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The US House of Representatives is wading into the debate over whether human embryos should be modified to introduce heritable changes. Its fiscal year 2016 spending bill for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would prohibit the agency from spending money to evaluate research or clinical applications for such products.
In an unusual twist, the bill—introduced on June 17—would also direct the FDA to create a committee that includes religious experts to review a forthcoming report from the US Institute of Medicine (IOM). The IOM's analysis, which considers the ethics of creating embryos that have three genetic parents, was commissioned by the FDA.
The House legislation comes during a time of intense debate on such matters, sparked by the announcement in April that researchers in China had edited the genomes of human embryos. The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) moved quickly to remind the public that a 1996 law prevents the federal government from funding work that destroys human embryos or creates them for research purposes.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-congress-moves-to-block-human-embryo-editing/
[Source]: http://www.nature.com/news/us-congress-moves-to-block-human-embryo-editing-1.17858
We covered a related story, Three-Person Babies Could Be Possible in Two Years just over a year ago.
Original Submission
(Score: 2, Disagree) by TheLink on Tuesday June 30 2015, @03:16PM
Resources in this world are limited. I'd personally think we should work on stuff like the "space colony" tech tree while we still have fossil fuels. But there are others - renewable energy.
Rather than be foolish, work on this "tech tree" (and similar - human-animal hybrids, maybe even very strong AI) and end up forcing ourselves to deal with the question "what/who" is human and what can we do to humans, hybrids, post-humans, "homo superior" at a level that most of society is clearly not ready for yet. We already have difficulty deciding what rights and responsibilities humans should have. And we're already not treating other animals that well.
There are other ways to cure diseases and treat people, we don't have to go down this path yet.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday June 30 2015, @03:36PM
No, and we didn't have to fly before we developed nuclear power.
That doesn't mean people should've been shouting at the Wright brothers to stop their research.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @03:58PM
Flying didn't raise any ethical questions, did it?
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday June 30 2015, @04:07PM
Maybe not flight, but certainly nuclear power.
Or chemotherapy.
So did the Internet.
The number of technologies that idiots would ban because of imagined problems is huge.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday June 30 2015, @04:24PM
Humanity as it is today can barely handle nuclear power, and the internet is sufficiently advanced technology which is indistinguishable from magic.
I don't think we're ready for designer babies. My main concerns are economical. The wealthy elite Masters of the Universe already have enough tools to vacuum up the economy and crown themselves as new kings and queens. Let's go through a few more feudal ages until we understand that concentrating power in the hands of the few is not a good idea. Then we can have designer babies.
That and KAAAAAAAHN!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @04:32PM
So no one can have nice things unless everyone can have nice things?
If we followed that approach we'd never have advanced out of the stone age.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday June 30 2015, @04:51PM
Not entirely. It's about a level of perhaps cultural evolution to understand the ethical implications of doing something, and I think that would involve a longer history showing empires rising and falling and perhaps a political evolution to a more equitable system. Don't get me wrong; the poor will always be with us, and while capitalism is horrible, everything else we've come up with is worse.
Well, maybe that is what I'm saying. Let me propose a litmus test for when a civilization is ready. Get to post-scarcity without destroying yourself, and you may have designer babies.
(I might be flying off the handle if this is just mitochondrial DNA that's involved; if that's the case feel free to mod down.)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @05:01PM
> post-scarcity
Scarcity is relative. And the more we advance as a society, the higher that bar is set.
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Tuesday June 30 2015, @07:23PM
Are you for real? Do you really think that doing the same things over and over will eventually teach people to do better?
Or is this just a troll?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 30 2015, @08:01PM
Barely handle nuclear power and the Internet? Seems to be working just fine to me.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/06/carnival-of-nuclear-energy-267.html [nextbigfuture.com]
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(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday June 30 2015, @10:57PM
My apologies. I should have expanded on that statement.
