Want a designer baby? Sorry, you'll have to wait.
Genetic Experiment 626
Recently I made fun of a prominent Welsh medical authority who claimed that Britian is a "hop, skip, and a jump" from creating designer babies.
"You decide that you want a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl who is bright and good at tennis. ...We are now a hop, skip and a jump away from it and that makes me very uncomfortable," said Dr. Tony Calland, British Medical Association Welsh Council
The folks at the "Understanding Genetics" Web site have a really nice feature called "Ask a Geneticist", providing expert answers to questions posed by the public. Here's this week's question:
Is it possible to use genetic engineering to create a "designer baby"? I've seen news articles with phrases like, "soon, parents could order up a blue-eyed, blonde-haired girl who's good at tennis". Is it technically possible to alter a human embryo to produce a desired trait, such as blue eyes, if neither parent carries genes for blue eyes? Or, for example, if both parents are carriers of cystic fibrosis, and all of their embryos were found to have or carry CF, could the CF gene be fixed in the embryo?
Understanding Genetics
The short answer:
No, none of this is possible right now. And I don’t see it happening anytime soon either.
Understanding Genetics
Visit their Web site to see the complete and very interesting response (link below).
Dr. Calland, it looks to me, is simply using his respected position to raise false alarmist claims in order to sway people to his way of thinking, during a time when gender selection is under public review in the UK. This is a person on the *Ethics* committee.