Human Embryos in UK May Be Screened for Cancer Risk

Filed in archive Diagnostics, Methodologies and Instrumentation , Genomics, Proteomics and Bioinformatics on May 12, 2006

This definitely sounds straight out of fiction eugenics, but in UK, fertility clinics are given permission to screen embryos prior to implantation for genetic telltales of cancer risk. Previously, clinics were allowed by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to screen (and eliminate) embryos bearing genes for fatal congenital diseases. The Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) is now expanded to include genes that significantly raises the risk for cancer, particularly breast, ovarian, and colon cancer.

The genes noted in the decision are BRCA1 and BRCA2 -- which confer an approximately 80 percent lifetime risk of breast cancer (and, with BRCA1, a 40 percent chance of ovarian cancer) -- and HNPCC, which carries a 78 percent lifetime risk of colon cancer. BRCA cancers can strike women in their thirties and forties. Half of the people carrying HNPCC get colon cancer by age 50.

Needless to say, this decision raised issues of ethics and was met by opposition from the Catholic Church and other groups.

Personally, I'm with the opposition on this one, not for religious reasons, but because the tools are not 100% determinative: genetic testing can only approximate the likelihood of someone developing a disease, and there are a lot of other factors that come into play in the development of a disease. Genetics is just a measure of predisposition, not a verdict.

That said, I also recognize that decisions like this is more than just science. When society has to suffer the (financial) burden of supporting an ailing population, it's more than just "relieving pain and suffering of patients' relatives". The more pressing issue, but which the authorities didn't (probably couldn't?) dare to ask is: When these high risk embryos do develop cancer 50-60 years down the road, who's going to pay for that?

Details of the new HFEA PGD Policy can be found here.