Swiss child has successful bone marrow transplant from “saviour sibling”

A successful bone marrow transplant from a baby created to save the life of its sibling has sparked a heated debate on medical ethics in Switzerland.

The 1 year old, named only as Elodie H, for legal reasons, was born from an embryo selected from a group by pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and tissue typing as a fitting donor for her 6 year old brother Noah, who has chronic granulomatous disease that compromises his immune system.

The disease is a rare inherited disorder of phagocytic cells that usually affects males, and leads to recurrent life threatening bacterial and fungal infections. People with chronic granulomatous disease have an average life expectancy of 30 years unless they have some form of stem …