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The Daily PollIN A LANDMARK decision, the British government has given the go-ahead to pioneering IVF treatment which uses genetic material from three adults.
The scientific and medical breakthroughs will allow defective genes to be substituted out of the mother’s egg. It will be replaced with material from a ‘second mother’ before being fertilised with sperm from the biological father.
It could lead to a child being born without inheriting the genetic problems – more specifically mitochondrial disorders including diabetes, deafness, chronic visual loss, intestinal disease and epilepsy - that they would otherwise have taken from their birth mother.
Opponents of the development believe the practice is unethical and could set the UK on a “slippery slope”.
Today, we want to know: Do you agree with IVF treatment that uses genes from three parents?
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I’d rather have three parents than three thumbs.
Three mickys wouldn’t be bad tho…
Or one Mickey the size of three.
You’d love me, Robin
Good to see the genetic problems mentioned being done away with (or at least a chance of that happening) as a result of this. When a child is born every effort should be made to ensure that they have the best quality of life possible.
Yeah, why not it’s nothing to do with me how people live their lives. once everybody is healthy and happy fair enough.
Just think so much effort and money when so many children already need a home!!
Brendan, your comment would carry more weight if you’d given some of those children a home. Did you?
Nope! But I don’t want kids ! I I did , I wouldn’t spend thousands while there is a perfectly healthy kid ! That’s just my thoughts on it! This treatment won’t help one person alive now with the disease!
Also IvF carries higher risks unfortunately for other diseases that an embryo might be prone to !! So in the process of running one proverbial fox out of the hen house we’ve brought another one in!
But just for a second imagine that you desperately did want kids. But you had a genetic condition which meant that there was a good chance your kids might not survive or would be severely handicapped. But then you found out that there was a cure that cost about 5 grand. Would you pay?
Or would you adopt?
And on the assumption that you’d adopt, where would you go to do that?
Brendan adoption in Ireland is pretty much non existent since the unmarried mothers allowance came in in the 1980′s and that’s direct from a talk I had with the Irish Adoption Agency. If I was to adopt a child from China or South Africa that can cost approx €40k and in some cases more if you have to live in the country from 3-6 months while the adoption is being finalised and after these 6 months this is not guaranteed. The whole adoption process can take 4 years from registering with the IAA.
IVF can cost if successful on 1st round approx €7k and take a few months for a successful guaranteed child at the end.
So a healthier human being. Less likely to develop diseases. Yes please. Sure it’d save the NHS lots if money if diabetes was no longer an issue.
I voted YES on balance though there are ethical issues that need to be considered in this situation.
The legislation needs to be set so that it is only available for parents who have a proven medical condition that could affect their offspring. I also think the external DNA provided would have to be done on an anonymous basis so that there would be no relationship between the child and the third parent and that would also have to be enshrined in the law.
But if the safeguards are there then surely offering parents who have genetic medical conditions the chance of having a healthy child is something to be welcomed.
If the third parent is anonymous it only exacerbates the ethical issues surrounding sibling relationships.
Ray, under IVF the donor is generally anonymous. Do you object to all IVF on these grounds?
@Damocles. As in this case I have reservations if it is not regulated
check your facts
@angryjoepublic. Am aware of facts. Donors can be anonymous or non-anonymous. Laws vary from one jurisdiction to another. Please enlighten me further.
Ray,
Where the donor is known then it would be easy to check, where the donor is not known they are generally from a different country.
Reservations still?
@Damocles. Since the word “generally” means the it may or may not happen, I would still have reservations. Under Danish law it depends on the contract with the donor and absolute anonymity is assured if that is the agreement.
Sibling relationships aren’t relevant to michondrial genetics. The mitochondrial genome only contains 37 genes, all of which are only present in the mitochondria.
On top of that, sibling relationships are genetically risky because of the increased risk of homozygosity for a disease gene. Mitochondria are inherited exclusively from the mother, so this risk doesn’t apply.
Really, there are no ethical concerns with this procedure.
Generally in the sense that this seems to be the convention.
As far as I know.
Lokk it up.
