PARIS (AFP) -- Doctors in France on Monday announced the country's first birth of a "savior sibling," selected at the embryonic stage to be a close genetic match to save a brother or sister suffering from a fatal inherited disorder.
The baby was born at the Antoine Beclere Hospital in Clamart, in the suburbs of Paris, said doctors Rene Frydman and Arnold Munnich.
The child, born to parents of Turkish origin and named Umut-Talha (Turkish for "our hope"), was conceived through in-vitro fertilization and was born on January 26 with a weight of 3.65 kilos (8.03 pounds), they said.
"He is in good health," Frydman told AFP.
The child's embryo was genetically selected to ensure he did not carry the gene for beta thalassemia, from which his siblings suffer, but was also a close enough match to provide treatment cells from umbilical cord blood, a rich source of stem cells.
Beta thalassemia produces an abnormal form of hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells which carries oxygen around the body. It causes destruction of red blood cells, which in turn leads to anemia.
The world's first "savior sibling" was Adam Nash, born in the United States in 2000.
The issue has been hedged with moral concerns about so-called designer babies and the morality of conceiving life to help a child with a genetic disorder. As the parent of a child with a genetic disorder I don't understand this last part. So long as the savior sibling isn't destined be harvested for organs (and I don't think some blood cells count), what's the moral issue? Most children instinctively want to help their siblings. Continued on Page 47
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Well I a pretty sure having your bone marrow aspirated from your femurs, and transplanted to the other sibling might be OK for you, I guess, Secret Master.
Posted by: Mr. Bill ||
02/08/2011 22:34 Comments ||
Top||
One aspect not generally understood, is that most Presidents in the third world get 5% of the government budget as a "personal allowance".
There is no check on how this money is spent, nor is the president required to present details on his spending. It can be worth a lot of money after 30 years, especially if invested "wisely" in first world countries.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon has said the Egyptian president lent him and his family a plane during a holiday in Egypt at Christmas.
Hosni Mubarak, who is facing widespread anti-government protests, also paid for Mr Fillon's holiday accommodation.
How...generous. This is how the elites of the world take care of each other. Peasants need not apply.
Another French minister has said she used a Tunisian businessman's plane during the country's uprising. Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, who has faced calls to resign, said she deeply regretted her actions.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
