Of course religious officials are screaming doom and gloom about this but an IVF clinic in LA now offering, at least for those rich enough to afford them, a chance to have their own designer baby where not only is the embryo screened for genetic diseases and disabilities but parents to be can also select traits such as hair color, eye color, complection, and other physical traits. I don't see this extremely expensive process ever becoming common and I don't buy the religious "every sperm is sacred" argument either.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123439771603075099.htmlA Baby, Please. Blond, Freckles -- Hold the Colic
Laboratory Techniques That Screen for Diseases in Embryos Are Now Being Offered to Create Designer Children
By GAUTAM NAIK
Want a daughter with blond hair, green eyes and pale skin?
A Los Angeles clinic says it will soon help couples select both gender and physical traits in a baby when they undergo a form of fertility treatment. The clinic, Fertility Institutes, says it has received "half a dozen" requests for the service, which is based on a procedure called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD.
While PGD has long been used for the medical purpose of averting life-threatening diseases in children, the science behind it has quietly progressed to the point that it could potentially be used to create designer babies. It isn't clear that Fertility Institutes can yet deliver on its claims of trait selection. But the growth of PGD, unfettered by any state or federal regulations in the U.S., has accelerated genetic knowledge swiftly enough that pre-selecting cosmetic traits in a baby is no longer the stuff of science fiction.
"It's technically feasible and it can be done," says Mark Hughes, a pioneer of the PGD process and director of Genesis Genetics Institute, a large fertility laboratory in Detroit. However, he adds that "no legitimate lab would get into it and, if they did, they'd be ostracized."
But Fertility Institutes disagrees. "This is cosmetic medicine," says Jeff Steinberg, director of the clinic that is advertising gender and physical trait selection on its Web site. "Others are frightened by the criticism but we have no problems with it."
PGD is a technique whereby a three-day-old embryo, consisting of about six cells, is tested in a lab to see if it carries a particular genetic disease. Embryos free of that disease are implanted in the mother's womb. Introduced in the 1990s, it has allowed thousands of parents to avoid passing on deadly disorders to their children.
But PGD is starting to be used to target less-serious disorders or certain characteristics -- such as a baby's gender -- that aren't medical conditions. The next controversial step is to select physical traits for cosmetic reasons.
"If we're going to produce children who are claimed to be superior because of their particular genes, we risk introducing new sources of discrimination" in society, says Marcy Darnovsky, associate executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society, a nonprofit public interest group in Oakland, Calif. If people use the method to select babies who are more likely to be tall, the thinking goes, then people could effectively be enacting their biases against short people.
In a recent U.S. survey of 999 people who sought genetic counseling, a majority said they supported prenatal genetic tests for the elimination of certain serious diseases. The survey found that 56% supported using them to counter blindness and 75% for mental retardation.
More provocatively, about 10% of respondents said they would want genetic testing for athletic ability, while another 10% voted for improved height. Nearly 13% backed the approach to select for superior intelligence, according to the survey conducted by researchers at the New York University School of Medicine.
There are significant hurdles to any form of genetic enhancement. Most human traits are controlled by multiple genetic factors, and knowledge about their complex workings, though accelerating, is incomplete. And traits such as athleticism and intelligence are affected not just by DNA, but by environmental factors that cannot be controlled in a lab.
While many countries have banned the use of PGD for gender selection, it is permitted in the U.S. In 2006, a survey by the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University found that 42% of 137 PGD clinics offered a gender-selection service.
The science of PGD has steadily expanded its scope, often in contentious ways. Embryo screening, for example, is sometimes used to create a genetically matched "savior sibling" -- a younger sister or brother whose healthy cells can be harvested to treat an older sibling with a serious illness.
It also is increasingly used to weed out embryos at risk of genetic diseases -- such as breast cancer -- that could be treated, or that might not strike a person later in life. In 2007, the Bridge Centre fertility clinic in London screened embryos so that a baby wouldn't suffer from a serious squint that afflicted the father.
Instead of avoiding some conditions, the technique also may have been used to select an embryo likely to have the same disease or disability, such as deafness, that affects the parents. The Johns Hopkins survey found that 3% of PGD clinics had provided this service, sometimes described as "negative enhancement." Groups who support this approach argue, for example, that a deaf child born to a deaf couple is better suited to participating in the parents' shared culture. So far, however, no single clinic has been publicly identified as offering this service.
Like several genetic diseases, cosmetic traits are correlated with a large number of DNA variations or markers -- known as single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs -- that work in combination. A new device called the microarray, a small chip coated with DNA sequences, can simultaneously analyze many more spots on the chromosomes.
