And were those risks adequately communicated to the people taking them? According to the story, they weren't.
That's a Big Fucking Deal, and is absolutely a significant part of the story.
Was that in the headline?
That's a Big Fucking Deal, and is absolutely a significant part of the story.
Was that in the headline?
> The parents had heard about serious side effects, including deaths, caused by other gene therapies, and knew the greatest risk would be Mei’s immune response to the massive dose of virus.
The risk was explicitly stated in the consent form:
> The platelets in her blood also dropped to dangerous levels. It was the exact sequence of symptoms that the consent form had warned the family about.
Qiu should have been more cautious in some of their communication with the obviously emotional parents, but this is pretty far from a scam and these aren't nobody doctors within China. He had a postdoc from UC San Diego, was a well known neuroscientist in China, published in Nature, etc.
I believe it was a very dumb idea to use their kid in something very experimental, especially in China. But lets not pretend the family didn't play a huge role, with many chances to have it double checked with other scientists before putting their daughters life at risk. They 100% had the means to do so but chose to gamble.