It’s been 40 years since Louise Brown, the world’s first test tube baby was born. Since then millions of babies conceived via in vitro fertilization have entered the world and gone on to live normal, healthy lives.

In fact Brown’s recently born baby boy was conceived the old fashioned way.

But IVF involves growing embryos in a petri dish for days before implantation. Can that really be risk free?

No it turns out, but the risks-while still not completely understood-are small.

Last fall the CDC reported that IVF babies have a slightly higher risk of birth defects including atrial septal defect, cleft palate and digestive system abnormalities. About 1.1% of the mothers of normal babies had used IVF, whereas 2.4% of mothers that had babies with birth defects had used IVF.

And a few hereditary syndromes are more common among IVF babies. Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, which is characterized by tissue hyperplasia and multiple childhood cancers, occurs in less than 1 in 13,000 normal births, but it’s 10 times more frequent in IVF babies.

Angelman syndrome, which is characterized by mental retardation and motor defects, is also linked to IVF.

 “There is a growing consensus…that there are risks,” said Richard Schultz, the associate dean for the natural sciences at the University of Pennsylvania told the New York Times. “It is now incumbent on us to figure out what…we can do…to minimize (them).”

Scientists believe the culture medium used during incubation affects gene expression but as of now there is no standard medium and little data linking specific media to outcomes.

In fact, according to Elizabeth Ginsburg, director of IVF at Brigham and Women’s hospital, “programs use multiple media, and (frequently) switch from one media to another.”

Shortly after Russia’s brazen denial-of-service attack knocked Kyrgyzstan off the grid for a week, the impoverished nation’s president announced he was closing Manas Air Base, the US’ last remaining facility in Central Asia.

The Bear’s cyber-bullying had the Big O bumming since he planned to use the base as a staging ground for troops on their way to Afghanistan.

Still, that was small potatoes compared to the coordinated cyber-attacks on the Pentagon and other US agencies in 2007, which among other things infiltrated Robert Gates’ email.

The hack demonstrated for the once and future Defense Secretary that his country isn’t nearly as prepared to defend itself in a cyber war as it is to do so in a conventional military war.

Obama got the memo too. He just charged Melissa Hathaway to lead a 60-day review of America’s cyber security prowess, or lack thereof.

The more our government, financial systems and power grid rely on the Internet, the more exposed we become. Michael McConnell, who was National Intelligence Director under Bush Jr., told the Wall Street Journal that cyber security was “the soft underbelly of this country.”

Last year, Bush created the Comprehensive National Cyber Security Initiative, a top-secret $6 billion program directed at shielding dot-gov and dot-mil Web sites with nuts and bolts security procedures ironically dubbed “Einstein.”

Cyber aggressors would likely cruise past such defenses without breaking a sweat, if they haven’t already.

The US government repels amateurish cyber attacks daily. Many are after weapon designs or classified communication.

Most appear to originate in China, though it’s not possible to know, the Internet being what it is.

There were 13,000 information security attacks in 2007 alone, according to the Wall Street Journal, and that’s not counting the ones we don’t know about.

 So far as the US public knows, no one’s launched a sophisticated, coordinated, sustained cyber-attack against the US since 2007.

Even if this has happened and we’ve defended ourselves fairly well, no one knows what will happen next time. (more…)

Six weeks after Pfizer snapped up Wyeth, Merck said we can do that and put down $41 billion for Schering-Plough.

Merck and the Plough are hardly strangers. Their New Jersey-based HQs are close enough to be in the same touch football league, and they co-market Vytorin, the star-struck cholesterol buster now saddled with concerns about safety and efficacy.

As was the case in Pfizer-Wyeth,  Merck is doing the deal to diversify its product portfolio and revenue sources. The Plough’s got animal health, biotech and consumer health divisions and derives 70% of its revenues from outside the US.

Plus, it has at least 2 potentially huge drugs—the clot buster TRA and the arthritis drug golimumab (aka Son of Remicade) in the pipeline with the latter getting pretty close to market.

By contrast, Merck’s blockbuster asthma drug, Singulair, which accounts for 18% of its revenues, loses patent protection 3 years hence.

Pfizer-Wyeth and Merck-Plough are attempts to emulate the success of Johnson & Johnson and Abbott, whose diverse product combinations have enabled reasonably steady quarterly performance even during the Great Economic Crisis.

The cash and stock deal “is about size, it’s about growth of in-line products and it’s about diversity from a global standpoint,” Merck’s CEO Richard Clark told analysts.

Plough shareholders get a 0.58 share of Merck and $10.50 cash for each share they tender. That values the Plough at $23.61 per share, a 34% premium according to the Wall Street Journal.

Merck shareholders come away with 68% of the new entity which will do $47 billion in annual revenue.

The new entity will retain the name Merck and Clark will run the place.