The Seduction of Designer Babies: Are Proponents of Germline Editing Telling the Whole Truth?

This past November, Chinese scientist He Jiankui announced the birth of twin girls whom he genetically edited as embryos — a revelation that, for several reasons, was met with near universal condemnation.

First, it’s widely agreed that the gene-editing tool used by Jiankui, CRISPR-Cas9 (CRISPR), is not yet safe enough for use in humans. Regardless, Jiankui employed CRISPR to remove the CCR5 gene from human embryos in an attempt to render them resistant to HIV. [Note: individuals who lack this gene have demonstrated resistance to HIV]. This particular application of CRISPR, known germline editing (i.e. the alteration of embryonic genomes), is especially risky given the heritably of the resulting edits. As such, prior to Jiankui’s experiment, CRISPR had never before been used to alter human embryos intended for implantation.

Jiankui, however, reportedly failed to inform the prospective parents recruited to his trial that a novel, genetic intervention was involved. Instead, Jiankui misleadingly told participants that he was testing an “HIV vaccine” in an apparent attempt to obfuscate the true risks associated with the research.

Furthermore, the now father of the edited twin girls purportedly entered the trial because he feared transmitting…