3 ms·
The genetics of color blindness is by nature unfairly biased against men. Hope we can dedicate ourselves to fix these things instead of financing more weapons a
by acadapter 3y ago
The genetics of color blindness is by nature unfairly biased against men. Hope we can dedicate ourselves to fix these things instead of financing more weapons and armies.
I mean, a CRISPR based cure has been successfully tested in monkeys as early as 2010, but there is still nothing on the market.
- inglor_cz 3y agoColor blindness isn't fatal and its effect on quality of life is light to moderate. CRISPR is a fairly dangerous technology and it makes sense to start applying it to serious conditions first. If you accidentally kill someone trying to cure their color blindness, the whole humanity will lose out, because the regulators will go crazy and slow down the field by 10 more years.
- Nevermark 3y agoTrue, but either way, we would have eliminated one case of color blindness! Satirical answer obviously. But the “right” risk level for human experimentation is such a strange problem. I expect that just as humans generally fear air travel mishaps far more than far more dangerous activities, we have an aversion to (informed consent) human experiments that is probably too conservative. Except when we take into account the real and damaging second order effects of outsized fear.
- inglor_cz 3y agoThe case of Jesse Gelsinger comes to mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Gelsinger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Gelsinger The victim was a young kid which had 50+ years of life before him, and he was able to manage his condition fairly well prior to the experiment. Add some shady details in the informed consent process, and the reaction of the public to his death was so overwhelmingly negative that gene therapy took a massive hit.