I think a really exceeding important clarification here is he edited the genomes of human embryos, not babies. Babies are already born humans, embryos are a clump of cells that will become a baby in the future. I do not condone gene editing without consent, which is what he did, and yes there is lots of questionable ethics around gene editing but he did NOT experiment on babies. This should be made clear especially in a science based community, memes or not.

Implying that babies are the same thing as embryos is fundamentally incorrect, in the same way a caterpillar is not a butterfly and a larva is not a fly, the distinction is very important.

EDIT To add further detail - One of the reasons this is so unethical is that he experimented on human embryos that were later born and became babies. His intent was always to create a gene edited human, but the modifications were done while they were embryos, not live babies.

To all the commenters saying this guy was a saint for doing what he did, would you say the same thing had the outcome been disastrous? Babies born without HIV, but with constant excruciating pain or mental deficiency?

He took an extraordinarily reckless and permanently life-altering, for good or bad, risk with children's lives.

edit: spelling

Ethics are supposed to throttle human activity. That's their fucking job. That guy is a goddamn sociopath.

Just so you all know what his horrible crime was...

"Formally presenting the story at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) three days later, he said that the twins were born from genetically modified embryos that were made resistant to M-tropic strains of HIV.[48] His team recruited 8 couples consisting each of HIV-positive father and HIV-negative mother through Beijing-based HIV volunteer group called Baihualin China League. During in vitro fertilization, the sperms were cleansed of HIV. Using CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing, they introduced a natural mutation CCR5-Δ32 in gene called CCR5, which would confer resistance to M-tropic HIV infection."

So imagine a couple where one has HIV but they really want to have a baby. He basically made it so their children were hiv free and then immunized them (edited for accuracy). In all my Crispr research, this is the story that most caused me to feel the science system had wronged a good person. Literally Lulu and Nana can grow up healthy now. Science community smashed him, but to the real people he helped he is basically a saint. I love now seeing him again and seeing he still has his ideals. Again, fuck all those science boards and councils that attacked him. Think of the actual real couple that just wants a kid without their liferuining disease. Also I love how he isnt some rightwing nutjob nor greedy capitalist. See his statement about this tech should be free for all people and he will never privately help billionaires etc etc.

anyway, ideals. i recognized them when i first came across him; i recognize them now. I know enough about him that I will savagely defend this guy. He isn't making plagues or whatever. He is helping real people.

If a person's criticism is of "ethics" in general, that individual should not be allowed in a position of authority or trust. If you have a specific constraint for which you can make a case that it goes too far and hinders responsible science and growth (and would have repeatable, reliable results), then state the specific point clearly and the arguments in your favor.

Is nobody concerned that illegal experiments on babies only gets you 3 years?

Maybe they were Uyghurs so it was classified as "property damage" in Chinese law.

I’m just here for the comments

Hot take.: He is right though.

I think gene theraly is a miracle technology that should absolutely be explored more. The thing is, we're already at a point where we can do it in adults. So doing it on embyros, which can't consent, is simply an uncessasary moral hazard.

That said, I think the doctor here sort of has a point, which is that medical research is sometimes so concerned with doing no harm that it allows harm to happen without trying to treat it.

I'd like to get in to genetic engineering. When I came across his story while researching crispr, I sympathized with him. He did the experiment in what to me is a moral way. Just going on memory it was like 'take 4 embryos, edit two, keep parents in the loop and ask which embryo they want'. Complain all you want, but he did no wrong; it's the public and system that then wronged him. So yeah, of nearly anyone, he is the one who most gets to say 'ethics ruining science'. It's ironic because there are tons and tons of unethical science activities done literally every day. But for those to be ignored and instead ethics police to hit him when he did all his stuff morally and resulted probably in two extrahealthy kids... Yeah I agree with him. I think everything should be done morally, but if he is going to be hit like that under the guise of 'ethics' then nah. 'ethics' needs to be replaced by morals and decency. Literally horrifically murdering people (war) is legal and accepted while him using science, AND CORRECTLY, to protect people from liferuining diseases got the treatment it did? nah. I hope he continues growing and doing more genetic engineering and this time doesn't share a single thing with the public. He should never give the people that treated him like that a single piece of data. There are ways to bypass the patent thickets if he isn't selling what he does, especially if he shares no info about it. I support him.

prepares for 200 downvotes

my type of guy. And he still does his research to help people even with the public treating him like it does.

Ironic thing, we already tried this approach multiple times before, specially on war times. And each time humanity concluded that some knowledge has too high a price and we're better off not finding out some things.

Knowledge for the sake of knowledge, especially with a heavy blood cost, isn't the way to progress as a species.

And I should know, as a person greatly defined by curiosity about everything and more limited emotional capacity than other people due to mental limitations.

wait he's not a fucking parody account?? i thought he was like. larping as an umbrella corp researcher

"Speed limits are holding me back from getting from a to B in as little time as possible" yeah, and they reduce the likelihood of injuring/killing a people in the process.

Unit 731 is the truly horrible source of a lot of modern medical knowledge

Mengele vibes right there.