Email from The Center For Genetics and Society The latest from the Center for Genetics and Society     DONATE May 30, 2025         Fourth Summit on Genome Editing Emphasizes Ethical and Societal Concerns Biopolitical Times | 05.29.2025 A departure from the science and tech focus of previous summits, the Global Observatory for Genome Editing’s international summit featured discussions of the potential social and eugenic consequences of heritable genome editing. CGS Associate Director Katie Hasson’s presentation focused on the importance of including civil society advocates representing social justice and human rights perspectives, a practice that CGS’ side event, “Bringing Excluded Voices to the Table” enacted through a panel of scholars and advocates discussing how to truly include missing voices.     Trumpian “Common Sense” and the History of IQ Tests Pepper Stetler, Los Angeles Review of Books | 05.08.2025 From the latest essay in the Legacies of Eugenics series: “We are witnessing a horrific return to a eugenicist ‘common sense’ even though history shows us that the way test scores register intelligence is far from objective science, and that competence is not biologically ingrained in white, able-bodied men, as the Trump administration—atavistically—would like us to think.”     The Emperors’ New Clothes Pete Shanks, Biopolitical Times | 05.29.2025 Adam Becker’s More Everything Forever debunks some of Silicon Valley's favorite ideologies, including longtermism and effective altruism, but it doesn’t fully connect the dots between these pernicious ideas and “techno-eugenic” uses of reproductive and genetic technologies.       Can doctors test embryos for autism? And should they? Brittany Luse, Liam McBain, and Neena Pathak, NPR | 05.28.2025 One of the risks of polygenic embryo screening, says CGS’ Katie Hasson, is its assumption that genes determine social outcomes. This belief will further “justify and reinforce the inequalities that we already have…, which then undermines any arguments for making social changes to improve equality in the world.”   USA : la politique pro nataliste de Trump et Musk M. Genries, A. Cohen, and L. Mareschal, Franceinfo | 05.03.2025 CGS’ Katie Hasson explains the right-wing strain of pronatalism in the U.S., and its associations with anti-immigrant sentiments and White Christian nationalism.     GENE EDITING | GENOMICS | PRONATALISM | EUGENICS SURROGACY360 | ASSISTED REPRODUCTION | VARIOUS   GENE EDITING Gene editing leaders call for 10-year suspension of heritable human genome editing Darren Incorvaia, Fierce Biotech | 05.28.2025 New call to ban heritable gene editing: biotech industry organizations are calling for a 10-year international moratorium on the use of CRISPR and other DNA-editing tools to create genetically modified children, citing safety risks and lack of medical need. At a major genome-editing summit, spotlight turns to the value of human life Megan Molteni, Stat | 05.27.2025 While the Global Observatory for Human Genome Editing’s international summit on heritable genome editing followed three similar international summits in name and topic, the focus was different: instead of leading with technology and leaving ethics to the side, this summit facilitated conversation on key concepts and values among a wider range of participants. Meet Cathy Tie, Bride of “China’s Frankenstein” Caiwei Chen and Antonio Regalado, MIT Technology Review | 05.23.2025 He Jiankui’s attempted comeback is playing out in an ever more absurd fashion on X, thanks to his new wife, Cathy Tie. A controversial bio-hacking figure in her own right, she is now encouraging He’s gene-editing aspirations–which may have stymied their attempts to reunite in China. Global Observatory Gathers to Expand Debate on Human Genome Editing Kevin Davies, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News | 05.21.2025 Alongside the recent international summit in Cambridge, MA hosted by the Global Observatory for Genome Editing, the CRISPR Journal is publishing a series of essays that foreground genome editing and explore the meaning of being human and of social progress. Nobel Prize winners convince court to revive CRISPR patent dispute Blake Brittain, Reuters | 05.12.2025 The Patent Trial and Appeal Board will reconsider the CRISPR patent case after an appeals court concluded that federal law was misapplied in awarding the patent to the Broad Institute. The reconsideration revives the University of California and