Three-parent babies crosses an ethical line, charities warn

Christian groups say IVF technique used in British fertility clinic ‘raises the spectre’ of designer babies

CHARITIES have accused scientists of crossing an ethical line after it emerged the first three-parent IVF babies have been born in Britain.

The Human Fertility and Embryology Authority (HFEA) confirmed that a “small number of babies” had been born using the donor DNA of a “second mother”.

The technique, known as mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT), replaces the defective “batteries” of cells – or mitochondria – to prevent children suffering debilitating conditions such as muscular dystrophy.

The Newcastle Fertility Centre, which carried out the procedures, is waiting to publish details of the births so it is not known if the treatment was successful.

But Christian charities voiced their dismay at the breakthrough, warning it could be physically and psychologically damaging to children and their descendants, and “raise the spectre” of designer babies.

James Mildred, the director of communications and engagement at Christian Action Research and Education said: “It’s clear an ethical line in the sand has been crossed that we will come to regret deeply in years to come.

“Evidence suggests that transferring nuclear DNA into a host donor egg cell is unsafe and could impact future generations. The techniques used also lead to the destruction of human embryos, which raises moral questions.

“There are serious questions about how children will be affected. For example, nobody knows how a child will respond psychologically to the fact they have three parents.”

The first baby was born from MRT in 2016 in Mexico and several other couples have conceived using the procedure since then.

However, there have been concerns that some children have suffered “reversion” where the disease-causing DNA from the birth mother has increased over time, leaving children exposed to potentially fatal conditions.

Some studies suggest around one in five babies born using the three-parent technique would eventually inherit enough defective mitochondria to place them at risk, and some clinics in Europe have stopped using the procedure.

Scientists at Oxford University who experimented with the procedure to try to improve IVF success rates, found reversion of up to 50 per cent of the defective DNA in some cases.

Sarah Ellson, a life sciences regulatory specialist at law firm Fieldfisher, who was closely involved in the development of MRT legislation alongside the HFEA, said reversion was an acknowledged risk of treatment.

“The independent expert panel convened by the HFEA to review mitochondrial donation techniques, noted “the panel could not rule out the risk of levels of carried-over mitochondrial DNA increasing during subsequent development – a phenomenon known as ‘reversion’ – that might follow clinical application of these techniques in a proportion of cases,” she said.

“So while we are rightly celebrating the initial success of this treatment today, it is not a fail-safe option for patients.”

Experts urged the Newcastle team to release details as soon as possible so that doctors would know whether the therapy was safe and could be recommended to treat patients.

‘A line in the sand has been crossed that we will come to regret deeply in years to come’