This experiment by Jankui He was a CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing experiment to create human offspring that were resistant to HIV. This experiment violates many ethical guidelines. HE said that approval was received from an ethical review committee; however, this committee was not a registered committee to approval experiments. HE also gave the participants a 23-page document in English explaining the procedure. There was a part of the document that mentioned that if the researchers exceeded the budget, the participants would pay the remaining. There was another clause about how if a participant wanted to withdraw from the experiment and money was already spent on that participant, the participant would be responsible for repaying the money spent. This goes against the basic guidelines for conducting an experiment. Participants must be fully aware of what they are agreeing to and if at any point they want to withdraw, participants are allowed to withdraw. These guidelines may not have been fully understood, as the withdrawing phrase is seen as an incentive to keep people in the study and giving the Chinese a document in English does not ensure that they fully understand the experiment they are about to enter.
This experiment was highly unethical. There was no genetic or biological evidence to support HE’s experiment for wanting to try CRISPR-Cas9 on human embryos. There were no studies on other animals and studies about their reactions before trying this on humans. This experiment, just like the Stanford Prison Experiment, violates human rights and should not have been performed. While the Stanford Prison Experiment dealt with the psychological process of prisoners and the guards, this experiment looked at the biological differences of deleting the CCR5 gene.
I think that HE continued this experiment because discovering a cure to previously incurable diseases is something that many researchers are trying to achieve. Many researchers are currently trying to develop a cure for cancer and even COVID-19. All of these scientists and doctors want to help make the world a better place and eliminate some of the problems that affect many people. HE did not stray from his proposal; however, his experiment was not approved. HE took the sperm from HIV-positive participants and mixed it with the egg of HIV-negative participants. In the development of the embryo, the CCR5 gene was deleted as this gene was found to have been a co-receptor for HIV.
Many scientists responded to this experiment, including Dr. Fauci, saying that the experiment should not be performed unless it is medically necessary and there are no other ways to treat the disease. I think that this is a good point to make because, with this gene-editing technology, people can begin to start making babies that will live forever and be incredibly strong and tall. This technology is one that can be used for personal gains, but I think that HE was trying to use this technology for communal gains by finding a way to prevent HIV in some people. I think that this experiment, especially with its ethical violations, may have influenced the public’s view on technology and medicine. People may see the ethical violations and not want to participate or fund companies that are doing medical research. This may lead to a decrease in the advancements that medicine can make if funding is reduced. The ethics guidelines are set in place and need to be followed if scientists want to continue to experiment and try new technologies. HE's experiment brought attention to some ethical concerns in scientific studies as well as some of the technology that is available to scientists.
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