Bad Manners?

Steptoe answers critics

Win some, lose some. A month ago, Chicago's Barren Foundation abruptly withdrew an award that was to have been presented to British Gynecologist Patrick Steptoe, who with Physiologist Robert Edwards was laboratory godfather of the world's first test-tube baby. The reason: the two had yet to provide adequate details of their achievement. Last week, however, the New York Fertility Research Foundation honored Steptoe for that very achievement. At a Manhattan press conference, Steptoe labeled the Barren Foundation's action "the most utterly disgraceful exhibition of bad manners I've ever come across in the scientific world."

Steptoe also reported that he and Edwards have modified their technique so that they now achieve pregnancies in 10% of the women they treat. Baby Louise Brown was the result of a method that produced pregnancy in only 1% of cases.

In about six months, they will open a clinic near Cambridge where infertile couples will be treated and medical teams trained in the technique. The Britons will also serve as advisers for a U.S. clinic in Norfolk, now in the planning stages.

The eagerly awaited scientific details of the test-tube technique will be presented at a meeting of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in London on Jan. 26 and at a San Francisco conference of the American Fertility Society the following week.

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