The first baby born using a technique that implants the nucleus of an egg from the mother into an egg cell from a donor is now five months old - and healthy.
The technique is not some kind of weird vanity thing - it's designed to allow women who have mitochondrial faults (in this case Leigh syndrome) to have children. Leigh syndrome is fatal - the mother involved had already lost two children.
I can't be opposed to something that allows somebody to have healthy children that do not suffer - although I agree that we should be cautious and make sure that the technique doesn't produce unhealthy children.
But hopefully there will be lots more families taking advantage of this. (Again, it's not a vanity thing - the only alternative for women with these problems until now was to use donor eggs).
No comments:
Post a Comment