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Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

nytimes.com

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Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#271

Post by Joel_Mckay »

throw7 wrote: post #63

Gattaca here we come!

Fertility care often already included testing for common genetic disorders, and parents with a history of severe disease would often make the hard choice to try again. Due to recent Theocratic political shifts, it means more families will face the worst possible life for their children.

Gattaca was a film years ahead of its time, and raises the question of what happens when people try to "fix" human beings beyond disease prevention. A subtle, but important ethical difference. =3

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#272

Post by ykl »

bigtones wrote: post #250
danielodievich wrote: post #213

When my second son was born and was just so very tiny some genetic test came out questionable. We were very strongly encouraged to go to Childrens hospital ASAP to get more tests. He handled it well, being just a few weeks old. The tests came with "he's a carrier of something obscure but nothing to worry about", so it's all forgotten. Three interesting thing come out of it from me. First, I was on Microsoft insurance…

My niece in Australia has a rare genetic disorder and when my wife and I had our first baby in California a few years ago we were concerned about that. We also had fantastic insurance and the hospital team there did a test where they took a blood sample from my wife and seperated the childs DNA from the mothers in the blood sample and tested it for several genetic disorders. That test is not available in Australia ev…

Incredibly that test (cell-free fetal DNA - cfDNA) is now standard in California, to the point where most expecting parents in California now learn the baby’s gender super early. We learned our baby’s gender only 10 weeks into pregnancy because of the cfDNA test.

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#273

Post by wffurr »

kulahan wrote: post #223
Muromec wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be less effective than bio and chemical weapons are. Which are not used because they just suck

I’m not sure of by “they just suck” you meant to imply that they’re ineffective. If that’s the case, I strongly disagree. They are not used because somehow all countries pretty much agreed they’re way TOO effective and horrific. Nobody wants it used on them, so nobody uses it on anyone else. I cannot imagine a more effective weapon than an invisible gas that melts you alive, and there are MANY chemical and bio exampl…

>> They are not used because somehow all countries pretty much agreed they’re way TOO effective and horrific

That’s the story but it doesn’t hold up. Chemical weapons were used as recently as the Syrian civil war. I also think if they were really effective in modern warfare, Russia would have long ago deployed them in Ukraine.

More here: https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#275

Post by squigz »

gr_norm wrote: post #270
squigz wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An absolutely terrible and tone-deaf way to phrase that thought, but the fact of the matter is that most of the world (you and I included, in all likelihood) will not get access to this sort of thing in our lifetimes. Not because modern medicine won't have been there yet, but because our lives (and those of our children) are simply seen as being worth significantly less than a rich person's desire to become richer.…

Indeed, my view is heavily American-centric. And the trends of the past-- which you're right about-- may not apply to the future given increasing wealth inequality, the cost-of-living crisis, and the climate crisis (for which undoubtedly the poorest of us will be forced to shoulder most of the burden). I'm explicitly not saying this work shouldn't be done, it should! But it does not exist in a vacuum, and it would be…

> We are lost if we do not at least speak about the thunderclouds on the horizon for this philosophy of technology.

I think, every once in a while, it's okay to just celebrate without looking for the the clouds :)

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#276

Post by gr_norm »

squigz wrote: post #275
gr_norm wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, my view is heavily American-centric. And the trends of the past-- which you're right about-- may not apply to the future given increasing wealth inequality, the cost-of-living crisis, and the climate crisis (for which undoubtedly the poorest of us will be forced to shoulder most of the burden). I'm explicitly not saying this work shouldn't be done, it should! But it does not exist in a vacuum, and it would be…

> We are lost if we do not at least speak about the thunderclouds on the horizon for this philosophy of technology. I think, every once in a while, it's okay to just celebrate without looking for the the clouds :)

That's fair, I respect that view. :)

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#277

Post by rob74 »

tuna-piano wrote: post #224

If someone in the year 2050 was to pick out the most important news article from 2025, I won't be surprised if they choose this one. For those who don't understand this stuff - we are now capable of editing some of a body's DNA in ways that predictably change their attributes. The baby's liver now has different (and better) DNA than the rest of its body. We still are struggling in most cases with how to deliver the D…

That's all very cool, but there are also articles like this one: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/20/trump-nih-cu... - I'm not able to read the Times article because it's paywalled, but as other commenters have mentioned, this research was funded by the NIH, which the Trump administration is currently in the process of defunding. So, if further progress along this road will be made, it'll probably be much slower and less likely to be in the US.

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#278

Post by _bin_ »

jillyboel wrote: post #187
Teever wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose a downside (depending on your perspective) of this is that it will make people who are genetically modified in this fashion trivial to detect. That's good if your goals are to detect genetic modification which may be considered cheating in competitive sports. That's bad if your goals are to detect genetically modified people and discriminate against them. I see a near future where the kind of people who loa…

Don't be silly, the rich will want their babies to be perfect so gene editing will be legal and considered OK.

Can you explain why this is a bad thing, or is it just “”the rich” bad”?

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#279

Post by Sabinus »

efilife wrote: post #230
ecshafer wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

The medical profession allocates scarce resources based on the amount of quality-adjusted life years it will bring.

Humans see value in living life, so cutting a life short is worse than a life that would be ending soon anyway.

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#280

Post by Sabinus »

beeflet wrote: post #242

the road to hell is paved with good intentions. In our lifetimes we will see a brave new world controlled through eugenics.

Gene editing is not eugenics. Eugenics are managed human breeding programs. Gene editing is gene editing.

In fact, gene editing completely removes the need for eugenics programs.

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