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Genetic Justice from Start to Summit
CGS is gearing up for a two-part virtual symposium that will challenge the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing on its failure to center social justice and human rights voices and perspectives, and critique its moves that encourage heritable genome editing. Mark your calendars to join us on Feb 27 (9–10:30am PST) and Feb 28 (9–11am PST) for conversations on genetic justice that you won’t hear at the Summit! More details to come.
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Summit Counter-Events in London
Several organizations in addition to CGS will be hosting events meant to broaden the perspectives on gene editing beyond those featured at the Summit. Stop Designer Babies is organizing a teach-in on March 4, in person and online, featuring perspectives from black/anti-racist, disability rights, working class, feminist, parents and human rights movements. (More details to come.) On March 3–4, the Centre of Bioethics and Emerging Technologies at St Mary’s University, Twickenham will host an international conference on heritable genome editing and equality in partnership with the Scottish Council for Human Bioethics.
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Thank you, CGS supporters!
Thank you to all our colleagues, friends, and subscribers who contributed to our end-of-year campaign and lifted us to 126% above our fundraising goal! We are truly grateful for your generosity in supporting CGS’ mission.
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Is Gene Therapy Delivering On Its Promises?
Pete Shanks, Biopolitical Times | 01.18.2023
New developments in gene therapy are promising, but significant questions remain: Is it safe enough? How many people might benefit? And, crucially, how much will gene therapies cost and who will pay?
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The Center for Genetics and Society: 2022 Highlights
CGS Staff, Biopolitical Times | 01.14.2023
Throughout 2022, CGS hosted public events, collaborated with advocates and scholars, and curated and analyzed news to amplify concerns regarding the social justice implications of human biotechnologies. Here are a few highlights.
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Bespoke Babies Without the Hassle of Pregnancy! Yeah, Right
Pete Shanks, Biopolitical Times | 12.23.2022
A new concept video envisions a future in which parents can select traits for their future children and use an artificial womb facility to avoid the hassle of pregnancy. Like other “designer baby” ventures, this approach could have dire societal consequences.
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GENE EDITING | GENOMICS | EUGENICS
ASSISTED REPRODUCTION | SURROGACY360 | VARIOUS
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Sickle Cell Cure Brings Mix of Anxiety and Hope
Gina Kolata, The New York Times | 01.17.2023
Two gene therapies hold promise for treating sickle cell disease, but the resources it takes to afford the costly and intensive one-time gene therapies make patients and their advocates concerned about access––along with the unknowns of an experimental treatment.
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How gene therapy is emerging from its ‘dark age’
Gemma Conroy, Nature | 12.14.2022
New gene therapy approvals and clinical trials suggest that better treatments may be on the horizon for people with complex genetic diseases, including macular degeneration, hemophilia, and spinal muscular atrophy.
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CRISPR gene-editing may boost cancer immunotherapy, new study finds
Rob Stein, NPR | 12.13.2022
A recent clinical trial found that reprogrammed donor T cells could destroy tumor cells in some patients with hard-to-treat cancers. These “off-the-shelf” therapies are cheaper and faster because they don’t require removing, editing, and re-infusing a patient’s own cells.
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How Police Actually Cracked the Idaho Killings Case
Heather Tal Murphy, Slate | 01.10.2023
Investigators used forensic genealogy, a relatively new and somewhat controversial method that relies on ancestry databases to identify DNA from crime scenes, to zero in on the suspect now in custody on charges of murdering four University of Idaho students.
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Russia's Eugenic War
Timothy Snyder, Thinking about... | 01.08.2023
In Ukraine, Russia has pursued ambitious policies of racial transformation––Russian eugenics. Putin has used mass deportations and other tactics to make Russia's multiethnic population more white and more Russian.
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Eco-Fascism, Uncovered
Ruxandra Guidi, Sierra | 12.27.2022
American eco-fascism scapegoats immigrants for environmental degradation, luring environmentalists into the folds of the nativist movement. In reality, immigrants often bear the brunt of climate impacts.
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UCSF apologizes for experiments done on prisoners in the ’60s and ’70s
Salvador Hernandez, Los Angeles Times | 12.22.2022
UC San Francisco issued a public apology after investigating experiments performed by two faculty members in the 1960s and ’70s on prisoners, some of whom were mentally ill. In many cases, there was no record that the prisoners had provided informed consent.
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A Statue of Henrietta Lacks Will Replace a Monument to Robert E. Lee
Derrick Bryson Taylor, The New York Times | 12.20.2022
A life-size bronze statue of Henrietta Lacks, whose cancer cells were taken without her consent and used to develop medical discoveries and treatments, will replace a monument to Confederate general Robert E. Lee in Roanoke, VA.
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Race is a Biological Fiction, and Potent Social Reality
Charles M. Blow, Undark | 12.15.2022
“The failure to abandon the concept of race in this country is not rooted in a lack of knowledge. It is rooted in a persistent urge for dominance. And until we reckon with that urge, science is unlikely to deliver us.”
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Colombia’s surrogacy market: Buying a baby for $4,000
Lucia Franco, El País | 01.04.2022
Surrogacy is unregulated in Colombia and businesses take advantage of the vacuum to offer services. The absence of regulation leaves surrogates vulnerable to exploitation and allows clinics to make false claims.
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Russian troops sent to Ukraine given opportunity to freeze sperm
Maria Botcharova, PET | 01.09.2023
Russian troops mobilized to fight in Ukraine will be offered sperm freezing and fertility treatment, which some see as an incentive to join the military. However, Russia has no specific legislation about the use of sperm after death.
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Warning for UK women over physical and financial toll of egg freezing
Miranda Bryant, The Guardian | 01.08.2023
The UK’s fertility regulator has called for an urgent update to the law around egg freezing as rapidly growing numbers of women choose to undergo the procedure––often without being warned of the full financial, emotional and physical costs.
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EU-wide recognition of surrogacy and same-sex parenthood proposed
Blair Sowry, PET | 12.19.2022
The European Commission has proposed new regulation to allow parenthood rights to follow families across member states, meaning that all states would be obliged to recognise parenthood through surrogacy that was legally established in other EU jurisdictions.
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Senators move to protect IVF treatments
Caitlin Huey-Burns, CBS News | 12.15.2022
In the wake of the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, many states have passed vague abortion bans that might limit use of IVF. In response, Senate Democrats have introduced new legislation to protect IVF treatments.
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The Quest to bring IVF to Africa
Jenni Quilter, Slate | 12.13.2022
Researchers in Belgium have been working to expand IVF access to African countries by lowering the cost of the technique. Although the clinic they set up in Ghana has proven successful, they have faced challenges in getting funding to support infertility treatment in Africa.
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The entrepreneur dreaming of a factory of unlimited organs
Antonio Regalado, MIT Technology Review | 01.11.2023
After failures last year, some startups hope that more trials of xenotransplantation will prove successful, opening up a vast supply of genetically modified pig organs to help more people on transplant lists.
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The reproducibility issues that haunt health-care AI
Emily Sohn, Nature | 01.09.2023
We have to ask, “'Are we deploying a bunch of algorithms in practice that we can’t understand, for which we don’t know their biases, and that might create real harm for people?'"
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Male and Female Stem Cells Derived from One Donor in Scientific First
Dan Robitzski, The Scientist | 12.22.2022
Scientists have developed a new line of stem cells—all derived from the same person, who had a rare version of Klinefelter syndrome—that can be used to study sex differences without the confounds of interpersonal genetic differences.
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