“Preventing severe and transmissible disease for which limited or ineffective treatments are available is important to those at risk and for us as a society. We should always seek to find treatments and help those with severe disease but for some who carry severe genetic disease for which limited treatments are available being able to have children who will not have the disease is important.

At the moment Australians with this condition have to travel to the United Kingdom and hope they might be accepted for mitochondrial transfer or accept using donated eggs from another woman. Maybe we can offer mitochondrial transfer closer to home in the future. We should call it what it is - mitochondrial transfer not “three person IVF”.