Dr Jeffrey Steinberg: Good or Bad? God of Designer Babies? Should we be scared of Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg and his designer babies? Or is it, to use his words, the “wave of the future” and that we would be better off if we just embrace it?
From ABC News: “Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg has already helped thousands of couples choose their child’s gender at his fertility institutes in Manhattan and Los Angeles. Within six months, he says, the clinic will offer a new service: allowing couples to select the physical traits of their babies. Steinberg says he cannot promise that people will get their selections, but claims he can dramatically increase the probability.”
ABC quotes Steinberg as saying: “I can’t say with 100 percent certainty that parents will be able to choose something like eye color — more like 80 percent certainty.”
Dr Steinberg reportedly adds that the technology behind genetic screening has progressed to the point where parents can almost custom-design their babies.
Now, can Steinberg make good on what he promises prospective parents he’d be able to do? Apparently, the medical community is divided. Some say its possible while others are not sure.
ABC News quotes Dr. Zev Rosenwaks of New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center on the theoretical possibility of designer babies: “Theoretically, I suppose, as our ability to probe the human genome, and to apply various tests to a specific gene that has been discovered. That possibly anything can be looked for and potentially identified and applied.”
We must admit that we’re more worried than excited with Dr. Steinberg’s designer babies thingie. It’s one thing to manipulate genes and that kind of stuff to ensure that people are healthy. It’s another thing to do it for aesthetic purposes like having nice eyes. What comes next? Gene manipulation to ensure that women have big really boobs and men have 24-inch dicks?
OTHER BLOG ENTRIES WE WROTE RELATED TO DR JEFFREY STEINBERG AND DESIGNER BABIES:
Sperm Donor: Gerard Butler and Other Celebrity Lookalikes
18 September 2009
Want to have a child who looks like Gerard Butler? You can do a Samantha Burke (Jude Law’s baby mama) which means you jump in bed with Gerard, use no protection, and hope you get pregnant. But, unless you are Jennifer Aniston, the probability of your getting close to the Scottish hottie is zero. So what about getting a man’s “essence” from a sperm donor who looks like Gerard Butler?
Apparently, you can do such a thing via a fertility firm based in California which supposedly has donors who look like your favorite movie stars.
Guess who is the most preferred sperm donor? A dude who supposedly looks like Gerard Butler. Can’t say we blame the ladies for falling in love with Gerard’s six pack muscles. Other top choices are donors who reportedly look like Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck, and Prince William.
Now, if you don’t want to bear the baby yourself, you can look for a surrogate mom to bear it for you.
Panayiotis Zavos: Embryo Clone Doctor
22 April 2009
Does Dr. Panayiotis Zavos represent the future when it comes to reproduction or is he just an aberration? According to The Sun, this American doctor cloned 14 embryos for American, British, and Middle Eastern patients. There have been no births yet from the cloned embryos but the doctor says that what he’s doing is “just the first chapter” and that a cloned child could be “just a year or two away”.
He says (as quoted by The Sun): “There is absolutely no doubt about it and I may not be the one that does it, but the cloned child is coming. There is absolutely no way that it will not happen. We’re not really under pressure to deliver a cloned baby to this world. What we are under pressure to do is to deliver a cloned baby that is a healthy one.”
Can someone explain to us why someone desires to get cloned? Isn’t one lifetime enough? And it’s not as if we need more people and cannot reproduce the natural way. We totally don’t get this cloning thing. Maybe some of you do?
Human Egg and Stem Cell Trafficking: Dr. Harry Miron, Sabyc Fertility Clinic
28 July 2009
Are you weirded out by the New Jersey organ trafficking scandal? Well, here’s something weirder from the world of fertility medicine: an Israeli doctor and his cohorts are being tried in Romania for allegedly trafficking on human eggs and stem cells. They allegedly grossed nearly 20 million euros from their illegal practice.
The first report from ynetnews: Some 30 Israelis were detained in a fertility clinic in Bucharest, Romania Sunday under suspicion of involvement in human egg trafficking.
An update from Ynet News identified the clinic as the Sabyc Medical Center and its owners as Harry and Yair Miron who were arrested by the Romanian police on suspicion that they are trafficking in human eggs and human stem cells.
Human egg trafficking? Never thought we’d see the day when things like this happen. Real life is stranger than fiction sometimes.
Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg: God of Designer Babies? Posted 4 March 2009.