5 ms·

And one day soon children conceived the 'natural' way will be at a disadvantage. Reminds me of Gattaca...

by jcadam 9y ago

zerostar07 9y ago
it's happening already
- aldoushuxley001 9y ago
  No it's not. I don't know of any non-naturally born people who have an advantage. Currently, people born via IVF are more likely to be born prematurely and with increased risks of mental and physical problems. We may be there soon, but we're definitely not there yet.
  - gwern 9y ago
    > Currently, people born via IVF are more likely to be born prematurely and with increased risks of mental and physical problems. Cite? The research I found on this indicated that IVF children were exactly average, and IVF with use of sperm donors actually had considerably lower risk of birth defects.
    - murukesh_s 9y ago
      I can second this from a non-statistical point of view. IVF is pretty common in my relative circle and I do not find the kids to have any sort of mental/physical issues
    - Alex3917 9y ago
      The research is still uncertain, and it may also depend on whether or not you do ICSI. When you do IVF though you need notarized signatures from both partners next to a dozen or so possible categories of birth defects where the child may have an increased risk, e.g.: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29164811 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29164811 If you're curious you can probably just stop by your local teaching hospital and ask for a copy of the 50+ page contract with all the informed consent details.
      - gwern 9y ago
        If things like congenital heart defects are a real risk (especially a doubling), it should show up very easily in mortality and other hard endpoints. As it is, that just sounds like another anomaly from observational data. (Reading that one in particular, none of the studies use any kind of strong controlling for parental factors, to mention the most obvious problem with trying to infer causation of harm in IVF.) > If you're curious you can probably just stop by your local teaching hospital and ask for a copy of the 50+ page contract with all the informed consent details. What a contract says is of little scientific value, unless one is studying tort law and the finer details of butt-covering.
        Alex3917 9y ago
        As for the mortality issue, the oldest IVF baby is currently something like 38. And given that it didn’t become common until even later, we’re not going to have that data for several decades. > What a contract says is of little scientific value, unless one is studying tort law and the finer details of butt-covering. They have actual statistics though if not references to the primary sources, so that was more the reasoning.
        gwern 9y ago
        > As for the mortality issue, the oldest IVF baby is currently something like 38. My point is that a congenital heart defect is something that should strike early, especially in childhood (and that's one of the usual ways to find out about it, kids dropping dead for no good reason, like after being lightly hit in a football game). If a doubling of defects can be detected, so too should a doubling of heart-related mortality. There's on the order of a million IVF kids annually in the USA alone; it's not possible for that to have gone unnoticed. So either their risk is the same as their non-IVF peers and such defects are just common among older mothers, or the defects are not actually serious (pace studies showing that things like cancers or spinal anomalies are common among healthy people, or, more IVF related, that many embryos discarded for chromosomal abnormalities turn out, when implanted, to work perfectly fine because the abnormal cells die or the embryo otherwise recovers during development).
  - WillReplyfFood 9y ago
    The premajurity births are due to the fitness and beauty-standards craze. A baby is a huge additional consumer on the metabolism - and if such a metabolism is allready constantly strained, by endless jogging and a under supply of nourishment the results are early out babys. Sorry, to say that - but that is on us men. If we wouldnt pressure every female into looking like a model, half of these tragedys could be avoided. Correlating graphs coming right up.
  - zerostar07 9y ago
    Embryo selection is an advantage for IVF children
avz 9y ago
Parents' primary responsibility is to ensure that the environment in which their kids grow up, the food they eat etc promote healthy development. For many practical purposes, the kids' protein-building machinery including the nucleic acids, can be treated the same way as the environment, the food etc - another critical input to a developing human life. In this view, it is scarcely surprising that parents would want to give their kids viable genetic information just like they want to give their kids a good home, healthy food and challenging education. This desire to ensure the good of the kids is a strong force pushing humanity forward and I see no reason to object. Unequal access to shelter, food, education or genetic techniques is a different matter. But our failure to ensure universal access to the spoils of a new invention does not imply that there is something wrong with the invention. The real problem is more like the lack of compassion for other folks... So let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

