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UK Government Proposes Rules To Allow 'Three-Parent Embryos'

Posted by Unknown on from the meet-my-nine-parents dept.

sciencehabit writes "The U.K. government today issued proposed regulations that would allow researchers to try a new and controversial in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedure in patients. The technique could allow women who are carriers of mitochondrial disease to have healthy, genetically related children. But it also transfers DNA from one egg or embryo into another, a form of genetic alteration that could be passed on to future generations. Altering the genes of human egg cells or embryos in IVF procedures is now forbidden in the United Kingdom."

4 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. How DARE you propose NOT to allow this? by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is a solution doesn't just allow such women to have healthy, genetically related children. It frees their lineage from the disease. Implement this fix in one generation, and the children, grandchildren, and all their progeny are disease-free.

    I find it incredibly offensive to say that women should be forced to condemn their children to suffer from a preventable disease, or be prevented from bearing genetically-related children, simply because some people think the cure is "unnatural".

    1. Re:How DARE you propose NOT to allow this? by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You'd have a point if mitochondrial DNA did all that shit. Thing is, mitochondrial DNA doesn't so any of that shit.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    2. Re:How DARE you propose NOT to allow this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I find it incredibly offensive to say that women should be forced to condemn their children to suffer from a preventable disease,

      Then don't have kids. It's still an elective choice.

      or be prevented from bearing genetically-related children, simply because some people think the cure is "unnatural".

      By its very definition of how it's done is unnatural and the long term consequences to the gene pool unknown.

  2. Re:Stranger than fiction by JazzHarper · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Under the proposal, the donor of the egg would have no parental rights. That is logical, since mtDNA carries very little information, compared to nuclear DNA.

    There is no genetic modification involved so there is no "intellectual property" vested in the DNA of the offspring. From that standpoint, this is no different from conventional in-vitro fertilization.