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| Heather has Two Mommies -- and a Daddy |
| 2005-09-09 |
| Severely trimmed. Critics claim that watchdog has ignored public opinion to approve experiment for which it changed its own rules. British scientists have been given permission to create human embryos that will have three genetic parents. The fertility watchdog cleared a team at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne yesterday to conduct an experiment to prevent genetic disease by merging single-cell embryos with donated eggs. The decision to approve the procedure on appeal, after two previous applications were rejected, is controversial because it could eventually lead to the birth of children who carry genes from two mothers and a father. The licence awarded yesterday by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) allows only experimental use of the technique and not the implantation into a womb of any resultant embryo. The Newcastle team does not envisage applying for permission to conduct such procedures for reproductive purposes until several years of research have shown it to be effective and safe, though the ultimate goal is to employ it to create healthy children. A spokesman for the authority said that after taking expert scientific advice, its appeal committee had been satisfied that the research was permissible under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, and that the experiment was ânecessary and desirableâ to investigate prevention of a serious disease. Professor John Burn, who heads the Newcastle Institute of Clinical Genetics where the work will be performed, said: âI am confident, after debating at length with the team, that this is within both the letter and the spirit of the law. âIt is a debateable issue and I do not want in any sense to diminish its significance, but mitochondria are not part of the genetic material that we consider in a sense makes us as human beings. All their genes do is make mitochondria, and many, many people share the same mitochondrial genomes. âMy belief is that what we are doing is changing a battery that doesnât work for one that does. The analogy is with a camera: changing the battery wonât affect whatâs on the film, and changing the mitochondria wonât affect the important DNA.â Josephine Quintavalle, of the pressure group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said that the ruling set a dangerous precedent. âThis shows once again that the HFEA does not have any regard for public consultation and the views of the public,â she said. Hussein Mehmet, of Imperial College, London, said that the authority had criticised similar research abroad. âThe licence awarded by the HFEA appears to contradict their own point of view,â he said. âSimilar experiments carried out by an American group were frowned upon by the HFEA, although it should be stressed that those experiments were aimed at curing infertility while this research will focus on a special group of muscle diseases called mitochondrial myopathies. Andy Miah, a medical ethicist at Paisley University, said: âMany of the more controversial ethical concerns arise only if we project into the future and imagine that a child were to be born, as a result of this kind of procedure." We're gonna do the partial-birth abortion thingie instead. No ethical problems there. Perhaps I've become a luddite in My old age, but I worry about people who seem to have the "if we can do something, then we should do it, regardless of merits" thinking. Yes, I can understand why they are doing this, and it (if I read it right) isn't really having the second "mother" donate any actual genetic material. But if they try to bring back carnivorous dinosaurs, or make real-life anime cat-girls, I'm going to strap on an explosive vest and... |
| Posted by:Jackal |
| #2 All these Alternatists demanding and working for Socialism and Socialism-based Regulatory Centralism everywhere despite knowing that this same ideo will inevitably force them back into the closet in the name of the ideal Socialist Man-Woman-Family, Deficit spending, and Deficits-led/induced societal Ultra-Conservatism, aka Public Order/Discipline, sub-aka [PC]Legal Slavery where the only thing between the Enslaved Masses and Govt. Thuggists are Uncle Toms and assorted Stool Pidgeons? * PRAVDA: "AT least under Communism Russian citizens were poor but optimistic" - yeah right, its the Party and State that was optimistic cuz they controlled any and all forms of private, local, and national wealth, at best the Russian masses had "State-Controlled/Managed Poverty"!? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2005-09-09 21:46 |
| #1 LOL Jackal! I'm with that! |
| Posted by: ex-lib 2005-09-09 16:55 |