, however, is now 8 years old. Other nations also have frozen embryos as well. So how many pre-humans are curently in the frozen storage? An educated guess would be somewhere between half and one million.

Frozen for Eternity?

Most of the embryos are still part of ongoing fertility attempts, but a growing number are just sitting…and waiting. Some of have been in storage for over a decade. It is an increasingly difficult dilemma as to what to do with the embryos that have no womb to curl up in.

Couples who have completed their families or just given up on fertility treatments often don’t know what to do with their “leftovers.” For some, destroying them is out of the question. They see the frozen embryos as their children; children that they don’t necessarily want to nurture and grow, but offspring and human life nevertheless. So if they don’t destroy them, and don’t implant them, what can you do with them?

Unlike a pregnancy, which has a definite time limit and ending, frozen embryos don’t have an expiration date. At least, none that we have identified so far. Thousands of embryos are just sitting and waiting, for that eternal day when someone figures out what to do with them.

Should’ve, Could’ve but Didn’t

The heated controversy over stem cell research has yet to fully touch on this issue. Many parents do specifically designate their pre-embryos to research, but as they are not part of the official stem lines that the Bush administration has deemed worthy of government funding, they can only be donated for private research. The questions arises; is it better to chuck these little guys down the toilet, leave them for all eternity in their frozen land, or use them for research which may benefit society? Rather than destroying embryos, many of which are “abandoned,” wouldn’t it be more constructive to use them for stem cell research?

Some religious and conservative group, along with anti-abortion advocates, have often criticized the fertility industry for proliferating an overgrowth of embryos without any thought as to what to do with them. And on this, I heartily agree. Technology has run way ahead of ethics. Freezing extra embryos saves the woman the trauma of having to repeated go in and retrieve eggs, but on the other hand, no one ever considered that there would be leftovers to contend with. Or that the leftovers may soon reach the one million mark.

But should have and shouldn’t have. It’s water under the bridge. The embryos are currently here, there’s no going back in time. Some of these groups have called for more “embryo adoptions,” in which the embryos are “adopted” and implanted into the uterus of the adoptive woman. But merely “calling for” more adoptions isn’t going to make this a popular option.

Some embryos have been adopted, but for most people, it is not an attractive option. Many parents are loathe to put their embryo up for adoption, as the idea of having another couple raise their child is less than appealing. To them, it is like giving away one of their children.

On the flip side, most couples who are going through fertility treatments, and thinking of in-vitro fertilization, prefer to have a child that is at least partly genetically related to them. Getting a ready made embryo is most definitely not a first choice in the baby game. They prefer to try with their own eggs and sperm, or donor egg/daddy’s sperm, or mommy’s egg/donor sperm, before considering an adoption.

Although there is no registry for adopted embryos, according to some estimates, less than 50 embryo adoptions have taken place.

So what should we do with them? No other alternatives have been suggested by groups opposed to stem cell research and destroying unused embryos. And in the meantime, the population continues to grow.

Images: courtesy of Free Images

Congress Decides Not to Be Greedy Afterall

Seeking to address complaints of preferential treatment, Republican congressional leaders said Friday that 3,000 doses of flu vaccine intended for lawmakers, aides and other Capitol employees would instead be given to Washington’s municipal health department and hospitals.

Isn’t that nice of them? Capitol physician John Eisold had specifically encouraged members of Congress to get the shots, defending his stance by saying they are at an elevated risk of getting and spreading the flu. Uh, I don’t think that they are at higher risk than the staff who works in DC’s emergency rooms, or other people who deal with huge numbers of “real” people every day. And besides, do we really know or “miss” a member of Congress if they are out sick? Whereas, we certainly feel it if an emergency room is short-staffed, or if EMTs are out sick and there’s no one to answer 911 calls.

No Wonder They’re Short-Staffed

If you are looking for a job in Louisiana, you may want to consider the medical field. According to recent statistics, there are 11,000 nursing positions available statewide, many of them in Acadiana.

Did anyone tell them that one of the reasons may be their pay rate? According to this story, Southwest Medical Center in the Acadiana region reports that salaries for RNs start at $32,000 a year. Wow. That would certainly me entice me to become a nurse and seek out a job there. And what are the working conditions like? Do they pay their nurses that princely sum and expect them to do mandatory overtime, take care of 8-10 patients a shift, and pick up the slack because they’ve cut back on housekeeping and unit clerks?

“At Lafayette General, another area hospital, a newly graduated registered nurse has an opportunity to earn an annual rate of pay of $34,100 to $44,500 based on the shift they work and the unit they work on.” So in other words, if you work straight nights and every weekend, you fall into the higher category. And work in the unit with the worst staffing and highest stress level.

And they can’t figure out why no one wants to work there.