In October 2007, scientists from deCode Genetics of Iceland published a paper in Nature Genetics pinpointing various SNPs that influence skin, eye and hair color, based on samples taken from people in Iceland and the Netherlands. Along with related genes discovered earlier, "the variants described in this report enable prediction of pigmentation traits based upon an individual's DNA," the company said. Such data, the researchers said, could be useful for teasing out the biology of skin and eye disease and for forensic DNA analysis.
Kari Stefansson, chief executive of deCode, points out that such a test will only provide a certain level of probability that a child will have blond hair or green eyes, not an absolute guarantee. He says: "I vehemently oppose the use of these discoveries for tailor-making children." In the long run, he adds, such a practice would "decrease human diversity, and that's dangerous."
In theory, these data could be used to analyze the DNA of an embryo and determine whether it was more likely to give rise to a baby of a particular hair, skin or eye tint. (The test won't work on other ethnicities such as Asians or Africans because key pigmentation markers for those groups haven't yet been identified.)
For trait selection, a big hurdle is getting enough useful DNA material from the embryo. In a typical PGD procedure, a single cell is removed from a six-cell embryo and tested for the relevant genes or SNPs. It's relatively easy to check and eliminate diseases such as cystic fibrosis that are linked to a single malfunctioning gene. But to read the larger number of SNP markers associated with complex ailments such as diabetes, or traits like hair color, there often isn't enough high-quality genetic material.
William Kearns, a medical geneticist and director of the Shady Grove Center for Preimplantation Genetics in Rockville, Md., says he has made headway in cracking the problem. In a presentation made at a November meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics in Philadelphia, he described how he had managed to amplify the DNA available from a single embryonic cell to identify complex diseases and also certain physical traits.
Of 42 embryos tested, Dr. Kearns said he had enough data to identify SNPs that relate to northern European skin, hair and eye pigmentation in 80% of the samples. (A patent for Dr. Kearn's technique is pending; the test data are unpublished and have yet to be reviewed by other scientists.)
Dr. Kearns' talk attracted the attention of Dr. Steinberg, the head of Fertility Institutes, which already offers PGD for gender selection. The clinic had hoped to collaborate with Dr. Kearns to offer trait selection as well. In December, the clinic's Web site announced that couples who signed up for embryo screening would soon be able to make "a pre-selected choice of gender, eye color, hair color and complexion, along with screening for potentially lethal diseases."
Dr. Kearns says he is firmly against the idea of using PGD to select nonmedical traits. He plans to offer his PGD amplification technique to fertility clinics for medical purposes such as screening for complex disorders, but won't let it be used for physical trait selection. "I'm not going to do designer babies," says Dr. Kearns. "I won't sell my soul for a dollar." A spokeswoman for Dr. Steinberg said: "The relationship between them is very amicable, and this center looks forward to working with Dr. Kearns."
For trait selection, Dr. Steinberg is now betting on a new approach for screening embryos. It involves taking cells from an embryo at day five of its development, compared with typical PGD, which uses cells from day three. The method potentially allows more cells to be obtained, leading to a more reliable diagnosis of the embryo.
Trait selection in babies "is a service," says Dr. Steinberg. "We intend to offer it soon."
Write to Gautam Naik at gautam.naik@wsj.com
"Our scientific power has out run out spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." - Martin Luther King Jr.
"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself." - Joseph Pulitzer
Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.
"Hating America is something best left to Mobius. He is an expert Yank hater.
He also hates Texans and Australians, he does diversify." ~ Braindead
Good. Now we can finally get rid of the gays.
This is disgusting.
I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891
Oh come on. This is just setup for the Eugenics War, one of the necessary pieces in establishing the UFP.
Up to a point, I don't have a problem with this.
While a bias might happen. (males in china) This could prevent a lot of babies from being murdered.
If they go overboard on males, eventually females would increase in value.
Removing certain deseases no problem. Hair color and eye colors can be changed anyway so I don't have a problem with that either. If we can identify the stupid gene and can screen for it, no problem with that either.
A healthier baby, no problem with that either. That parent that has had 6 kid of the same sex that just kept having kids trying for one of the other sex. No problem with that either.
I see this as a new toy for rich people. And I'm sure there's a wacko out there that will use this technology in a way that I wouldn't approve, but the concept in general doesn't disturb me too greatly. (there are limits though)
The OT at APOLYTON is like watching the Special Olympics. Certain people try so hard to debate despite their handicaps.
Baron O RIP.
Eventually we might be able to select for height, physical strength, agility. co-ordination, attractiveness, and intelligence. Would it be OK with you if the rich could select for super-progeny, leaving the rest of us to muddle on with what we've got?Originally Posted by rah
"I say shoot'em all and let God sort it out in the end!
Yup. Gays and stupid people. As soon as we find the relevant genes.
