Agence France Presse

Sydney, March 8:

Australian doctors have made history by creating a “designer baby” to treat his brother for a life-threatening genetic illness, it was reported today.

Scientists at the Sydney IVF clinic helped the parents conceive a brother who will be an exact tissue match for the four-year-old, identified only as BJ, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph said. They ill then use stem cells from the discarded umbilical cord for a transplant to cure BJ from rare Hyper IgM syndrome. None of his relatives were able to provide the matching bone marrow.

The mother, identified only as Leanne, is now pregnant with a healthy baby boy thanks to IVF (in-vitro fertilisation) techniques. Doctors also developed a test to screen potential embryos to avoid Hyper IgM syndrome. Leanne said the breakthrough was a gift of life for her son.

However Australian Medical Association federal president Bill Glasson said that the Sydney case raised mixed questions of ethics. He said it was understandable the parents would want to save his life.

“If the intent is to create another child that is disease free and in doing so that child is able to help the child that is currently living with the disease then I think ethically you could argue that is correct,” Glasson said. “If the desire is just to create an embryo that actually is compatible with the child that’s alive and in doing so discarding a series of embryos in the process then I think the ethics have to be questioned.”

BJ’s father said: “I couldn’t care less what anybody thinks. When we were in Sydney, I told everyone we met why we were there and we didn’t get one bad reaction.”

Only a handful of cases of a child being born to save another have been reported. The technique was pioneered in the US, where baby Adam Nash was conceived in 2000 to help cure sister Molly of a blood disorder.