...
News emerged last night of a new technique for avoiding mitochondrial disease. From what I can tell, the technique looks like a version of Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer, and it involves removing the nucleus from a fertilised egg and placing it into an enucleated donor egg. Doing this means that any problems with the mitochondria in the original egg can be sidestepped.

It also means that, in essence, the resultant baby would have three biological parents, inasmuch as it would be the product of three distinct gametes.

The HFE Act 2008 would seem to allow room for the use of the technique without a substantial change in the law; although it forbids the implantation of an egg or embryo the genetic material of which has been altered, there is leeway granted in respect of mitochondrial disease:
Regulations may provide that—

(a) an egg can be a permitted egg, or

(b) an embryo can be a permitted embryo,

even though the egg or embryo has had applied to it in prescribed circumstances a prescribed process designed to prevent the transmission of serious mitochondrial disease.
(I'm willing to be corrected in my understanding by any lawyers who happen to be reading this; but from what I can make out, the law as it stands requires alterations to the regulations rather than new legislation.)

The procedure, it seems to me, ought to be welcomed - and welcomed pretty unequivocally, and for obvious reasons. However, the media have felt the need to dig out at least some dissenting voices. The BBC's dissenter of choice is Donald Bruce, whose background is in chemistry and theology, but who still apparently counts as an "ethics expert", having been "former director of the Society, Religion and Technology Project of the Church of Scotland".

He says that "the research raise[s] important ethical issues as well as potential risks".
"If the Newcastle results are taken forward to medical application, they need to be applied under very strict controls, and only where serious disease is otherwise likely to result."

The work raised several ethical problems, he explained, including safety risks, children with DNA from two mothers, and making genetic changes to unborn children.
This looks to me like his standard response to just about anything, and there's a range of canards there, all of which are very easily dealt with.

First, the safety risks. It is, of course, possible that there are big risks with the technique. There are risks with all medical interventions, and arguably more known unknowns and unknown unknowns with new interventions. That, of course, is not a reason to hinder them, and it's not a reason to hinder this, either. At most, it's a reason to take care - which is exactly what we'd want anyway.

Besides, we wouldn't use the technique simply for the hell of it anyway. It's only an option when there's a serious chance of a catastrophic illness. So even if there are dangers with the technique, these have to be balanced against the dangers of natural conception that risks the illness. That is: even if (for the nonce) the technique is dangerous, it doesn't follow that it's the most dangerous option.

(On this point, Sky quotes Alison Murdoch, who seems to be right on the money: "They have to decide whether to have no children or go on getting pregnant and having babies that die because they are abnormal, or they could take a risk on a new treatment that we know can virtually eliminate mitochondrial disease." That is to say, the real ethical problem has to do with not exploiting the opportunities presented by the technique.)

I don't understand why "children with DNA from two mothers" is a worry - I have DNA from countless millions of mothers, right back to my last common ancestor with a jar of Marmite. Moreover, mitochondrial DNA mutates very slowly anyway, so my mitochondria are likely to be pretty much the same as those from a lrge tranche of humanity - and Indo-European humanity espcecially. And, anyway: who cares? I mean, seriously: why on Earth is anyone bothered by the provenance of a person's genes? My relationship with my parents has to do with them having played a major part in my formation; and though I can trace certain of my traits to one or the other of them - height from my mother, the "Whimster gap" between my front teeth to my father, hair from Satan himself - to suggest that genetics does or ought to make the blindest difference to that relationship is pretty much incomprehensible: it misses just about everything that's important in human interaction.

Finally, Bruce is simply wrong about making genetic changes to unborn children. First, it's not obvious why we shouldn't make such changes, and so, until he says more, I think we're entitled to find his claim a bit paltry. Second, though, it's stretching things a bit to equate a newly-fertilised egg with a child. Though the cell contains DNA that will produce a child, that's not the same by a long shot. For one thing, it'll also produce the placenta, so unless you think that the placenta has the same status as a child, it's hard to see how the fertilised egg does simply by virtue of genetic identity. Third - which follows from this - a single blood cell from an adult contains all the DNA to recreate them. Yet a blood cell doesn't have the same moral status as a person. Ditto the undifferentiated cell being referred to here. Finally, persons count; but I'm not so sure about humans qua humans, or human cells qua human. Bruce seems to ignore that important metaphysical distinction.

So much for Donald Bruce. The coverage in the Mail is surprisingly good, all things considered; however, they wheel out Josephine Quintavalle as their token Jeremiah, and her comment is even more empty-headed than Bruce's, complaining that it's a step toward reproductive cloning (which it isn't at all, given that the nucleus is fertilised from, er, two parents - but, anyway: is reproductive cloning so bad?), and that
We know very little about the beginning of life and it is extraordinary how willing we are to break down one of the most obvious barriers, which is that it takes a sperm and an egg to create an embryo. We have got to find better ways to cure these diseases.
This just makes me think that Quintavalle has no idea at all of what she's talking about, and - like Bruce - has a very small stock of statements that she tries to stick to a wide range of situations. I'll keep an eye on the CORE website, though, to see if anything more substantial appears.

