'Three people, one baby' consultation begins

The Human Fertilisation Embryology Authority (HFEA) has launched a public consultation on the ethics of new IVF-based techniques designed to avoid serious mitochondrial diseases. Unlike other techniques, this would only benefit a small, select group of couples. However it would enable these couples to have a healthy child and future generations of the family would also be free from the genetic fault.

“Around 1 in 200 children are born each year with a form of mitochondrial disease. Some children have mild or no symptoms but others can be severely affected and have a shortened life expectancy. Symptoms include muscle weakness, intestinal disorders and heart disease.”

Mitochondria are passed onto a child from the mother’s egg only, and not father’s sperm. The basic idea behind the technique is to add a donors healthy mitochondria to the mix. This can be done in one of two ways, by using a donor embryo containing healthy mitochondria or a donor egg with healthy mitochondria.

These two techniques are summarised here on the BBC, take a look because it includes useful diagrams too! 

Research into the area is legal in the UK however it cannot be used in patients; scientists in Newcastle have created 80 embryos using the technique. A scientific review released last year concluded that there were no safety concerns that should prevent the technique being used in couples.

Any child born using the technique would be born with DNA from three people (as mitochondria contain their own genes in their own DNA), albeit the amount of donor DNA would be very small. This genetic modification to the “germ line” would be permanent and passed down from generation to generation.

It is largely this aspect that raises the ethics and many questions must be thought about, for example:

- Could the technique be exploited and modified to create “designer babies?

-How would a child born through this technique feel? Consequently when should they told? 

-What effect would it have on the parents?

-What is the status of the female donor?

Finally would you feel differently about the issue if your child was a sufferer of the disease? The HFEA will now act as an independent regulator “to seek public views on whether these techniques should be made available to couples at risk of having an affected child.”