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Despite CRISPR Baby Controversy, Harvard University Will Begin Gene-Editing Sperm (technologyreview.com)
Even as a furious debate broke out in China over gene-edited babies, some scientists in the US are also hoping to improve tomorrow's children. From a report: [...] Amid the condemnation, though, it was easy to lose track of what the key experts were saying. Technology to alter heredity is for real. It is improving very quickly, it has features that will make it safe, and much wider exploratory use to create children could be justified soon. That was the message delivered at a gene-editing summit in Hong Kong on Wednesday, by Harvard Medical School dean George Daley, just ahead of He's own dramatic appearance on the stage (see video starting at 1:15:30).
Astounding some listeners, the Harvard doctor and stem-cell researcher didn't condemn He but instead characterized the Chinese actions as a wrong turn on the right path (see video). "The fact that it is possible that the first instance of human germ-line editing came forward as a misstep should in no way lead us to stick our heads in the sand," Daley said. "It's time to ... start outlining what an actual pathway for clinical translation would be."
Astounding some listeners, the Harvard doctor and stem-cell researcher didn't condemn He but instead characterized the Chinese actions as a wrong turn on the right path (see video). "The fact that it is possible that the first instance of human germ-line editing came forward as a misstep should in no way lead us to stick our heads in the sand," Daley said. "It's time to ... start outlining what an actual pathway for clinical translation would be."
Don't know if you noticed, but the "furious debate" was more like researchers not wanting to be the first to say that it was okay to edit the genome of humans in planning. This is a done deal. It's going to happen. It will first be about saving the children, then it will be about making the children better, then it will be about making patented children under license with annual renewals. This random corporate crap is entering the species at the genetic level, we will NEVER get rid of it. If anything can be found to have gone wrong then entire populations will need to be force-sterilized. It is completely insane. It is now inevitable. Blame whoever or whatever you want for that.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
Growing up with someone who, is now recently deceased, who would have benefitted from this, I absolutely am adamantly opposed to 90% of the arguments i hear about "ethics". Most of them are disingenuous efforts by people who want to keep the technology under wraps, practiced only in secret back rooms available to the rich. Many more are religious fruitcakes and their ideas about their chosen gods will, he's not my god, I'm not interested in his opinion.
However, there are reasonable concerns about first, yes I have something that will cure say, cystic fibrosis, but it also may cause cancer @40, or a few dozen other very unpleasant side-effects. And while *I* may find it acceptable, will the life that I create agree with my decision 40 years hence. That's a valid concern, but I don't know of any way of resolving it, but by doing it, seeing the fallout and either refining it or removing it as a legal technique. We don't actually know what we don't know, and we shouldn't let us stop it.
Then there's a concern about what happens to our survivability if the entire population is running around with edits to their genes, and whether we can continue to live without it. Is it our heroin? It should be a concern. I am not sure it should stop us, but we should consider how we want to approach availability and legality of some of the more superficial edits (i.e. every man wants to be blond haired, blue eyed an wielding a 12" wang, the latter of which may actually be problematic to our long term survival, particularly if edits cause him to be infertile 75% of the time).
I've been rather surprised by the shallowness of all of the discussions I've seen on this topic, even in association with relatively deep articles like this one from Ars Technica. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
My comment on that article:
How is it possible that the word "eugenics" does not appear in this story or in any of the comments? Or maybe I'm just more mindboggled than usual? Or people are just too afraid to use the word, even though it is obviously the key issue here? Too much study of philosophy?
If you approach it from the perspective of eugenics, then I think the key distinction is between active and passive eugenics. Starting with the passive side, I think it is relatively benign to say that people should be allowed to have healthier children, including their genetic health. We are beginning to know a few things about what that actually means. For example, I think it makes sense and is even ethically appropriate to allow parents to consider whether or not they want to have children with fatal TSD, debilitating sickle cell anemia, or even hemophilia.
People don't have to undertake those considerations, though the "natural" equilibrium solution is for parents to have four children on average so that two of them can die. Nature has a very coldblooded perspective. If the genes are mixed at random, half of the combinations are below average and half are above. Cruel Mother Nature "fixes" that problem by killing off the unlucky half before it can reproduce. Too bad that most parents would prefer not to see half of their children die, eh?
What we have in this research is NOT passive eugenics, but active eugenics. Even worse, it is in the form of gambling of the most dangerous sort. We don't know the real price of the lottery ticket and we don't even know how close the result is to the ostensible prize. If you were figuring the probabilities, then the positive side has a low probability and a low value, while the negative side has much larger probabilities and many large costs.
But there are human lives at stake here. Regardless of what degree of consent the parents may have been able to give, the resulting children had absolutely NO say in the matter, but they now have to live with the consequences. If there is any defense for this research, I haven't detected it yet. I could say much more against positive eugenics, but I've already spent more time than I can spare on this comment...
Even less time for Slashdot these days. That's why I didn't bother to tailor it for this discussion. The issues are basically the same.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Wow every freaking thread...HURR DURR RICH MAN BAD! (Except Obama, Bernie Sanders, George Soros, all the Hollywood fruitcakes who tell you how to vote...)