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A BRITISH couple are celebrating the birth of the first designer baby screened to be free of a hereditary illness.
But mum Dr Mandy Baum — who had healthy son Samuel — slammed the NHS because she had to pay £10,000 in BELGIUM for the IVF treatment.
Her embryos were screened for genetic disease tuberous sclerosis which her older son Joe, six, suffers from.
He is unable to speak, has severe epilepsy and autism.
Dr Baum, 39, a GP, and solicitor husband Philip, 39, were told their next baby had a 50/50 chance of having TS, which hits one in 7,000 babies.
Their eldest son Ben, eight, does not have the illness.
They decided to pay for the screening — a first for TS — in Brussels after being told it would take a year to get pre-implantation genetic diagnosis treatment, in Britain.
Docs create embryos through IVF and screen for those carrying the genetic disorder.
They then select a disease-free embryo and implant it.
Dr Baum of Twickenham, West London, said: “Thanks to the team in Brussels I am the first to have this done worldwide. But I still feel bitter that it was only because I was a GP and emailed all over the world that I found units to do it.”
Brits were given the go-ahead last week to use PGD to screen out inherited breast and bowel cancers.
The treatment has been used to combat other illnesses.
Sun
