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CNN Live At Daybreak
Designing the Perfect Child
Aired June 27, 2001 - 07:16 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: In health news now, every parent wants to have a healthy child, but imagine being able to determine just how healthy that child will be even before it's conceived. With expanding technology, it can happen.
CNN medical correspondent Rhonda Rowland explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RHONDA ROWLAND, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Six-year-old Molly Nash, Nine-month-old brother Adam, siblings who share an unusual bond. Molly was born with multiple birth defects due to Fanconi anemia, a deadly genetic disease that often leads to Leukemia. Her best chance for survival, a perfectly matched stem-cell transplant.
LISA NASH, MOTHER: Jack and I were determined to have more kids, to have more healthy kids and possibly to have a transplant for Molly.
ROWLAND: So Adam was conceived in a petrie dish, selected as an embryo because genetic testing determined he was free of Fanconi anemia, and his umbilical cord blood would provide a perfect match for his sister's transplant. It was the first time technology, called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, was used both to create a healthy life and save an existing life. The procedure is described in the current issue of "The Journal of the American Medical Association."
An editorial examining the ethical implications says the technology "results in choice without abortion. However, it is essential to proceed with caution when the application may exceed...preventing inherited lethal diseases to designer genetics." For the Nash's, using the technology was an easy choice.
NASH: God gave us this technology. God gave us Adam, and God gave Molly her second chance at life. And to us that was what was morally and ethically right.
ROWLAND (on camera): The same doctors at Chicago's Reproductive Genetics Institute, who helped the Nash's conceive son Adam have since used preimplantation genetic diagnosis to help another couple conceive a baby with no inherited predisposition to a type of cancer called Li- Fraumeni syndrome.
(voice-over): The genetic defect puts people at risk for a range of cancers.
YURY VERLINSKY, REPRODUCTIVE GENETICS INST.: You have about a 50 percent chance to have cancer before you're 40 years old and about 90 percent until you are 60 years old. So I think it's this kind of horror to live with, is very good to avoid.
ROWLAND: Selecting embryos that are at risk for disease as opposed to definitely developing a devastating condition raises more ethical questions.
DR. HILTON KORT, REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY ASSOC.: This particular embryo, which is at risk for breast cancer, that woman may go on to be a fantastic artist, pianist, scientist, may discover the cure for cancer.
ROWLAND: The Nash's started with 30 embryos. Only 5 had the right genetic makeup. In the fourth attempt at pregnancy, the last embryo resulted in Adam's birth. Total cost: more than $40,000. But Molly Nash has a healthy brother and will soon celebrate her seventh birthday.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROWLAND: It's been nine months since Molly Nash received her stem cell transplant from her brother's umbilical cord blood. Of course, the procedure was totally painless for him. And all indications are that Molly is doing well. But doctors won't consider her totally out of the woods for another three months. And then, Carol, she should be able to leave isolation and go back to school and have a normal life -- so a very happy ending for this family.
LIN: That's great.
And I think it's easy to understand why this family made this decision to go through this procedure to try to help their little girl. But what does this procedure do in terms of the designer baby debate, you know, whether you or I should be able to pick eye color or other characteristics?
ROWLAND: Well, it takes us a little further down that road because, as we're learning more, of course, about the human genome, you can test for more genetic diseases. Right now, so far, they've mostly been testing for single-gene defect.
So couples know that if their child gets this particular gene, they definitely get the disease, because, as we mentioned in this story, they're expanding it to susceptibility to disease. So you may have a genetic predisposition that would make you 50 percent likely to have a particular disease. So who decides if you should replace an embryo who has just a 50 percent chance.
Now, again, we're talking about just lethal diseases. And most doctors say that the procedure is too difficult to go and test for eye color and intelligence and those sorts of things. But we don't know what's going to happen.
LIN: Right. Right -- or how far people are willing to go to have exactly the child they want.
ROWLAND: That's exactly right.
LIN: All right. Thanks so much, Rhonda. Good to see you.
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