และข่าวต่อไปนี้เป็นข่าวต่อเนื่องจากข้างต้น
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Watchdog to review designer baby ban
By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent
(Filed: 17/07/2004)
The fertility watchdog is expected to provoke bitter controversy next week by relaxing the regulations governing so-called designer babies.
It is considering allowing parents to screen IVF embryos solely for "desirable characteristics" and not just to weed out serious genetic diseases.
The review by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority follows pressure from parents who want to combine IVF and genetic screening techniques to create babies whose umbilical cord blood could save the life of a sick sibling.
Dr Mohammed Taranissi, a leading fertility doctor who was invited by the authority to submit a test case licence application for the technique, said yesterday: "I have been told informally that they are very likely to change their minds."
Ethics and legal experts at the authority are understood to be keen for a change. They believe that existing policy, which allows some couples to create donor siblings using IVF but bans others, is inconsistent.
However, anti-abortion campaigners argue that a U-turn would open the door to a disturbing new era of eugenics.
The decision is expected at a time when the future of the authority is in doubt. John Reid, the Health Secretary, will announce next week whether it is to be scrapped in a cull of health quangos.
If the rules are relaxed, the first couple to benefit could be Joe and Julie Fletcher of Moira, Northern Ireland. Their two-year-old son, Joshua, suffers from the blood disorder Diamond-Blackfan anaemia and needs a transplant of stem cells from a matching donor.
Dr Taranissi has applied for permission to screen embryos created during IVF so that the couple"s next child will be a suitable donor.
Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD, on embryos is strictly regulated and, the authority says, must be used primarily for screening for serious genetic disease.
In a 2002 landmark case, it agreed that the Hashmi family, from Leeds, could use PGD to create a donor sibling for their son who suffered from the inherited blood disease thalassaemia. But soon afterwards it ruled that the same technique could not be used to help the Whitakers, from Bicester, Oxon, whose son, like Joshua Fletcher, suffered from Diamond-Blackfan anaemia.
It argued that the Hashmis" case was different: the primary reason for screening was to ensure that the embryo was free from disease and the tissue match test was an "add on". With the Whitakers there was no benefit to the embryo, just a hypothetical risk from the gene test.
Dr Taranissi, of the Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre in London, said the fertility authority"s logic was flawed.
"They have argued that in the Hashmi case there is a benefit to the embryo," he said. "But if you look at it carefully, there is not.
"In the Hashmi case, if you find a normal embryo you are still not going to use it unless it is match for the brother. So the main aim of doing the test is still to find a match."
Dr Taranissi said there was no scientific evidence that PGD was harmful.
"There are always hypothetical risks. If you want to use the unknown risk argument, you could apply it to everything."
A spokesman for the authority confirmed that proposals to permit more embryo screening were being discussed on Wednesday.
"The authority has been presented with the latest evidence and given several options," she said. "But at this stage we do not know what decision will be made."
Some members argue that the present law is confusing and incoherent. Others are concerned that a change in the rules could be seen as the "commodification of life".
Although the public may be sympathetic towards the creation of donor babies to treat small children, selecting babies to treat diseases in parents, grandparents or aunts and uncles could be another matter.
Jack Scarisbrick, of the anti-abortion group Life, said: "All screening is morally unacceptable. It is discriminating against life that is regarded as less than prefect.
"Children should be accepted absolutely for what they are in themselves and not for what use they can be put to."
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comment ของกลุ่ม anti-abortion ตอนท้ายสุดนี่น่าสนใจ ตกลงถ้าเรา "มีทางรักษา" แต่ถ้าทางรักษานั้นต้อง "รู้ก่อน" ว่าเป็นจะใช้ได้หรือไม่? การที่เด็กพิการแต่กำเนิดนั้นเป็น certain fate อย่างเดียวเท่านั้นจริงหรือ? การแพทย์ที่ผ่านมาก็เป็นการ challenge กับ natural causes of death มาโดยตลอด ไม่ว่าจะเป็นสมัยติดเชื้อ คลอดลูกตาย อวัยวะล้มเหลวที่เข้ามาสู่การทำปลูกถ่ายอวัยวะ หรือ hypothetically organ cloning
Posted by : Phoenix , Date : 2004-07-17 , Time : 09:55:50 , From IP : 172.29.3.213
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