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China, Unhampered by Rules, Races Ahead in Gene-Editing Trials (wsj.com)
U.S. scientists helped devise the Crispr biotechnology tool. First to test it in humans are Chinese doctors (Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative link). WSJ reports: In a hospital west of Shanghai, Wu Shixiu since March has been trying to treat cancer patients using a promising new gene-editing tool. U.S. scientists helped devise the tool, known as Crispr-Cas9, which has captured global attention since a 2012 report said it can be used to edit DNA. Doctors haven't been allowed to use it in human trials in America. That isn't the case for Dr. Wu and others in China. In a quirk of the globalized technology arena, Dr. Wu can forge ahead with the tool because he faces few regulatory hurdles to testing it on humans. [...] There is little doubt China was first out of the block testing Crispr on humans. Nine trials in China are listed in a U.S. National Library of Medicine database. The Wall Street Journal found at least two other hospital trials, including one beginning in 2015 -- a year earlier than previously reported. Journal reporting found at least 86 Chinese patients have had their genes edited.
Unhampered by "Job Killing" rules like clean air, clean water, intellectual property, and child labor laws, China has claimed top global growth rankings for the past 2 decades...
Now live with it... or try anyway.
No proof yet that they've cured shit. For all we know they just gave the test subjects double-cancer.
And fuck you if you're on your death bed, you're NOT ALLOWED TO MAKE YOUR OWN DECISION. It's for your own good!
It's not just for your own good. We don't really know what these gene altering technologies will do-- either on a technical scientific level, or on a sociological level. Lots of technologies seem harmless enough at the outset, and people ask, "What could possibly go wrong?" Part of the problem is, the things that go wrong are often not things we even suspected might go wrong.
I, for one, welcome our new genetically engineered Chinese overlords!
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
America doesn't win anymore
China's allowing scientific experimentation on it's own people
FTFY. While I don't necessarily agree with the US government's position in this regard, let's not fool ourselves into thinking that the Chinese government has any altruistic intent when it comes to allowing their populace to be used as guinea pigs - their human-rights track record speaks for itself in this regard.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
lol trump win is the biggest oxymoron ever
can't wait until the revolution and we round fucksticks like you up in camps
The revolution by people that think guns are icky and gross? Yeah that will be a very short revolution
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Damn straight, we should absolutely allow unproven and experimental techniques to be used that will expose the patient to immense pain and immediate death.
Do you realize at all how experimental this stuff is? They haven't even done it on MICE yet. Crisper was developed like 3 years ago. They are still experimenting with bacteria. You think the appropriate action is to jump right to humans?
What you might not know is someone jumped to humans a decade ago without proper protocols, someone experimenting with viruses rewriting someone's DNA killed a 20 year old volunteer in the US. He spent an agonizing 24hrs in intensive care with total organ failure before he died.
The problem is we don't even understand the implications of using CRISPR on live people let alone live animals yet. You could immediately kill the person.
Natural gene transfer with viruses is hardly unheard of - something like 8% of the human genome is viral in origin, and it can reasonably be expected that the reverse happens as well. After all, they do hijack our own DNA replication equipment in the course of their normal reproduction. It may be spectacularly unlikely that any given gene will be incorporated (much less have a related effect), but the sheer number of viruses involved in a single infection improve those odds considerably.
There's also the question of how the CRISPR molecules are introduced to the nucleus of the cells - a viral "carrier" is one technique, in which case you may now be infected with modified viruses with the potential to pass on the changes to other people as well. I recall one study where modified viruses were used to introduce photoreceptor-producing genes to specific kinds of brain cells - and the researchers were quick to point out that their chosen virus was harmless, rarely even causing noticeable symptoms. What they failed to address was that it WAS harmless, but now caused brain cells to grow photoreceptors - with unknown long term consequences, not to mention the potential developmental consequences if it infected a developing embryo.
Plus, there's environmental factors as well - alter the ecosystem (body), you alter its inhabitants. The bigger point is that we're just barely getting a grasp on the immediate consequences of gene editing (i.e., managing to make the functional changes we desire), and have yet to even seriously consider the second-order and further consequences that may ripple out from those changes. That would be fine so long as potential repercussions stopped with the patient, but become societies concern when we haven't even begun to ask the question of what can go wrong.
And before you dismiss that out of hand, consider that with all the years of Cas9/CRISPR research that has been done, as of last year there had been only *one* study done involving full gene-sequencing of the subjects to look for "off-target" modifications, and they found lots of them. Now, there were some serious shortcomings in the study that call it's results into question, but it still stands as the *only* serious study into immediate unintended modifications. In that kind of reckless environment, we need outside regulations to help limit the potential damage being done.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.