New project examines deliberate extintion of species; artificial wombs; health equity grand rounds
October 5, 2023
New Project to Examine "Deliberate Extinction" of Species Why, exactly, might that idea might be troubling?
A new Hastings Center project will propose recommendations for deciding if a particularly dangerous species should be eradicated with gene editing technology. Candidate species could include mosquitos; the new world screw worm, which eats the living flesh of humans and other animals; and rats, which pose public health and environmental threats to threatened and endangered species. The prospect of using genome editing to extinguish a wild species is inherently troubling for many people. But why, exactly? The project, led by Gregory E. Kaebnick of the Hastings Center and James Collins of Arizona State University, in collaboration with Athmeya Jayaram of the Hastings Center, will support regulatory oversight and promote broad public deliberation about genome editing. Learn more.
Artificial Wombs Are Nearing Human Trials, Raising Ethical Questions Address them now or risk "lots of blind spots"
Two weeks ago, Food and Drug Administration advisors met to discuss research on artificial wombs, medical devices designed to help extremely premature infants survive. The advent of artificial wombs raises all kinds of legal and ethical questions, said Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky in an interview with MIT Technology Review. “What’s a fetus, what’s a baby, what’s a newborn, what’s birth, what’s viability?” She added that if we don’t start thinking about these questions now, “we’re going to have lots of blind spots.” Read the article.
Reevaluating Data on Race and Ethnicity Next week: Health Equity Grand Rounds
Join us for the next Health Equity Grand Rounds event, sponsored by the AMA with The Hastings Center, on Tuesday, October 10, from 2:00 to 3:30 pm ET. Expert speakers will invite participants to reevaluate how we think about data on race and ethnicity. Speakers will uncover the failures and harms in our approaches to collecting, analyzing, reporting, and leveraging race, ethnicity, and other key demographic data in public health and health care. Health care professionals may receive Continuing Medical Education (CME) credit by attending. Learn more and register.
Upcoming Events
Valuing Older Adults by Creating Housing Options, with Hastings Center senior research scholar Nancy Berlinger at the Oregon Gerontological Association's 2023 Virtual Annual Conference. October 6.
Genetics/AI/Big Data: Impact on Maternal and Child Health, National Academy of Medicine annual meeting, with Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky. October 8.
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