A new precautionary study can predict your child’s risk for common illnesses

The same techniques that geneticists use to predict these diseases can also be used to predict similar traits intelligence or weight in adulthood. For now, Orchid is focused on providing parents with reports of disease risks, but the New Jersey genomic prediction is already screening embryos for “intellectual disability”.

Gabriel Lázaro-Muñoz, a lawyer at the Bioethics and Baylor University School of Medicine, who has studied polygenic risk scores, says that the ability to select and select embryos for many traits enters eugenics territory. “We need to have a serious conversation about how to use this technology in our society,” he says.

Negative attitudes toward mental illness are already prevalent, and polygenic risk studies may further stigmatize these conditions. He says the fact that a future child may choose whether or not to reduce the risk of having these conditions puts a lot of pressure on parents. Beyond the problem of mental illness, should parents choose the “smartest” embryo?

And even if the couple wanted to do a polygenic screening, the expense could be prohibitive. Orchid has not publicly released test costs, but a source said MIT Technology Review he charges $ 1,100 for the couple’s report. (Orchid did not respond to many attempts at interviewing.) While the company offers a financial assistance program to couples who cannot afford it, the price of IVF has yet to be considered. An IVF cycle costs between $ 12,000 and $ 17,000 and getting pregnant often requires several cycles.

“This is a reproduction of the rich,” he says Laura Hercher, genetic consultant and director of human genetics research at Sarah Lawrence College. “What they seem to be saying is that everyone who can afford it should have IVF.”

In fact, in a podcast interview Siddiqui suggested more couples should use IVF to select the healthiest embryos.

Hercher and others question whether this is the best use of polygenic risk scores. “Are we happy to let the market decide what embryos we want to test?” Hercher asks. “Or is it time to step up and ‘Are all uses justified?’ To say “

Saving lives

The market for this technology is driven by parental demands and for some, knowing the genetic risks to their children may be in God’s favor.

Laura Pogliano says testing like Orchidena could have helped her protect her son Zac better when she was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder in 2009 when she was an early teenager. As the symptoms worsened, doctors eventually learned that he had schizophrenia. Zac died of heart failure in 2015 at the age of 23 (approximately 50%) sudden deaths in schizophrenia are cardiovascular causes.)

Pogliano says that if he had known of his danger before his son was born, he would have examined the first signs and gotten treatment sooner. Symptoms of schizophrenia — hallucinations, deception, confused speech, and disordered thinking — usually appear in a person’s 20s, but brain changes can begin several years earlier.

He says Zac’s illness blinded his family: “With schizophrenia, you think you have a healthy child, but you never did. The brain has been preparing for this disease for years. “

Pogliano says he would have raised his son differently if he had known he was at high risk. He would be more vigilant about alcohol and marijuana use, it can change the nervous system and cause psychosis in people with schizophrenia.

He expects screening for schizophrenia to be common at some point. He says it’s different to guess the risk of situations like heart disease, breast cancer or Alzheimer’s, these diseases appear much later in life, but parents have a chance to make a real difference in their children’s lives if they know the risk of schizophrenia. .

“Designer babies don’t matter,” she says. “Everything all parents want is a way to health for their children.”