Title of Document: THE MEDICALIZATION OF MENOPAUSE: FRAMING MEDIA MESSAGES IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The use of federal funds for human embryonic stem (ES)-cell research in the US remains controversial, and in another twist in the contentious field, the National Institutes of Health awarded its first stem- cell grant on 7 February to the American Red Cross, which promptly turned it down.

Within days of the vote to ban somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) being defeated, Senator Sam Brownback tried another tack, proposing instead to ban patents on SCNTderived material.Many believe the new proposal is simply an alternate route to a cloning ban."You're taking away the economic incentive for people to do the research," says Michael J. Werner, vice president for bioethics with the Biotechnology Industry Association."The biotechnology industry relies on intellectual property rights.If that's going to be denied you're going to see a drying up of this research."For years, scientific and environmental groups concerned about the long-term implications of bioengineering have argued that life forms are community property and should remain in the public domain.Legally, that has been a losing argument since 1980, when the US Supreme Court ruled that human-made microorganisms are patentable.That policy was extended to bioengineered plants and animals.