Is This the Kind of Genetic Regulation You Want?

Ronald Bailey | May 5, 2006

Britain's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has generously issued a license to a couple allowing them to use pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and IVF to produce a sibling genetically matched to their 20-month old daughter, Charlotte. Charlotte is suffering from a type of anemia caused by a genetic defecf which can be cured by infusing umbilical cord stem cells from a genetically matched donor. In a sense this is good news because the bureaujcrats at the HFEA previously forbade this procedure and Britons had to come to the U.S. in order to obtain this type of treatment.

Fortunately, parents in the United States do not yet have to seek permission from federal bureaucrats for such medical treatments.

Comments

|5.7.06 @ 9:34PM|#

I wonder how the "genetically selected" child will feel about this. The knowledge that they were created as a cure for their sibling will likely have some effect, positive or negative. Sibling rivalry will never be the same.

I can't say that I really care much about this, but no post should go without at least one comment.