A new reproductive technology is on the horizon. Egg fusion, described in this week's BioNews, could have a significant impact on the lives of many women who cannot currently conceive naturally. Apart from the women with fertility problems who might benefit from this technique, egg fusion could also be of use to women who are at risk of passing on a mitochondrial disease to their children.
But, rather than celebrating the fact that these people might soon be able to use a technology that would allow them to have a genetically related child, the British press got all excited about egg fusion for an altogether different reason. They worked out that the procedure isn't all that different from cloning.
The similarity of egg fusion to reproductive cloning may be an issue worth mentioning, but there is another, much more immediate issue that was barely mentioned in the media commentary. It is that the French, Spanish and Italian researchers who worked on the egg fusion technique are prohibited from testing it any further because of restrictions in the laws of those countries. This means that a potentially viable reproductive technology will be slow to come to clinical practice and a whole host of infertile women or women at risk of passing on a mitochondrial disease to their children will miss out.
In Britain, the creation of embryos for research purposes is not prohibited by law, but we don't have a proud tradition of charging ahead with new techniques. ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection), egg freezing, ICSI using immature sperm and now probably egg fusion: these are all techniques that the HFEA has been reluctant to license in the UK. Yet, research that involves the fertilisation of human eggs in the laboratory (and thus the creation of a human embryo) is vitally important.
There are three options available when it comes to developing a new technology that intervenes before or during fertilisation. The first is to not do the research and not make the technique available to anyone. The second is to forego embryo research and introduce the technique directly into clinical practice. And the third is to carry out research, making sure that fertilisation and subsequent development is normal and then introducing the technique into clinical practice.
Which would you prefer? A technique which is tested on embryos, a technique which is tested on women or no technique at all?
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