Embryo screening court case

A couple in Australia are suing a fertility clinic where they had treatment to try to prevent their child inheriting a cancer gene from his mother.

The couple, who knew their child would naturally have a fifty percent chance of inheriting the cancer gene, were told that the clinic could screen embryos to prevent this happening. They went through a process called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD. They had IVF and then one cell was taken from the resulting embryos and tested to see whether it was carrying the cancer gene. The technique has been used to screen for a number of inherited cancers as well as other conditions such as cystic fibrosis, and only embryos free from these specific genetic conditions are transferred to the womb.

It wasn't until the child was a few months old that a test revealed the screening hadn't worked, and he had inherited the cancer gene. It isn't clear how this happened, and the couple are now suing the clinic for damages.

PGD is still fairly rare, but is offered for a growing number of inherited conditions by some clinics in the UK as well as overseas. There's an Australian newspaper report on the case here