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Baby Born in UK Screened To Be Cancer-Free

Scientists implanted in womb only cells without genes that could lead to disease

By Wesley Oliver, Newser Staff

Posted Jan 9, 2009 1:10 PM CST

(Newser) – The UK’s first “cancer-free” baby was born yesterday, but not without a shower of criticism for the parents and doctors, the BBC reports. Doctors screened the embryo for the altered BRCA1 gene, whose carriers have an 80% chance of developing breast cancer. “The parents will have been spared the risk of inflicting this disease on their daughter,” said a fertility expert.

But the anonymous parents haven’t been spared the backlash from critics who oppose the procedure, known as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. “It is basically a search-and-kill mechanism,” said one activist. “Underlying all this is eugenics.” Doctors worldwide use PGD, which costs about $11,800, to root out genes that are certain to cause illness, but BRCA1 isn’t certain to cause cancer.

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The first baby in the UK tested before conception for a genetic form of breast cancer has been born. Doctors said the girl and her mother were doing well following the birth this week. (Shutter Stock)

Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis involves taking a cell from an embryo at the eight-cell stage of development, when it is around 3-days old, and testing it. (Shutter Stock)

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The message we are sending is: 'Better off dead than carrying (a gene linked to) breast cancer.' We have gone very much down the proverbial slippery slope. - Josephine Quintavalle, co-founder of Comment on Reproductive Ethics

The lasting legacy is the eradication of the transmission of this form of cancer that has blighted these families for generations. - Paul Serhal, University College London doctor

This little girl will not face the spectre of developing this genetic form of breast cancer or ovarian cancer in her adult life. - Paul Serhal, University College London doctor

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Baby Born in UK Screened To Be Cancer-Free