@JayK. Thanks for this explanation. It eases my reservations and pushes me nearer to the Yes camp
Untrue. In IVF there is generally no donor. Partner’s sperm is used.
You clearly do not know the facts.
Where there is a donor, egg or sperm, then this would generally be done anonymously.
Not true. Please check. Ask the HARI unit in the Rotunda for example
That was my understanding.
Apologies.
not true! IVF often uses donor sperm or sometimes donor eggs! It can be with partner’ but often IVF is used if one or other of the couple has a problem, either with fertility or genetics
I think you will find he said the donor was generally anonymous. He didn’t say often. Generally is NOT true
Helps prevent known illnesses seems sensible to me.
Interesting how Kerry Blake’s comment got 8 disapprovals.
Someone wishes kids being born into life long suffering. Aren’t we a great little country?
Mothers day will be expensive for the kid!!
Whatever works
A baby without ” mitochondrial disorders including diabetes, deafness, chronic visual loss, intestinal disease and epilepsy – that they would otherwise have taken from their birth mother.”
How is this not a good thing? It’s great to see the progress being made.
Honestly, where are the comments from the ‘no’ voters?
The “HAS SCIENCE GONE TOO FAR?” crowd are probably intimidated by keyboards. Buttons aren’t meant to talk.
Thanks for that JayK, I have a great far side image in my head and a big grin on my face!
Well I think we can guess the kind who would just vote no and not have a decent argument to back it up.
The same knuckle draggers that are pro life of a foetus but not that of a mother.
Yeah looks like they’ve got to grips with clicking the mouse on No or the Red Thumb but haven’t evolved as far as typing yet. Although they probably don’t believe in evolution either!!
Very slippery slope. I’m all for preventing disease but tough to regulate the ‘designer baby’ door that this may open.
By designer, do you mean healthy?
It raises ethical questions about the relationship of the child to the third parent – could it mean that the natural children of the third parent could be classified as siblings of the three parent child? Does it have to be declared on the birth cert? This goes further than ensuring that a child is born without genetic deficiencies, which is good in itself. There are implications for society,which makes me unsure. These implications need to be fully covered in the relevant legislation.
The questions you raise are not “ethical questions”. They are just semantic questions.
How family members relate to each other should not be legislated.
I am thinking of issues of possible intermarriage, reproduction, etc at a later stage. The issues of consanguinity are already legally regulated and wouldn’t this issue arise in these circumstances also?
Thanks for the clarification. :)
I do see how these can be ethical questions, although I would suggest the answers should be based on the technical facts. How much genetic material is shared and how might this impact possible offspring.
Consanguinity is not relevant to mitochondrian genetics.
What’s intermarriage?
We’re talking in the region of 37 genes out of a human pool of (lowballing iirc) ~23000. That would be approximately similar to that shared with someone 9 or 10 generations away. I’m barely able to count to third cousins without getting confused, but in an absolute sense the relationship between the child and third parent is miniscule to the point of being completely irrelevant. Certainly as far as consanguinity issues go.
Now as JayK has mentioned, mithochondrial genetics works differently anyway. There’s a limited number of mithochondrial lines(haplotypes) and all are inherited from matrilineally. The mithochondria are also not usually counted as being part of the human genome for a number of reasons, importantly including that they have a physically seperate genome. Eukaryotes have a strange relationship with their mithochondria, our ‘machinery’ and theirs evolve at different rates (theirs faster) but if they grow too different the whole organism is affected and so too much mithochondrial variance is what causes many of the mithochondrial diseases, and probably all of the ones that this treatment will treat. This treatment essentially just resets the mithochondria to a point before the differences causing the disease developed.
And because there is a limited number of mithochondrial lines it arguably doesn’t actually increase the degree of relatedness at all, because it is pretty unlikely that any two people from the same geographic region don’t have an ancestor of the opposite mithochondrial lineage somewhere in their ancestry.
