'Three-person embryos' to combat genetic diseases: your reaction?

Mitochondrial diseases can be eradicated.
BRING IT ON.

The next tranche of Nobel prizes for Medicine will be in understanding the endocrine system.
The SOONER THE BETTER

I think it's brilliant. Some of the media coverage has been entirely misleading and seems intended to provoke widespread anxiety and hostility to the procedure. I looked on the dreaded Daily Mail site and found a moving, passionate post that I'm pasting below:

A CHILD LIKE MINE Do you have a child like mine? Do you wake each morning and rush to their side to check their breathing, heart rate, their coloring? Do you prepare each medication with care, pouring and measuring, administering slowly one at a time? Do you tightly hold their hand as they rise from their bed holding back the urge to crush them to your breast so glad that they are still here? Do you beg them to take another bite of food but they refuse as they can't digest it and vomit each meal? Do you sit watching as they struggle to do what we find so basic? Do you travel far, seeking the very best care, in hopes they will have answers, only to receive none? Do you dream of what the future holds should they have one, when the doctors give you little hope? Do you wish to begin again reliving each precious moment with your child, realizing how precious each moment really is? Do you wish for another year, for life to continue on? Do you wish for a cure? Will you help us?

This procedure is a real medical achievement. A solid bit of progress. And I assume that, in the long term, it will eventually eradicate certain congenital diseases. I send to the scientists.

I agree that '3 person embryo' is a hysterical headline-grabbing description. I am in favour of the treatment.

This is amazing and should definitely get the green light. I love the fact that this essentially eradicates the diseases as the mitochondrial DNA is passed onwards through the generations.

Hasn't this technology been available for some time? I am glad it seems to be getting more attention as a viable option for eradicating genetic disease - sounds like a winner.

^^ What AMuminScotland said - its not DNA from 3 people in the way the vast majority of people think.

And, considering that the only way you would know that you have a mitochondrial problem is to have a life limited child, I totally support this being available to couples who need/want to use this technique

I think it's brilliant and so amazing. It's a long long way from 'designer babies' in my humble opinion and will hopefully be the start of eradicating some nasty mitochonrial dna conditions.

I think it's brilliant that they seem likely to be going ahead with this.

The "DNA from 3 people" worry is a red herring, IMHO. Most people didn't even know they had mitochondria with separate DNA before this story started to be widely read (and many probably still don't, let alone care). The DNA in question isn't going to give the child red hair and blue eyes, or affect them in any way apart from protecting them from serious debilitating illness.

The HFEA recommendation that the third person is treated as a "tissue donor" seems fair to me - she has donated some tissue, not the nucleus of an egg (or sperm), and is therefore not in a meaningful sense another "parent" to the resulting child.