You just wasted six ... no, seven ... seconds of your life reading this sentence.
As I said there are limits. The traits you listed are probably ok. (attractiveness is subjective and as stated, it's not a sure bet) And yes, at first it would be the rich, but eventually it would come down in price. And maybe this would slow down the population growth if kids were more expensive at the beginning.
And this still wouldn't stop all the spontaneous procreation going on out there.
Ask any special needs parent if, if they could have prevented it, would they have chosen to, I believe you know what the answer would be.
The OT at APOLYTON is like watching the Special Olympics. Certain people try so hard to debate despite their handicaps.
Baron O RIP.
Gulp. That's pretty much everybody.
Meanwhile, let us all sing:
It would be a challenge to come up with any non-arbitrary limits, if you do it your way.
I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891
Yeah, but I think it has enough value that it would be worth discussing. Even though I'm sure that the limits would probably be based on what was techincally possible.
The OT at APOLYTON is like watching the Special Olympics. Certain people try so hard to debate despite their handicaps.
Baron O RIP.
I think you would be seriously surprised if you actually conducted a poll. Special needs parents seem to have this whacked out belief that their retard kids make them better people.
I have to agree with rah here. I'm sure my parents would rather have kids who could hear. The problem is the extension. What we are saying is that anyone with a disability isn't fit to live.Ask any special needs parent if, if they could have prevented it, would they have chosen to, I believe you know what the answer would be
Scouse Git (2) LaFayette Adam Smith and Solomwi you will be missed
"*** dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum"
That wasn't US that said that.I think it might have been Hitler.
I don't like the idea when it is regarding traits that are completely trivial, and stinks of "master race" quite frankly. If we are trying to enhance meaningful human traits such as intelligence or avoid genetic disorders, that is fine, but we're certainly not at that point yet.
Speaking of Erith:
"It's not twinned with anywhere, but it does have a suicide pact with Dagenham" - Linda Smith
More healthy people and blond chicks.
"Our scientific power has out run out spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." - Martin Luther King Jr.
"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself." - Joseph Pulitzer
My main issue is that eventually a specific set of traits will become the most desirable for parents, and then some disease comes along that wipes out 99.99999% of the human race.
I'm consitently stupid- Japher
I think that opinion in the United States is decidedly different from the rest of the world because we have a free press -- by free, I mean a virgorously presented right wing point of view on the air and available to all.- Ned
Sieg Heil!More healthy people and blond chicks.
I make no bones about my moral support for [terrorist] organizations. - chegitz guevara
For those who aspire to live in a high cost, high tax, big government place, our nation and the world offers plenty of options. Vermont, Canada and Venezuela all offer you the opportunity to live in the socialist, big government paradise you long for. –Senator Rubio
So...The Master Race after all?
meh...this is really a "so what?" kind of thing. The rich already can provide better nutrition, living conditions, education, and access to opportunity. What difference does it really matter if they are all blond hair and blue eyes (or black hair and brown eyes for that matter)?
"I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you're not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration." - Hillary Clinton, 2003
You'd think we would have discovered that eugenics is a fundamentally bad idea by now. Unless such practices are brutally regulated, they are an ethical minefield. It's rather like organ selling - there seems to be no way to organize it that doesn't cause terrible problems.
The kind of people who would go for this are exactly the kind of people we would not want to design persons.
Only feebs vote.
Mr. Huxley is either laughing his ass off or turning in his grave.
I'm consitently stupid- Japher
I think that opinion in the United States is decidedly different from the rest of the world because we have a free press -- by free, I mean a virgorously presented right wing point of view on the air and available to all.- Ned
Theben's right.
Variability is life's best survival tool.
be free
It's not even that. All you need to do to object to this is look at popular trends in interior design from 1960 to now. You look at that and then tell me it's a good idea to let the same sort of people design human beings.
Only feebs vote.
Improving the human race
Ethics
Should have clarified. When discussing this idea, we are arguing that the idea states that disabled people are not fit to live.That wasn't US that said that. I think it might have been Hitler.
Scouse Git (2) LaFayette Adam Smith and Solomwi you will be missed
"*** dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum"
Bah, my winged offspring with their prehensile tails should be enough variability for anyone. Plus, their insatiable hunger for human flesh will mean they'll soon be the dominate life form on this planet.
Bwuhahahahahahahahaha!
I hope a genocidal dictator stops this madness
I need a foot massage
Come on. That's twice you've asked that, and no where, does anyone even come close to inferring that. So either you're simply trolling or you believe that. But stop saying that's what people mean in this discussion because that's simply not the case. But then why am I not suprised that your statement followed no real logic.
The OT at APOLYTON is like watching the Special Olympics. Certain people try so hard to debate despite their handicaps.
Baron O RIP.
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