My concern wrt nuclear technology is NIMBYs. I'm not an expert, but it sounds like we've got a lot of old power plants, and while, sure, they don't explode like in SimCity after 50 years, we've pretty much put the brakes on research into designs that would be inherently safe (nothing's 100%). Then there's cost-cutting and other things that make existing designs less safe than they should be. Maybe China will lead the way.
Personally, I'm all for nuclear power. It's a proven technology, and it sounds like there are proposed reactor designs that can even deal with nuclear waste from existing designs. That sounds to me like a win-win. However, superstition seems to be winning.
As for the internet, sure, it works just fine from here in full IPv6 glory. Most of us on this site understand that when we load a webpage, the device in front of us has to communicate with another device somewhere else.
I work with people who literally cannot understand that sometimes that other device is down or misconfigured, and there's little we can do about it. Likewise maybe it's just down for us, but for reasons beyond our control (had some truly bizarre DNS issues just last week that made it look like the problem was on our end but only for that website, but then other companies that accessed that website were reporting problems with it as well) is inaccessible. Then sometimes the whole internet is inaccessible. It's simply impossible to get some people to understand that there are simple ways to determine whether being unable to reach a website means OMG INTERNET DOWN or hmm, that's odd, let's send a ticket over to the help desk. Even if you give them a checklist that says what to do.
So ok, maybe that's just arrogance on my part. End users will be end users. I'm one of the lucky ones, and they pay me by the hour (wouldn't have it any other way unless I were buying high-end sports cars with cash).
What really kills me is when that manifests itself in the form of customers angrily demanding to know why we're not able to query their websites for certain information or especially why we can't get data out of or into $amazing_bling_web_20_service they're spending thousands of dollars a month on but forgot to ask about web interfaces for 3rd parties.
There was one customer I went back and forth with, including talking to the CEO of their $amazing_bling_web_20_service, for years. The service vendor wanted us to partner with them, but my boss' boss said no to that (might have been a good opportunity, but who knows). So we kept going for years. They'd ask, “What do you need to get the information yet and why aren't you already?” I'd say, “Ask $amazing_bling_web_20_service for a web service interface, and I'll get you a quote the next day.” Eventually I did get the API I needed, which had apparently been available since day 1, just not available to me. Three hours later we were getting the information. Go figure.
Many more war stories where that came from about integration projects needlessly delayed by business-types who would not understand that just because it's in the cloud doesn't mean I can magically wave a wand and get access to it.
Another important point is all of the unintended consequences of the terabytes of personal information being hoovered up by sites like Facebook. Doxxing, revenge porn, SWATing, etc, etc. Then there's ransomware and other crapware. Then there's social engineering and the PHB that needs way too much access over an under-secured channel. That's not even to mention the petabytes collected by TLAs leading to parallel construction and other nasty things.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anne Nonymous on Tuesday June 30 2015, @04:28PM
If God had meant for Man to fly he would have given us wings.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 30 2015, @04:51PM
Sure it did: When a plane crashes on top of a completely innocent person who had no opportunity to make any choices regarding what was directly over his head, is that a fair cost to pay for the advantages of flying?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday June 30 2015, @07:11PM
Probably it is a fair cost to pay.
Otherwise the lawyers would have drained the bank accounts of airlines, aircraft manufacturers, and the FAA.
People are not scarce. If we lose a few along the way, some other people cry, life goes on.
Is the occasional lightning strike to the head a fair cost to pay for having both Rain AND Golf?
Nobody saw any of these ethical questions, of if they did, they dismissed them out of hand.
Airplanes crashing are naturally avoided, not due to risk of unfortunate people on the ground, but rather due to fear of death of pilots and passengers. Solving that crashing problem, to a degree of certainty sufficient to get people to board the aircraft pretty much solved all other objections.
Rain Gulf, on the other hand went through no more stringent analysis than: "Woot mon, ye silly bastard, you'll catch your death of cold if ye doo na come in ooout of the rain and ave a toddy with us sensible folk!"
