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takyon writes:

A National Academy of Medicine (formerly known as the Institute of Medicine) committee has given conditional backing to the use of mitochondrial replacement techniques (MRT). Three-person in vitro fertilisation was approved and legalized in the United Kingdom last year, but has been banned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration since 2001, despite having been used to conceive a patient back in 2000. Mitochondrial replacement is intended to allow a couple to conceive a child, but with healthy mitochondria inserted into the embryo from a female donor:

Would it be ethical for scientists to try to create babies that have genetic material from three different people? An influential panel of experts has concluded the answer could be yes. The 12-member panel, assembled by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, released a 164-page report Wednesday outlining a plan for how scientists could ethically pursue the controversial research. "The committee concludes that it is ethically permissible" to conduct such experiments, the report says, but then goes on to detail a long list of conditions that would have to be met first.

For example, scientists would have to perform extensive preliminary research in the laboratory and with animals to try make sure it is safe. And then researchers should initially try to make only male babies, because they would be incapable of passing their unusual amalgamation of DNA on to future generations. "Minimizing risk to future children should be of highest priority," the committee writes.

The report was requested by the Food and Drug Administration in response to applications by two groups of scientists in New York and Oregon to conduct the experiments. Their goal is to help women have healthy babies even though they come from families plagued by [mitochondrial] genetic disorders.

The PDF of the report, "Mitochondrial Replacement Techniques: Ethical, Social, and Policy Considerations" (DOI: 10.17226/21871) is 8.1 MB and can be downloaded "as guest" with no email confirmation.

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