What We're Reading: FDA Monitors Dietary Supplements; First Bio-Printed Heart; Lobbying for IVF Technique

FDA Launches Advisory List for Dietary Supplements

Researchers Bio-Print Small Scale Heart with Blood Vessels

Patient Advocates Lobby to Lift Ban on 3 Parent In-Vitro Fertilization

The FDA is launching a Dietary Supplement Ingredient Advisory List to alert the public when ingredients that appear to be unlawfully marketed are contained in dietary supplements. The FDA said inclusion on the list may not necessarily indicate safety concerns; it may be for reasons including situations in which the ingredient does not fit the definition of a dietary ingredient or the ingredient requires a premarket notification that was not submitted.Researchers in Israel created a small scale, 3-D printed heart with human tissue and blood vessels in an effort to pave the way for the future possibility of producing human organs for transplant, according to Medical Xpress. The printed hearts would need to be trained to behave like real ones. They currently have the ability to contract but lack the ability to pump. Researchers hope to test them in about a year by transplanting them into animals.A group of patient advocates, bioethicists, and scientists are lobbying to have a ban lifted on mitochondrial replacement therapy, a controversial fertility treatment that combines genetic material from an intended father and mother as well as a female donor, reported STAT News. While a Greek woman gave birth to a healthy baby with 3 biological parents last week, the United States banned the procedure in a 2015 congressional amendment. The ban has been renewed annually but supporters say that the procedure could help women who are carriers of genetic diseases have healthy, biologically related children.