Still too soon to try altering human embryo DNA, panel says

Thursday's report comes nearly two years after a Chinese scientist shocked the world by revealing he'd helped make the first gene-edited babies using a tool called CRISPR, which enables DNA changes or “edits” that can pass to future generations. He Jianqui did this to three babies when they were embryos to try to make them resistant to infection with the AIDS virus and described it in exclusive interviews with The Associated Press.

It's still too soon to try to make genetically edited babies because the science isn't advanced enough to ensure safety, says an international panel of experts who also mapped a pathway for any countries that want to consider it. Thursday's report comes nearly two years after a Chinese scientist shocked the world by revealing he'd helped make the first gene-edited babies using a tool called CRISPR, which enables DNA changes or "edits" that can pass to future generations.

He Jianqui did this to three babies when they were embryos to try to make them resistant to infection with the AIDS virus and described it in exclusive interviews with The Associated Press. Mainstream scientists condemned his experiment as unethical, and He was sentenced to three years in prison for violating Chinese laws.

The experts commission was formed in the aftermath by the US National Academy of Medicine, US National Academy of Sciences and the United Kingdom's Royal Society. The group doesn't take a stance on whether editing embryos is ethical, just whether it's ready scientifically -- and deems that it's not. A separate panel formed by the World Health Organization is to report on ethics issues later this year.

The commission does say that if a country allows this, it should be limited to cases where people have no or very poor options for having a child without the disease. Initial attempts should be for serious diseases caused by a single gene, such as muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, the blood disorder beta thalassemia and Tay-Sachs, a neurological disease, the report says.

Altering genes to try to enhance traits such as muscle mass or height is not endorsed. It gives "much better clarity about what it would take to go forward and that now is not the time," said Jeffrey Kahn, bioethics chief at Johns Hopkins University and a member of the panel.

Whether editing is acceptable from an ethics and societal perspective "needs to be answered country by country," he said.