Baby With DNA From Three People Born In Greece (theguardian.com) 86
A baby with DNA from three people has been born in Greece following a controversial fertility treatment. "The doctors behind the treatment, from Greece and Spain, say it marks a historic advance -- it is the first time an in vitro fertilization (IVF) technique involving DNA from three people has been used with the aim of addressing fertility problems," reports The Guardian. From the report: The experimental IVF treatment, known as mitochondrial donation, involves using an egg from the mother, sperm from the father and another egg from a female donor. The vast majority of a person's genes -- about 99.8% -- are found on the 23 pairs of chromosomes that sit inside the nucleus in each cell in the body, and in the IVF procedure this DNA comes from the two parents. However, a tiny proportion of genetic material also resides in a cell's mitochondria, small structures that act as the cell's batteries and float around freely in the cell body. In mitochondrial donation, the mother's mitochondria are removed from her egg and replaced by a donor's.
The treatment was originally developed as a treatment that could prevent women with debilitating or even fatal mitochondrial diseases from passing them on to their children. The doctors behind the latest treatment claim that mitochondria also play a role in successful pregnancy and suggest that the technique could be applied more broadly as a fertility treatment. The 32-year old woman in the latest case had previously undergone four unsuccessful rounds of IVF.
The treatment was originally developed as a treatment that could prevent women with debilitating or even fatal mitochondrial diseases from passing them on to their children. The doctors behind the latest treatment claim that mitochondria also play a role in successful pregnancy and suggest that the technique could be applied more broadly as a fertility treatment. The 32-year old woman in the latest case had previously undergone four unsuccessful rounds of IVF.
Human population is increase (Score:1)
There is no general fertility problem with human beings at this time.
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Re:Human population is increase (Score:5, Funny)
Well they NEED to genetically engineer a working class that can survive a 996 workweek.
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Well they NEED to genetically engineer a working class that can survive a 996 workweek.
Uh, no. We need to genetically engineer out the immoral and unethical mentality that believes that shit is viable or sustainable for any human.
Logic dictates that as the population grows, so will the demand for people to work. You can only have so much demand before you're going to be forced to share that 996 with three other people.
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You can't genetically engineer certain aspects of mentality that are a byproduct of creativity without erasing creativity and the underlying system which makes it possible. That's a one-way ticket to stopping advancement in any field of thought.
For creativity to exist you are just going to have to accept the negative and other relative byproducts of the underlying system and the concept itself, as just like anything in nature everything comes with both benefits and cost, and fucking with either only makes t
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What? If you genetically engineer out immoral and unethical mentality, how do you plan to fill the C-Levels of corporations?
Won't somebody please think of the corporations!
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I think only people who never leave huge metropolitan areas believe in some general overpopulation. Visit Wyoming some time, or Patagonia.
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I think only people who never leave huge metropolitan areas believe in some general overpopulation. Visit Wyoming some time, or Patagonia.
You heard it here first kids. China/India/New York/LA, you don't have an overpopulation problem. You just need to learn to spread out. Apparently you suck at it.
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There is no general fertility problem with human beings at this time.
There is in Europe
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The main problem is waiting until you're 40 before deciding to make babies.
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The problem is that Europe introduced American economic conditions without first replacing the European mentality of a need for financial security with the "what could go wrong" happy-go-lucky mentality of the Americans.
We only reproduce when we can afford it, ya know...
Re: Human population is increase (Score:1)
No problem. The immigrants have no fertility problem. I can't wait for them to take over, blow up all their monuments, burn their museums and wipe their asses with their books. Euro culture will be utterly and irrevocably destroyed and we can all have a big laugh.
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I bet you would have held your marshmellows into the fire of the library of Alexandria...
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There is no general fertility problem with human beings at this time.
You're right, but unless you want to deal with a planet full of autistic humans in 20 years, we better start doing what we can to improve the next generation instead of breaking it.
In less than 15 years, we've gone from 1 in 150 to 1 in 50 with regards to Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). And sadly, the rate of kids being medicated (to include the infamous ADD/ADHD) is likely much higher simply due to greed, which also damages our kids (read your warning labels).
And yeah, I know we've gotten better at detec
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Sorry, but improved detection isn't just an excuse. It's the reason. I'm reasonably old and remember my childhood, and back then I went to school with quite a few kids that would be diagnosed with certain mental conditions today, from ADHD to autism. Not the case back then. ADHD was "cured" by smacking the kids 'til they would sit still and autism was just shyness and being weird.
Maybe you're not old enough to actually know that yes, these kids existed back then, too. The difference is just that nobody gave
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Sorry, but improved detection isn't just an excuse. It's the reason. I'm reasonably old and remember my childhood, and back then I went to school with quite a few kids that would be diagnosed with certain mental conditions today, from ADHD to autism. Not the case back then. ADHD was "cured" by smacking the kids 'til they would sit still and autism was just shyness and being weird.
Maybe you're not old enough to actually know that yes, these kids existed back then, too. The difference is just that nobody gave a fuck.
The only thing higher detection did was maximize revenue streams. The only "cure" capitalism will ever legalize is perpetual prescriptions for however long your body can endure them.
That is what I mean by detection not helping matters. It's not reducing the rate of autism or even remotely attempting to find a cure. Who gives a shit if we can eventually detect autism at birth? Detection is only half of the problem here, and it might in fact be making things worse by becoming a more efficient money maker.
