The latest public review should be the last step before politicians consider changing the law to let doctors offer the new fertilisation techniques to patients. That would make Britain the first country in the world to allow the procedure to help people have children.
Britain's department of health said yesterday the government hopes to gather as many views as possible before introducing its final regulations. The proposed rules have been published online and the government is inviting people to respond by late May.
Mitochondria are energy-producing structures outside the cell's nucleus. The new techniques involve removing the nucleus DNA from the egg of a prospective mother and inserting it into a donor egg, from which the nucleus DNA has been removed. That happens either before or after fertilisation.
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"Allowing mitochondrial donation would give women who carry severe mitochondrial disease the opportunity to have children without passing on devastating genetic disorders," Dr Sally Davies, the chief medical officer, said in a statement.
Last year, Britain's fertility regulator said it found broad public support for the technology, but some concerns were raised about safety.
British law currently forbids altering a human egg or embryo before transferring it into a woman, and such treatments are only allowed for research purposes in a laboratory.