UK may approve three-parent babies

Jun 29, 2013

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London: The UK may become the first country in the world to allow a controversial IVF technique that creates babies using DNA from three people, to keep parents from passing genetic diseases to their offspring.
A landmark decision by UK’s Department of Health has opened the door to controversial treatments for inherited diseases that use donated DNA from a second donor mother, despite fears it might lead to “designer babies”.
The department announced that the UK government intends to publish draft regulations later this year in a public consultation about the in vitro fertilisation IVF-based techniques to eradicate mitochondrial diseases.
The new regulations to fertility law allowing the procedures will be issued for consultation and then debated in Parliament, the Sky News reported.
In case the MPs find the regulations ethically acceptable, the first patients could be treated within months. It is envisaged that between five and 10 three-parent babies would be born in UK each year. The aim of the IVF treatments is to stamp out serious mitochondrial diseases which can be passed on.

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