SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
"Cease & Desist" has not worked:
Despite a warning from the federal government about do-it-yourself gene therapy, two companies say they'll continue offering DNA-altering materials to the public.
The companies, The Odin and Ascendance Biomedical, both recently posted videos online of people self-administering DNA molecules their labs had produced.
Following wide distribution of the videos, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last week issued a harshly worded statement cautioning consumers against DIY gene-therapy kits and calling their sale illegal. "The sale of these products is against the law. FDA is concerned about the safety risks involved," the agency said.
Does the Executive Branch want the market to decide, or not?
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Biohackers Disregard FDA Warning on DIY Gene Therapy
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 45 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
I'm gliding over a NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP near ATLANTA, Georgia!!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 04 2017, @12:50PM (2 children)
In the last year or so the FDA has approved some gene therapies for living, breathing human adults.
We can't say for sure whether his experiment will work, but that's the point of the self-experiment.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @03:45PM (1 child)
It's called being incredibly reckless and irresponsible. When gene therapies are approved, they know what they're dealing with both in terms of the DNA of the person as well as what the general effects of it are going to be.
This is a case of companies engaged in illegal and unethical research on ignorant customers.
And to make matters worse, because these aren't designed experiments, even if nothing particularly bad happens, we can't draw conclusions about what effect this might have on other people or no what sort of people shouldn't be using it. This is just bad.
Self-experimentation is valuable, but this is so far beyond what you could reasonably expect somebody to do on their own that there's no value here. Self-experimentation is for things that are much lower stakes and more personal like figuring out what the best diet is for one person. There's plenty of variation without cutting out too many essential nutrients.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Monday December 04 2017, @04:08PM
Bioengineering is too important to be left solely in the hands of big pharmaceutical companies.
Odin is selling pieces of what people would need to experiment themselves. It is not selling a drug or ready-to-use therapy.
http://www.the-odin.com/human-myostatin-knock-out-targeting-crispr-cas9-plasmid/ [the-odin.com]
It should not be illegal to sell what they are selling, or use what they are selling to attempt to experiment on yourself.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]