NZ scientists call for geneediting controls

AUCKLAND: A controversial Chinese experiment aiming to produce HIVimmune children has prompted New Zealand scientists to call for tighter controls concerning human geneediting.

Shenzhen researcher He Jiankui shocked the global science community when he announced he had altered embryos for seven couples during fertility treatments, with one pregnancy resulting thus far.

He said his goal was not to cure or prevent an inherited disease, but to try to bestow a trait that few people naturally have — an ability to resist possible future infection with HIV, the Aids virus.

The experiments were met with horror and outrage by many scientists, who denounced it as unethical human experimentation.

At present, geneediting tech niques are not sufficiently safe or effective to be used on human reproductive cell lines.

Now, in a major scientific journal based in China, University of Otago scientists Professor JingBao Nie, Dr Simon Walker and Jingru Li and Chinese colleagues have laid out their specific worries about the experiment.

They also called for a more robust system of ethical governance in human geneediting.

‘‘We appeal to policymakers to pay serious attention to the relevant issues, actively confront the challenges and come up with a responsible and feasible pathway for clinical translation of human germline gene editing.’’

The bioethicists say the scientist’s actions raise a large number of serious global ethical concerns irrespective of whether they are proved correct.

These include questionable scientific and therapeutic benefits of the geneediting, an illegitimate ethics review procedure, problems with the information and consent processes together with other procedural failings.

He breached both Chinese and international ethical conventions on human gene editing.

The scientist claimed he received ethical approval for the research from a private hospital.

However, the bioethicists say the ethics committee of this hospital was not a registered committee so its apparent approval is ‘‘all but meaningless’’, from a regulatory perspective.

Though the scientist gained consent from several couples for inclusion in his study, the bioethicists say the process he used is ‘‘highly questionable’’.

The consent form was reportedly a 23page document written entirely in English and full of technical words — they say it was likely at least some of the participants would have had difficulty understanding what they were consenting to.

A requirement to pay expenses and the threat of a fine also seriously compromised the participants’ freedom to withdraw from the trial, violating the principles of volunteering for research involving human subjects.

The Otago bioethicists say rapid development of innovative medical technology in recent years continued to generate complex ethical challenges.

‘‘Public and academic discussion of these challenges and how they should be met, is desperately needed. We cannot rely on scientists to meet these challenges alone.’’ — NZME