Vic: Couples want to create designer babies to save children

AAP General News (Australia)
12-22-2001
Vic: Couples want to create designer babies to save children

A Victorian couple reportedly want to create a designer baby to save their first child,
dying of a blood disorder.

The Sunday Herald Sun says a Melbourne IVF clinic is seeking permission on their behalf
and for two Tasmanian families, two from New South Wales and two from New Zealand.

The paper says all of them have seriously ill children needing bone marrow transplants.

It says the unnamed Victorian couple want to use IVF technology, through which the
embryo to be implanted is tested for the genetic disease and screened to make sure it
is a perfect tissue match.

The couple's first child had the killer blood disease Fanconi's anaemia, which was
suffered by American toddler MOLLY NASH.

Last year MOLLY'S parents created a designer brother to save her life through a perfectly
marched donation of blood stem cells from the baby's umbilical cord.

She has now fully recovered.

AAp RTV sjg/wz

KEYWORD: BABY (MELBOURNE)

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