Heritable human genome editing is ‘currently not permitted’, but it is no longer ‘prohibited’: so says the ISSCR

The Guidelines for Stem Cell Research and Clinical Translation, recently issued by the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), include a number of substantive revisions. Significant changes include: (1) the bifurcation of ‘Category 3 Prohibited research activities’ in the 2016 Guidelin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of medical ethics Vol. 49; no. 5; pp. 319 - 321
Main Author Baylis, Françoise
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Institute of Medical Ethics 01.05.2023
BMJ Publishing Group LTD
Subjects
Current controversy
embryo research
Embryos
Ethics
ethics- research
Gene Editing
genetic engineering
Genome editing
Genome, Human
Genomes
Humans
Laboratories
Medical ethics
Medical research
policy
Stem Cell Research
Stem cells
Uterus
ethics- research
embryo research
genetic engineering
policy
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Summary:The Guidelines for Stem Cell Research and Clinical Translation, recently issued by the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), include a number of substantive revisions. Significant changes include: (1) the bifurcation of ‘Category 3 Prohibited research activities’ in the 2016 Guidelines into ‘Category 3A Research activities currently not permitted’ and ‘Category 3B Prohibited research activities’ in the 2021 guidelines and (2) the move of heritable human genome editing research out of the ‘prohibited’ category and into the ‘currently not permitted’ category. These changes are noteworthy because of the absence of a clear demarcation line between the two categories insofar as, by definition, that which is ‘prohibited’ is ‘currently not permitted’, and vice versa. Permanence is not part of the definition of ‘prohibition’. In principle, a prohibition can be rescinded at any time. This begs the question ‘Why make a policy change that has no apparent practical effect?’ One hypothesis is that the recategorisation of specific ‘prohibited’ research activities as ‘currently not permitted’ is meant to seed intuitions about which prohibited research activities should ‘soon’ be permitted subject to specialised scientific and ethics review and approval.
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ISSN:0306-6800
1473-4257
1473-4257
DOI:10.1136/medethics-2021-107720