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British MPs Approve 3-Parent Babies
An anonymous reader writes: A vote of 382-128 in the UK's House of Commons gave approval for a procedure that allows the creation of babies using DNA from three parents. If the measure passes the House of Lords and gets licensed by the fertility regulator, the UK would be the first country to allow such genetic engineering. The medical procedure was designed to help conception when genetic diseases could be passed through mitochondrial DNA. A child inherits mitochondria only from its mother, and these mitochondria have their own DNA, which doesn't affect things like the child's appearance.
The purpose of the procedure is to replace the mother's mitochondria, and that can happen in two different ways. In one method, doctors take eggs from the mother and from a donor, removing the nucleus of both. The mother's nucleus is then implanted in the donor's egg, which can then be fertilized by the father's sperm. The other method is similar, but both eggs are fertilized before the nucleus swap takes place.
There has been lively debate about this issue, with critics raising ethical concerns and questioning the procedure's success rate. They also bring up the slippery slope argument that this will lead to further genetic modification of children. Proponents point out that less than 0.1% of the child's DNA will come from the donor, and it won't affect anything other than the child's health.
The purpose of the procedure is to replace the mother's mitochondria, and that can happen in two different ways. In one method, doctors take eggs from the mother and from a donor, removing the nucleus of both. The mother's nucleus is then implanted in the donor's egg, which can then be fertilized by the father's sperm. The other method is similar, but both eggs are fertilized before the nucleus swap takes place.
There has been lively debate about this issue, with critics raising ethical concerns and questioning the procedure's success rate. They also bring up the slippery slope argument that this will lead to further genetic modification of children. Proponents point out that less than 0.1% of the child's DNA will come from the donor, and it won't affect anything other than the child's health.
This is, I think, more about the social situation then it is about the % of DNA.
People can become a parent even if they have 0% similar DNA. It never has been an issue, so now would it suddenly become one.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
child custody in a divorce? i don't know. might even be some BAD health things.
First, imma gonna create a baby from three parents. Then, abort it. Then march around carrying a gun. Too much for fragile Republican psyches to handle. MUST INTERFERE IN OTHER PEOPLES BUSINESS. MUST ... STICK ... NOSE ... IN ... THEIR ... BUSINESS!!!!
The UK is now set to become the first country to introduce laws to allow the creation of babies from three people.
Surely it's only not allowed when there was a law disallowing it? Which law was that? Are there other countries that would need a new law to allow it?
They also bring up the slippery slope argument that this will lead to further genetic modification of children
I sure hope so. Where is my star trek future?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's not like they're trying to make the children glow in the dark... (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/GFP_mouse.jpg)
If the parents can afford the treatments and the treatments are sound why shouldn't they be allowed the chance to reproduce. You can argue about the amount of money being 'wasted' on such treatments but it's not your money, so politely stfu and spend your money as you see fit.
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNN!
Since this story has been around for a couple of days I would have hoped slashdot would know better and have avoided the sensationalist headline. Here's what the experts say.
The biggest problem is that this has been described as three-parent IVF. In fact it is 2.001-parent IVF," Gillian Lockwood, a reproductive ethicist, told the BBC. "Less than a tenth of one per cent of the genome is actually going to be affected. It is not part of what makes us genetically who we are. It doesn't affect height, eye colour, intelligence, musicality. It simply allows the batteries to work properly."
Double Penetrations - double the parents, double the fun!
So glad some white upper class inbred nobles can spend money to make their precious baby.
These aren't upper class inbred nobles, and if they're spending their money on it, why shouldn't they? Or must we now have every purchase ratified to ensure it doesn't have any detriment to the world at large? Because then you could wave goodbye to a lot of luxuries.
Given the choice between them producing a string of unhealthy babies that live (in some cases) short painful lives and require round-the-clock care, and them being able to have one or two healthy kids, I'd take this any day.
Always comes down to the money argument. We waste resources on far worse things in society. Until that changes spend your money however you see fit (as do the majority on this planet) and mind your own fucking business. ;)
"Or must we now have every purchase ratified to ensure it doesn't have any detriment to the world at large?"
