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Scientist who gene-edited babies is back in lab and ‘proud’ of past work despite jailing
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2024
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Wtf are you on about. Every modern medicine is tested on animals AND humans. If you want to take the moral high ground please refrain from ever getting vaccinated, being treated with antibiotics and taking pain killers.
Your metaphor is no good either. Maybe it could be salvaged if puppies regularly and naturally caught fire but I can’t be bothered to fix it for you.
The lack of informed consent is what makes this unethical.
Informed consent is a key aspect of clinical trials
What the entire fuck are you talking about? There are standards for medical ethics, and this doctor ignored all of them. Vaccines and antibiotics are methodically tested on animals before they are tested on humans. They are tested with informed consent, and in scientifically rigorous conditions.
This doctor modified the genes of unborn embryos in the hopes of creating children who are immune to HIV. He took three discarded embryos, edited their genes, and then implanted them in a womb to be born.
We've done similar animal testing, but medical science is nowhere near declaring such interventions as safe for human trials.
The doctor is declaring it a success because the children he created in a lab for the purposes of experimentation have grown up healthy so far, and at 5 years old are showing no adverse effects from the gene editing he did on them.
I think you haven't read the article. He's not curing infants of genetic disorders. That's one hypothetical application of his intervention, but that wasn't the experiment. He's trying to make them immune to a virus. Is he going to try to infect them with the virus? Can't really be sure if it worked with just a blood sample, after all.
It's weird that I have to even argue this with somebody. Who defends this guy?
I responded to what you wrote, not what’s in the article.
I highlighted the important parts, the ones I’m disputing. I’m not defending him or his methods, I’m calling you out on your (maybe unintentionally) generalized conclusion.