Three parent IVF: American experts reserve judgement on the technique

Publié le : 28 February 2014

After two days of public meetings, an American Expert Advisory Committee has passed on its recommendations to the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the American Health Authorities, regarding the highly controversial technique of three-parent IVF [In-vitro fertilisation]. And rightly so because the FDA must soon deliver its decision on whether or not to legalise this practice in the United States (Gènéthique press review on February 17th, 2014 and on February 24th, 2014).

The Expert Committee was extremely reserved in terms of whether or not the procedure is safe to pass through to the clinical trial stage since this technique has only been tested in monkeys to date. The Chairman of the Expert Committee explained that "the feeling of the committee at this stage in the research programme is that there is probably not enough animal or laboratory data to start clinical trials".

The committee did not comment on the ethical issues that this kind of technique could raise. According to the Chairman of the Expert Committee, "Overall, there is considerable uncertainty in terms of children’s wellbeing".

The FDA is not bound to accept the committee’s recommendations, but generally takes them into account.

Bioethics press synthesis

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