Even Lord Winston has seemed confused about mitochondrial transfer

One expert who sounded off to great effect in the run-up to yesterday’s vote on three parent babies was Robert Winston, IVF supremo and baby maker in chief. He declared in the Telegraph that the donation of mitochondrial DNA was really no more problematic, morally speaking, than a blood transfusion. Naturally this had an effect on the way the debate was conducted – most MPs were entirely dismissive of the radical character of the bill, allowing for permanent, even if benign, changes to an individual’s genetic legacy, their germ line. (Incidentally, the donation of nuclei to an donor egg is much better researched than the more morally problematic embryo-to-embryo nuclear transfer, so it’s not quite as unambiguously safe as its proponents suggest.)

There wasn’t, as Isabel Hardman pointed out in a post before the vote, much time for considered debate about this fraught and complex subject; 90 minutes, in fact. But those who might be inclined to take Robert Winston as the last word on the subject may like to know that even the great man has had his about-turns on this one.