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from the Kwisatz-Haderach-breeding-program dept.
GungnirSniper writes:
The US Food and Drug Administration is holding hearings to help determine if they should allow oocyte modification of mitochondrial DNA, which could prevent hereditary diseases that cause issues, such as such as seizures and blindness, from being passed on by mothers. In layman's terms, this "three-parent IVF" would allow the mitochondrial DNA of an unaffected woman to replace that of the mother while keeping the main DNA, so the child would still look like the mother and father.
From Scientific American: "Once the mtDNA has been swapped out, the egg could be fertilized in the lab by the father's sperm and the embryo would be implanted back into mom where pregnancy would proceed. The resulting child would be the genetic offspring of the intended mother but would carry healthy mitochondrial genes from the donor."
The New York Times has a shorter version of the story, as well as an opinion column urging ethical and moral consideration of this procedure.
Is this an ethical way to prevent future harm, or the start of a slippery slope to designer babies? Is the creation of designer babies immoral?
(Score: 1) by Barrabas on Friday February 28 2014, @04:22AM
The answer is simple: Perform the operation on a baby who would *already* be subject to such limitations without the procedure.
And as has been pointed out, the value of one life is around one to two million dollars. As a civilization, we could pay for several of those against the possibility of eliminating certain diseases from the species.
Diseases which in themselves burden the civilization with a much higher cost.
You're story-telling response confuses the possibility of something happening with its likelihood. Even if you correct that flaw, it makes no consideration for the relative costs.
Consider it a gambling equation: if it works, we've won the (species) lottery. If it fails, we're out $2.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Friday February 28 2014, @04:33AM
I'm afraid it's not that simple: can't change the DNA (mitochondrial or not) other than in the egg status - once in the embryo status, too many cells to replace that DNA into.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford