'Designer baby' rules up for debate (UK)
By BBC News,
BBC News
| 07. 17. 2004
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) is to debate its policy on creating babies who can help sick siblings.
It will consider a doctor's request to select an embryo for a Northern Ireland couple that is a blood match with their son, who has a rare blood disorder.
Currently embryos can only be screened for serious genetic disorders.
Dr Mohamed Taranissi, the director of London's Assisted Reproduction Gynaecology Centre, is pursuing a rule change in a bid to help two-year-old Joshua Fletcher, from Moira, County Down.
Joshua has a potentially fatal blood disorder called Diamond Blackfan anaemia (DBA), which can be treated by using stem cells to stimulate his body to produce healthy red blood cells.
| |
We only want to give our son the best chance for a cure for a condition which could take his life
Joe Fletcher
Father of baby Joshua |
Neither his parents, Joe and Julie, nor his five-year-old brother Adam are close enough matches to give him the stem cells he needs.
But IVF technology...
Related Articles
What We Inherit by Sam Trejo and Daphne O. Martschenko; and Original Sin by Kathryn Paige Harden have a great deal in common, with substantial differences in style and emphasis. Both books attempt, in different ways, to show the reader just where current research into human genomics stands, where that might be going, and why the authors are interested. In short, the influence of genomic research on our societies is already large and seems likely to change them in ways...
By Dan Falk, Nautilus | 08.20.2026
The pseudoscience of eugenics, founded on the mistaken notion that nature envisions some “right” combination of genes, and that selective breeding can improve the human race, is making a comeback. While the heyday of eugenics was a century ago, the...
By Adithi Ramakrishnan, AP News | 08.05.2026
NEW YORK (AP) — Matt Walker couldn’t pet a dog without sneezing — until he and other scientists used a gene editing technique to produce a hypoallergenic beagle named Bailey.
Now, he can feed Bailey spoons of peanut butter while...
By Brendan Borrell, Science | 07.23.2026
The young girl tugged on her mother’s hand as they pressed through the doors of the hospital in Shanghai. She was 6 years old, bouncing along in a pink jacket and blue pants decorated with cartoon bears. Behind them, her...
