Gene Editing: Time Has Come to Engineer DNA to Block Transmission of Inherited Disorders, Say Scientists
7th December 2015
It is the last great taboo of genetic medicine but some scientists now believe the time has come to consider the deliberate engineering of human eggs, sperm or embryos in order to block the transmission of inherited disorders by altering the DNA of all subsequent generations of affected families.
Why is this a problem? Because Government is standing in the way.
Germ-line gene therapy is banned in Britain and 14 other European countries but recent advances in the technology of gene-editing has meant that society should once again debate the idea of deliberating changing the genomes of future generations of children, scientists said.
God forbid that anything be outside of the control of the government, even if it saves lives.
“This technology is poised to transform preventive medicine. Rather than talk about the possibility of banning alteration of the human germ-line, we should instead be discussing how to stimulate ways to improve its safety and efficacy,” said Professor George Church, a leading geneticist at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
Good luck with that.
“Banning human germline editing could put a damper on the best medical research and instead drive the practice underground to black markets and uncontrolled medical tourism, which are fraught with much greater risk and misapplication,” Professor Church said.
Thank God for the ‘black market’, otherwise human progress would grind to a stop.