Sarah Norcross, Director of PET, said:
The UK was the first country to legislate for the clinical use of mitochondrial donation. The relevant law was passed only after many years of careful research, assessment and deliberation. Even then, it was decided that use of this technology would be permitted by the regulator only on a case-by-case basis.
This measured approach was and is appropriate, given the relative novelty of this technology. News that a small number of babies with donated mitochondria have now been born in the UK is the next step, in what will probably remain a slow and cautious process of assessing and refining mitochondrial donation.
The purpose of this technology is to give people a way of avoiding the transmission of debilitating mitochondrial disease to their children. Given the toll that such disease is likely to have taken on the first families who have made use of mitochondrial donation, it is especially important that the privacy of these families is respected.
