Email from The Center For Genetics and Society The latest from the Center for Genetics and Society     DONATE July 25, 2025         UK Researchers Announce Eight Babies Born Through Three-person IVF, but Questions Remain Katie Hasson, Biopolitical Times | 07.23.2025 Researchers from the UK’s Newcastle Fertility Centre published findings from their years-long experiment with “mitochondrial donation,” or three-person IVF. Questions remain about the long-term health of these children and others born from similar techniques.     Murderous Genes and Criminal Brains Oliver Rollins, Los Angeles Review of Books | 07.06.2025 The ninth essay in the CGS-supported Legacies of Eugenics series explores how the current “science” of murderous (“bad”) genes and “criminal brains” opens a backdoor to eugenics. Center for Genetics and Society Receives Major Grant for “Confronting Eugenics To Build a Just Future” 07.03.2025 The Center for Genetics and Society is proud to announce a new program: Confronting Eugenics to Build a Just Future. This three-year initiative is made possible thanks to a generous grant from the Mellon Foundation. Confronting Eugenics will contribute to more accurate narratives about the legacies and current resurgences of eugenics by building a core network of scholars across fields and issue advocates across sectors, organizing a series of public events, and developing a collection of anti-eugenic pedagogical and public resources.       The Ethics of Innovation: Disability, Technology, and Reproductive Justice – with Katie Hasson Keith Casebonne and Jodi Beckstine, Disability Deep Dive | 07.24.2025 In this episode of the podcast Disability Deep Dive, CGS’ Katie Hasson and hosts Keith and Jodi discuss social justice and equity issues surrounding contemporary genetic technologies, including for people with disabilities, and the importance of including the voices of people with disabilities in policy discussions.   The tech billionaires and rogue scientists moving to commercialise CRISPR babies Marcy Darnovsky, reprinted in GMWatch | 07.11.2025 “We’ve entered a new and more alarming phase in the struggle to orient human biotechnologies toward the common good, and to prevent their use in the service of a resurgent eugenics,” observes CGS’ Marcy Darnovsky. “It’s time to step up the opposition.”       How to Make Cloning Pay Pete Shanks, Biopolitical Times | 07.23.2025 Several attempts have been made to clone animals––pets, sheep, cattle, and now horses––but the ventures have generally not proved successful in generating revenue or in creating the exact same animal.     THREE-PERSON IVF | GENE THERAPY | GENE EDITING | GENOMICS EUGENICS | ASSISTED REPRODUCTION | VARIOUS   THREE-PERSON IVF A brief history of “three-parent babies” Jessica Hamzelou, MIT Technology Review | 07.18.2025 The newly announced UK births are only the latest babies born through so-called “three-person IVF”––the same approach has been used in several countries in the past 30 years, generating controversy and debate about its safety and efficacy. How a third parent's DNA can prevent an inherited disease Rob Stein, NPR | 07.16.2025 “Three-parent babies” have been born in the UK after researchers used “mitochondrial donation” techniques to try to prevent inherited mitochondrial diseases. Critics raise concerns about the safety of the techniques, and about whether they could be used in dangerous ways that support eugenic ideologies and the creation of “designer babies.”   GENE THERAPY Sarepta, bowing to FDA pressure, pauses shipments of Duchenne gene therapy Elevidys Angus Liu, Fierce Pharma | 07.22.2025 After initially refusing to comply, Sarepta Therapeutics has agreed to the FDA’s demand that it pause shipments of its gene therapy Elevidys, which treats Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The FDA made the distribution suspension request after multiple patients, some receiving that treatment and one receiving another Sarepta gene therapy, died. 5 questions on Sarepta, the FDA and a Duchenne gene therapy crisis Ben Fidler and Ned Pagliarulo, BioPharmaDive | 07.21.2025 Sarepta Therapeutics did not publicly disclose the death of a 51-year-old man from liver failure after receiving an experimental gene therapy to treat a kind of muscular dystrophy. The lack of