A senior Chinese scientist is mulling over whether to develop technology to select the gender of a child before conception by sorting sperm cells, a technique that "would only be used for treating genetic diseases".
Lu Kehuan, president of Guangxi Animal Breeding Research Institute said that a similar genetic gender selection test had proved successful on the buffalo, and "it won't be too difficult to do the human research".
China is revising its penal law to criminalize gender-selective abortions. Health workers who assist in revealing the gender of unborn babies will also be thrown to jail, according to the revised law.
But it does not ban gender selection for medical purposes.
"I want to do gender selection on humans in the second half of this year. The techniques have been used in other countries and not much negative impact has been reported," Lu said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.
On Feb. 13, a pair of cloned buffalo were born in the southwestern region of Guangxi. Weighing 29 kg each, the female buffalo "KeKe" and "HuanHuan", named after Lu Kehuan who led the research, were hailed as the world's first cloned buffalo born through genetic gender selection.
Scientists first sorted out the sperm of the father buffalo, separating X-bearing (female) and Y-bearing (male) sperm cells. By inseminating the egg of the mother buffalo with X-bearing sperm cells, they "made" the buffalo conceive only female offspring.
Lu said the theory of human research is much the same as that conducted on the buffalo.
"Genoscience tells us X-bearing and Y-bearing sperm cells determine the gender of the baby. So gender selection is made possible by separating sperms before conception," said Yang Jinbo,research fellow with Guangxi Buffalo Research Institute.
Lu's research, however, has been less welcomed by the academic circle.
"If we change nature too far from what it should be, nature will retaliate," said Gao Chongming, professor of Life Sciences Department of Peking University.
Wang Yanguang, research fellow with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, also dismissed Lu's idea to use the technology to boost the birth of milk cows. "Over-reproduction of a single gender of animal will lead to an ecological imbalance. We do not yet know the harmful effects of this."
Some other experts question the idea of human research as they feel it might open a Pandora's box for Chinese who traditionally prefer boys to girls. Official statistics show China's boy-girl ratio at birth is about 1.19 to 1, much higher than the world standard of 1.06 to 1.
Quite a number of Chinese families, particularly the rural residents, go to underground clinics for an ultrasound to discover the sex of the unborn baby. They will usually ask for abortion if the fetus found is not male.
Traditionally, sons in China are seen as carrying the family name and being able to provide for their parents in old age.
Lu said the technology is widely used in western countries as an effective way to prevent the passing down of a genetic disease such as an x-linked disorder like hemophilia. A total of 370 types of genetic diseases, including some devastating ones, can only pass from mothers to sons.
By shifting their gender to girls, they could totally avoid the pain that they would be doomed to suffer as boys, Lu said.
He cited a source with The Genetics and IVF Institute in Virginia of the United States, saying that 91 percent of girl-selecting research was successful, with 76 percent for boys.
"But Chinese people won't accept the concept of gender selection in the short-term. It might take about ten years for the technology to be widely used, but, again, everything should be done within the parameters of the law," Lu said.
(Xinhua News Agency March 20, 2006)
