A FERTILITY CLINIC is to offer genetic screening of embryos for the first time in Ireland which will inform parents if their child has an inherited disease such as cystic fibrosis.
The move has sparked controversy among anti-abortion campaigners who fear it could eventually lead to embryos being screened for minor deficiencies, or even to sex selection.
Health professionals say the screening of embryos could play a vital role in preventing miscarriages and the inheritance of debilitating genetic conditions.
Beacon Medical Group, in partnership with UK-based service Care Fertility, is opening a new clinic in Dublin where it plans to offer pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD. This involves testing embryos for conditions such as Huntington’s disease, haemophilia and cystic fibrosis, a practice increasingly used across Europe.
A number of other clinics in Dublin and Cork are also planning to obtain permission from the Irish Medicines Board (IMB) to begin offering the procedure later this year.
Pro Life Campaign spokeswoman Dr Ruth Cullen criticised the move. “Treating human life as a disposable commodity is a grave violation of the most basic human right, the right to life,” she said.
Prof Simon Fishel, managing director of Care Fertility, said the new service was aimed at achieving the best chance of pregnancy for patients and has led to hundreds of healthy babies being born.
He said: “As the UK’s leading independent fertility provider we are focused on developing the best outcomes for our patients – something we have been doing for over 30 years.”
The clinic also plans to make other high-tech interventions available, such as immunology, chromosome screening and a new form of egg freezing, which the clinic said has higher success rates.
In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is not regulated in Ireland, but there are laws relating to use and storage of human tissue. While Beacon Medical Group plans to make PGD available soon, it has not yet been authorised to do so.
The IMB said yesterday it has not issued any licence yet – and an authorisation would be issued only if it complied with legislation on tissues and cells.
Several clinics in Ireland also hope to begin another form of genetic screening soon involving analysing the chromosomes of embryos. Pre-implantation genetic screening would allow doctors to identify chromosomal abnormalities such as Down syndrome.
In Britain, the procedure is licensed for use on older women, women with a history of recurrent miscarriages and those with repeated IVF failure. The use of these procedures is likely to put a sharper focus on the destruction of unwanted embryos used in IVF.
