World first - UK government to back mitochondrial donation/replacement
The news this morning is again covering the mitochondrial donation/replacement debates, after Professor Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer, announced yesterday that draft regulations will be published later in 2013 for public consultation, with the intention that the final version of the proposed regulations will be debated in Parliament in 2014.
These developments have been the subject of a number of consultations in the UK in recent years. The Government announcement focuses - understandably - on the HFEA's consultations in 2011, on the safety and efficacy of the procedures, and in 2012, the public dialogue on the support or concerns held regarding the use of such procedures for ‘treatment cycles' in humans (as opposed to research only, where the resulting embryos cannot be developed beyond 14 days due to restrictions on embryo research). However, the Human Genetics Commission first reported its conclusions in 2010 (HGC, since closed under the Arms' Length Bodies Review of quangos); and in June 2012 the Nuffield Council on Bioethics published its report following public consultation.
In a shameless plug, in a recently published article Jones and Holme consider some of the issues raised by mitochondrial donation/replacement. See further Jones and Holme,'Relatively (im) material: mtDNA and genetic relatedness in law and policy', Life Sciences, Society and Policy 2013, 9:4, open access link: http://www.lsspjournal.com/content/pdf/2195-7819-9-4.pdf (alternatively, try http://www.lsspjournal.com/content/9/1/4).