22. Who should decide what level of human genome editing society is comfortable with and does it matter if neighboring countries manage the pandemic differently?

Genome editing has been around for many years, and the cost of precise surgeries on the DNA has become accessible for plenty of researchers around the globe. The technique that revolutionized the filed, CRISPR, is now used in all kinds of applications, from increasing crop yields to developing medications (and the authors of the technique, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna have just received a Nobel Prize in chemistry for their discovery.) One of the topics fascinating people for years have been applying such techniques to human genome; it could be used for great good, like treating genetic conditions or provide immunity against deadly diseases, but also raises serious scientific and ethical questions. Is it ethical to create genetically enhanced humans? And what about unforeseen effects of gene changes? (It is very hard to simulate or understand the effect of even small changes in a few generations.) And while the consensus of the scientific community remains as very restrictive against any gene modifications in humans, the topic is becoming more and more urgent to address — especially after the disgraced scientist He Jiankui used the technique to modify genome of two girls (see CRISPR’d babies: human germline genome editing in the ‘He Jiankui affair’ from Journal of Law and Biosciences.) Even putting aside the fact that what Jiankui did was against the law, a good question can be raised: who should be able to decide whether editing human genome is ethical, and to what extent?

Global citizen deliberation on genome editing — easy read. Dryzek et al. dig into different ethical concerns and aspects of the subject of human genome editing and propose a democratic solution: let the people decide. In particular, they postulate a globally coordinated deliberation, where scientists, ethicists and other specialists could present their points to an international audience of non-scientific people for them to be able to hold an informed debate and establish what the world feels comfortable with, and where do we draw the lines. This may sound simple, or perhaps even obvious, but is actually a rather profound proposal. The authors note that we cannot be sure about consequences of applying techniques such as CRISPR to humans and whether they would be for the good or bad, but we are absolutely sure the decision will bear tremendous impact the future of Homo Sapiens. As such, it does not appear ethical for a relatively small group of domain experts to make such choice in the name of everybody else. Having said that, as much as I hate to admit it, science can be incredibly hard. There are reasons why people devote their entire lives to study a relatively narrow specialty in order to have an opinion. How could we possibly get non-specialists to make a fact-based, well-informed decision in such complex topics? Well, it only seems fair to say that we must do it. And the article does provide some details into how organization of such tremendous logistical challenge could take place. Just think about it — people from hundreds of different backgrounds and cultures need to attend. They will not speak the same language and their understanding of the topic will vary greatly (except being not-in-depth at the beginning.) They will be located all around the globe. They will need to communicate and agree, and yet they need to represent opinions of their own communities. This poses an ultimate political challenge, that sounds extremely hard to conduct but its importance cannot be emphasized enough. The article is unfortunately paywalled, but you should be able to read it in full in the issue preview at magazine’s digital page.

Coming back to the most current topic, the pandemic keeping all of us in our homes, plenty of countries are going through subsequent waves of the virus. When the disease fires first erupted, plenty of societies entered lockdowns, attempting to stop the spread with more or less success. “Flattening the curve” has become the staple of Spring of 2020. On the flipside, the economy suffered a bad blow, which reflects in people not being able to pay bills or buy food. The decisions on closing the country are very tough, and different governments took (sometimes drastically) different approaches to handling the virus, from Sweden doing roughly nothing lockdown-wise, to France imposing strict restrictions for weeks. However, when we think about it, people are moving around the globe as a matter of life nowdays — certain parts of our lives would just not exist if not for certain folks who continue to work internationally. If this is the case, why has the world not consider a coordinated lockdown response a bit more seriously?

Assessing the impact of coordinated COVID-19 exit strategies across Europe — medium-easy read. Ruktanonchai et al. used mobile phones data to understand the movement of travellers around Europe during different parts of the pandemic and modelled how more or less coordination between countries in easing or tightening their restrictions could have impacted the virus spread. The analysis clearly indicates a, perhaps obvious, problem with desynchronization; if some countries open their lives before others do, resurgences around the continent happen much faster than if the efforts were coordinated. In particular, the authors note that a full continental second wave could occur as much as 5 weeks sooner if the countries keep easing and tightening and easing their restrictions at on their own. And if 5 weeks do not seem like much, consider this: a resurgence 5 weeks earlier gives us 5 less weeks for research leading to treatments, possible vaccines or even producing medical supplies. In a situation like this simply every day counts. Another crucial finding of the simulation was that if Europe attempted to apply lockdowns synchronously, overall we would need many less lockdowns to stop the community transmission in Europe. The findings are somehow intuitive, but now the “common sense” thoughts appear to have a solid data backing. Will this change the policy of European countries? Sadly, I doubt it. The driving of the governments appears very political and opinionated. Plenty of times we hear that our leaders use “best scientific guidance” but are unable to produce actual research and deliberations that lead to their decisions. This is a lamentable state of affairs, made somehow worse by somehow growing distrust of people in science, especially due to its everchanging nature. But perhaps if we all try to read and think a bit more, and then explain to our friends any family that for various reasons is unable to read or understand the papers on its own — maybe we can make a slightest shift for a better, more data driven world. A science-driven world would not be perfect, but it would be the best it can be.