U.S. fertility treatment may raise ethical concerns but no 'horror show': AMA
Chair of the AMA's Ethics Committee, Dr Trevor Mudge, has raised ethical concerns about a fertility treatment being used in the United States but has rejected claims that the technique is producing 'designer babies'.
The treatment involves injecting an egg with some of the cell content of a younger donor egg in an attempt to improve the pregnancy rate.
Dr Mudge said the treatment should be carefully monitored by ethics authorities worldwide.
"As far as we know, this technique does not change the genetic makeup of an embryo. The DNA is being injected into the cell's cytoplasm, outside the nucleus of the cell, so it is not changing the make-up of that cell," Dr Mudge said.
He said, however, the treatment was only experimental at this stage and no-one could be one hundred per cent sure of its effect.
"If you're going to modify the gene of an adult - which we currently do with gene therapy to cure certain diseases - that's okay because it stops there and the only effect is on that individual.
"But if you're modifying the genes of an embryo - germline therapy - then you are modifying the genes of all of that future child's children. And if there are any untoward effects, you can't undo them," Dr Mudge said.
"The AMA certainly has serious ethical concerns about such therapy, as would every ethics committee in the land. It has yet to be seen if this technique being used in the US is a type of germline therapy."
Dr Mudge said it was incorrect to describe the therapy as producing 'designer babies'.
"This is no horror show. These are nice, normal little kids and they, in turn, are likely to have nice, normal little kids. They are not genetically modified.
"While they do have DNA from a third party, as far as we know that DNA does not change their genetic makeup. This is simply another step in the IVF process," he said.
CONTACT: Sarah Bucknell (02) 6270 5472 / (0419) 440 076