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Care to inform me what medication would help with Asperger's? Wouldn't it be more profitable for pharma corporations if doctors came to other conclusions?
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Care to inform me what medication would help with Asperger's?
There are no FDA-approved ones, but that certainly doesn't stop doctors from prescribing meds (SSRIs), particularly for related symptoms such as depression or anxiety.
Wouldn't it be more profitable for pharma corporations if doctors came to other conclusions?
And take a risk that their $1000/pill brand name drug might be eclipsed by a $5 generic solution?
There's a reason drug pimps are highly paid to push specific solutions to those writing prescriptions.
Two mistakes (Score:2)
We have no "general problem" with rare diseases, either. Still we try to find cures. Go figure.
And then there is also no general problem with overpopulation. In developed countries we sometimes even find a demographic decline, coincidentally Greece is one of them, and the problems the world population growth poses can hardly counteracted by denying individuals reproduction in regions which don't even contribute to it.
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That's a social problem, not an infertility problem.
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It's one of those jokes that end in "Oh dear kid, just be happy that you don't bark".
Nothing beats Nature (Score:1)
I say keep it that way.
Natural selection must run it's course.
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Wait till the day that you are there with your wife and can't have kids without help.
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Sorry I meant that as "AC, wait till you can't have kids and see how you feel about using IVF then. Easy to say 'natural selection' when you have no skin in the game."
For both my kids we needed help, and the 2nd one was 2 cycles of IVF and 8 embryo transfers. I wouldn't wish that experience on my worst enemy.
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There is absolutely no shortage of people on this earth, and so no reason to go through such measures to add another. Even worse that you seem to feel heroic for having done so...
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Natural selection is dead and obsolete.
95% of us should be dead, according to natural selection...
Natural selection also says that the weak should be abused by the strong... as nature has no need for intelligence or art or creativity in general. Basically your natural selection, that your such an advocate for, sucks balls!
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Over here in the civilized world, we replaced natural selection with civilization.
In return, we got Stephen Hawking. I'd say we win.
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why some couples do not have children (Score:3)
sadly, there are reasons why some couples cannot have children: i know of a couple that had infertility treatment, and the result was that their child was born severely handicapped.
i suspect that nature has some form of "checksum" that detects if there is damage to the DNA. in speaking with an expert from the Cambridge Genome Project over ten years ago, what they described to me was that human DNA expresses something very close to a Turing Machine, *including* a byte-code-like "machine language".
when i showed this same person the beautiful pictures of 3D mandelbrot sets that were discovered several years ago and published here on slashdot, he responded, "but those are exactly like the pictures i see under my microscope, every day!"
so it is not outside the realm of possibility that DNA expresses a fully-functioning biological computer, complete with checksum capability. this is why messing with that - trying to bypass the safeguards - through any kind of genetic manipulation - is so incredibly dangerous.
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Can't they adopt one?
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Joce640k inquired:
Can't they adopt one?
People who have never actually looked into the reality of the adoption process ask that question as if by reflex.
In the USA, the average time it takes to actually adopt a child is seven years from the time you first submit your application. And the cost to adopt varies widely [wikipedia.org], depending, in part, on which state the prospective parents reside in, and whether the child they adopt is a resident of that state, a different state, or another country.
Greece actually passed a sweeping adoption ref
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Not everyone who wants a child wants to raise someone else's.
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Issues with the child are rarely the reason why couples can't have children. Many people, both those with reproductive issues and those without, will have children that miscarry or are born with problems irrespective of how the female becomes pregnant.
It is usually to do with the reproductive system of one of the parents. eg not enough active sperm in the male, hormone resistance in the female, polycycstic ovaries, etc.
For us my wife's body was resistant to estrogen. This meant she effectively didn't have
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Actually that is highly unlikely.
The cause of their mothers problem is not genetically inheritable and is the result of bad luck.
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>"sadly, there are reasons why some couples cannot have children: i know of a couple that had infertility treatment, and the result was that their child was born severely handicapped."
Bingo. It is primitive and sad that people will go to such ridiculous lengths to have a baby that simply must have their own or even SOME of their own genetics when adoption and surrogacy are available. Even more bizarre when tons of unwanted babies are born (or aborted) every day. It is even irresponsible when the paren
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Further I need a license to do just about anything like fishinig. Why is it allowed any idiot is able reproduce, I'm talking about people who aren't mentally or fiscally able to sustain a child without public assistance. Note I'm thinking in the USA not other countries.
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I Know Of Two Couples (Score:2)
Amazing! (Score:2)
Finally, a real-live chimera!
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No, a chimera is when you end up with different genetic material between groups of cells. In this case, each cell will inherit the same set of DNA.
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Krishnoid enthused:
Finally, a real-live chimera!
Multiple human chimeras have been identified in the past [wikipedia.org], going back to 1953 ...
I don't see what's controversial about it (Score:2)
It's easier to use new RNA but I wonder why they just couldn't fix the mRNA of the mother.
If this becomes a commonplace fertility treatment in the future this will screw up mRNA ancestry tracing.
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Those greeks ... (Score:2)
With all their debt, they still have the best orgies.
Good. (Score:2)
I had a friend die from MELAS over a decade back. It was not a clean death, either. She faded away slowly and then suddenly. That shit was tough to watch and there was nothing that could have been done to stop it.