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @05:01PM
The Heavens are God's domain, humans should not be trying to imitate God by stepping into His domain!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @03:46PM
will the government ban and arrest amateur biology lab users?
(Score: 2) by scruffybeard on Tuesday June 30 2015, @04:07PM
This is just a restriction on federal funding. The lab setup in your mom's basement is free to explore any kind of research you want.
(Score: 4, Funny) by DECbot on Tuesday June 30 2015, @04:49PM
Oh, I've got my experiments all ready to go. I'm just having troubles finding a date ^h^h^h^h^h willing test subject.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday June 30 2015, @07:14PM
Grow a date. Then enjoy the farce like the one depicted in Repli-Kate [wikipedia.org] from 2002.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 30 2015, @08:13PM
Try the cemetery or the morgue. Sometimes they aren't even dead.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by morgauxo on Tuesday June 30 2015, @06:35PM
"till society is ready to deal with the consequences"
Human society evolves just like everything else... out of necessity. Any form of science and technology that you want to say "we aren't ready for"... we aren't going to wake up one day 100 years from now suddenly ready to address these issues and make all the right choices. We could wait until the heat death of the universe and it would never happen. It doesn't work that way. With no pressure we don't get any better.
Instead we will stumble around, do some things right, make some mistakes and learn as we go once somebody forces the issue by doing the procedure. If the US government (and likely many of it's citizens) don't want it to happen here then it will happen elsewhere. Or.. it will happen in secret. Eventually, humanity will be forced to deal with the repercussions and that is how we will grow. The question is really one of how many generations must suffer in the mean-time.
"There are other ways to cure diseases and treat people"
Sure.. some people. It depends on what their issue is. Some could live fulfilling lives given a simple drug. Some could not. Others might be treatable but only with expensive drugs or with bad side effects. Why should we keep passing this burden to future generations?
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Sunday July 12 2015, @07:04PM
Instead we will stumble around, do some things right, make some mistakes and learn as we go once somebody forces the issue by doing the procedure.
At a certain level of tech, stumbling around could prove fatal. For example if we start developing more and more tech that could easily be used by very few people to kill huge amounts of people. So before we do that society needs to evolve and grow-up till it stops stumbling around.
It doesn't work that way. With no pressure we don't get any better.
Hence my post - I'm trying to apply some pressure so that we get better and stop stumbling around so much. Not like anyone listens to me, but at least I can say I've tried.
If we can't get to that stage then we would remain forever like retarded children instead of grown-ups who can make more and more decisions without having to make the stupid mistakes first.
Why should we keep passing this burden to future generations?
We don't have to. The same tech that tells people that their embryos might need editing is the same tech that can tell the affected people to not reproduce in the first place or to reproduce using someone else's DNA.
And the same laws, ethics and morality that say its fine to abort embryos for whatever reason are the same laws, ethics and morality that can be used to let parents abort those that have the defect. See above paragraph if you're against abortion.
With 7 billion people already on this overloaded planet, don't tell me that the world really needs children with their faulty DNA so much. So why not just get the whole egg/sperm from someone else instead? If your DNA is crap please accept that it is crap and move on. If it makes you feel better, pretend that the donated DNA is like your DNA but edited to not have any of your flaws at all ( I seem to recall some humor video where some girl was cheating with a doctor and telling her significant other that the resulting kid won't be bald or stupid like him, etc etc). It seems very popular to say that everyone's DNA is so similar, blacks are no different from whites etc, so what's the big deal of using someone else's DNA completely? ;)
The odds that their never conceived children would actually be that wonderful for the World are similar to some dead starved/diseased kid in Africa being that wonderful too. So I'm not going to weep many tears for them.
(Score: 3, Touché) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday June 30 2015, @07:37PM
This isn't Civilization, we can research multiple technologies at the same time.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh