4 ms·

No, no scientific questions remain. The baby is alive and healthy as predicted, with a percentage of abnormal mitochondria too low to cause any manifestation of

No, no scientific questions remain. The baby is alive and healthy as predicted, with a percentage of abnormal mitochondria too low to cause any manifestation of the disease. Only bigotry remains.

dogma1138 10y ago
Actually there are scientific questions in regards to life long latent effects that might manifest themselves later on.
- devereaux 10y ago
  There is the hypothesis that the abnormal mitochondria could be in different proportion in different tissues, and that this percentage could change with age. It is highly unlikely to happen, or to cause any clinical manifestations. Most of the flesh of the article is about ethics, being banned by the FDA, etc. Let's call things by their name. Being worried about uncertainty is just a pretext here to try to enforce some religious values according to which a child can only have 2 parents of different sex. Science is making such views obsolete. Many people hate that, so they try to use science as a pretext
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Again I don't dispute that there is bigotry but we aren't close to understanding the full scope of genetic treatments. Cloning mamals so far has gone horribly wrong in most cases and there are a lot of issues that are manifested in later stages of life. We are still finding out new mechanisms for activating and rewriting genes and we don't understand all the interactions which are possible and might happen over a span of a life time. I wish the child good health and hope that there won't be any complications but this isn't a proven treatment by any stretch.
    - devereaux 10y ago
      In general, I would agree with you, but this is several orders of magnitude less risky than cloning, and closer to IVF than anything else.
      - dogma1138 10y ago
        IVF had a lot of medical complications early on. Even today IVF isn't without issues.
  - tremendo 10y ago
    > Science is making such views obsolete. What Science is making is a new reality for which our ethical and legal frameworks may not be best suited, and we need to ask ourselves questions about how best to address the inadequacies of our current standards. It's not enough to just throw our arms up and say "views obsolete", they have after all served us well for the entirety of history. Yes we need to reconsider them now, so… "questions remain". > It is highly unlikely to happen, or to cause any clinical manifestations. Ok, says you, based on… ?
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      they have after all served us well for the entirety of history. That's a pretty goddamn extreme claim.
      - laretluval 10y ago
        The view that a child can only be produced by two parents of opposite sex has served us very well in terms of making children. Until very recently, if you believed otherwise, you might have had a lot of trouble producing children.
        maxerickson 10y ago
        Do you have anything to say about the ethical and legal frameworks that the post I replied to was talking about?
Cyph0n 10y ago
The journal editors are the ones who pointed out the potential issues with the work. So unless you are an expert in the field, you really are not in a position to judge whether or not scientific questions remain. Heck, even if you were an expert, not many people would take such an absolute tone seriously. After all, falsifiability is a basic tenet of the scientific method.

No, no scientific questions remain. The baby is alive and healthy as predicted, with a percentage of abnormal mitochondria too low to cause any manifestation of the disease. Only bigotry remains.

dogma1138 10y ago

Actually there are scientific questions in regards to life long latent effects that might manifest themselves later on.

devereaux 10y ago
There is the hypothesis that the abnormal mitochondria could be in different proportion in different tissues, and that this percentage could change with age. It is highly unlikely to happen, or to cause any clinical manifestations. Most of the flesh of the article is about ethics, being banned by the FDA, etc. Let's call things by their name. Being worried about uncertainty is just a pretext here to try to enforce some religious values according to which a child can only have 2 parents of different sex. Science is making such views obsolete. Many people hate that, so they try to use science as a pretext
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Again I don't dispute that there is bigotry but we aren't close to understanding the full scope of genetic treatments. Cloning mamals so far has gone horribly wrong in most cases and there are a lot of issues that are manifested in later stages of life. We are still finding out new mechanisms for activating and rewriting genes and we don't understand all the interactions which are possible and might happen over a span of a life time. I wish the child good health and hope that there won't be any complications but this isn't a proven treatment by any stretch.
  - devereaux 10y ago
    In general, I would agree with you, but this is several orders of magnitude less risky than cloning, and closer to IVF than anything else.
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      IVF had a lot of medical complications early on. Even today IVF isn't without issues.
- tremendo 10y ago
  > Science is making such views obsolete. What Science is making is a new reality for which our ethical and legal frameworks may not be best suited, and we need to ask ourselves questions about how best to address the inadequacies of our current standards. It's not enough to just throw our arms up and say "views obsolete", they have after all served us well for the entirety of history. Yes we need to reconsider them now, so… "questions remain". > It is highly unlikely to happen, or to cause any clinical manifestations. Ok, says you, based on… ?
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    they have after all served us well for the entirety of history. That's a pretty goddamn extreme claim.
    - laretluval 10y ago
      The view that a child can only be produced by two parents of opposite sex has served us very well in terms of making children. Until very recently, if you believed otherwise, you might have had a lot of trouble producing children.
      - maxerickson 10y ago
        Do you have anything to say about the ethical and legal frameworks that the post I replied to was talking about?

Cyph0n 10y ago

The journal editors are the ones who pointed out the potential issues with the work. So unless you are an expert in the field, you really are not in a position to judge whether or not scientific questions remain. Heck, even if you were an expert, not many people would take such an absolute tone seriously. After all, falsifiability is a basic tenet of the scientific method.