London: A non-resident Indian (NRI) couple's attempt to create a 'designer baby' to help cure their seriously ill son was blocked, when ethical campaigners won a High Court challenge.

The pro-life campaigner Josephine Quintavalle won a victory in her battle to stop the "ethically objectionable" screening of test tube embryos to provide donor siblings for sick children.

Justice Maurice Kay ruled that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) had no power to permit tissue typing. The technique enables scientists to find out whether an embryo will grow into a child whose tissue will match that of a brother or sister.

The ruling is a severe setback for Raj and Shahana Hashmi, who were given permission in February 2002 to use the genetic screening technique.

Their three-year-old son Zain suffers from beta thalassaemia, a potential deadly blood disease, which might be cured using blood stem cells from the umbilical cord of a baby with matching tissue.

To discover whether an embryo would develop into such a baby, one or two cells must be extracted three days after fertilisation. However, no one is allowed to keep or use an embryo without a licence from the Fertility and Embryology Authority.

By law, such licences may be issued only for assisting women to carry children. There was no suggestion that Shahana had any difficulties in conceiving or giving birth.

Justice Kay said he had sympathy for the Hashmis, but the HFEA had over-stepped its powers and had not correctly understood the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act.

The Act, according to the Judge, said the authority could grant licences authorising certain treatments for pregnant women only "for the purpose of assisting women to carry children".

"I wish to make it clear that I have great sympathy with the family whose tragic circumstances may be said to have given rise to this case, and I respect the sincerity of the views of those who wish to help them," he said.

"The sole purpose of tissue-typing is to ensure that any such child would have tissue compatibility with its older sibling. I do not consider that it can be said to be 'necessary and desirable' for the purpose of assisting a woman to carry a child. On any reading of it, the Legislation has been lightly drawn so as to ensure that the ground rules within which the HFEA operates restrict the potential for misuse of science and technology," he said.

Justice Maurice Kay therefore decided that tissue typing was not necessary for the purpose of assisting a woman to carry a child.

38-year old Shahana, who was due to undergo her third invitro fertilisation (IVF) attempt after Christmas told a newspaper, "These people could destroy not just Zain's right to life, but that of hundreds of other children. What gives them the right to interfere in other people's lives?"

Dr Vivienne Nathanson, head of ethics and science at the British Medical Association (BMA) said, "The BMA considers it was right to approve treatment for Zain Hashmi."

PTI