(Incidentally, I am amused by the number of comments left on the Mail's site complaining that the technique is unnatural. Comments left by people by means of a series of devices that allow near-enough real-time interaction with potentially millions of people, potentially over thousands of kilometres. Yeah. Damn that unnaturalness.)

The Independent gives reasonable coverage (albeit via a Press Association re-hash), with no brain-dribble from nay-sayers (though I'll keep my eye on the columnists over the next few days). The same applies to The Times and the Telegraph and The Guardian. (Actually, come to think of it, all their stories are pretty much identical, which is pretty damning: it suggests that all they do is change the byline of the press-release. At least the Indy had the decency to say that that's what it's doing.)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 12:50, 7 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

I like eggs.

( Noeli overtheshoulderboulderholderthingstraplatchboobs, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 12:51, Reply)

I like eggs sunny side up.
On Toast. Egad!
(Poppet some assembly required., Thu 15 Apr 2010, 12:55, Reply)

I'm so hungry now

( Kitty v1.0 desperately naive, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 13:00, Reply)

Me too.
Now I'm torn between eggs or a cheese and tomato sandwich with dijon mustard.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 13:02, Reply)

cheese and tomato
with mustard. It's the way forward

Edit: though really you should be careful. You don't want your baby born addicted to mustard? DO YOU?
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 13:03, Reply)

I'll grab some DNA from a paedo, it'll be fine

( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 13:05, Reply)

Then your kid
will touch up other kids. Paedo kid
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 13:09, Reply)

For the Nonce?

(PsychoChomp, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 12:54, Reply)

tl;dr
synopsis?
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 12:55, Reply)

something about nonces

(PsychoChomp, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 12:56, Reply)

BAN THIS SICK FILTH
Will no one [or noone, as Enyme prefers to spell it] think of the children?
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 12:59, Reply)

The former lead singer of Hermans Hermits doesn't think about kids
he's not a peado.
(Bazongaloid, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 13:01, Reply)

Good lad.

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 15:20, Reply)

but think of the range of baby clothes that can now say
"I love my mummies and daddy"
( Kitty v1.0 desperately naive, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 13:01, Reply)

and a postscript
on the back saying 'but not Uncle Jimmy :('
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 13:03, Reply)

haha

( Kitty v1.0 desperately naive, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 13:11, Reply)

I think the problem is some people are thinking about the children too much.

(PsychoChomp, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 13:02, Reply)

PEADO SPAM!

(Bazongaloid, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 13:03, Reply)

haha and Enzyme was expecting a mature and interesting debate

( Kitty v1.0 desperately naive, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 13:04, Reply)

SPAM! for Enzymes blog

(Bazongaloid, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 13:03, Reply)

Nice response
from what I've read though, the kneejerk naysayers are approaching from an ethical angle of potential consequences i.e. 'designer babies.' More than anything it demonstrates a lack of understanding of basic genetics, but you can understand that the way it is reported is nowhere near enough in depth to reassure these people
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 12:57, Reply)

Most people
don't know enough about science to understand it fully. Therefore they are afraid of it.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 13:00, Reply)

That's why I'm afraid of you

( Kitty v1.0 desperately naive, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 13:03, Reply)

BOO!

( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 13:51, Reply)

But you also have to think that there's something problematic about "designer babies".
I don't think that there really is.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 13:26, Reply)

Leaving aside my own beliefs
and approaching it from objectors view points, their main problem is that potentially there could be no restrictions. An example I've heard is that of a deaf couple who want their baby to be born deaf. Obviously those are extremes, but people who partake in these debates don't generally want reasoned opposition and it's all part and parcel in their mind
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 13:34, Reply)

Yep: the deaf couple case is frequently touted.
They were lesbian, and wanted IVF using sperm from a genetically deaf father to maximise the chances of having a deaf child.

That's fine by me.

(Look at it this way: they could have had sex with him and conceived a deaf child naturally. Unless you're willing to say that genetically deaf people shouldn't be allowed to reproduce with other genetically deaf people, it's hard to see what the objection could be. The future child won't be harmed, since this arrangement of this sperm and this egg is the only chance it has of coming to exist to begin with.)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 14:16, Reply)

I think
that consciously trying to have a deaf child is more than a mite selfish on the part of the prospective parents. It's not a million miles away from deliberately trying to have a Downs baby - why the fuck would you WANT your child to be missing a sense?
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 15:25, Reply)

They had several reasons.
I happen to think they weren't strong, but they weren't insane either; and since noone was harmed by being created deaf - since the alternative was not to be created at all - where's the problem?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 16:06, Reply)

Just to wade in with my own ad-hoc "reckon":
(Very good, by the way, I enjoyed reading that)
I think the sticky point with "designer babies" is more of an emotional one than anything ethical. Amberl raises a good point about the extreme cases, but even in more moderate cases, presumably most people would go as far as tweaking the genes so that their child could be tall, intelligent and good-looking. Apart from starting to sound a bit eugenic, this also has the implication that the child grows up knowing that they were tailored to their parents' desires, when surely it's healthier for the parents to love the random* phenotype they ended up with, and for the child to know that it is loved by its parents no matter what.