To sum up what has been a long post(even though it’s really just an incredibly rough outline I’m half expecting someone more qualified to take me to task over, as I’ve undoubtedly interpreted something less than perfectly): I’d barely consider the third parent in cases like this to be a parent, except in the most strict of technical senses. Their contribution, while significant from the point of view of improving the quality of the childs life, is genetically pretty much entirely unimportant.
I’m glad I raised the question! I am much better informed or confused now
@Pat Thank you for the genetics lesson
Any one who undergoes IVF clearly wants the child so I’m very much in favour of what ever it takes for them to achieve this. With regards to the third parent, yes he/she will be a genetic parent but he/she won’t be mammy or daddy. So the relationship of this third parent may be completely up mammy and daddy (or mammy and mammy or daddy and daddy) but chances are they’ll just be a willing donor, the same as a blood or organ donor or sperm/egg donor.
Shocked at the amount of no votes. What are your concerns? The advantages are getting rid of serious genetic illnesses, the downsides are… confusing birth cert? I don’t get it.
The slippery slope to a better future. How terrible.
Ah, the good old days! We used to love it when one of our mates got polio so we could push them around in a go-cart!! Such fun. Then those damn scientists came along with their cures!
Curing genetic diseases is an admirable goal, and I think that it is fantastic that parents who may have had a child suffering with a terrible life-altering disease are now looking at a possible solution. They can have a healthy child, and that is something that no one should deny them.
However it does require control that ensures that it goes no further than debilitating diseases, and not into cosmetic fixes or ability boosts.
This is not good.. Next thing you know we’ll be grown on a tree… Then me and the Mrs. are going to have to have a natural birth .. call it Cal El or something like that… stick it in a space shuttle accompanied by x1 cape and send it to another country where he will no doubt gain super powers from the new plants atmosphere and start having straightners with bad people. Terrible news.
It’s a slippery slope alright. It starts with curing respiratory diseases, it ends with lightsaber battles in a galaxy far, far away.
Oh, but think of the costumes! I’d love a cape.
Try telling that to Darth Vader jay.
They still couldn’t cure his asthma.
Go for it. Someone has to play God.
Finally a way of non invasively defeating some very serious and debilitating genetic disorders freeing patients of a life of medication and time in hospital! This is great!
Sometimes the genetic defects might end up being an evolution, sure, the targeted “defects” sound pretty bad so we can somewhat agree that is ok, but will this target only them exact problems? seems like that it comes down to the usual “everyone has to fit into the box”. And I reiterate the diseases that this procedure is targeting are all nasty so it’s good to get them out of the way if we can, but how blurred is the line?
How blurred is the line with any medical research?
We’d still be dying from smallpox and death rates from cancer and HIV would be staggering.
Not to mention death from infections without antibiotics post operation.
Some people don’t believe in any medical assistance whatsoever. Where’s the cut off point with what’s right and wrong?
It just makes sense to have less people with medical conditions both economically and socially.
genetically modified people…. god knows what will be around in 100 years :/
Yes, that’s definitely the logical conclusion to draw from this article…
No need to be condescending rob. It’s my opinion – you don’t need to agree
Designer babies available exclusively at the Build a Baby Workshop.
Before people ask I am one of the people who clicked the guise option. I need to do more research, look at pros and cons of it before I make up my mind on which side I will be.
But from what I have read it seems like a good idea.
If it helps eradicate genetic disorders, hereditary diseases and all that then why not.
I find the idea of ‘designer babies’ very eh. . unsettling to say the least but the article gives no reason to suggest this will lead to that so yeah why not?
GATTACA anyone?
One daddy and 2 mammys?
My understanding is the genetic component being donated by the third party is mitochondrial DNA, so the effect is purely on how the cells derive their energy. Shame to limit the donation to Homo sapien mitrochondrial DNA – imagine what one could make by adding cheetah or some other species.
Uh oh. Genome Soldiers anyone? Wait no, we need genetic material from Big Boss…
I for one can’t wait until we can eradicate FoxDie entirely.
I really think people don’t understand the process if they’re voting “no” in that poll. The headline is misleading. This is a great news story and will mean a lot of women will be able to have children of their own.
I bet Jeremy Kyle is rubbing his hands together gleefully!
have your say