University of Vienna’s bid for the patent rights. Could gene therapy improve my life as an adult with sickle cell? Oluwatosin Adesoye, Sickle Cell Disease News | 04.30.2025 A doctor with sickle cell disease isn’t excited about gene therapy: “it is neither affordable nor accessible to most people living with sickle cell disease.” While it might be helpful for children, some adults may decide that the physical and financial costs of the therapy outweigh the uncertain benefit. Genetic medicine can leave people with rare mutations behind. But there’s new hope Laura Ungar, Associated Press | 04.26.2025 Patients with exceedingly rare mutations of genetic conditions, including cystic fibrosis, often have fewer options and poorer prospects than those with more common types. “Mutation-agnostic” gene therapies could prove effective for them.   GENOMICS Why Deleting Your 23andMe Data Is a Political Imperative Katie Sagaser, The DNA Exchange | 05.27.2025 In our current political climate, it’s not hard to imagine how a vast genomic dataset could be used to identify, profile, or even segregate people based on their neurotype, ancestry, or perceived productivity. Deleting your 23andMe data isn’t just a personal decision, it’s a political one that resists corporate violations of privacy, public health, civil rights, and democracy. Regeneron to buy bankrupt 23andMe, vows ethical use of customer DNA data Mariam E. Sunny and Siddhi Mahatole, Reuters | 05.19.2025 Regeneron Pharmaceuticals will buy 23andMe Holding for $256 million through a bankruptcy auction. The company promised to prioritize the ethical use of DNA data from customers using ancestry testing and other services. Colossal Bioscience’s attempt to de-extinct the dire wolf is a dangerously deceptive publicity stunt David Coltman, Carson Mitchell, Liam Alastair Wayde Carter, and Tommy Galfano, The Conversation | 05.12.2025 Conservation geneticists are criticizing false claims of “de-extinction”: “Colossal’s so-called dire wolf is not a resurrected species. It’s a genetically modified grey wolf. Its creation is a publicity stunt designed to generate profit, with serious consequences.”   PRONATALISM The GOP’s Resurgence Of Pro-Natalism Looks A Lot Like The Past Alanna Vagianos, Huffington Post | 05.09.2025 Trump’s interest in “baby bonuses” and other pronatalist incentives echoes past fascist and authoritarian regimes’ efforts to increase the birth rate for “desirable” populations while relegating women to the home and childbearing. How MAGA's obsession with ‘pronatalism’ is harmful to the LGBTQ+ community Ariel Messman-Rucker, Pride | 04.30.2025 Conservatives have embraced pronatalism as a central tenet of Trump’s Republican party. The ideology retrieves eugenic myths to support policies that threaten reproductive rights and dehumanize immigrants, people of color, and LGBTQIA+ persons. They say they want Americans to have more babies. What’s beneath the surface? Lisa Hagen, NPR | 04.25.2025 Some vocal pronatalists, including those behind the “NatalCon” conference, are eager to dissociate their advocacy from early 20th century eugenicists, but as Alexandra Minna Stern points out, the “underlying, driving ideologies… of genetic determinism and who is more fit or less fit” persist.   EUGENICS From fringe to federal: The rise of eugenicist thinking in US policy Donald Earl Collins, Al Jazeera | 05.23.2025 Some of Trump’s eugenicist collaborators believe in “longtermism”––a philosophy that they interpret to mean that humanity’s survival depends on allowing a significant number of present-day humans to die off to protect a distant future. Tears of Blood: Eugenics, Disposability, and the War on Children Henry Giroux, CounterPunch | 05.23.2025 Hard eugenics is historically linked to overt violence, policies of sterilization, genocide, and forced elimination of those deemed “undesirable.” Soft eugenics operates through policies embedded in the legal and economic structures of society. Improving human beings to make them perform better: Why is transhumanism so harmful? Nicolas Le Dévédec, The Conversation | 05.14.2025 Transhumanists believe that human beings have no future unless they agree to optimize themselves biotechnologically. Their promises blind and distract us from what is essential: the political, social, and ecological urgency of changing our relationship with the world. Maga’s era of ‘soft eugenics’: let the weak get sick, help the clever breed Derek Beres, The Guardian | 05.04.2025 The logic at the heart of MAGA and MAHA policies is “soft eugenics”: the idea that if you take away life-saving healthcare and services from the vulnerable, then you can let “nature” take its course and only the “strong” will survive. A New Eugenics Wave: Trying to Make Disability and Disease Disappear Elayne Clift, Daily Kos | 05.01.2025 Disability rights activists like Judy Heumann and Ed Roberts fought for access to education and legal protections for people with disabilities––hard-won gains that the Trump administration is dismantling. Will Utah Compensate Victims of Forced Sterilization? Jonathan Michels, Jacobin | 04.29.2025 Utah was particularly aggressive in its campaign to forcibly sterilize people with disabilities throughout the 20th century. The practice remains legal in the state. Researchers investigating the scope of Utah’s eugenics campaign are asking the state to compensate survivors of forced sterilization who are still living.   SURROGACY 360   Control and Salt Curses: Surrogacy and Migration Polina Vlasenko, COMPAS | 05.02.2025 Intermediaries in Georgia’s surrogacy industry not only facilitate migration of surrogates from other countries in Central Asia to Georgia, but they also serve as the supervisors of surrogates for clinics. They respond to surrogates' needs, but they maintain tight control over their lives.   A Gold Mine for Georgia? Surrogacy and Migration Polina Vlasenko, COMPAS | 04.30.2025 Georgia has become a destination for surrogacy, especially following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Clinics recruit people from other countries in Central Asia, including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, to come to Georgia to work as surrogates.   ASSISTED REPRODUCTION Sperm from cancer-risk donor used to conceive at least 67 children across Europe Hannah Devlin, The Guardian | 05.23.2025 The sperm of a man carrying a rare cancer-causing mutation was used to conceive at least 67 children, 10 of whom have since been diagnosed with cancer. The case has revived concerns about the lack of internationally agreed limits on the use of donor sperm. Lesbian mothers win legal status in Italy IVF ruling Reuters | 05.22.2025 Italy's Constitutional Court struck down part of a 2024 law and ruled that same-sex female couples who use IVF abroad can both be legally recognised as parents, even if one is not the biological mother. The ruling was celebrated as a victory against Italy’s far-right, anti-LGBTQIA+ government. White House says Trump is reviewing IVF policy recommendations promised in executive order Christine Fernando, Associated Press | 05.20.2025 A White House official confirmed that the Trump administration is reviewing a list of recommendations to expand access to IVF, which the administration’s Domestic Policy Council compiled in the last 90 days in response to Trump’s executive order. Bombing at IVF clinic should be a security wake-up call for fertility centers, experts say Elizabeth Chuck, NBC News | 05.19.2025 The recent bombing at a California fertility clinic is raising fears that the threat of violence that has long loomed over abortion providers is now extending to other areas of reproductive health. Spain bans its embassies from registering babies born through surrogacy Aitor Hernandez-Morales, Politico | 04.30.2025 Spain has banned its embassies and consulates from registering children born via surrogacy in foreign countries––a change that removes a loophole in its surrogacy ban, which up until now allowed Spanish courts to recognize foreign courts’ parentage rulings.   VARIOUS NSF board member resigns, saying Trump’s policies have harmed the agency Jeffrey Mervis, Science | 05.13.2025 Sociologist Alondra Nelson has resigned from the governing body of the National Science Foundation, saying that during the Trump administration, the presidentially appointed advisory board has become a “ceremonial assemblage … without consequence.” With No Real Policy, Trump Asks Drugmakers to Lower U.S. Prices Margot Sanger-Katz and Rebecca Robbins, The New York Times | 05.12.2025 Pharmaceutical stocks rose in response to Trump’s new executive order, which asks drugmakers to voluntarily reduce the prices of key medicines in the U.S. without citing legal authority to mandate lowering of prices.   If you’ve read this far, you clearly care about the fight to reclaim human biotechnologies for the common good. 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