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I know this is probably an unpopular opinion, but CRISPR babies were going to happen eventually. Just like the atomic bomb. Not a matter of if, but when. If we

I know this is probably an unpopular opinion, but CRISPR babies were going to happen eventually. Just like the atomic bomb. Not a matter of if, but when. If we don't villainize the creators of the atomic bomb (Fermi, Oppenheimer) I see no reason why we should villainize this man.

Digit-Al 8y ago
It's not the creator of the atomic bomb that's being criticised, it's the person who's using it to nuke innocent people.
- quotemstr 8y ago
  There was nobody strapped down and forcibly injected here. Everything was consensual.
  - JetSpiegel 8y ago
    Giving forms full of technical terms to high-school educated parents is a strange form of consent.
granshaw 8y ago
My thoughts exactly. The cat is now out of the bag, and the rest of the developed world will now be forced to keep up, even if it’s against their ethics.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
  Doesn't look like anybody is scrambling to jump on the train to the lowest possible ethical standard just yet. Even the reaction within China is actually rather encouraging. There are many arguments against allowing such experiments with human life, and it seems as if, just maybe, this could be a case where ethical standards are actually spreading slightly faster than the technology to break them.
Nasrudith 8y ago
The reasons for doing so are more practicality and having more to lose. If the baby would have risked some sort of horrifying genetic disease like say the one which causes your flesh to grow back as bone the risks would be totally justifiable. It is an irony of medicine that dire circumstances make what would otherwise be recklessness permissible since they have nothing to lose. That said once the technology is ready it would be outright immoral and stupid not to use it. Like not vaccinating against smallpox because it is unfair to those who aren't or not providing education because it would make the educated better off than the uneducated.
- yhoneycomb 8y ago
  How is this case different? The baby would otherwise have been heavily at risk for AIDs because her parents have AIDS. Meanwhile people with the homozygous CCR5 mutation are immune to AIDS.
  - jcranmer 8y ago
    Because a) AIDS is a manageable disease already, b) only one the father has AIDS, and c) in this case of fertilization, there are other protocols that can guard against spreading HIV to the mother and baby. In other words, the baby quite likely would not have had AIDS in the first place.
    - quotemstr 8y ago
      HIV is "manageable" already, but only in the sense that it requires, for survival, a lifelong commitment to a daily drug cocktail that has serious side effects. And it's always possible that the virus might mutate and escape the antiretrovirals. The treatment under discussion is a cure. It would lead to a normal life, free of drugs. It's a sad return to the days of paternalistic medicine to withold superior treatment because, in the opinion of a third party, the inferior treatment is adequate.
      - dwighttk 8y ago
        >The treatment under discussion is a cure. Actually it isn't. "Deactivating CCR5 doesn’t confer complete immunity to HIV, either, since some strains of the virus can enter cells via a different protein."

Digit-Al 8y ago

It's not the creator of the atomic bomb that's being criticised, it's the person who's using it to nuke innocent people.

quotemstr 8y ago
There was nobody strapped down and forcibly injected here. Everything was consensual.
- JetSpiegel 8y ago
  Giving forms full of technical terms to high-school educated parents is a strange form of consent.

granshaw 8y ago

My thoughts exactly. The cat is now out of the bag, and the rest of the developed world will now be forced to keep up, even if it’s against their ethics.

IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
Doesn't look like anybody is scrambling to jump on the train to the lowest possible ethical standard just yet. Even the reaction within China is actually rather encouraging. There are many arguments against allowing such experiments with human life, and it seems as if, just maybe, this could be a case where ethical standards are actually spreading slightly faster than the technology to break them.

Nasrudith 8y ago

The reasons for doing so are more practicality and having more to lose. If the baby would have risked some sort of horrifying genetic disease like say the one which causes your flesh to grow back as bone the risks would be totally justifiable. It is an irony of medicine that dire circumstances make what would otherwise be recklessness permissible since they have nothing to lose. That said once the technology is ready it would be outright immoral and stupid not to use it. Like not vaccinating against smallpox because it is unfair to those who aren't or not providing education because it would make the educated better off than the uneducated.

yhoneycomb 8y ago
How is this case different? The baby would otherwise have been heavily at risk for AIDs because her parents have AIDS. Meanwhile people with the homozygous CCR5 mutation are immune to AIDS.
- jcranmer 8y ago
  Because a) AIDS is a manageable disease already, b) only one the father has AIDS, and c) in this case of fertilization, there are other protocols that can guard against spreading HIV to the mother and baby. In other words, the baby quite likely would not have had AIDS in the first place.
  - quotemstr 8y ago
    HIV is "manageable" already, but only in the sense that it requires, for survival, a lifelong commitment to a daily drug cocktail that has serious side effects. And it's always possible that the virus might mutate and escape the antiretrovirals. The treatment under discussion is a cure. It would lead to a normal life, free of drugs. It's a sad return to the days of paternalistic medicine to withold superior treatment because, in the opinion of a third party, the inferior treatment is adequate.
    - dwighttk 8y ago
      >The treatment under discussion is a cure. Actually it isn't. "Deactivating CCR5 doesn’t confer complete immunity to HIV, either, since some strains of the virus can enter cells via a different protein."