Three parent babies are unsafe, warns top scientist

London: The science that could allow babies with three parents to be born in Britain is unproven and may be unsafe, a leading US scientist warned Monday night.

The government could give the go-ahead as early as next year for children to be born using genetic material from two mothers and a father making the UK the first country in the world to license the technique for clinical use.

But Professor Evan Snyder, the top scientific adviser on the issue to US authorities, Monday warned there were unresolved safety concerns.

The procedure is designed to give couples who have endured the heartache of repeatedly miscarrying or burying much-longed-for children the option of having a healthy family.

It helps women with damaged mitochondria, which power cells by turning food into energy. The defect causes serious illness in one in 6,500 babies and is behind 50 genetic diseases, many of which kill in infancy.

Women carrying damaged mitochondria can also miscarry repeatedly and often face the heartbreaking choice of whether it would be best to remain childless. But scientists want to swap healthy mitochondria from an egg donated by a woman into the egg of the mother-to-be.

The UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority said this year there was no evidence that the technique would be unsafe.

But Professor Snyder, who chairs the scientific panel advising the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), believes years more research is needed before the technique is used.

Speaking to the Independent newspaper, he said: The panel was not in any way antagonistic towards this intervention.

The diseases are terrible, the treatments are non-existent and the technology so far is a tour de force. However, everybody concluded that there is still more work to be done.

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Three parent babies are unsafe, warns top scientist