disclosure, which came just after another of Sarepta’s gene therapies also caused patients’ death from liver failure, angered the FDA and investors. The $20 Million Bet on CRISPR to Cure Rare Childhood Diseases Alice Park, TIME | 07.08.2025 Jennifer Doudna and Priscilla Chan (co-founder of the Chan Zuckerberg Foundation) are setting up a center at UC San Francisco that will create experimental CRISPR therapies for children with genetic conditions. Leading scientific organizations propose 10-year ban on human genetic editing CNN | 07.05.2025 CNN News reports on heritable genetic editing and the recent call for a moratorium on it. The 7+-minute video also covers the start-ups offering polygenic embryo selection for non-medical traits, and its potential to normalize genetic determinism and eugenics. Gene therapy restores hearing in toddlers and teenagers born with congenital deafness – new research Maoli Duan, The Conversation | 07.02.2025 New research suggests that a gene therapy, which delivers a working copy of the OTOF gene directly into the inner ear’s hearing cells, may restore hearing in toddlers and young adults born with congenital deafness.   GENOMICS 23andMe is out of bankruptcy. You should still delete your DNA. Geoffrey A. Fowler, The Washington Post | 07.17.2025 23andMe is back in the hands of its cofounder Anne Wojcicki, but that doesn’t mean that concerns about privacy and consumers’ DNA have gone away. The company could still sell people’s genetic information to the highest bidder in the future. The Trump administration disbanded a newborn screening panel. Advocates now face a harder path Jarred Whitlock, Endpoints | 07.15.2025 The Trump administration has dismantled a federal advisory committee that produced guidelines on newborn genetic screening. As a result, rare disease advocacy groups will have to go state by state to advocate for newborn screening, which can help ensure early treatment, including access to experimental gene therapies. Genetic testing of critically ill adults can yield surprises—and reveal disparities in treatment of Black patients Annika Inampudi, Science | 07.10.2025 A study of genetic testing of adults admitted to intensive care units suggests that widespread genetic screening, which is primarily conducted on newborn children, may benefit adults. The study also revealed that Black patients were far less likely than white patients to receive diagnoses for genetic conditions before or during their ICU stay. Plans to genetically screen newborns for rare diseases are problematic Suzanne O’Sullivan, New Scientist | 07.09.2025 The UK’s plan to genetically screen newborns for a variety of rare diseases will bring more challenges than solutions. The plan ignores scientific unknowns around population-level genetic variation and ethical issues of informed consent of newborns and the security of their genetic information.   EUGENICS The Shocking Rise of One of the Tech Right’s Favorite Posters Noah Lanard, Mother Jones | 07.17.2025 After Jordan Lasker leaked Zohran Mamdani’s Columbia application data to The New York Times, revelations of his embrace of eugenics caused further controversy. Further scrutiny of his history shows extensive support for race science, Nazism, and white supremacist ideologies. Inside the Silicon Valley push to breed super-babies Elizabeth Dwoskin and Yeganeh Torbati, The Washington Post | 07.16.2025 Orchid Health and other polygenic risk score startups are advancing their genetic screening and embryo selection technology in IVF clinics that cater to wealthy elites. There are few regulations to stop them, despite significant scientific and ethical concerns. The useful political lesson from Zohran Mamdani’s college application Philip Bump, The Washington Post | 07.07.2025 The controversy around Zohran Mamdani’s self-identification of race on his Columbia application––which was triggered by a proponent of eugenics––reveals how archaic and limited constructs of race in the U.S. tend to be. Tech Oligarchs and the Rise of Silicon Valley Pronatalism Maren Behrensen, Tech Policy Press | 07.02.2025 Under the guise of “saving humanity,” the Silicon Valley strain of pronatalism promotes an illiberal vision that prioritizes the flourishing of some groups, like tech elites and their offspring, to the detriment of