![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Just found an archived news article that I found very interesting... http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1456471.htm
What they're talking about is basically fertilising an egg and then transferring the nucleus from that egg into a donor egg from which the nucleus has been removed. The research is being carried out in Britain, and the eggs will not be implanted, but it gives me hope that one day, I will have the option of having kids without the fear that they'll get my fucked-up mitochondria.
Inserting donor cytoplasmic material (which contains mitochondria) into the cytoplasm of a fertilised egg is currently illegal, certainly in America, and, if I read the reviews and so forth correctly, also here in Australia. It's illegal in America due to the possibility of increased birth defects being caused by the technique (the babies conceived having cytoplasmic transfer have roughly double the rate of birth defects shown in regular IVF; The plug was pulled on the technique before this could be evaluated in large numbers of babies, and no study on the birth defects show the rate of defects connected with cytoplasmic transfer versus the rate of defects connected with the babies the parents had without cytoplasmic transfer, because to contemplate using the technique, the parents basically had no children survive to birth, naturally or using reguar IVF), and illegal in Australia because mixing the genomes (DNA and/or mitochondrial DNA) of three people is illegal. So far, I've found that it's legal in Lebanon.
And now, I get to go and have my feet manipulated, by a lovely gentle man who knows my name. Have a good night, lovely people!
What they're talking about is basically fertilising an egg and then transferring the nucleus from that egg into a donor egg from which the nucleus has been removed. The research is being carried out in Britain, and the eggs will not be implanted, but it gives me hope that one day, I will have the option of having kids without the fear that they'll get my fucked-up mitochondria.
Inserting donor cytoplasmic material (which contains mitochondria) into the cytoplasm of a fertilised egg is currently illegal, certainly in America, and, if I read the reviews and so forth correctly, also here in Australia. It's illegal in America due to the possibility of increased birth defects being caused by the technique (the babies conceived having cytoplasmic transfer have roughly double the rate of birth defects shown in regular IVF; The plug was pulled on the technique before this could be evaluated in large numbers of babies, and no study on the birth defects show the rate of defects connected with cytoplasmic transfer versus the rate of defects connected with the babies the parents had without cytoplasmic transfer, because to contemplate using the technique, the parents basically had no children survive to birth, naturally or using reguar IVF), and illegal in Australia because mixing the genomes (DNA and/or mitochondrial DNA) of three people is illegal. So far, I've found that it's legal in Lebanon.
And now, I get to go and have my feet manipulated, by a lovely gentle man who knows my name. Have a good night, lovely people!
Tags:
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
In the back of my head is something about the creation of life using a method other than egg + sperm being illegal, but I can't remember if that was just US or us, too.
From:
no subject
Parts of the US have even stricter laws about reproduction...
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
If we then combine the law outlawing marriages (and hence divorces) with the law about single parents, then in about 50 years the problem goes away!
What do people think of this proposal?
From:
no subject