A Chinese scientist’s stunning claim that he has pioneered the world’s first genetically modified baby has suddenly made the eternal debate over ethics and emerging scientific capabilities pressing and real.
Should everything that becomes technically possible be carried out? For most ethicists the answer is no, but the tricky part is whether it can be prevented.
“It’s obvious that everything that is technically feasible is not ethically desirable, but to resist that, in a context of deregulated scientific competition, is structurally destined for failure,” French National Consultative Ethics Committee (CCNE) member Cynthia Fleury said.
Photo: AP
It is a question as old as science: Are ethics condemned to constantly nip at the heels of advances that burst forth and take a head start?
Certainly the case in China has brought the debate to the fore. The Chinese National Health and Family Planning Commission has ordered a probe into the baby gene editing announced by scientist He Jiankui (賀建奎), in which he claimed to have tinkered with the DNA of twin girls born a few weeks ago to prevent them from contracting HIV.
The Chinese government said it was opposed to the experiment, while the scientific world erupted in an uproar.
The alleged breakthrough has not been verified, and after a backlash, the scientist said his trial has been suspended. He has disappeared from public view.
“Good science is not just about generating knowledge in a vacuum. Context and consequences are vitally important, and the consequences of this irresponsible action might be dire indeed,” University of Edinburgh bioethicist Sarah Chan said.
However, for all the condemnation it is important to note that many objections were not about the principle of human genetic modification as such, but rather about the manner in which the experiment was conducted.
For instance, it was conducted outside of typical institutional structures, by a lone scientist acting in a way seen by many as premature given the technology used.
He said he employed CRISPR, a technique which allows scientists to remove and replace a strand with pinpoint precision.
However, the consequences of the technique are not yet fully known — particularly whether genetic slicing and splicing like that carries over from one generation to the next, with unpredictable effects.
The fear is that reckless application of CRISPR might create “monsters.”
Another ethical violation raised is that the aim of He’s experiment was to protect the babies against AIDS and not to try to cure them of a life-threatening disease.
The concern of the scientific community is that by stepping across established ethical red lines, ensuing public suspicion could crush a field of promising research.
While CRISPR might spark unease of a future for humanity straight out of an Aldous Huxley novel, it also bears enormous hopes of being able to treat genetic infirmities.
“Trying to rush the technology forwards, skipping vital scientific and ethical steps, could end up setting us all back,” Francis Crick Institute biologist Kathy Niakan said.
Following the storm sparked by He’s announcement, scientists are calling for an international treaty on gene editing.
However, agreeing on global regulation “isn’t easy because cultures are different — we don’t think of human beings in the same way in China as in the West,” said theologian and physicist Thierry Magnin, rector at the Catholic University of Lyon, France.
“Ethics must be integrated right from the start when technologies are developed and not come in the end,” Magnin added.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
RSS