Someone please verify this. Both the picture and the story. Sounds creepy and scary to me considering all the other bad shit our government and tax free foundations have done in the past.
World's first GM babies born
The world's first geneticallymodified humans have been created, it was revealed last night.
The
disclosure that 30 healthy babies were born after a series of
experiments in the United States provoked another furious debate about
ethics.
So far, two of the babies have been tested and have been found
to contain genes from three 'parents'.
Fifteen
of the children were born in the past three years as a result of one
experimental programme at the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and
Science of St Barnabas in New Jersey.
The babies were born
to women who had problems conceiving. Extra genes from a female donor
were inserted into their eggs before they were fertilised in an attempt
to enable them to conceive.
Genetic fingerprint tests on
two one-year- old children confirm that they have inherited DNA from
three adults --two women and one man.
The fact that the
children have inherited the extra genes and incorporated them into their
'germline' means that they will, in turn, be able to pass them on to
their own offspring.
Altering the human
germline - in effect tinkering with the very make-up of our species - is
a technique shunned by the vast majority of the world's scientists.
Geneticists
fear that one day this method could be used to create new races of
humans with extra, desired characteristics such as strength or high
intelligence.
Writing in the journal Human Reproduction,
the researchers, led by fertility pioneer Professor Jacques Cohen, say
that this 'is the first case of human germline genetic modification
resulting in normal healthy children'.
Some experts severely criticised the experiments.
Lord
Winston, of the Hammersmith Hospital in West London, told the BBC
yesterday: 'Regarding the treat-ment of the infertile, there is no
evidence that this technique is worth doing . . . I am very surprised
that it was even carried out at this stage. It would certainly not be
allowed in Britain.'
John Smeaton, national director of
the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said: 'One has
tremendous sympathy for couples who suffer infertility problems. But
this seems to be a further illustration of the fact that the whole
process of in vitro fertilisation as a means of conceiving babies leads
to babies being regarded as objects on a production line.
'It is a further and very worrying step down the wrong road for humanity.'
Professor
Cohen and his colleagues diagnosed that the women were infertile
because they had defects in tiny structures in their egg cells, called
mitochondria.
They took eggs from donors and, using a fine
needle, sucked some of the internal material - containing 'healthy'
mitochondria - and injected it into eggs from the women wanting to
conceive.
Because mitochondria contain genes, the babies
resulting from the treatment have inherited DNA from both women. These
genes can now be passed down the germline along the maternal line.
A
spokesman for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA),
which regulates 'assisted reproduction' technology in Britain, said that
it would not license the technique here because it involved altering
the germline.
Jacques Cohen is regarded as a brilliant but
controversial scientist who has pushed the boundaries of assisted
reproduction technologies.
He developed a technique which
allows infertile men to have their own children, by injecting sperm DNA
straight into the egg in the lab.
Prior to this, only infertile women were able to conceive using IVF.
Last
year, Professor Cohen said that his expertise would allow him to clone
children --a prospect treated with horror by the mainstream scientific
community.
'It would be an afternoon's work for one of my
students,' he said, adding that he had been approached by 'at least
three' individuals wishing to create a cloned child, but had turned down
their requests.
