Embryo gene-editing in Canada: Ethicists urge caution
by Xavier Symons | 7 Oct 2017 |
Writing in Impact Ethics, Francois Baylis of Dalhousie University and Alana Cattapan of the University of Saskatchewan describe current Canadian law -- which prohibits altering “the genome of a cell of a human being or in vitro embryo such that the alteration is capable of being transmitted to descendants” -- as in line with current “international standards”.
Baylis and Cattapan also argue that extending public consultation is needed before we permit the use of experimental technologies:“the prohibition on editing the human genome is consistent with international standards...Article 13 of the Oviedo Convention stipulates that: “An intervention seeking to modify the human genome may only be undertaken for preventive, diagnostic or therapeutic purposes and only if its aim is not to introduce any modification in the genome of any descendants””.
“even if international standards were different, the new possibilities for heritable modification require ongoing, meaningful public dialogue about a wide range of ethical and social issues...we are a very long way away from being ready to amend [the law] to remove the prohibition of making genetic alterations that can be passed on to future generations.”
Sunday, October 8, 2017
The drugs used for executing American prisoners and the drugs used for assisting suicide are more or less the same. Do they guarantee that patients will, as in Keats' poem, "cease upon the midnight with no pain".
Um, no, or at least no guarantees. Just as some prisoners are tormented in botched executions, some patients in the state of Oregon have taken the lethal drug, gone unconscious, and awakened -- sometimes days later. Read all about it in our lead article.
Um, no, or at least no guarantees. Just as some prisoners are tormented in botched executions, some patients in the state of Oregon have taken the lethal drug, gone unconscious, and awakened -- sometimes days later. Read all about it in our lead article.
 Michael Cook Editor BioEdge |  |  |  |
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