DNA Fingerprinting

Posted by Joanna Karpasea-Jones Aug 5, 2008

As wonderful as science can be, you've got to admit, IVF doesn't work very well. Most attempts fail, and if you're in the less than 30% that succeed, it's normally after more than one cycle. Anything that increases the pregnancy and live birth rate is good, particularly if it lessens the likelihood of multiple births. I have to admit, though, I find the idea of using DNA in IVF rather scary.

The Drawbacks

• Doctors don't know the affect of removing cells from a blastocyst. They say it doesn't harm but how do they know? There have only been 37 babies born after the technique. Are these being studied to monitor their health?
• Doctors used to think that we didn't need our tonsils and routinely removed them. They later discovered they are important for the immune system. What if the harvested embryonic cells turn out to be necessary?
• How do we know if there were any failed implantations due to the procedure? An embryo may have attached if its cells had not been tampered with.
• Could this be the start of trying to create 'super babies' who are genetically superior, or made to order, designer babies?

In theory it sounds like a good idea, but I think there are still too many 'what if's?'