Note to our readers: This article is very disturbing and violates every moral and ethical standard in our society, not to mention the Will of God. Terry Noble
By Rob Stein, National Public Radio
Editor's note: This post was updated Feb. 3, 2016, at 12:25 pm to include a statement from the Food and Drug Administration and a comment from Mark Sauer.
Would it be ethical for scientists to try to create babies that have genetic material from three different people? An influential panel of experts has concluded the answer could be yes.
The 12-member panel, assembled by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, released a 164-page report Wednesday outlining a plan for how scientists could ethically pursue the controversial research.
"The committee concludes that it is ethically permissible" to conduct such experiments, the report says, but then goes on to detail a long list of conditions that would have to be met first.
For example, scientists would have to perform extensive preliminary research in the laboratory and with animals to try to make sure it is safe. And then researchers should initially try to make only male babies, because they would be incapable of passing their unusual amalgamation of DNA on to future generations.
"Minimizing risk to future children should be of highest priority," the committee writes.
The report was requested by the Food and Drug Administration in response to applications by two groups of scientists in New York and Oregon to conduct the experiments. Their goal is to help women have healthy babies even though they come from families plagued by genetic disorders.
A statement issued by the FDA immediately after the report's release raised questions about whether the FDA would permit the research to move forward.
Read statement from FDA: http://krwg.org/post/
I read the attached statement. Sounds like they want to experiment but really don't know what will happen.
ReplyDeleteWhat of alternatives...such as children from the "snowflake" program? I think those were unclaimed fertilized embryos or perhaps they were made available by families who had created more fertilized embryos than they could use???
Have any animal experiments been done? How many generations have they tracked?
And I have to ask my "conspiracy" question...Is the idea to create a designer child that looks like a couple made of two born-women (two XX chromosome carriers to be precise) or that looks like a couple made of two born-men (two XY chromosome carriers) with the bare minimum DNA etc. from the born-opposide third donor?