FDA weighs procedure that combines genetic material of 3 people to make a baby free of defects (NYT)

[jsr]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/26/health/fda-meeting-considers-controversial-fertility-procedure.html

Fear of ‘Designer Babies’ as F.D.A. Weighs Fertility Procedure
By SABRINA TAVERNISE | FEB. 25, 2014

GAITHERSBURG, Md. — The Food and Drug Administration is weighing a controversial fertility procedure that involves combining the genetic material of three people to make a baby free of certain defects, a therapy that critics say is an ethical minefield and could lead to the creation of designer babies.

The agency has asked a panel of experts to summarize current science to determine whether the approach – which has been performed successfully in monkeys by researchers in Oregon and in people more than a decade ago– is safe enough to be used again in people.

The F.D.A. meeting, which is being held Tuesday and Wednesday, is meant to address the scientific issues around the procedure, not the ethics. Regulators are asking scientists to discuss the risks to both the mother and the potential child, and how future studies should be structured, among other questions. The meeting is being closely watched. The science of gene therapy has advanced dramatically in recent years, and many scientists are urging federal regulators to ease requirements for study in humans.

The procedure in question involves mitochondria, the power producers in cells that convert energy to a form cells can use. It replaces mitochondria with defects that could be passed to a fetus with healthy mitochondria from another woman. This is done either before an egg is fertilized, or after.

[hlthe2b]

1. Fear of "designer babies" seems a very real fear...

Technology, despite the best intentions of its developers, seems always to precede consideration of the consequences.

We shall see, I guess.

[Gormy Cuss]

2. Introducing a third source of DNA *is* designing a baby.

That doesn't mean it's without merit. Poorly regulated fertility technology brought us Octomom and other super-multiples where one or more of the children died or was severely compromised as results of their premature births.

I'm guessing technology will be allowed to forge ahead and we'll figure out the consequences later.

[ReverendDeuce]

3. I honestly don't have a problem with it... I actually support this!

This sounds fine to me. I also don't really have a problem with parents being able to select which traits they'd like in their child from their source gene pool.

Science! I love it!

[mike_c]

4. mitochondrial DNA is essentially endosymbiotic anyway....

Adding chloroplasts would be rad, but switching out mitochondria doesn't sound particularly ethically challenging. Mitochodrial DNA is arguably not "your" DNA anyway.

[3catwoman3]

5. Many years ago...

...I took care a mom and baby while in grad school. The woman had a 15 year old son and, unfortunately, had an astonishing number of miscarriages - 11, if memory serves correctly. This final pregnancy did come to term, and the baby had a genetic defect.

i remember thinking that perhaps Mother Nature had been trying to tell her something. Some genes, it seems, are better not passed along.