UK seeks public input on making 3 - parent embryos

LONDON (AP) - Britain invites the public to weigh in on the draft rules that allow scientists to create embryos using DNA from three people - a man and two women - to prevent mothers from transmitting potentially fatal genetic diseases. The last public discussion should be the last step before the politicians to consider changing the law to allow doctors offer new methods of fertilization for patients. This would make the UK the first country in the world, which will allow the procedure to help people have children. UK health department said Thursday that the government hopes to collect as many points of view as possible before implementing its final rule. The proposed rules were published on the website and the government to invite people to answer at the end of May. Public input is not meant to discuss whether to be allowed controversial methods . Instead , it refers to how they should be used to prevent a relatively rare disease caused by defects in the DNA parts of the cell called mitochondria. Errors in the genetic code of mitochondria can lead to diseases such as muscular dystrophy , epilepsy , heart problems and mental retardation. Mitochondria are the energy-producing structures outside the cell nucleus. New methods include the removal of DNA from the nucleus of an egg from the mother and the prospective inserting it into a donor egg from which the nucleus has been removed DNA . This occurs before or after fertilization. As a result, the child ends up with the core DNA of the parents , but mitochondrial DNA from the donor . Scientists say that the DNA from the donor egg is less than 1 percent of genes resulting embryo. "Resolution of mitochondrial donation to give to women who are serious mitochondrial disease the opportunity to have children without passing on devastating genetic disorders ," Dr. Sally Davies , Chief Medical Officer , said in a statement . Last year , the regulator of fertility UK said it has received broad public support for the technology , but some were raised about safety. British law currently prohibits the changing of a human egg or embryo before passing it to a woman , and such treatments are only allowed for research purposes in the laboratory. The Department of Health has said it hopes the legislation will be in place so that patients can receive treatment until the end of the year. When first reported mitochondrial donation is used to create embryos in British laboratories in 2008, tabloid headlines said scientists have created a child with three parents - two biological mothers and father. But scientists said that was inaccurate , since there are only trace bits of genetic material from one woman . If the procedure is approved by the Parliament , experts say , is likely to be used only in about a dozen British women each year. " Genetic modification of disease risk is an important step for the company, and should not be taken lightly ," said Dr. Peter Braude , professor emeritus of obstetrics and gynecology at King's College London . But he said that the proposed rules will ensure that the practices will be limited to informed couples with personal experience of mitochondrial diseases. Similar experiments were conducted in the U.S., where embryos are not used to produce children, but only for research purposes. This week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration held a meeting to discuss methods and genetic experts warned it could take decades to confirm their safety. Critics slammed it as a violation of medical ethics and said that women at risk of passing on mitochondrial diseases already have other safer ways to have children, such as using donated eggs . Human Genetics Alert , a secular group in the UK, which opposes many genetics and fertilization experiments, methods called a slippery slope that could lead to " designer children's market . " "Methods have not passed the necessary safety tests , so no need to prematurely jump ahead with legalization ," said David King, director of the group.