First Child Screened for Breast Cancer Gene Born in the UK

Photo: The University College Hospital in London where the child was born.

The first known child to have been screened as an embryo for the BRCA-1 gene, the gene which often causes breast and ovarian cancer, was born this week in Great Britain. A spokesman for the University College London told media that the girl was screened through pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, a process that tests a group of embryos created through in vitro fertilization when each contains eight cells.

The cells are tested, and only those which are free of the BRCA-1 gene are returned to the mother's womb.

Around the world, doctors already test for genes causing an array of diseases including Huntington's Disease and Cystic Fibrosis, but this is the first time that a child has been known to have been tested for a gene that is only likely to cause disease.

Those with the BRCA-1 Gene have a 50 to 80 percent chance of developing breast or ovarian cancer in their lifetime. The UK media is calling the child the "cancer-free" girl, which is inaccurate. The girl could still develop a non-genetic form of either breast or ovarian cancer.

It is expected that doctors will soon be able to test for other forms of cancer, but testing for diseases that may or may not be fatal and may not appear for decades has raised a number of ethical questions.

Josephine Quintavalle, co-founder of the group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said, "This is simply a mechanism for eliminating the birth of anybody (prone to) the disease. The message we are sending is: 'Better off dead than carrying (a gene linked to) breast cancer."