The world’s first baby to be born from a new procedure that combines the DNA of three people appears to be healthy, according to doctors in the US who oversaw the treatment.
The baby was born on 6 April after his Jordanian parents travelled to Mexico where they were cared for by US fertility specialists.
Doctors led by John Zhang, from the New Hope Fertility Center in New York, decided to attempt the controversial procedure of mitochondrial transfer in the hope that it would give the couple a healthy child.
While many experts welcomed news of the birth, some raised concerns that the doctors had left the US to perform the procedure beyond the reach of any regulatory framework and without publishing details of the treatment.
Speaking to the New Scientist, Zhang said he went to Mexico where “there are no rules” and insisted that doing so was right. “To save lives is the ethical thing to do,” he said.
Mitochondrial transfer was legalised in the UK in 2015 but so far no other country has introduced laws to permit the technique. The treatment is aimed at parents who have a high risk of passing on debilitating and even fatal genetic diseases to their children.
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