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Comment by ethbro | Hacker News Reader

Good. Because, pardon the colorful language, fuck those bioethicist Luddites.

From a moral standpoint it's inconceivable that we aren't proceeding at full speed to solve inherited diseases.

There's no ethical hand wringing over this. (In many cases) We know what the mutation is. We know what a healthy gene is. We're on the cusp of being able to change the former into the latter.

Why are we still giving column inches to people saying "This is really disturbing"?

There's a counterpoint about genetic diversity and the dangers of monoculture, but that isn't what's being brought up. It's always 'This is new and scary, and so we should spend more time studying the implications before doing it.'

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I would argue that we have no choice and have to master our own genome. Consider that we have entirely removed many of the selective forces that ensured we had a healthy gene pool.

Take, as a simple example, the selective pressure on any disease that would have killed someone 1000 years ago. Now whatever susceptibility lead to that is not drained from the gene pool, the person is cured at great expense and reproduces furthering the presence of the gene. Don't get me wrong, evolution runs off of death and murder. Replacing it can be amazing, but we almost have no choice.

> Why are we still giving column inches to people saying "This is really disturbing"?

Because it is. Who will be responsible for the suffrage that gene-edited people will inevitably go through when someone screws up (and make no mistake, someone WILL screw up). Who will pay their medical bills?

That's only addressing one small issue from an unfathomable pile of issues and unintended consequences.

I for one am glad those "luddites" have more say in issues like this than people like you.

you could make a case that millions of people currently suffer genetic diseases they are born with that have the potential to be cured using this technology if it's developed

Billions, I'd argue.

think for a second if your 'reasons' can be applied to any invention in general and reflect on that for a while

One could easily rewrite your comment to lament the invention of the automobile:

Who will be responsible for the suffrage [sic] that accident victims will inevitably go through when an automobile driver screws up (and make no mistake, automobile drivers WILL screw up).

The answer is: yes, a few suffer, the vast majority benefits, and life goes on. Your comment insists on a notion of perfect safety that exists nowhere in the real world.

My larger concern is who is paying for us not making the genetic effort: afflicted individuals and the social costs of trying to give them at least an approximately normal life.

Weighing any risk against that cost? I can't make a pursuasive argument that we shouldn't proceed.

Or as John Donne quipped in 1623, "... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

"Suffrage" is the right to vote :)

Your comment reveals a massive naivety about the medical, scientific and ethical conversations in the field. But you also don’t seem too interested in learning about it...

The biggest issue is that gene editing techniques are not perfect yet, and the danger of introducing bad mutations at other places in the genome is real. Once the gene editing techniques work 100% of the time with no side effects this will be of no concern.

There is no such thing as 100% with no side effects and will never be.

The larger concern is that we'll never make progress towards limiting side effects until we truly choose to pursue this research.

I'm all for IRBs, ethics boards, whatever is necessary to bound the risk. As long as we're not shying from scientific progress solely out of fear.

That's right. Bring on those radioactive underwear. We cannot solve your insecurities using gene editing, but we can definitely destroy the lives on millions. Those "Luddites" made sure that your current genes aren't edited by a dumb PhD student in the 80s, and you're not permanently crippled as a result of that.

Gene editing should stay exactly where it is, in the dystopic dreams of uneducated eugenics supporters.

And what say you to the millions whose lives are being destroyed by hereditary ailments?

'We could have helped you, but we weren't comfortable doing so. Sorry.'?

Eugenics is a strawman, and we're both clear designer babies aren't what we're talking about here.

> (In many cases) We know what the mutation is. We know what a healthy gene is.

Do we?

Do we really ? The best argument I’ve seen until now pro gene editing is that we foundamentally lack understanding of what the genes really do relative to each other and the whole body, and the best way to see unintended consequences is to “jut do it”

In the last discussion about the rogue chinese researcher I didn’t see sources arguing it’s the right time to do that, is it your hunchbor do you see signs pointing at the contrary ?

I mean, we do know that there are single gene disorders, caused by a single mutation with a known sequence.

That said, you are right, most diseases involve many genes and the environment...

As the other commenter pointed out, there are a number of diseases that have been pinpointed down to single gene mutations. There's a list of monogenetic disorders on the genome.gov page [1].

If this needed to be regulated in the same way as abortion to appease some folks, fine. Legal only to apply if you have one of these listed mutations.

Eugenics gets brought up a lot as a strawman (see comment a few above), but the scientific and ethical reality is there's a huge difference between treating someone with...

(a) a defective huntingtin gene

(b) a gene we believe to be associated with a disease

Conflating the three to the preclusion of addressing (a) is ethically criminal.

[1] https://www.genome.gov/19016930/faq-about-genetic-disorders/

the truly disturbing thing is that there exists a group of people that think they can make ethical decisions for others and that people think that has any merit whatsoever

> pardon the colorful language, fuck those bioethicist Luddites.

oopsies.. Looks like someone forgot to edit out the naughty langauge gene in this one, and we all know that's an unhealthy one..

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