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CRISPR takes important step toward silencing Down syndrome’s extra chromosome

medicalxpress.com

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Re: CRISPR takes important step toward silencing Down syndrome’s extra chromosome

#141

Post by exe34 »

voidUpdate wrote: post #90
exe34 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always thought we should maintain a list of people like you. Every time we cure something, like blindness in one person, one of you gets picked and your eyes get poked out. That way the total amount of suffering will be conserved, but those who think that's necessary get to be the ones who pay the price for their beliefs.

In the first half of my comment, I explained that I don't think people should suffer. I'm just also aware that if everyone can pick their child's attributes, it could lead to a nation of blond-hair, blue-eyes kids

No it wouldn't. If these traits were everywhere, then they would no longer be exclusive and therefore would lose their appeal. There is nothing inherently "hot" or "attractive" about blond hair or blue eyes.

Re: CRISPR takes important step toward silencing Down syndrome’s extra chromosome

#142

Post by MerManMaid »

RobotToaster wrote: post #84
wqaatwt wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s still eugenics, though. Except this time it’s not pseudoscience.

Until a certain Austrian painter decided to practice eugenics in a uniquely negative way, the term was value neutral. The motor bus was hailed as a eugenic invention because it helped prevent inbreeding in small villages, for instance.

This is incorrect in that the term was not neutral before WW2 nor was Nazi Germany Eugenics really unique. Taking these claims one at a time:

>the term was value neutral.

By the late 1930s the academic community had largely moved on from eugenics, the catholic church denounced it 1930 with their Casti Connubii, the Eugenics Office Records closing in 1935 and finally Laughlin retiring in 1939. (The leading Eugenicist)In 1930s being a Eugenics was viewed much like homeopathy is viewed today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casti_connubii - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States

>Until a certain Austrian painter decided to practice eugenics in a uniquely negative way,

Eugenics in the united states saw the rise of the "Moron Laws" and mass sterilization of marginalized communities in the US. In fact, Nazi Germany's Eugenics policies were largely inspired by US Eugenic legislation and actively promoted by US Eugenicist. (Particularly California) Heck mass sterilization programs in the US didn't even die with WW2 continuing into mid 1970s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics - https://alexwellerstein.com/publications/wellerstein_stateso...

I'm troubled by this thread because the vibe I'm getting is Eugenics was only bad because the science wasn't there yet and the Nazi's did it, this time will be different. No, the aspect which made eugenics dangerous were inherently political and every bit as relevant today than they were a hundred years ago. (Who decides which traits should be "edited" out? What traits should be "edited" in? What policies should be legislated? Who is primarily impacted by these policies? How much agency do the people impacted by these policy have in the situation?)

Re: CRISPR takes important step toward silencing Down syndrome’s extra chromosome

#143

Post by sethaurus »

flextheruler wrote: post #119
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to downplay, but is it wrong to assume you're self sufficient in daily life? Work a job and pay your bills? You list your site and have a seemingly lots of professional experience. Some of these conditions do make life harder, but there's a big difference between high functioning Autism and disabilities that make someone 100% dependent on others.

It's so odd to me that we haven't come up with a term for high functioning autism to separate from low functioning. It's ridiculous to me that a commenter with this background can superficially claim to be suffering from the same disability as a family member I have who has required a caretaker to not die and would probably be totally uninterested or unable to even give an opinion on a complex subject like this. I ca…

> "It's so odd to me that we haven't come up with a term for high functioning autism to separate from low functioning."

If you are interested to learn, autistic people are typically assigned a level of support needs on a scale of 1 to 3. Most people who would once have received a diagnosis of Aspergers now receive the "level 1" designation. Based on your description, your family member is likely "level 3", possibly with comorbidities? I was assigned "level 2".

> "I cannot recall why Asperger's as a term was dropped or deemed controversial"

It was dropped because a number of labels, now all considered to be ASD, were discovered to be different presentations of the same underlying disorder. The divisions break down under scrutiny and the apparent modal jumps disappear when you control for comorbidities and the ability to mask.

> "How is it any different than people with obsessive compulsive tendencies claiming they have OCD? There's a huge difference."

I'm not the other poster, but I'm a different autistic adult to whom your complaints might apply. To answer this question, the difference is that I call myself an autist because I have been diagnosed as autistic, due to meeting the diagnostic criteria of autism.

> "this is the equivalent of stolen valor"

Please go to the equivalent of hell.

Disabled people are allowed to call ourselves by the correct labels without apologising that our suffering is less severe or less obvious than someone else sharing the same label.

Re: CRISPR takes important step toward silencing Down syndrome’s extra chromosome

#144

Post by iLoveOncall »

voidUpdate wrote: post #85

I have very conflicted feelings about this sort of thing. On the one hand, Down's syndrome can make life very hard, for both the person with it, and their carers and the people around them. I can imagine that some people would have preferred it if they were able to "cure" it. I've often felt in the past that I would have preferred to have been born without autism and ADHD, and while I've been coping a little better w…

Congratulations, you just won the trophy for most privileged comment on the web!

