| 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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