US company offers IVF risk test for low intelligence
by Michael Cook | 17 Nov 2018 | 1 comment
An American genomics company is negotiating with IVF clinics to provide a risk test for embryos with intellectual disability. Genomic Predictions claims that it can offer prospective parents a risk profile for a range of conditions, like breast cancer, diabetes and low intelligence, which are caused by the interaction of several genes.
Nathan Treff, a co-founder of the company, told The Times (London) that this is an extension of screening that currently exists for conditions such as Down’s syndrome. “Chromosomal abnormalities are already evaluated,” he said. “For complex disorders, though, we have to evaluate the entire genome in order to get the risk. The very extreme end of risk, the opposite of intellectual ability, is intellectual disability. There is a potential to avoid that condition by selecting an embryo that does not have it.”
The company’s system does not identity the disabilities in a particular embryo. Instead it gives the risk of predisposition to diseases. It claims to be the first to identify polygenic risk scores for embryos rather than adults.
In theory, the same technology could be used to select for high intelligence. But Genomic Predictions claims that it will only offer it for “mental disability”, although another co-founder, Stephen Hsu, told New Scientist: “If we don’t do it, some other company will.”
In fact, Hsu, who is also vice president for research at Michigan State University, has a background in the genetics of high intelligence. He and the third co-founder Laurent Tellier have been working on a project in China to sequence the genomes of mathematical geniuses, hoping to find the genetic basis of IQ.
The idea could be popular with IVF clinics. Simon Fishel, a well-known IVF specialist in the UK, told The Times, “It’s always about balancing the good versus the potential for bad. We had this argument when PGD [pre-implantation genetic diagnosis] was originally introduced. Without a shadow of a doubt it’s been lifesaving”. He doesn’t believe that the possibility of selecting against embryos with intellectual disabilities is part of a slippery slope. “Cognitive disability is a health issue. We’re not talking about whether we need to make more intelligent people in society,” he said.
But not everyone was in favour. Lynn Murray, spokesperson for Don't Screen Us Out, told the New Scientist: “If we consider inclusion and diversity to be a measure of societal progress, then IQ screening proposals are unethical. There must be wide consultation.”
Sunday, November 18, 2018
Occasionally we tag one of our articles “reproductive revolution” because it exemplifies how far law and technology take us once sex has been detached from reproduction. This week’s tale comes from India. A team at Galaxy Care Hospital in Pune has performed India’s first successful uterus transplant. A 45-year-old mother donated her womb to her 28-year-old daughter who eventually gave birth to a healthy baby girl.
Arrangements like this are no longer newsworthy, but what made the transplant necessary? It turns out that the young woman had had at least two abortions and these had damaged her uterus. Frankly, I find this fertility-at-any-cost approach a bit bizarre.
But not more bizarre than some of the other stories: the Dutch sperm donor who may have fathered 1000 children, the Japanese man who is raising 13 children by commercial surrogates from Thailand, the 65-year-old German grandmother who gave birth to quads, the German zoophile who is in a “relationship” with his Alsatian because “Animals are much easier to understand than women” and so on.
The reproductive revolution was originally intended to give loving couples the joy of having children of their own. How differently it has turned out. As they say, “Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children."
Arrangements like this are no longer newsworthy, but what made the transplant necessary? It turns out that the young woman had had at least two abortions and these had damaged her uterus. Frankly, I find this fertility-at-any-cost approach a bit bizarre.
But not more bizarre than some of the other stories: the Dutch sperm donor who may have fathered 1000 children, the Japanese man who is raising 13 children by commercial surrogates from Thailand, the 65-year-old German grandmother who gave birth to quads, the German zoophile who is in a “relationship” with his Alsatian because “Animals are much easier to understand than women” and so on.
The reproductive revolution was originally intended to give loving couples the joy of having children of their own. How differently it has turned out. As they say, “Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children."
 Michael Cook Editor BioEdge |  |  |  |
NEWS THIS WEEK
by Michael Cook | Nov 17, 2018
Indian woman ‘borrows’ her mother’s because hers was scarred after abortions. by Michael Cook | Nov 17, 2018
Becoming a resource-wasting ‘epidemic’ by Michael Cook | Nov 17, 2018
Social isolation can even lead to changes in brain structure by Michael Cook | Nov 17, 2018
Settlement reached after five years of litigation by Michael Cook | Nov 17, 2018
Not part of a slippery slope, says IVF expert by Michael Cook | Nov 17, 2018
A very expensive form of insurance by Xavier Symons | Nov 17, 2018
The bill that would ban terminations after a fetal heartbeat can be detected. by Xavier Symons | Nov 17, 2018
The state government has appointed and expert panel to draft a bill. by Xavier Symons | Nov 17, 2018
A court has charged 18 people with violating surrogacy laws. BioEdge
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