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CNN Live At Daybreak
Embryo Screening Proves Successful, Raises Ethical Questions
Aired February 27, 2002 - 05:35 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 COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Now to what is believed to be a medical first. A woman with a gene for early Alzheimer's gave birth to a daughter, who is free of that gene, because doctors screened the woman's eggs and selected and fertilized one without the defect.
Our Medical Correspondent Rhonda Rowland has more on the technology, and why some medical ethicists are concerned about this latest milestone.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RHONDA ROWLAND, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's another case of technology preventing trouble, but raising tough ethical questions. Doctors don't change a baby's genes, but they do screen embryos in a lab and implant in the mother only those embryos that are free of disease-causing genes.
DR. DENA TOWNER, UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS: In many of the diseases, it has been used with are diseases that typically have a very severe neonatal outcome. These children many times die within the first few years of age.
ROWLAND: It's called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, and now for the first time, it has been used to conceive a child free of a gene that predisposes her to a type of Alzheimer's disease.
The 30-year-old mother carries a gene that predisposes her to a form of early onset Alzheimer's. Two of her siblings developed the mind-robbing disease in their 30s.
DR. YORY VERLINSKY, REPRODUCTIVE GENETICS OF CHICAGO: By transferring embryo, that doesn't have these mutations would definitely cure this problem for this baby.
ROWLAND: But while the child, who is now a year old, will never develop early onset Alzheimer's disease, there is almost a 100 percent chance her mother will, and that concerns some ethicists.
TOWNER: She is probably going to be manifesting within the first five years of this child's life, and not be able to provide, you know, really good mothering to this child.
ROWLAND: Dr. Towner supports embryo screening technology, but says when it's used, the child's future should be the main priority. TOWNER: I am not saying she should have been turned down, but you need to discuss very thoroughly that this is what reality is going to be, and she has to accept that.
ROWLAND: Dr. Verlinsky, whose laboratory did the procedure, says the decision should be left to patients.
VERLINSKY: I think it's all up to patient to decide if they want to prevent or treat disease. We cannot force them to live with disease, because we seeing it as unethical to prevent.
ROWLAND (on camera): The embryo screening technology gives couples the choice of eliminating a particular severe disease. It does not mean the child will be born free of all diseases, raising more ethical questions. Which diseases, which most develop in old age, do we choose to eliminate?
Rhonda Rowland, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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