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Britain is planning to become the first country in the world to offer controversial "three-parent" fertility treatments to families who want to avoid passing on incurable diseases to their children.
The methods, currently only at the research stage in laboratories in Britain and the United States, would for the first time involve implanting genetically modified embryos into women, and raise serious ethical questions.
The techniques involve intervening in the fertilisation process to remove faulty mitochondrial DNA, which can cause inherited conditions such as fatal heart problems, liver failure, brain disorders, blindness and muscular dystrophy.
They are designed to help families with mitochondrial diseases - incurable conditions passed down the maternal line that affect around one in 6,500 children worldwide. Mitochondria act as tiny energy-generating batteries inside cells,
The controversial potential treatment is known as three-parent in vitro fertilisation (IVF) because the offspring would have genes from a mother, a father and from a female donor.
Davies said the government's health department is drafting regulations to cover the new treatments, and plans to publish them later this year. The move would make Britain the first country in the world to give patients to option of using so-called mitochondrial DNA transfer to avoid passing the diseases on to their children.
Because Britain is in the vanguard of this research, ethical concerns, political decisions and scientific advances here are closely watched around the world - particularly in the United States where scientists are also working on DNA swap techniques.
Some pro-life campaigners have criticised the scientific research, saying that creating embryonic children in a lab abuses them by subjecting them to unnatural processes.
Critics also worry that modifying embryos to avoid disease could be the first step towards the creation of "designer babies", whose genetic makeup could be modified as embryos to ensure certain traits such as height or hair colour.
Any final decision on putting the regulations in place to allow the new treatments to be offered will be subject to a vote in parliament, but Davies said she hoped the first patients may be able to get the new treatments within the next two years.....snip~
Britain plans world's first go-ahead for '3-parent' IVF babies
The Brits support this.....what do you think? Cure diseases that get passed on while at the same time be able to create designer babies. They also know the US is working on DNA Swaps. Then what.....Super Soldier, Star Athlete, Entertainer? 3 Donors.....could even be 3 Parents. How does that work out? Anyone for or against. Why?
The methods, currently only at the research stage in laboratories in Britain and the United States, would for the first time involve implanting genetically modified embryos into women, and raise serious ethical questions.
The techniques involve intervening in the fertilisation process to remove faulty mitochondrial DNA, which can cause inherited conditions such as fatal heart problems, liver failure, brain disorders, blindness and muscular dystrophy.
They are designed to help families with mitochondrial diseases - incurable conditions passed down the maternal line that affect around one in 6,500 children worldwide. Mitochondria act as tiny energy-generating batteries inside cells,
The controversial potential treatment is known as three-parent in vitro fertilisation (IVF) because the offspring would have genes from a mother, a father and from a female donor.
Davies said the government's health department is drafting regulations to cover the new treatments, and plans to publish them later this year. The move would make Britain the first country in the world to give patients to option of using so-called mitochondrial DNA transfer to avoid passing the diseases on to their children.
Because Britain is in the vanguard of this research, ethical concerns, political decisions and scientific advances here are closely watched around the world - particularly in the United States where scientists are also working on DNA swap techniques.
Some pro-life campaigners have criticised the scientific research, saying that creating embryonic children in a lab abuses them by subjecting them to unnatural processes.
Critics also worry that modifying embryos to avoid disease could be the first step towards the creation of "designer babies", whose genetic makeup could be modified as embryos to ensure certain traits such as height or hair colour.
Any final decision on putting the regulations in place to allow the new treatments to be offered will be subject to a vote in parliament, but Davies said she hoped the first patients may be able to get the new treatments within the next two years.....snip~
Britain plans world's first go-ahead for '3-parent' IVF babies
The Brits support this.....what do you think? Cure diseases that get passed on while at the same time be able to create designer babies. They also know the US is working on DNA Swaps. Then what.....Super Soldier, Star Athlete, Entertainer? 3 Donors.....could even be 3 Parents. How does that work out? Anyone for or against. Why?