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UK to allow babies from three people

bbc.com

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Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#131

Post by aroch »

throwaway3425 wrote: post #66

Mitochondrial diseases can be shitty, shitty things - I have multiple siblings with untreatable and debilitating effects from it. I didn't know they could even do this (technically), so this news gave me tears of joy. I am lucky on two counts, to be male (can't pass it on) and also not (yet) had any symptoms myself. It must be horrible for any female who has to decide whether having kids is worth passing those risks…

Out of curiosity, presumably your mother knew she had defective mitochondria so why did she elect to have children?

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#132

Post by logfromblammo »

kareemm wrote: post #60

I can just hear the guy who wrote the software for creating UK birth certificates: "I know for sure that I need to display two parents max on these." And I feel for the poor programmer whose job it is to deal with the brand-new edge case of putting three parents' names on one.

Make the parents field a list without fixed length, ordered by fraction of donor genes. Include exceptions for specific gene identifiers from a different mix of donors.

The default case would therefore be [[0.5 Mom, 0.5 Dad], [mDNA:1.0 Mom]] for girls, and [[0.5 Mom, 0.5 Dad], [mDNA:1.0 Mom], [23X: 1.0 Mom], [23Y: 1.0 Dad]] for boys.

For clones, it would be [[1.0 Nuclear Donor],[mDNA:1.0 Egg Donor]].

For parthenogenesis, it would be [[1.0 Mom]].

For the new UK case, it would be [[0.5 Mom, 0.5 Dad],[mDNA:1.0 Egg Donor],...].

If, for some reason, a cloned baby had the Bt pesticide genes inserted, it would be [[1.0 Nuclear Donor],[mDNA:1.0 Egg Donor],[[Cry1A.105, CryIAb, CryIF, Cry2Ab, Cry3Bb1, Cry34Ab1, Cry35Ab1, mCry3A, VIP]:1.0 Bacillus thuringiensis],...].

The real problem is finding the person to rewrite the Crystal Reports to accommodate the new data structure. Feel sorry for that person.

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#133

Post by Houshalter »

recibe wrote: post #112
one-more-minute wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting point, and perhaps a good argument for not diverting public health resources towards this kind of procedure (I'm sure there are good arguments for the opposite, too). But there's a big difference between not actively endorsing a procedure like this and making it illegal.

Not really. This procedure is likely to be inaccessible to the general public without subsidy via insurance (public or private). My argument is that one's ability to reproduce should not be guaranteed by the state, and therefore the state should not create laws that overtly or inadvertently sanction the genetic engineering of eggs or embryos to that end. This law does precisely that.

So condemning some children to horrible genetic diseases somehow makes the world more fair?

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#134

Post by robmcm »

antirez wrote: post #117
SilkRoadie wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My concern about this isn't the specific procedure, it is the moving of the line of what is allowed. What will happen next? I am sure there will be an illness where just a tiny bit of gene splicing could improve the lives of x amount of babies. You look the blocking of websites.. It started with child porn which everyone thought was acceptable but then the same legislation was used against piracy websites. Now Britai…

How is different than giving antibiotics to somebody ill? You are preventing the natural outcome, with something artificially created. I think many people when the topic is "DNA" simply over-react.

The argument is that changes to genetics bridge generations. If you kill someone with medicine they die. If you give someone a faulty gene, it could affect exponential number of people with each generation.

Unless it affects reproduction ;)

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#135

Post by Houshalter »

thisone wrote: post #68
kareemm wrote: post #60

I can just hear the guy who wrote the software for creating UK birth certificates: "I know for sure that I need to display two parents max on these." And I feel for the poor programmer whose job it is to deal with the brand-new edge case of putting three parents' names on one.

IVF can currently involve 5 people as it is. Sperm donor, egg donor, surrogate, couple whose child this will be. This method ups it to 6.

The kid could also have an organ transplant.

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#136

Post by Houshalter »

3d8995163 wrote: post #54
brianpgordon wrote: post #48

> Other groups, including Human Genetics Alert, say the move would open the door to further genetic modification of children in the future - so-called designer babies, genetically modified for beauty, intelligence or to be free of disease. There are people who don't think this is a good thing?! If we could eliminate congenital disease, and make everyone smarter, it would be like fast-forwarding human evolution.

And the kids whose parents couldn't afford to have them genetically improved? They just exist as some sort of permanent underclass? If you think the inequality and the way poor people get treated is a problem now, wait until rich people are actually genetically superior to the poor.

