Parliament says yes to three-person babies

[CountDeMoney]

This isn't surrogate parenting, where somebody's carrying around someone else's future snot-nosed little shit;  this introduces genetic alterations at the mitochondrial level.  The issue at hand may be addressing a specific procedure, but it's really the future of prenatal genetic modification Parliament just gave the green light for.

What fears do you have for "genetic alterations at the mitochondrial level?" What is the worst that could happen?

Who said anything about fear?  Why do you hate ethics?

[Sheilbh]

I'm uneasy about this.

Also I think a 90 minute debate about something as ethically difficult as this is a bit of a disgrace.

How can it be ethically difficult? Are you not ok with egg donors for fertility treatments? This is simply an advancement on that, for medical purposes.

I agree with this (pdf) piece on the problems and the motivation. The UK is doing this because we want to keep our position as a 'world leader' in this type of research rather than stay within the international consensus:
http://www.nature.com/polopoly_fs/1.13358%21/menu/main/topColumns/topLeftColumn/pdf/499127a.pdf
And here:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jul/22/three-person-ivf-mitochondria-dna

From everything I've read we're only 6 years into trials on primates, of which there have been few, and we're already authorising it for humans - uniquely in the world.

Ethically I think there are problems with this treatment because it's inheritable. So the issues of potential problems arising from it don't affect just one generation which is bad enough. That also raises the issue of consent, it's present in all genetic treatments that the child can't consent to genetic alterations but in this case the child and their children can't. For me that is a big line to cross, when no other country does it and especially to do so quite so nonchalantly with 90 minutes of debate.

They're also carving out an exception to the UK's rule that egg and sperm donors can't be an anonymous which is, I think, problematic. I support the principle that a person who was born through IVF or other treatments like that have a right to know who the egg and sperm donors were. I don't think there should be an exemption here.

My understanding is also that the mitochondria aren't just 'batteries' but our knowledge of what they do and their role is actually growing and they're more important than previously thought.

And I think the language that's been used is slippery. This isn't a transfer it's a replacement and it's not a cure. People who have these conditions will continue to suffer, it's a genetic treatment that will alter a future person.

All in all if this were any industry but the biomedical, or if it was GSK carrying out the research there'd be a lot more suspicion from people who are currently just cheering this on.

[Sheilbh]

Who cares about mitochondrial DNS? Ain't that just basically the power plant for the cell proper? We inherit it from our mother "unrandomised" anyways, so its not like they are drastically decreasing genetic variaty

Nope:
http://www.cell-symposia-mitochondria-2015.com/

Mitochondria perform diverse, yet interconnected cellular functions and are dynamically regulated by complex signaling pathways.  Interest in this fascinating organelle has recently undergone a renaissance due to a series of discoveries revealing that mitochondrial function goes beyond the generation of molecular fuel. Mitochondria also play a central role in thermogenesis and cell death and influence an organism's physiology, as well as its pathology.  The driving forces behind these discoveries have been in the development of animal models, systems-based approaches, and dynamic imaging techniques and are critical in unravelling the significance and complexity of mitochondrial behavior.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329870.600-possessed-the-powerful-aliens-that-lurk-within-you.html

[Tamas]

Who cares about mitochondrial DNS? Ain't that just basically the power plant for the cell proper? We inherit it from our mother "unrandomised" anyways, so its not like they are drastically decreasing genetic variaty

Nope:
http://www.cell-symposia-mitochondria-2015.com/

Mitochondria perform diverse, yet interconnected cellular functions and are dynamically regulated by complex signaling pathways.  Interest in this fascinating organelle has recently undergone a renaissance due to a series of discoveries revealing that mitochondrial function goes beyond the generation of molecular fuel. Mitochondria also play a central role in thermogenesis and cell death and influence an organism's physiology, as well as its pathology.  The driving forces behind these discoveries have been in the development of animal models, systems-based approaches, and dynamic imaging techniques and are critical in unravelling the significance and complexity of mitochondrial behavior.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329870.600-possessed-the-powerful-aliens-that-lurk-within-you.html

Thanks, it shows my biology studies were quite a while ago.

Still, it is inherited from our mothers and is not "randomised" like "regular" DNA, so I am still not seeing any dangers with this procedure.

[garbon]

So the issues of potential problems arising from it don't affect just one generation which is bad enough. That also raises the issue of consent, it's present in all genetic treatments that the child can't consent to genetic alterations but in this case the child and their children can't.

So? No one not yet born gets to consent ever on matters regarding birth, prenatal care/treatments, whether or not they are actually born, etc.

[CountDeMoney]

So the issues of potential problems arising from it don't affect just one generation which is bad enough. That also raises the issue of consent, it's present in all genetic treatments that the child can't consent to genetic alterations but in this case the child and their children can't.

So? No one not yet born gets to consent ever on matters regarding birth, prenatal care/treatments, whether or not they are actually born, etc.

Never figured you for one of those personhood amendment types.

[Sheilbh]

So? No one not yet born gets to consent ever on matters regarding birth, prenatal care/treatments, whether or not they are actually born, etc.

Yep. It's an ethical problem with all sorts of issues, but I think more so with genetics and even more with inheritable genetic changes.

[garbon]

So the issues of potential problems arising from it don't affect just one generation which is bad enough. That also raises the issue of consent, it's present in all genetic treatments that the child can't consent to genetic alterations but in this case the child and their children can't.

So? No one not yet born gets to consent ever on matters regarding birth, prenatal care/treatments, whether or not they are actually born, etc.

Never figured you for one of those personhood amendment types.

