A POPULAR IVF technique may increase the risk of babies being born with
abnormalities such as ambiguous genitalia.
For roughly 5 per cent of men seeking fertility treatment because they have
few or no sperm, the cause is a tiny mutation in the Y chromosome called a
microdeletion. As long as the man still produces a few sperm, however, it is
sometimes possible to inject one directly into the egg—a technique called
intracytoplasmic sperm injection.
One of the reasons ICSI is controversial is that if there’s a genetic reason
for the man’s infertility, it will be passed on to…
