Comments on: “Breast Cancer Free” Baby Born in the UK

By: Array CGH: The First “Egg-Screened” Baby | Baby | Babies Online The Blog

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:46:55 +0000

[...] baby (the called test-tube baby) more than 30 years ago. Last year, they presented the first “breast-cancer-free” baby. And now, here’s their latest coup: the first egg-screening [...]

By: Canola oil in mum’s diet may reduce baby’s risk of breast cancer | Health | Babies Online The Blog

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:01:47 +0000

[...] you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!The first baby preselected as breast cancer-gene free was born in the UK this month and made the headlines. The doctors used preimplanatation genetic [...]

By: Helena Denley

Helena Denley — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 11:51:15 +0000

Have you seen the movie “Gattaca” (1997). Do we really want to belong to a world of pre-selection for disease free individuals.
And having specific genes doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to get a particular disease.
Dr Bruce Lipton has a great audio presentation called “The Wisdom of Your Cells” based on his book “The Biology of Belief”. Well worth a listen or read because he discusses in great depth how genes actually work – smashing our current beliefs that if you have the gene for a particular disease you are doomed to get it.
Very enlightening.

Helena Denleys last blog post..The Sleep Deprived New Mum – How to Avoid Becoming a Rabid Dog

By: Dawn Allcot

Dawn Allcot — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 01:47:18 +0000

Great thought provoking post.

Is it ethical? I believe so. After all, we all want to give our children every advantage available in life. Now, those advantages can start even before conception. (Well, I guess they already do when we eat healthy or take prenatals pre-pregnancy…)

Still, I don’t have the best family health history and if it were possible and affordable to pre-screen in order to insure our children get the strongest, best genes we could, I wouldn’t hesitate!

The issue of what to do with frozen, unused embryos is a challenging one, but I don’t believe this is any different from couples who have invitro due to infertility? “Killing” an embryo is still “killing” an embryo, (or not, depending on your views) regardless of why it was created.

I don’t really think it IS a different ethical question than pre-screening for certainly fatal defects v. potentially fatal genes.

Just my IMHO, and not trying to be incendiary or anything. (Although I’m all for friendly debate!)