| A
couple trying to create a baby designed to help them treat their
four-year-old son have undergone IVF treatment in America.
Doctors in a hospital in Chicago have implanted two embryos which have been
screened to make sure they match Michelle and Jason Whitaker's
son Charlie.
The family had been banned from having the procedure at a UK
clinic.
Charlie suffers from a type of rare anaemia which increases
his chance of cancer - or perhaps other fatal complications.
He could be cured by a transplant of special cells from the new
baby's umbilical cord - as long
as the baby's tissue was a near-perfect
match.
Few matches
However, under normal conditions, only a small proportion of
embryos conceived naturally or created
through conventional IVF would be
a match.
This would mean that the couple might have to have several further
children before one matching Charlie was created.
After fertility treatment, nine
embryos were produced, and doctors took a single cell from each
at an early stage in development.
Best embryos
Each was tested and only those embryos which matched were considered
for implantation.
Three fitted the bill, and the
best two were implanted into 30-year-old Michelle.
There is less than a 50/50 chance of it working first time around,
even though Michelle is relatively young.
If not, they will have to undergo further IVF treatment.
Charlie's disease affects only 50 children in the UK, and he
currently needs blood transfusions every
three weeks and painful injections almost daily just to keep him
alive.
Even if the new baby is a match, there is only a tiny chance
that it will develop Charlie's illness.
Stem cells
The umbilical cord contains a type of primitive cell called a
stem cell which could help 'kick start' Charlie's body into producing
the red blood cells he needs.
The cells would be infused into him in a similar
fashion to a bone marrow transplant.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which
regulates fertility treatment in the UK, ruled that while it was
acceptable to test and select embryos to prevent the birth of
a baby with a genetic disease, it was
not ethically acceptable to
select them in order to help another child.
Julie du Plessis, Education Officer for the campaigning group
LIFE, said, "This case has pushed the boundaries of science too
far".
"Children should not be created in order to serve the medical
needs of older siblings . We are creating
an industry where children are made to order, bought and sold."
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