Why not? Last I checked, it's a finite world and we ain't going anywhere else. You run your household on the principle that every action you do will have an impact, why don't we run the planet the same way?
Oh, yeah, FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDUMB!!!! Got it.
Will they be call Homo Sapien or another human genus.
As with any new species is it better than the last one the old will died either quickly, or slowly like Homo Neanderthal
It's not like they're trying to make the children glow in the dark...
That's just tragic. Clearly making children glow in the dark would help decrease the danger of traffic accidents immensly, which is why I myself dip my own children into radioactive waste on a daily basis.
Bird mitochondria are super efficient at processing energy. I have energy problems, so this would really be a boost for me.
The ManBearPig is that much closer to becoming a reality...
Hell, I'd be surprised if Texas legislators don't respond by going to five parents.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
and the result was unexpected Twins.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Get over it, Genetic engineering of humans is the future for our species. People "Dying" is something that will be looked back on like we do the middle ages.
We will evolve, we will survive and we will spread out into the galaxy. DNA engineering is the future.
If the measure passes the House of Lords and gets licensed by the fertility regulator
To anyone who has seen the film "The Missouri Breaks" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... . . . the term "regulator" has a special meaning.
I am seriously considering adding that title to my email footer . . . "Certified Fertility Regulator" . . . although, that is NOT what you may think at first . . . watch the movie!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Watching this 'debate', I've been unsurprised; but depressed, at the quality of 'argument' trotted out. The one that particularly annoys me is the "We can't allow it unless we know that it's totally safe and effective! What about possible side effects?!!".
Guess what, kids, there have been precious few medically relevant developments, ever, that came without some human risk. This doesn't imply endorsement of the Josef Mengele protocol for experimental ethics, it's just a fact that we've (so far, I'm all for somebody who can improve this) been unable to avoid, and even the most by-the-book-and-informed-consent contemporary clinical trials are subject to it to some degree. We can't exactly know if it's actually fully safe and effective in humans by use of animal models and pure reason.
Perhaps more importantly, this is a technique to treat disorders that cause grievous impairment and/or early, unpleasant, death. It has long been a commonplace of medical ethics(and simple commonsense decision making) that you don't want a cure worse than the disease; but that nasty diseases can have cures that you would welcome compared to that disease; but would be horrified by in the context of a less serious one(eg. basically all cancer treatment and most surgery). You calibrate your sense of risk based on what the alternatives are, not based on Ideal Perfect Risk Free. In the case of mitochondrial defects, the alternatives suck.
Finally, if you don't wish to allow treatment of mitochondrial defects(effective treatment, that is, there are various, mostly symptom-easing, treatments of not terribly impressive efficacy for the symptoms of mitochondrial disorders; but only swapping out mitochondria, or advanced and aggressive genetic engineering, show much hope for a cure); what do you propose? Do mitochondrially defective would-be-mothers get to roll the dice and hope for a less-sick baby? Do we start charging them with negligent homicide if they keep spawning horribly doomed offspring even after enough failures to know that trying again is dangerously likely to condemn their child to an ugly and swift death?
If you are concerned about 'germline' genetic engineering, this somewhat-uncomfortably-retro 'eugenic' proposal is the other viable option to preventing mitochondrial disease; but I'm guessing that it won't be too popular.
(All that said, I hope that the treatment does work as well as its backers hope, and doesn't turn out to suffer from the drawbacks its critics fear, and if it does turn out to be too dangerous/imperfectly effective, I think that it should go back to the drawing board; but these phantoms of 'need to know for sure that it works' and 'must be proven safe' seem like disgustingly transparent rhetorical devices, not serious ethical arguments.)
I'm not sure how the issue got the very Daily Mail headline of "3 person babies". By that same logic anyone with a donor organ is a "monster franken-hybrid of two people!".
Essentially it's a transplant (astonishingly) early in that baby's life. Kind of impressive that we could pull it off, actually. Far better that we do something medically that will terminate that line of mitochondria from being passed on to make more people miserable.
