A world 1st as UK votes to allow ‘3-parent’ IVF babies
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Britain voted yesterday to become the first country to allow a “three-parent” IVF technique which doctors say can prevent some inherited incurable diseases but which critics see as a step towards creating designer babies.
Parliament voted overwhelmingly for the technique, called mitochondrial donation, which is also known as “three-parent” in vitro fertilization (IVF) because the babies would have DNA from a mother, a father and from a female donor.
The treatments, which are still at the research stage in laboratories in Britain and the United States, are designed to help families with mitochondrial diseases — incurable conditions passed down the maternal line that affect around one in 6,500 children worldwide.
Proposed new laws allowing the treatments to be carried out in the United Kingdom still have to be approved by Britain’s upper house, which commentators expect to endorse parliament’s support later this month.
Under the proposed change to the laws on IVF, as well as receiving the usual “nuclear” DNA from its mother and father, the embryo would also include a small amount of healthy so-called mDNA from a woman donor.
Mitochondrial donation
“Today marks a historic day for the future of modern medicine as parliament debates whether the UK should become the first country to allow mitochondrial donation to be used in IVF treatment,” Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer for England, wrote in the Daily Telegraph.
The change could apply to up to 2,500 women of reproductive age in Britain with hereditary mitochondrial diseases but opponents say it opens the way to the possibility of “designer babies” in future.
Mitochondrial DNA (mDNA) is passed through the mother and mitochondrial diseases cause symptoms ranging from poor vision to diabetes and muscle wasting. Mitochondria are structures in cells which generate the energy that allows the human body to function.
Health officials estimate around 125 babies are born with the mutations in Britain every year.
The law would allow Britain’s Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority to authorize the procedure and a pioneering research center in Newcastle is expected to be the first where it would take place. The first babies with three parents could be born next year.
But many Britons are still against the proposed change despite years of consultation.
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