by Niamh Harris, The Peoples Voice:
A US-based startup is offering to help wealthy parents to “screen” embryos they conceive for their IQs.
The controversial technology, which costs tens of thousands of dollars, raises questions about the ethics of genetic enhancement.
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According to undercover footage, the company, Heliospect Genomics, has worked with more than a dozen couples undergoing IVF.
The Guardian reports: The recordings show the company marketing its services at up to $50,000 (£38,000) for clients seeking to test 100 embryos, and claiming to have helped some parents select future children based on genetic predictions of intelligence. Managers boasted their methods could produce a gain of more than six IQ points.
Experts say the development represents an ethical minefield.
The information has emerged from video recordings made by the campaign group Hope Not Hate, which went undercover to investigate separate groups of activists and academics. The Guardian reviewed the recordings and conducted further research alongside Hope Not Hate.
The footage appears to show experimental genetic selection techniques being advertised to prospective parents. A Heliospect employee, who has been helping the company recruit clients, outlined how couples could rank up to 100 embryos based on “IQ and the other naughty traits that everybody wants”, including sex, height, risk of obesity and risk of mental illness.
The startup says its prediction tools were built using data provided by UK Biobank, a taxpayer-funded store of genetic material donated by half a million British volunteers, which aims to only share data for projects that are “in the public interest”.
Selecting embryos on the basis of predicted high IQ is not permitted under UK law. While it is legal in the US, where embryology is more loosely regulated, IQ screening is not yet commercially available there.
Asked for comment, managers at Heliospect said the company, which is incorporated in the US, operated within all applicable law and regulations. They said Heliospect was in “stealth mode” before a planned public launch and was still developing its service. They added that clients who screened fewer embryos were charged about $4,000, and that pricing on launch would be in line with competitors.
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