This is zero-sum thinking. The un-genetically modified kids are no worse off than they would have otherwise been.

Second we could easily solve it by making it available to everyone.

Third, the world is hardly genetically fair as it is. People are born with all sorts of horrible genetic conditions every day. If anything this will make the world more fair.

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#137

Post by logfromblammo »

adrusi wrote: post #63
_almosnow wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The world fresh water supply is renewable and renews at a rate several orders of magnitude greater than human consumption. I'm gonna need source on that one, please.

The problem with freshwater is not that the global supply is limited, rather that supplies in some high-population areas are. The Amazon river sends 209,000 cubic meters into the Atlantic every second[1]. That's 18,100,000,000 per day. A single human drinks about two liters (0.02 cubic meters) every day. There are 7 billion humans, so the global requirement is 140,000,000 cubic meters of water. The Amazon alone conta…

First, 1 L = 0.001 m^3. A liter is one cubic decimeter. 0.1 x 0.1 x 0.1 == 0.001 .

Humans use more fresh water than just the quantity that they actually drink. You also have to include the quantity used for sanitation, personal hygiene, and recreation. Even discounting non-household use, a single person can easily clear 100 L (0.1 m^3) per day through their water meter, without even trying.

Go read your water bill some time. Divide your metered usage by 30.5 and restart your calculation on a new bar napkin or envelope. That gives you a multiple of about 26, if the whole planet consumes water like American households, and agricultural and recreational uses are completely ignored. Use that same 10% figure, and the whole Amazon could be completely consumed by only 18.2 billion people.

That's just one river, but it is the one with the most water in it.

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#138

Post by orblivion »

Houshalter wrote: post #130
orblivion wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's wrong with "designer babies". It destroys our existing concept of the human experience. Is it silly to want to live among "natural" children? Then explain me why it's not silly to want to continue the species at all?

I can just imagine our distant descendants reading through this thread, thinking how horrible we are for condemning our children to genetic diseases and inequality. Just like we look down at the people who fought against the smallpox vaccine because it was unnatural.

> our children

What does this phrase mean?

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#139

Post by maratd »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #84
maratd wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is the GATTACA argument that unequal access to genetic modification will foster even greater socioeconomic inequality than we already face today. Absolutely nothing we can do artificially will have as great of an impact than genetically gifted individuals having children together ... which is already happening and has been happening for eons ... I mean, that's what evolution is. The smart get smarter, the fas…

"I mean, that's what evolution is. The smart get smarter, the fast get faster, the strong get stronger, and the inferior disappear from the gene pool." That's not "what evolution is". See [1] for why this is a fundamentally wrong way to think about it. [1] http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/misconceptions_faq....

Thanks for mis-quoting me.

This is the actual quote:

> genetically gifted individuals having children together ... which is already happening and has been happening for eons ... I mean, that's what evolution is.

That is exactly what evolution is. The fit only mate with other fit individuals, accelerating the spread of traits which make them fit.

With regard to my other statement:

> The smart get smarter, the fast get faster, the strong get stronger, and the inferior disappear from the gene pool.

The burden is on you to prove that intelligence, speed, and strength aren't being heavily selected upon in the human population. I made it as an off-hand comment, but I think it's pretty spot on regardless.

Re: UK to allow babies from three people

#140

Post by maratd »

avar wrote: post #73
maratd wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is the GATTACA argument that unequal access to genetic modification will foster even greater socioeconomic inequality than we already face today. Absolutely nothing we can do artificially will have as great of an impact than genetically gifted individuals having children together ... which is already happening and has been happening for eons ... I mean, that's what evolution is. The smart get smarter, the fas…

> Absolutely nothing we can do artificially > will have as great of an impact than > genetically gifted individuals having > children together. When those two individuals have children their genes are fused together by random chance. Do you really think gene technology won't get better than random chance? We already have technology that's good enough to improve on that, e.g. splicing out a gene known to cause a disea…

> When those two individuals have children their genes are fused together by random chance. Do you really think gene technology won't get better than random chance?

Yes. Because what really matters is the restriction of the pool from which those random genes are chosen through mate choice. The overwhelming majority of the time you're randomly choosing between identical genes.

When you start playing with genetic engineering, the whole world is your oyster and your choices are liable to be far worse than random chance among a carefully curated pool. I think genetic engineering will be fantastic for curing specific ailments, but will be a total flop when it comes to creating super humans. Natural selection will always do it better.

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