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Sweden Approves Creation of ’Designer Babies’
Tuesday,
29 May 2007
The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare yesterday granted three
families the right to screen embryos to create a child who can be a stem
cell donor for a sibling with a deadly illness. A fourth family is under
consideration. This comes after a new law on genetic screening came into
effect 1st of July last year.
These are the first cases of embryo screenings in Sweden to be granted
permission for the combined procedure of preimplantation genetic diagnosis
(PGD) for deadly diseases and screening to find a tissue match for the sick
sibling in a process called human leukocyte antigen testing (HLA).
"The PGD procedure has been used
in Sweden for years but it is the second stage of the process, the HLA,
that is now being allowed," told Göran Wennergren, professor of paediatrics at Gothenburg
University and one of the experts who evaluated the applications.
After the child is born, stem cells from its placenta and umbilical cord
are transferred to the sick sibling. Once in the bone marrow, the stem
cells will start producing fresh blood cells that will save the sick child.
Each individual case in Sweden has been scrutinised by the board to make
sure they comply with the law, and the Swedish National Board of Health and
Welfare has also received statements by medical and genetic experts.
"I put in a lot of work before
making my decision and spent a lot of time thinking about this. It wasn't a
very difficult decision to make once I analysed all the information,"
Wennergren said.
Wennergren said he expects there to be only one or two applications for
PGD/HLA treatment a year in Sweden.
“We have said “yes” to all three
applications. It wasn’t a difficult decision, it was a purely medical
evaluation and these families fulfil all the requirements,” Bo Lindblom, head of the healthcare
department at The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, said.
PGD has been allowed for some time in Sweden, in particular to screen for
single-gene diseases such as cystic fibrosis as well as chromosomal
abnormalities such as Down's syndrome.
The combined PGD/HLA screening to select a suitable embryo has already been
used in the United States, Belgium and Turkey.
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