That said, the 'poster mom' for this condition Sharon Bernardi has lost SEVEN children to this condition. (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19648992) "...Each of her first three children died within hours of birth and no-one knew why....At the same time, her mother revealed that she'd had three stillbirths before Sharon had been born. Further investigations by doctors revealed that members of Sharon's extended family had lost another eight children between them."
Her 4th child survived until he was 21, living a life of dysfunction and pain;
"..."In the last year of his life Edward was in chronic pain. He had dystonic spasms caused by things going wrong in his brain. His muscles would go into spasm for up to six hours at a time. Drugs could not help him."
"...Sharon and Neil kept on trying for a healthy baby but without luck. Although three more children were born, none lived beyond the age of two. Each time one of their children died, they told themselves that "the death was a one-off". After their last child had a heart attack and died in 2000 they stopped trying...."
I'm sorry, but what the hell? How colossally selfish does someone have to be to just keep pumping out babies that die? There are at least hundreds of thousands of adoptable children *desperate* for parents to love them, your womb is so fucking sacred that you're willing to (essentially) just keep killing babies until you get one that's "of you"?
That's not the most sympathetic figure they could have picked to represent why this was needed.
-Styopa
I can't help but think there's irony on day when an air force pilot is burned to death by stone-age torturers for believing in the wrong god, a Western government legislates to fix the manifold fuck ups of that God.
Ah well. So it goes.
One thing I don't get is if you know your genes carry a decease that can affect your child's health, then why even try to reproduce? Why not drop the notion of having to continue your rotten genetic line, and instead adopt a healthy child? Jeez.
...our new three-headed overlords.
Oh wait, they were. Um... Ok... Think of how hard it is going to be to write a love song for that!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Side effects include eating like a bird. Contrary to popular belief, what this means is throwing all your food up in the air, putting it in your hair and letting it fall out again before picking it up again and eating it...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"critics raising ethical concerns" no seriously, beside religious catholic concern about offing an embryo to save another, what real ethical concern is there *at all* ?
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
... but GMO food is OMG DEADLY!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
If you are going to make that daft argument then all babies only have one parent since each parent normally only contributes 50% of the DNA. Please let's not start fighting ignorance with stupidity.
If you are concerned about the possible existence of beings whose genetic material is derived from more than two other beings, you should perhaps meditate on the meaning of having grandparents.
It may be an error to confuse scientific reality with newspaper headlines that are designed to stimulate sales.
Now I can't help but read the headline as "British MPs Approve 3 Parent-Babies"
He wasn't killed for believing in the wrong god, he was killed for fighting against IS. And he was killed in a far more unpleasant way than other captives (who have merely been beheaded) because he was a Muslim fighting against IS.
Westerners fighting against them, great, they can spin that into "Great Satan crushing Islam underfoot" and hope to generate sympathy, but when it's other powerful Muslim governments fighting against them they're beginning to look like they're up shit creek. They might be well funded as a terrorist organisation; not so well funded by comparison to countries like Jordan (probably with essentially a blank cheque from the US to underwrite a Muslim-led fight against IS). I think IS must be getting pretty desperate to turn public opinion in countries like Jordan against involvement. But while the kind of numbers the US lost in Vietnam might turn public opinion, one or two pilots won't do anything but harden it. If I were running Jordan I would probably start issuing cyanide pills to pilots - taking one seems preferable to falling into IS hands - but I wouldn't be especially worried about public opinion.
Did anyone else notice that the vote was very close to a three to one margin?
Vote 382-128
384-128 would have been EXACTLY 3 to 1!!!
Off by 2 (The traditional number of parents....)
Coincidence? I think not!!! :-)
If that's the case, then by your logic, parents should need to get permission to even HAVE children in the first place.
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
Slippery slope fallacy.
------------
http://www.logicalfallacies.in...
In order for an argument to be valid, all the links in the chain of argument must work, otherwise it's a bogus argument. The moralist hand-wringing over genetic modification of embryos assumes that we will eventually be making monsters through our vanity. It assumes that there are parents that would willfully create damaged babies for whims. (yes, I know that there are people who go through with pregnancies where they know the baby will have chromosomal problems, but that's not the same as a /manufactured/ genetic problem).
It's difficult enough bringing up a "normal" child.
