Blog.
Author Archive: Jon Holmlund
04/05/2018
New short videos on genetic topics
This week, an email from the Hastings Center promoted The Code, a series of 3 short documentaries on the internet about the origins of genetic medicine. The three are being released one week at a time. The first, released this week, briefly (12 minutes) reviews the determination, or sequencing, of the entire human genome, a project conducted in the 1990’s, and completed in 2000, by... // Read More »
The March 22, 2018 edition of Nature includes two thoughtful, helpful commentaries about improving the public dialogue around “bleeding edge” biotechnologies. In this case, the example is gene editing, of which one commentator, Simon Burall from the U.K., says, “Like artificial intelligence, gene editing could radically alter almost every domain of life.” Burall’s piece, “Don’t wait for an outcry about gene editing,” can be found... // Read More »
03/23/2018
Resources regarding ethics of gene editing
Recently, two resources have become available regarding gene editing and the issues raised by it. First, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine have made available an archive of its February 22 webinar about human gene editing. The home page for the Academies’ human gene-editing initiative is here. A link to the archived webinar is here. The slides can also just be viewed here.... // Read More »
The New England Journal of Medicine has two new “op-ed”-style pieces raising concerns about extending physician-assisted suicide (PAS) from people with end-stage terminal illness to people who may express a desire to die because of (non-terminal) mental illness. (Regrettably, both require subscription access.) PAS in these cases is being exercised in Belgium and the Netherlands, and is being considered in Canada In one article, the... // Read More »
02/01/2018
Fertility with frozen eggs: not a sure thing
In case you didn’t see it, the Washington Post has this story about how more women are trying to improve their overall chances of having a baby—particularly in the later reproductive years of their 30’s and 40’s—but success is far from certain. Human oocytes (eggs) are fragile things, and it was not until recent years that freezing techniques developed to a point that would allow... // Read More »
The January 22 edition of The Wall Street Journal carried an article the essential message of which was, “the Chinese are ahead of us in gene editing.” Specifically, more human clinical trials are active in China than in the US using gene editing in some form to treat people with specific diseases. Some of these trials use the “hot, new” CRISPR-Cas9 approach to gene editing. ... // Read More »
Recently, Wesley Smith posted on the National Review’s “Corner” blog new concerns that Oregon’s “Death With Dignity” law may not be as tightly regulated as advertised. Specifically, a Swedish fellow named Fabian Stahle, who evidently is troubled by the prospect that his country might embrace doctor-assisted suicide, claims to have carried out an e-mail exchange with someone in the Oregon Health Authority to ask how... // Read More »
12/14/2017
“Nervy” SHEEFs, pain, and moral status
In May of this year, my brief essays (literally, “attempts”) on synthetic human entities with embryo-like features, or SHEEFs for short, sought to ask what sort of human cellular constructs might or might not enjoy full human moral status; to wit, the right to life. Some experimenters with SHEEFs have suggested that, since they may bypass the early (14 days of life) markers that normal,... // Read More »