0 Members and 3 Guests are viewing this topic.
unethically
Does he voluntarily consent?
Can he back out of the process at any stage, without prejudice?
Easy to answer, sometimes difficult to do.Would you do it to yourself or your nearest and dearest?Are you competent to do it? Have you explored the process in vitro, in vivo, and with healthy human volunteers, and catalogued the observed benefits, risks and side effects? Have you fully explained the known risks, possible unknown risks, and prospective benefits, to the person you are about to do it to? Does your intended subject fully comprehend what you have told him?If any payment or other benefit is being offered, is it reasonable compensation for time and effort, and not excessive or coercive? Does he voluntarily consent? Can he back out of the process at any stage, without prejudice?Will the process be independently monitored and abandoned if it appears to be doing more harm than good? Are you prepared or adequately insured to compensate for any harm you do?If the subject is not competent to give informed consent, you can in exceptional circumstances seek the assent of a person legally entitled to make a medical decision on his behalf. It isn't an easy process, but research ethics committees meet regularly to evaluate such questions. I serve on both sides of the process and if I have any criticism it is that we seem to spend an inordinate amount of time discussing confidentiality, inclusiveness and participant involvement in experimental design, when the key questions should be about risks and benefits. That said, I find my industrial and clinical partners to be deeply committed to getting it right, and my review committee colleagues (roughly 50% "lay" members often with a legal, charity or patient representative background, 50% clinical and technical professionals) extremely thorough and penetrative in their scrutiny.
The He Jiankui affair is a scientific and bioethical controversy concerning the use of genome editing following its first use on humans by Chinese scientist He Jiankui, who edited the genomes of human embryos in 2018.[1][2] He became widely known on 26 November 2018[3] after he announced that he had created the first human genetically edited babies. He was listed in the Time's 100 most influential people of 2019.[4] The affair led to legal and ethical controversies, resulting in the indictment of He and two of his collaborators, Zhang Renli and Qin Jinzhou. He eventually received widespread condemnation from all over the world.