--
BMO
What kind of Frankenstein might we release? We already hear a lot of the risks of playing with genomes: the response is to ban GMO's (Genetically Modified Organisms).
This is worse than that. Ban Genetically Modified Offspring!
To any biomed folks who might know this, I'd be interested in the details.
There doesn't seem to be much about "donor matching" in the article. Obviously, you don't want outright defective mitochondria used. HOWEVER, it also seems to me that the mitochondrial genome works in conjunction with the nuclear genome (especially since most mitochondrial genes have, over the millennia, migrated to the nucleus), and that matching between the two is relevant. In fact, there are prominent theorists who believe part of the reason we have mitochondria passed mainly from only one parent is to make sure of a mitochondria-nuclear genome match (at least, for half of the genome), and that this match is so critical that it helps to explain why females, who start off with several million potential eggs, wind up with a "top 200" for their reproductive lives.
What work has been done on this?
Kythe
That misread the title as "British MPs Approve 3-D Printed Babies"?
This is like swapping out a bad battery that was installed in a new car. Just because someone put a Die Hard in doesn't somehow make your car 1/3 from Sears.
The problem with that kind of micro-managed system is it invariably leads to massive amounts of corruption. Just look at the USSR, the people at the top were living in massive mansions and being served gourmet feasts. The average person had to wait in line for bread and a little bit of meat/eggs. If you want a complete walk through of how it happens I suggest you read the book "Animal Farm". Capitalism definitely has its faults, however its decentralized resource allocation makes such corruption and waste more difficult, whereas centralizing such allocation creates a quick and easy place for those in in power to set themselves up and gorge themselves.
I've seen a lot of comments saying that its just an improvement in mitochondria and has no other impact on the original "human" DNA. This is an over simplification and is only possibly true if just the mitochondria is transplanted from the 3rd party donor. More likely its the DNA in the cells nucleus that will be transplanted to an egg from the 3rd party donor. In this case epigenetics can and will have a significant impact on how the genes of the original two parents gets expressed.
epigenetics
So, yeah, there would be more than just getting functioning mitochondria, all the organelles in the donor cell are mixed in as well as all the regulating chemistry involved in gene expression.
really start a Bene Gesserit breeding program. you know, for fun
I disagree with this. It smacks far too much of genetic engineering of humans, which I consider to be fundamentally wrong. It's barely a step above deciding to abort a fetus based solely on their genetic test results. While I realize abortion is a personal choice, that does disturb me on a fundamental level.
Some people just shouldn't have kids together. There have always been issues of blood type compatability and such to suggest people shouldn't have babies. A genetic disorder in one or both parents is just another case of the same situation.
There is no shortage of kids awaiting adoption. Until all of them are adopted, I don't think any of the in vitro techniques that we have in use today should have been allowed. Being a parent isn't about biology; it's about loving your children and taking care of them, regardless of who their genetic contributors were.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Congratulations, you've just moved everything to a black market, contributing to violent crime. You've also greatly wounded innovation, which means that we've wasted even more resources. We don't have the kind of resources or knowledge needed to do that without it turning into a huge clusterfuck.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Imagine a world where conservatives saw a genetic treatment and passed legistlation to allow it.
Imagine a world where they listened politely to the faith groups, but listened more intently to doctors and sufferers from a horrible disease.
Imagine that the leader of the conservatives went to one of the top 10 universities on the planet because he was smart, not because his dad gave them money.
Imagine that the leader of said party had been required to understand the difference between backwards E and upside down A as part of his course which included Goedel's incompletness theorem.
Imagine (and I'm getting silly now) that the leader of this conservative party pledged that under his leadership spending on socialised medicine would increase in real terms. Imagine further that his own children used the sociliased medial system.
Then on this planet, the leader of the conservatives pushed through laws in the teeth of faith group opposition to allow gay people to get married, because he believes in marriage and has a firm conviction that its benefits should be open to all.
Imagine a political leader who will leave officer *poorer* than when he started ?
This strange planet is called "Britain", David Cameron is the leader of the *Conservative* party.
