FDA considera gli embrioni 3 genitore

A promising way to stop a deadly disease, or an uncomfortable step toward what one leading ethicist called eugenics?

Stati Uniti. health officials are weighing whether to approve trials of a pioneering in vitro fertilization technique using DNA from three people in an attempt to prevent illnesses like muscular dystrophy and respiratory problems. The proposed treatment would allow a woman to have a baby without passing on diseases of the mitochondria, il “powerhouses” that drive cells.

The procedure is “not without its risks, but it’s treating a disease,” medical ethicist Art Caplan told CNN’s “New Day” il Mercoledì. Preventing a disease that can be passed down for generations would be ethical “as long as it proves to be safe,” ha detto.

“These little embryos, these are people born with a disease, they can’t make power. You’re giving them a new battery. That’s a therapy. I think that’s a humane ethical thing to do,” said Caplan, the director of medical ethics at New York University’s Langone Medical Center.

“Where we get into the sticky part is, what if you get past transplanting batteries and start to say, ‘While we’re at it, why don’t we make you taller, stronger, faster or smarter?’ ”

But Susan Solomon, the director of the New York Stem Cell Foundation, said there are no changes to existing genes involved.

“There is no genetic engineering. It isn’t a slippery slope. It’s a way to allow these families to have healthy children,” said Solomon, whose organization developed the technique along with Columbia University researchers.

“What we’re doing is, without at all changing the DNA of the mother, just allowing it to grow in an environment that isn’t sick,” ha aggiunto.

A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel concluded two days of hearings into the procedure Wednesday. The panel discussed what controls might be used in trials, how a developing embryo might be monitored during those tests and who should oversee the trials, but no decisions were made at the end of the session.

Mitochondrial disorders are inherited from the mother. In the procedure under discussion in Washington, genetic material from the nucleus of a mother’s egg or an embryo gets transferred to a donor egg or embryo that’s had its nuclear DNA removed.

The new embryo will contain nuclear DNA from the intended father and mother, nonché sano DNA mitocondriale dall'embrione donatore — creazione di un efficace “tre-parent” bambino.

Nel mese di giugno, Gran Bretagna fece un passo verso il diventare il primo paese a permettere la tecnica. Uno in 6,500 bambini nel Regno Unito è nato con una malattia mitocondriale, che può portare a gravi problemi di salute come cuore e malattie del fegato.

Caplan detto la stessa tecnologia potrebbe essere utilizzata per modificare un embrione “rendendo super-bambini,” una pratica ha detto pari a “eugenetica.”

“Il grande problema nel prossimo 5 a 10 anni sta per diventare quanto andiamo alla ricerca del bambino perfetto,” said Caplan. “Se penso che stiamo andando su questa strada? Sì. Ha me strisciare fuori? Sì. Avete intenzione di essere in grado di tracciare una linea chiara? Non ci penso.”

Ma Solomon ha detto che la procedura è più vicino a un ampliamento della fecondazione in vitro, which has been available for nearly 40 anni.

“It’s a complicated science, so people need to understand the particulars of the biology and not jump to calling it something it isn’t,” ha detto. The last thing she would want, ha detto, “is for the New York Stem Cell Foundation to be involved in anything like designer babies.”

“I have children and grandchildren, and I can’t imagine anything worse.”

SOURCE: CNN