I'm not. I don't see it as an ethical problem as consent seems like it has been historically irrelevant in all those situations.

[Tamas]

So? No one not yet born gets to consent ever on matters regarding birth, prenatal care/treatments, whether or not they are actually born, etc.

Yep. It's an ethical problem with all sorts of issues, but I think more so with genetics and even more with inheritable genetic changes.

"Not interfering" with "natural" genetics, when taken to its (kind of logical) extreme is the basis for the must cruel fascism, like euthanising mentally challenged people or not helping people with inherited disabilities/problems.

Extreme customisation of the DNAs of embryos I guess could result in long term risks to the species, but this procedure is not even close to doing that, and even if we get to the point where the majority of a country's citizens will be able to cherry pick the genes of their offspring (which has to be hundreds if not thousands of years from now), we will still have 15 other billion people in poorer parts of the world happy to take over once a new sickness eradicates the Cloned Blond People Nation.

We CANNOT let fear of the new stop us from helping those who need it.
For all the misfortune and suffering the 20th century caused, its only redeeming quality is the unparalelled technological advance which has been translating into making people healthier and giving them better chances at life. This process must be maintained and made quicker, not slowed down or stopped because "its not how we used to do things".

[Sheilbh]

There are alternatives such as genetic screening, abortion, IVF treatment. I don't think there's necessarily a right to have a baby that's biologically yours.

I also don't think the UK should necessarily be a rogue state in biomedical research on treatments that have only been tested in primates in the past six years. It seems to me longer time would be better and broader support from the global scientific community would be useful.

And there are legitimate safety concerns from the lack of testing done so far:

Evolutionary theory predicts a mismatch between the DNA in the donor's mitochondria and the mother's nuclear DNA, with potentially serious and unpredictable consequences for any embryo created using MR, an issue my colleagues and I wrote about last year. When MR is carried out experimentally, it has been shown to alter the metabolism and cognitive ability of mice. In other species it results in male sterility, reduced survival, accelerated ageing and changes the expression of many hundreds of genes. But there is a lack of data from species more closely related to humans – a gap in our knowledge that we felt would be wise to fill before proceeding to clinical trials.

The problem of mismatching arises because of the peculiar way mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is inherited through mothers only, giving an opportunity every generation for the mtDNA and some of her nuclear DNA to be passed on together. This allows natural selection, nature's quality control mechanism, to weed out combinations of interacting mitochondrial and nuclear DNA that are not compatible with one another. Over long evolutionary timescales within populations, the two genomes will become matched or "coadapted" to one another. MR breaks these coadapted genomes apart, giving rise to a range of damaging effects. The particular design of the experiments needed to detect mismatching is especially important. They usually involve manipulating several distinct mitochondrial types and making observations in many individuals. Without these features the ability to detect mismatching is poor. So while demonstrations that MR is technically feasible (with the production of four macaques in 2009), it is not sufficient to rule out the possibility that the kinds of effects seen in other species will not be found in primates or humans.

Given that research is actually suggesting new and more important roles for mitochnodria and there's been a very short space of primate testing for an inheritable genetic alteration I think it'd be best to err on the side of caution and not produce children - who must be monitored all the lives and whose children must be monitored - for the sake of being a 'world leader' in biomedical research. Especially if any of those defects in other species actually appear - and we don't know because we've not given enough time to continue to test on primates before we've approved it for human tests.

[Tamas]

Given that research is actually suggesting new and more important roles for mitochnodria and there's been a very short space of primate testing for an inheritable genetic alteration I think it'd be best to err on the side of caution and not produce children - who must be monitored all the lives and whose children must be monitored - for the sake of being a 'world leader' in biomedical research. Especially if any of those defects in other species actually appear - and we don't know because we've not given enough time to continue to test on primates before we've approved it for human tests.

I understand your position, it might be valid, but I disagree. The potential benefits of advancing genetic engineering are limitless in making this a better world. And I doubt the current vast knowledge of medicine and treating people of sickness and injuries came about without experimentation and mistakes made along the way, yet we keep it improving and benefiting the species.

[sbr]

Given that research is actually suggesting new and more important roles for mitochnodria and there's been a very short space of primate testing for an inheritable genetic alteration I think it'd be best to err on the side of caution and not produce children - who must be monitored all the lives and whose children must be monitored - for the sake of being a 'world leader' in biomedical research. Especially if any of those defects in other species actually appear - and we don't know because we've not given enough time to continue to test on primates before we've approved it for human tests.

I understand your position, it might be valid, but I disagree. The potential benefits of advancing genetic engineering are limitless in making this a better world. And I doubt the current vast knowledge of medicine and treating people of sickness and injuries came about without experimentation and mistakes made along the way, yet we keep it improving and benefiting the species.

No one is suggesting they stop the research.  They just don't want to use the procedure on humans until more research is done, which I can't disagree with when talking about an inheritable procedure.

[crazy canuck]

It seems a very small step from saying we should swap out the mitochondria of a mother with a donor for the health of the child to saying we should begin to alter the DNA for the health of a child.  The decision has the feel of a very bright line being crossed.

[Tamas]

It seems a very small step from saying we should swap out the mitochondria of a mother with a donor for the health of the child to saying we should begin to alter the DNA for the health of a child.  The decision has the feel of a very bright line being crossed.

The alternative is saying "we could help you, but instead we are letting you die"

[CountDeMoney]

The alternative is saying "we could help you, but instead we are letting you die"

Actually, that's not the alternative at all, as garbon intimated that we're dealing with gene therapy with an entity that cannot give consent.