Nuclear Transfer

Following is an e-mail I received from Richard Silverstein, a fellow blogger, in response to my In Vitro Veritas post. The science (like most science) is beyond me, but I can't see the ethical objection to the procedure described.

"I have a 3 yr. old son conceived through egg donation (a slight variant of in-vitro) & 2 twins on the way conceived the same way. It's a terrific advance of medicine enabling tens of thousands of couples to conceive who wouldn't otherwise be able to do it.

On a related subject, our fertility specialist has conceived a new procedure which would allow a woman (like my wife) who cannot otherwise conceive using her own eggs to contribute some of her DNA to create an embryo. This involves taking the nucleus from the viable egg of a younger woman (I may be misstating the science here) and transferring it into an egg of the infertile woman. This would enable such a woman to conceive a baby that would have some of her DNA.

The problem? This procedure uses some techniques involved in cloning & therefore is equated in the minds of right wingers with it. Doesn't matter that the outcome isn't the same; doesn't matter that nuclear transfer produces a baby with the same genetic diversity of naturally conceived babies; doesn't matter that nuclear transfer is a tremendous boon to so many families who want children.

As a result of all this, our doctor has been notified that neither he nor his clinic can pursue this research using any federal funds. This has forced him to use doctors in China to pursue his research. While this is cutting edge medical research, researchers from China & other countries will garner the credit when they succeed & our researchers will be sitting on their hands, twiddling their thumbs because our government decided that ersatz morality trumped the advancement of knowledge.

For my post on this subject, I welcome you to visit Infertility Nightmare, Nuclear Transfer Dream."

Best wishes to Richard and his wife.