Yes - exactly. He didn’t know what was going to happen. When you don’t know what is going to happen, you don’t play with lives.

You do make a good point with the full backing rigor of the scientific method this procedure would always be successful.

What? Even highly effective treatments with ample research backing will not “always be successful.” (Not just in genetics. Across the board.)

Again, as the excerpt I copied in shows, there are also RISKS with CRISPR. Things like mosaicism, things like half of your cells having the modification and half not.

Do you have any background in biology? Can you explain why a gene that only conveys resistance in a homozygous genotype would be magically effective in a heterozygous because it was artificial?

Can you define the terms “homozygous” and “heterozygous” even?

Read that section I pasted in again.

“Lulu has only heterozygous modification which is not known to prevent HIV infection.”

It’s not the results are “banned from every journal” - it’s that doing ad hoc CRISPR experiments is not going to meet peer review. Doing random things because you want to see what happens is not how science works.

Everyone keeps leaning on Unit 731 and the Nazis here.

What about Tuskegee and syphillis? What about the way that Huvasupai Indians blood was tested without their consent?

“Fun” fact - the chainsaw was developed to help with child birth. Lots of early US gynecology research was done on enslaved women without pain control.

By all account what he did worked.

Incorrect.

Two days after Lulu and Nana were born, their DNA were collected from blood samples of their umbilical cord and placenta. Whole genome sequencing confirmed the mutations.[124] However, available sources indicate that Lulu and Nana are carrying incomplete CCR5 mutations. Lulu carries a mutant CCR5 that has a 15-bp in-frame deletion only in one chromosome 3 (heterozygous allele) while the other chromosome 3 is normal; and Nana carries a homozygous mutant gene with a 4-bp deletion and a single base insertion.[125] He therefore failed to achieve the complete 32-bp deletion.[109] Moreover, Lulu has only heterozygous modification which is not known to prevent HIV infection.[120] Because the babies’ mutations are different from the typical CCR5Δ32 mutation it is not clear whether or not they are prone to infection.[125] There are also concerns about adverse effect called off-target mutation in CRISPR/Cas9 editing and mosaicism, a condition in which many different cells develop in the same embryo.[124] Off-target mutation may cause health hazards, while mosaicism may create HIV susceptible cells.

The babies were born to HIV infected fathers, so the part about “never worrying about HIV in the first place” isn’t quite accurate.

But honestly, that makes it even more infuriating. There probably would have been patients that would have CONSENTED to this if given the opportunity. He probably could have done things the right way - worked with animal studies, gone through the ethics process.

Instead, he decided to move fast and break things, without regard for others autonomy or consent.

There’s no guarantee that they are HIV resistant, and there’s a good chance that West Nile or tick borne diseases will be more harmful than them.

Playing mad scientist with human lives is unjustifiable. If he wanted to make “HIV resistant babies” he should have done preliminary testing to show that what he was doing was safe, communicated openly about what he was doing, ran his studies by an IRB, told the parents about the potential risks and benefits about what he was doing and then only moved forward with their CONSENT.

What he instead did was mess with someone’s babies on a wild hare. That’s not how science works.

Edit: also - it didn’t even work. The girls had copies of both genes, and not the HIV resistant trait.

Also - there are known negative interactions of that mutation with other diseases.

From wiki:

CCR5 Δ32 can be beneficial to the host in some infections (e.g., HIV-1, possibly smallpox), but detrimental in others (e.g., tick-borne encephalitis, West Nile virus). Whether CCR5 function is helpful or harmful in the context of a given infection depends on a complex interplay between the immune system and the pathogen.

What he did was flat out unethical and completely unjustifiable. If he had discussed the risks and benefits with the parents, ran it past an IRB, then maybe we could be having a conversation about the ethics of “playing god.”

Edit: also, he fucked up and the girls have mosaicism/no enhanced HIV resistance. Wonder how good a job he did with his CRISPR…

No, he inserted a gene that is associated with resistance to HIV, but is also associated with increased risk of some cancers. He did this without informed consent, he did this without running it by an ethics board, he did this without knowing whether it would work or not.

Let’s stop pretending that he’s a good guy that just magically made HIV immune babies.

Edit: it also didn’t work. The babies have genes both with and without the mutation.