Juggling with Genetics – family balancing
This is an article i read in another blog http://balancedfamilies.blogspot.in/
Afternoon Despatch and Courier (Mumbai),
By Tara Patel
Is there such a thing as a tailor-made
baby? No such thing yet, exclaimed a bemused British Doctor, Dr. Alan
Thornhill, visiting Mumbai and India for the third time — this time
in association with city doctor Dr. Aniruddha Malpani’s Infertility
Clinic.
Medical technology has advanced a
great deal, he explained, but the field of genetics is complex. India
still has a long way to go before we can order a baby to specification.
Besides, there are ethics involved. For the time being, even the effort
to treat genetically-flawed babies is a problem. And if couples have
been unable to have a child, they should seek medical redressal to the
problem.”
The P.G.D. procedure, says Dr.
Thornhill, was originally developed to diagnose genetic disease at an
early embryonic stage but it has a number of clinical applications
nowadays. If there is a genetic flaw in either routine and the results
consistent. Similarly, the diagnostic material required to accurately
and reliably diagnose chromosomal abnormalities or single gene defects
from a single cell have been refined largely in the 1990s …”
Is one of the other clinical
applications of this procedure? He smiled, having anticipated the
questions, he is aware that a large number of termination of
pregnancies take place in India after a female foetus has been
diagnosed. “It is a social issue we do not have in the west,” says Dr.
Thornhill. The law in the U. K does not permit the hospitals and
doctors to use the P. G. D. procedure specifically for sexual
identification. “The law says you can’t although there are the old
cases when somebody may want to have a male or a female child to
balance the family… it’s family may have four girls in a row and may
want a boy. May be in future, family balancing may be allowed, but at
present it is not allowed in the U.K”
Besides, he says, if an associated test
was run for sex determination, it would be costly. ” In vitro
fertilization costs abut 1,200 pounds, and a P.G.D. procedure another
800 pounds.” Needless to that it is only in the Asian and middle
Eastern countries that there is a premium on male children. In Dr. Alan
Thornhill’s experience, Jordan is an example where a genetic test is
run for sex determination, and in some states of the U.S.A. “family
balancing” is legally permitted.
How is it done? Well, in an I.V.F.
cycle a woman’s ovary is stimulated to produce a number of eggs. These
are collected and mixed with sperm to produce embryos. Three days after
the mixing, at the eight-cell stage, a chemical is used to drill a hole
into an embryo to remove a cell for genetic testing i.e. male and
female constituents. If it’s the desired sex, an embryo can be
implanted in the uterus… and all this is not as easy as it sounds.
The success rate is a mere 30 to 45 percent!
In conclusion, Dr. Alan Thornhill
posed a thought-provoking question. “If ever, family selection is
permitted legally, rather than kill a healthy female or male foetus
through medical termination of pregnancy, isn’t it better to permit an
option of a pre-implantation diagnosis before pregnancy is initiated?”
These are ethical-medical issues the world needs to think about!!!!!
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