others––like poor people, queer people, disabled people, and people of color. What Is Pronatalism? The Trump Admin-Backed Movement That Explains Elon Musk's Many Kids Jamie Marsella, Teen Vogue | 07.02.2025 Trump and his allies’ pronatalist policies incentivize the expansion of some families while diminishing access to support and care for others. They reflect the toxic historical entanglement of pronatalism and eugenics fueled by anxieties about gender, race, and immigration. Beware the new eugenics Joel Kotkin, UnHerd | 07.01.2025 Eugenics has found a new home in the 21st century: the tech industry. Tech elites on the right and the left are turning to reproductive technologies, gene editing, and artificial superintelligence to advance their dangerous and exclusionary vision of the future. Elon Musk and JD Vance Want You to Breed. A Lot. Al Letson, Reveal | 06.28.2025 What do Silicon Valley billionaires, religious parents of six, and eugenics-curious biotech founders have in common? The belief that there’s a population crisis and that promoting pronatalism––for those they think should reproduce––will address it. Elon Musk Is Playing God Charlie Warzel and Hana Kiros, The Atlantic | 06.24.2025 Elon Musk’s indifference to the suffering of people affected by the decimation of USAID exists alongside his belief that he has a central role to play in securing humanity’s future. The combination unmasks the exclusionary horrors beneath eugenic pronatalism and techno-utopianism.   ASSISTED REPRODUCTION The first babies have been born following “simplified” IVF in a mobile lab Jessica Hamzelou, MIT Technology Review | 07.11.2025 Researchers in South Africa are testing a low-cost mobile IVF lab that makes the technology available to people in rural areas. With success in their first trial, they are planning to expand to Egypt and Indonesia. Men might be the key to an American baby boom Lucy Tu, The Atlantic | 07.11.2025 Trump’s focus on IVF and his dubbing of himself as the “fertilization president” has exposed fault lines among conservatives regarding assisted reproduction, but the debate thus far has largely overlooked male reproductive health as a focus area for addressing infertility. Sperm donor app is a ‘serious risk’, warns regulator Emma Haslett, The Observer | 07.06.2025 The HFEA is warning UK consumers about a new app launched by the controversial founder of a Danish sperm bank. By facilitating private sperm donation arrangements, “Y Factor” bypasses UK regulations and leaves donors, intended parents, and donor-conceived people vulnerable to medical and legal risks. The darker side of infertility Pat Duggins, Alabama Public Radio | 06.27.2025 Diane Tober’s book Eggonomics reveals how the global marketplace for gametes can at times promote a “eugenic mission,” valuing the eggs of White donors––especially those from the Ivy League––while devaluing the eggs of donors of color and the gestational labor of surrogates.   VARIOUS Google's AI Refuses to Even Play Chess Against 1977 Atari, After Hearing What It Did to Other Cutting-Edge AIs Frank Landymore, Futurism | 07.15.2025 After the 1977 game console Atari 2600 beat ChatGPT in a game of chess, another AI model, Google’s Gemini, refused to play chess with the older system even as it boasted it would win. AI’s misplaced confidence in its own abilities seems to reflect its creators’ own misapprehensions. Lab-grown sperm and eggs just a few years away, scientists say Hannah Devlin, The Guardian | 07.05.2025 While some researchers claim that in just a few years in vitro gametogenesis (lab-created sperm and eggs) will be possible, some are more concerned than others about the risks that the technology might pose. Building Decision Points Into Research’s Slipperiest Slopes John H. Evans et al., Issues in Science and Technology | 07.04.2025 Researchers who called for a ban on the creation of mirror bacteria and other mirror organisms propose a “barrier” framework to evaluate potentially dangerous scientific technologies, avoid harms, and support “properly cautious research behavior.”   If you’ve read this far, you clearly care about the fight to reclaim human biotechnologies for the common good. Thank you!  Will you support CGS by making a donation today? 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