As for the bit about your parents' genes and the relationship you have with them - isn't there an increasing body of evidence that some personality traits can be inherited? Obviously this is going to pale in comparison to the environmental influences on our personalities, but it suggests you can't entirely rule out genetic influence**. Not that swapping somebody's mitochondria is likely to have much effect on this either way, which I suppose is your point.

*_{Well, pseudo-random, I suppose...
**See also Dawkins' Selfish Gene argument, which - if I read it correctly - suggests that animals are naturally more altruistic towards individuals to whom they are closely related due to some instinct arising from the genome's drive to preserve and replicate itself.}
(LongJohnBaldry, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 14:32, Reply)

Well, I don't see anything wrong with eugenics per se.
Forced eugenics is a bad idea; forced sterilisation is a bad idea. But it's the force that carries the moral weight here.

As for choosing desired characteristics - well, I suppose that a child could equally well think it a good thing that its parents put some thought into how it'd turn out rather than as the result of a drunken accident. Better that than to discover that they could have prevented a terrible illness but didn't. More likely, I suspect most kids simply wouldn't care. Why should they?

The worries you articulate have more to do with bad parenting than reproductive technology, I'd've thought; but since you can be naturally a bad parent, the technology doesn't seem to count for much.

As for inherited personality traits: well, there's all kinds of epigenetic oddness possible. But you'd get that either way, so why worry?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 15:14, Reply)

I fail to see the problem with drunken accidents.

( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 16:11, Reply)

There isn't one, as far as I can see.
Though I do know people who think that there's an obligation to conceive by IVF and screen to ensure the best possible child by some standard.

The point is that, if you're going to argue that a child might resent having been designed, you could equally well argue in exactly the other direction.

You don't have to endorse either view to make the argument and endorse its formal validity.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 16:29, Reply)

^ I read the subject line and when I got to "The point is" I skipped the rest

( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 16:53, Reply)

I'm trying to think of any logical reason for not choosing desired characteristics
But I think the closest I can come up with as that, when it comes to choosing superficial characteristics, people will be trying to give their child an advantage but their well-meaning choices will be subject to whatever fashions are dictating to be 'attractive.' And if we start homogenising our phenotypes further, we start to take a bite out of the wonderful natural variability of the species. Now of course I realise that there are far more important genes which would be overlooked in such a process, but one of our best defences against a sudden change in circumstances is that, due to how naturally varied we are, at least a few of us would serendipitously be kitted out to survive it. I'm really clutching at straws here, I'm just trying to somehow extend the same idea with which I would discourage mothers from sterilising their baby's environment lest it contain any bacteria - i.e., there's a perfectly good natural system in place already for dealing with it. But maybe I'm just trying to find reasons to rail against the idea of engineering your sprog to be tall, blonde and gorgeous when really I just think it would encourage us to be even more shallow than we already are.

And of course, if you're picking the genes for less shallow reasons, then I can't argue with the idea of editing out hereditary disease - it's surely better for all concerned from a human point of view. Similarly your point about people being naturally bad parents* is perfectly right - in some ways it's a shame we don't have the technology to amend that.

*_{"Parenting" was always a horrible but recently-accepted verb that I always disliked. Oh well, too late for this qotw now...}
(LongJohnBaldry, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 16:17, Reply)

I don't buy that people have such a homogeneous set of desires, though.
Even if everyone chose blond, blue-eyed kids - and why is it always that? - there'd still be a metric fuckton of variation between them.

I do accept that being that picky might be a sign of distinctly iffy parenting skills, but - again - that shifts the emphasis to being a better or worse parent. And since the picky parents would still be better than some, and since even bad parents tend, on balance, to be (just about) good enough, it's not obvious that the danger's great.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 16:33, Reply)

BLOG SPAM!

(Bazongaloid, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 13:03, Reply)

Butbutbut
a fertilized egg is a person! Messing with its DNA is a sin! You're killing babies! WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN??!!!!11!

The question I always want to ask these fuckwits is, wouldn't it be better to reduce overall human suffering? Isn't preventing a lifetime of pain more important than a couple of cells that might grow up to be the next Vicki Pollard?

As a layman it sounds to me like it's nowhere near cloning, or particularly dangerous to the baby or the parents. It sounds to me like a promising treatment.

For those who object to treating diseases... well, maybe they shouldn't go to the hospital when they're sick or injured, as it's God's will that their appendix is swelling up inside them and about to spew fecal matter all through their abdomen.
( Wanderer, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 14:19, Reply)

Clear thinking as usual.
There is (at least) one other dimension to the 'safety' aspect of applying new procedures. It may go awry at first - and Bruce will be quick to scorn - but the greater understanding acquired will create the desired solution.
As for mixing DNA, well I've stirred that pot myself!

What really galls is the way Theology slips in the door when Ethics enters the debate. And the instant 'God wouldn't like it' reaction.

One valid question - erradicate this disorder, eliminate that genetic mistake - but where to stop? See 'Gingers' qotw for suggestions
( Larry Vest One day at a time, sweet Jesus, FFS., Thu 15 Apr 2010, 14:31, Reply)