Dominic Connor,Quant Headhunter
This is about precedence, who says 3rd donor has to be human? How about inserting a bit of DNA from some animals for "health reasons" It is all about loosening policy, over few years the policy gets amalgamated/blended/updated and we will have first super human breeds without parents, perfect start of super army raised for benefits of governments or other large groups of people. Since a bit of animal will be in those "people" they will not be called people and different rules\laws will apply to them. You keen keep modifying this until you get your desirable end solution.
You need a license to drive a car, pilot an aircraft, and handle some hazardous chemicals, but any moron can pump out a dozen squalling brats with less consideration than society gives to having a litter of puppies.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
A precursor to Gattaca?
At some point in the future, genetic analysis will be messed up because the lineage fo the mtDNA is not from the same mother that gave the nuclear DNA.
Will be a serious puzzle when this is done without any accompanying documentation that person X had this done, or a marker is present to indicate it was.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
You need to have your ego adjusted at a North Korean prison.
This the UK, so the treatment will be available to anyone who needs it, free of charge, just like IVF.
An entirely British invention, as reflected in the 50p commemorative stamp, exported to the US via "Family Planning", co-opted by the Nazis as "Lebensborn" and the Final Solution, now brought back into Britain via the legislative back door, circumventing the global moratorium on fucking with the human genome.
Fuck this shit, Lillian Greenwood is getting a letter from me.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
If you are going to manually select for better mitochondrial DNA, what's the difference between that and manually selecting every other bit of DNA.
Sure, we select DNA when we choose a mate, but when you're twiddling with it below the cellular level what's keeping people from custom babies? Allowing *just* this will permit for a race of super men, bred for their superior metabolism by simply selecting better mitochondria.
"But this is for fixing a specific disease." Sure, but that doesn't make the results any different. You engineered a "better" baby. Why can't anyone else do that. What makes you and your broken DNA special? I want to engineer out acne & BRCA mutations. Oh, too bad for you, can't pay for custom baby fixing and now your baby is stuck with Alzheimer's. If we're just "fixing" things with babies, red hair is a "defect", let's remove that and replace it with blonde...
IMO, allowing this is a slippery slope.
If it is the mitochondria that is being implanted from a donor then in theory the offspring still has the genetic markup made from both parents.
The mitochondria has it's own genetic markup and doesn't "change" since it is passed on from mother to offspring and if not mistaken is identical.
Take everything with a grain of salt. I am not a Biologist and this is just from things I remember from highschool.
Given their predilection for confiscating pocket knives and spying on all communications, the end goal will be "sheeple".
Have gnu, will travel.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Of if we do, please televise the battles so that people can choose which side they belong to.
I take it you've not heard of Fox News then? Although sometimes they do switch it around and fight stupidity with ignorance. Best watched in very small doses though.
Capitalism definitely has its faults, however its decentralized resource allocation makes such corruption and waste more difficult,...
There are all kinds of example of capitalist countries that languished under corrupt dictatorships. Indonesia was so aggressively capitalist under Suharto that suspected communists were even rounded up from time to time and killed. But if all you know about economics is that the USA "won" and the Soviets "lost" then you might be tempted to over generalize.
I want a designer baby that will have a better energy production level taken from a mother with the finest mitochondria. Star athletes can sell their eggs so that non athletic folks can make em some athlete babies.
Will the first kid that comes out be called Damien?
Tracy Johnson
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BT
It is a the4chnic which is solely about mitochondria. Which therefore does not even touch those subject. Once there is a doctor proposing to change dark hair to blond hair we can have that debate. But you are debating something which is neither possible nor even discussed. Why the heck bring eugenic up ? This makes no sense. This always happen when a scientist propose or correct a genetic illness , people immediately jump and yell "ethical concern ! Eugenic ! " as if it had ANYTHING to do with the proposal.
how about discussing the proposal at hand, rather than raise ghost of something which was NOT proposed at all ? We already have had that debate on genetic selection of positive trait. We already massively refused it. The debated stuff now is not eugenic, but the removal or selection against NEGATIVE trait. And I hardly see the ethical implication of that. Attempt to switch to the selection of positive trait is fallacious and not part of that debate.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org