And one day soon children conceived the 'natural' way will be at a disadvantage. Reminds me of Gattaca...

by jcadam 9y ago

And one day soon children conceived the 'natural' way will be at a disadvantage. Reminds me of Gattaca...

zerostar07 9y ago

it's happening already

aldoushuxley001 9y ago
No it's not. I don't know of any non-naturally born people who have an advantage. Currently, people born via IVF are more likely to be born prematurely and with increased risks of mental and physical problems. We may be there soon, but we're definitely not there yet.
- gwern 9y ago
  > Currently, people born via IVF are more likely to be born prematurely and with increased risks of mental and physical problems. Cite? The research I found on this indicated that IVF children were exactly average, and IVF with use of sperm donors actually had considerably lower risk of birth defects.
  - murukesh_s 9y ago
    I can second this from a non-statistical point of view. IVF is pretty common in my relative circle and I do not find the kids to have any sort of mental/physical issues
  - Alex3917 9y ago
    The research is still uncertain, and it may also depend on whether or not you do ICSI. When you do IVF though you need notarized signatures from both partners next to a dozen or so possible categories of birth defects where the child may have an increased risk, e.g.: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29164811 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29164811 If you're curious you can probably just stop by your local teaching hospital and ask for a copy of the 50+ page contract with all the informed consent details.
    - gwern 9y ago
      If things like congenital heart defects are a real risk (especially a doubling), it should show up very easily in mortality and other hard endpoints. As it is, that just sounds like another anomaly from observational data. (Reading that one in particular, none of the studies use any kind of strong controlling for parental factors, to mention the most obvious problem with trying to infer causation of harm in IVF.) > If you're curious you can probably just stop by your local teaching hospital and ask for a copy of the 50+ page contract with all the informed consent details. What a contract says is of little scientific value, unless one is studying tort law and the finer details of butt-covering.
      - Alex3917 9y ago
        As for the mortality issue, the oldest IVF baby is currently something like 38. And given that it didn’t become common until even later, we’re not going to have that data for several decades. > What a contract says is of little scientific value, unless one is studying tort law and the finer details of butt-covering. They have actual statistics though if not references to the primary sources, so that was more the reasoning.
        gwern 9y ago
        > As for the mortality issue, the oldest IVF baby is currently something like 38. My point is that a congenital heart defect is something that should strike early, especially in childhood (and that's one of the usual ways to find out about it, kids dropping dead for no good reason, like after being lightly hit in a football game). If a doubling of defects can be detected, so too should a doubling of heart-related mortality. There's on the order of a million IVF kids annually in the USA alone; it's not possible for that to have gone unnoticed. So either their risk is the same as their non-IVF peers and such defects are just common among older mothers, or the defects are not actually serious (pace studies showing that things like cancers or spinal anomalies are common among healthy people, or, more IVF related, that many embryos discarded for chromosomal abnormalities turn out, when implanted, to work perfectly fine because the abnormal cells die or the embryo otherwise recovers during development).
- WillReplyfFood 9y ago
  The premajurity births are due to the fitness and beauty-standards craze. A baby is a huge additional consumer on the metabolism - and if such a metabolism is allready constantly strained, by endless jogging and a under supply of nourishment the results are early out babys. Sorry, to say that - but that is on us men. If we wouldnt pressure every female into looking like a model, half of these tragedys could be avoided. Correlating graphs coming right up.
- zerostar07 9y ago
  Embryo selection is an advantage for IVF children

avz 9y ago

Parents' primary responsibility is to ensure that the environment in which their kids grow up, the food they eat etc promote healthy development. For many practical purposes, the kids' protein-building machinery including the nucleic acids, can be treated the same way as the environment, the food etc - another critical input to a developing human life. In this view, it is scarcely surprising that parents would want to give their kids viable genetic information just like they want to give their kids a good home, healthy food and challenging education. This desire to ensure the good of the kids is a strong force pushing humanity forward and I see no reason to object. Unequal access to shelter, food, education or genetic techniques is a different matter. But our failure to ensure universal access to the spoils of a new invention does not imply that there is something wrong with the invention. The real problem is more like the lack of compassion for other folks... So let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.