The Editorial Board
The Los Angeles Times
Originally posted August 3, 2017
Here is an excerpt:
But there is also a great deal we still don’t know about how minor issues might become major ones as people pass on edited DNA to their offspring, and as people who have had some genes altered reproduce with people who have had other genes altered. We’ve seen how selectively breeding to produce one trait can unexpectedly produce other, less desirable outcomes. Remember how growers were able to create tomatoes that were more uniformly red, but in the process, they turned off the gene that gave tomatoes flavor?
Another major issue is the ethics of adjusting humans genetically to fit a favored outcome. Today it’s heritable disease, but what might be seen as undesirable traits in the future that people might want to eliminate? Short stature? Introverted personality? Klutziness?
To be sure, it’s not as though everyone is likely to line up for gene-edited offspring rather than just having babies, at least for the foreseeable future. The procedure can be performed only on in vitro embryos and requires precision timing.
The article is here.
