UK May Create '3-Parent-Babies' to Help Eradicate Potentially Deadly Generational Diseases

With Parliament's blessing, Britain may be the first nation in the world to allow a controversial IVF technique that can create embryos with DNA from three people in an attempt to rid some affected families of serious genetic disorders. In fact, this "germ-line gene therapy" would provide a chance to eradicate serious inherited disease seen in some generations of families.

According to the Government's Chief Medical Officer, Dame Sally Davies, this legislation to allow the use of mitochondrial replacement could be passed by Parliament at the end of next year with the first IVF babies resulting from the technique being born within two years, according to The Independent.

"What we are starting to do now is to develop the regulations, consult on these regulations and then to take them into Parliament... I hope then to go forward and we'll be the first country if we do," Davies said yesterday, via the news organization.

Davies said that inherited defects within the mitochondria affect about one in 6,500 people, who usually suffer from mild symptoms involving these health conditions. However, some cases see five and 10 babies a year with severe disease or deformities, whose lives could possibly be transformed with this new technique.

"Mitochondrial disease, including heart disease, liver disease, loss of muscle co-ordination and other serious conditions like muscular dystrophy, can have a devastating impact on the people who inherit it," she said. "People who have it live with debilitating illness, and women who are affected face passing it on to their children. Scientists have developed ground-breaking new procedures which could stop these diseases being passed on."

With the passing of this new technique, it would involve the transfer of the nuclear material of an affected mother's egg cell into the donor egg of an unaffected woman, whose healthy mitochondria would then be passed on to the IVF baby, according to researchers.

However, some controversial concerns stemming from the treatments are that the children born from the technique will not be given the right to know the identity of the women who donated the eggs, as she will not officially be recognized as a parent.

Regardless of some ethical concerns, the overall technique is receiving widespread support, and health experts hope to continue with arrangements to move forward.