High Court upholds challenge to use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis with tissue typing 13/1/03. By the Public Health Genetics Unit Arguments continue over the preimplantation genetic diagnosis of an embryo unaffected by beta-thalassaemia and a tissue match for an existing son.

During 2002, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority decided to allow a UK couple to use preimplantation genetic diagnosis to select an embryo that was not affected by the genetic disease beta-thalassaemia (for which both parents are carriers), and in addition was a tissue match for their existing son.

The aim would be to use cord blood from the baby to treat the affected boy. The HFEA's decision has been challenged by the campaigning group Comment on Reproductive Ethics; in a decision handed down on 20 December, the High Court upheld this challenge.

In his judgement, Mr Justice Maurice Kay said that Parliament, in the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act , had tightly specified the purposes for which the HFEA may grant licences, and that these must fall within the general description of "assisting women to carry children". He found that tissue typing does not meet this criterion and is therefore unlawful.

We also rejected alternative submissions made by counsel for the HFEA: that tissue typing does not require licensing by the HFEA because it is carried out on cells taken from an embryo, not on the embryo itself; and that a prohibition on tissue typing would contravene the European Convention on Human Rights.

The HFEA is considering the implications of the court's decision and taking advice on whether it should appeal.

Article courtesy of the Public Health Genetics Unit .

Image credit: Chris Nurse