Re: CRISPR takes important step toward silencing Down syndrome’s extra chromosome

#145

Post by bonsai_spool »

bonzini wrote: post #137
mjg59 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but it's not limited to that case - there's two common variants of the green cone that respond to different wavelengths and people with two X chromosomes can have both, improving colour identification.

How does it feel to actually answer a question as a geneticist?...

> How does it feel to actually answer a question as a geneticist?...

Genetics is complicated.

If you really want to learn about this, all you need to do is search.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140905-the-women-with-s...

Re: CRISPR takes important step toward silencing Down syndrome’s extra chromosome

#146

Post by bit-anarchist »

voidUpdate wrote: post #97
anhner wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry to hear that. So would you like others to suffer from them as well if given the choice?

If they had the choice to not suffer, and they wanted to take it, then I think it's their decision to make, and not anyone else's

I would to add onto what others have said by mentioning that omission is still a decision. Even if the parents didn't explicitly choose, the inaction comes with dire consequences towards the child, whose parents are responsible (and held accountable) for taking care of.

Re: CRISPR takes important step toward silencing Down syndrome’s extra chromosome

#147

Post by bonsai_spool »

Symmetry wrote: post #139
sheept wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the X chromosome has a mechanism to shut itself down (which makes sense; otherwise cells in women would have twice as many gene products from the X chromosome as cells from men). You can see this visually because not the same X chromosome is deactivated in all cells: it's what gives calico cats their color (almost all of them are female).

Likewise humans with heterochromatic eyes are generally women.

> Likewise humans with heterochromatic eyes are generally women.

I haven't heard of this - where is this published? Here's a primer on eye color:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK574499/

Re: CRISPR takes important step toward silencing Down syndrome’s extra chromosome

#148

Post by Jedd »

sethaurus wrote: post #143
flextheruler wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so odd to me that we haven't come up with a term for high functioning autism to separate from low functioning. It's ridiculous to me that a commenter with this background can superficially claim to be suffering from the same disability as a family member I have who has required a caretaker to not die and would probably be totally uninterested or unable to even give an opinion on a complex subject like this. I ca…

> "It's so odd to me that we haven't come up with a term for high functioning autism to separate from low functioning." If you are interested to learn, autistic people are typically assigned a level of support needs on a scale of 1 to 3. Most people who would once have received a diagnosis of Aspergers now receive the "level 1" designation. Based on your description, your family member is likely "level 3", possibly w…

> Please go to the equivalent of hell.

> Disabled people are allowed to call ourselves by the correct labels without apologising that our suffering is less severe or less obvious than someone else sharing the same label.

I think you guys are perhaps talking past each other.

The fact you acknowledge and recognise 'less severe' (a significant understatement when comparing ASD to Downs) suggests that you do understand parent's point.

Parent, I also note, was not seeking or implying an apology was sought from people with less severe genetic conditions. Rather, that the implications on QoL, lifespan, social / familial imposition etc of Downs, is nothing at all like so called high-functioning ASD.

Re: CRISPR takes important step toward silencing Down syndrome’s extra chromosome

#149

Post by sethaurus »

Jedd wrote: post #148
sethaurus wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "It's so odd to me that we haven't come up with a term for high functioning autism to separate from low functioning." If you are interested to learn, autistic people are typically assigned a level of support needs on a scale of 1 to 3. Most people who would once have received a diagnosis of Aspergers now receive the "level 1" designation. Based on your description, your family member is likely "level 3", possibly w…

> Please go to the equivalent of hell. > Disabled people are allowed to call ourselves by the correct labels without apologising that our suffering is less severe or less obvious than someone else sharing the same label. I think you guys are perhaps talking past each other. The fact you acknowledge and recognise 'less severe' (a significant understatement when comparing ASD to Downs) suggests that you do understand p…

The parent comment was specifically and exclusively talking about autism, not Down's syndrome. I'm addressing their claim that it is "ridiculous" for an autistic person to "claim" to be autistic when other autistic people have worse outcomes.

I'm not interested in litigating the fairly obvious point that Down's syndrome is a much worse prognosis than ASD, and the comment to which I responded says nothing about it either.

Re: CRISPR takes important step toward silencing Down syndrome’s extra chromosome

#150

Post by akramachamarei »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #101
kriro wrote: post #83

Great achievement. Sometimes I imagine a world where the LLM-money, will and time was funneled into more aggressive CRISPR research and medical advances in general. If I want to go full sci-fi I even imagine cloning.

Cloning isn't even sci-fi or imaginary, just morally questionable and... variably legal ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_cloning#Legal_status_of_... ). Same goes for gene editing / designer babies / eugenics, which overlaps strongly with the subjects in this discussion.

Let's not conflate eugenics with gene editing or "designer babies." On the contrary, there is little overlap between eugenics and any of the three other topics, but for the vaguest vernacular sense.
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