I think Jankui went along with the study because he wanted to see if he could actually edit genes. I think he wanted to prove that it could be done, ethical or not. I think that he should not have done this experiment this way. There are cures for HIV/AIDS, so I think it was a waste of time to do it on this since there has been so much research done. I get what he was trying to do, to prevent the babes from future disease but I don’t think it was necessary. Since the research is already finished, I guess I would want to see his scientific paper about the experiment and see how you can make that experiment ethical and medically needed for something else.
Comparing this experiment to the Tuskegee experiment, is that in the Tuskegee experiment they did not get informed consent but in Jankui’s experiment, he did get informed consent from the parents. In the Tuskegee experiment when they started it, they didn’t have a cure in 1932 but when the experiment was still going on in 1947, they found a cure, which was penicillin. Knowing they had a cure they didn’t tell the participants and a majority of them died from syphilis when they could have been healed. Comparing these two experiments, in my opinion the Tuskegee experiment was more unethical than Jankui experiment. Jankui’s experiment is still very new so we don’t know the side effects that could happen with the gene editing.
This experiment will have an effect on the opinion of science/medicine. I think people will not trust their medical doctors or the medical employees. In the Tuskegee experiment, a lot of African Americans don’t trust health care workers because of this experiment and the same effect will happen again because of Jankui’s experiment.
Li, J. (2019). Experiments that led to the first gene-edited babies: the ethical failings and the urgent need for better governance. J Zhejiang Univ Sci B. 20(1): 32-38. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6331330
Normile, D. (2018). CRISPR bombshell: Chinese researcher claims to have created gene-edited twins. Science mag. Retrieved from https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/crispr-bombshell-chinese-researcher-claims-have-created-gene-edited-twins
Nix, E. (2019). Tuskegee Experiment: The Infamous Syphilis Study. History Website. Retrieved from: https://www.history.com/news/the-infamous-40-year-tuskegee-study.