New embryo test to screen for 6,000 diseases

The Guardian ^ | June 19, 2006 | Ian Sample

[neverdem]

British fertility specialists have developed a powerful new way to test embryos for inherited diseases, offering hundreds of couples their first realistic chance of having healthy children. The procedure has been hailed as a big advance, boosting the number of diseases clinics can test for from about 200 to nearly 6,000. It will allow doctors to test for the first time a vast array of inherited diseases for which the specific genetic mutation is not known, such as Duchenne's muscular dystrophy (DMD) and some forms of cystic fibrosis. Using the technique, doctors can examine every embryo created for a couple through IVF, and determine whether each is healthy and unaffected, a carrier of the disease, or destined to develop the full-blown medical condition.

Such detailed knowledge of the genetic make-up of embryos will lead to a radical shift in the way couples at risk of passing on certain diseases are treated.

Some inherited conditions, known as x-linked diseases, are only passed on to boys, but because the mutations that cause the diseases are unknown, clinics can only screen them out by discarding every male embryo created, even if only half are affected. The new test will allow doctors to see which male embryos are free of the disease-causing mutation, so fewer embryos will be wasted. In some cases, the test will allow doctors the controversial option of asking couples to choose the sex of the embryos that are transplanted.

"This is a big, big change in what we are going to be able to do. It changes everything," said Professor Peter Braude of King's College London, who was involved in the research. Specialists at Guy's hospital in London have already used the technique to "cherry pick" healthy embryos for seven women at risk of passing on inherited diseases. Five of...

[Dr. Scarpetta]

Unbelievable

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

We have been screwing our gene pool for a long time now, building up bad traits that were "supposed" to kill people in the past.

Hitler could have saved himself a lot of bad press.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

good grief, will we abort babies now that have the dandruff gene?

Simpler to abort everybody and be done with it. No child left behind.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

They'll be isolating the "pretty" genes next.

More of us ugly moe foe than you.

[cpforlife.org]

"...a diagnosis must not be the equivalent of a death sentence."

2274 Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being. Prenatal diagnosis is morally licit, "if it respects the life and integrity of the embryo and the human fetus and is directed toward its safe guarding or healing as an individual. . . . It is gravely opposed to the moral law when this is done with the thought of possibly inducing an abortion, depending upon the results: a diagnosis must not be the equivalent of a death sentence." http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt3sect2chpt2art5.htm#2274

[bannie]

I have kind parents: They'd have kept me anyway.

I was the fifth, so I know that I wasn't on their "to do" list! They kept me with that in mind: I'm sure they would have kept me through "ugly"!

;-)

[I'm ALL Right!]

Huxley would be proud.

[Nitro]

Thank you Mrs. Krabapple.