While watching 60 minutes this past Sunday, I discovered the latest procedure on making babies. There were two people that signed up to have thier babies genetically modified meaning Doctors will use a technique that will change every cells in the bodies of children born as a result of their use, and these alterations would be passed down to future generations.
The F.D.A. calls them mitochondrial manipulation technologies. The procedures involve removing the nuclear material either from the egg or embryo of a woman with inheritable mitochondrial disease and inserting it into a healthy egg or embryo of a donor whose own nuclear material has been discarded. Any offspring would carry genetic material from three people — the nuclear DNA of the mother and father, and the mitochondrial DNA of the donor.
Roughly 1,000 to 4,000 children born in the United States each year will develop a mitochondrial disease, most by age 10, with symptoms that can range from mild to devastating. These diseases typically prevent mitochondria from converting food into energy and are the result of genetic abnormalities, although some cases can be caused by exposures to toxins. Disorders caused by mutations in the mitochondrial DNA are passed down from the mother. Their goals are to make a generation of healthy human and eliminate several diseases.
My question is, in the process of making healthy human is it possible we might remove something that didn't need to be removed while playing God.
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