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 After more than three hours of debate, lawmakers in parliament's
upper house voted on Tuesday for a change in the law to allow the
treatments, echoing a positive vote in the lower house earlier this
month.
The treatment, called mitochondrial transfer, is known as
"three-parent" in vitro fertilization (IVF) because the babies, born
from genetically modified embryos, would have DNA from a mother, a
father and from a female donor.
Although the techniques are still at the research stage in
laboratories in Britain and the United States, experts say that now
legal hurdles have been overcome, Britain's first 3-parent baby
could be born as early as 2016.
Mitochondrial transfer involves intervening in the fertilization
process to remove faulty mitochondrial DNA, which can cause
inherited conditions such as heart problems, liver failure, brain
disorders, blindness and muscular dystrophy.
Mitochondria act as tiny energy-generating batteries inside cells,
and around 1 in 6,000 babies around the world are born with serious
mitochondrial disorders.
Responding to the vote, Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome
Trust medical charity commended lawmakers for a "considered and
compassionate decision".
"Families who know what it is like to care for a child with a
devastating disease are the people best placed to decide whether
mitochondrial donation is the right option," he said.
Mark Downs, chief executive of the Society of Biology, hailed "a
great day for UK science" and said the landmark decision "will
ensure mothers who carry faulty mitochondria can have healthy
children free from the devastating conditions."
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But Marcy Darnovsky, director of the campaign group The Center for
Genetics and Society, called the move a "historic mistake" which
turns children into biological experiments and will "forever alter
the human germline".
"The techniques ... are relatively crude and will not in and of
themselves create so-called designer babies," she said.
"However, they will result in children with DNA from three different
people in every cell of their bodies, which will impact a large
range of traits in unknowable ways and introduce genetic changes
that will be passed down to future generations."
(Editing by Janet Lawrence)
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