Open Access
#CRISPRbabies: Notes on a ScandalThis week:
An advisory panel to the World Health Organization has called for the creation of a global registry to monitor gene-editing research in humans, the organization announced yesterday (March 19). The recommendations of the 18-person committee, which was established following news late last year that Chinese scientist He Jiankui had carried out human gene editing in secret, are aimed at improving transparency and responsibility in the field, the announcement says.
The panel’s advice did not go so far as to call for a moratorium on all human germline editing, unlike some other groups. Last week, a group of scientists and bioethicists from seven countries penned a commentary in Nature that argued for “a fixed period during which no clinical uses of germline editing whatsoever are allowed.” Such a moratorium would allow time for ethical and moral debate and for the agreement of an international regulatory framework, they wrote.After the initial #CRISPRbabies scandal , we are facing a new one. The WHO pannel is asking for a registry instead of a moratorium. The battle has finished. Game over. From now on, the human being will be affected from such decision. One of the worst decisions in the human history.
