Newspaper Page Text
6A Friday, November 30, 2018
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com
HEALTH/SCIENCE
China halts work by team on gene-edited babies
MARK SCHIEFELBEIN I Associated Press
Zhou Xiaoqin installs a fine glass pipette into a sperm injection microscope in preparation
for injecting embryos with Cas9 protein and PCSK9 sgRNA at a lab in Shenzhen in southern
China’s Guandong province on Oct. 9. China’s government on Thursday, Nov. 29, ordered
a halt to work by a medical team that claimed to have helped make the world’s first gene-
edited babies.
BY MARILYNN MARCHIONE
Associated Press
HONG KONG — China’s
government ordered a
halt Thursday to work by a
medical team that claimed
to have helped make the
world’s first gene-edited
babies, as a group of leading
scientists declared that it’s
still too soon to try to make
permanent changes to DNA
that can be inherited by
future generations.
Chinese Vice Minister of
Science and Technology Xu
Nanping told state broad
caster CCTV that his min
istry is strongly opposed to
the efforts that reportedly
produced twin girls born
earlier this month. Xu called
the team’s actions illegal
and unacceptable and said
an investigation had been
ordered, but made no men
tion of specific actions taken.
Researcher He Jiankui
claims to have altered the
DNA of the twins to try to
make them resistant to
infection with the AIDS
virus. Mainstream scien
tists have condemned the
experiment, and universities
and government groups are
investigating.
He’s experiment “crossed
the line of morality and eth
ics adhered to by the aca
demic community and was
shocking and unacceptable,”
Xu said.
A group of leading scien
tists gathered in Hong Kong
this week for an interna
tional conference on gene
editing, the ability to rewrite
the code of life to try to cor
rect or prevent diseases.
Although the science holds
promise for helping people
already born and studies
testing that are underway, a
statement issued Thursday
by the 14-member confer
ence leaders says it’s irre
sponsible to try it on eggs,
sperm or embryos except
in lab research because not
enough is known yet about its
risks or safety.
The conference was
rocked by the Chinese
researcher’s claim to have
helped make the world’s
first gene-edited babies. Con
ference leaders called for an
independent investigation of
the claim by He, who spoke
to the group Wednesday as
international criticism of his
claim mounted.
There is no independent
confirmation of what He says
he did. He was scheduled to
speak again at the confer
ence on Thursday, but he
left Hong Kong and through
a spokesman sent a state
ment saying “I will remain
in China, my home country,
and cooperate fully with all
inquiries about my work. My
raw data will be made avail
able for third party review. ”
Several prominent scien
tists said the case showed
a failure of the field to
police itself and the need
for stricter principles or
regulations.
“It’s not unreasonable to
expect the scientific com
munity” to follow guidelines,
said David Baltimore, a
Nobel laureate from Califor
nia Institute of Technology
who led the panel.
There already are some
rules that should have pre
vented what He says he did,
said Alta Charo, a University
of Wisconsin lawyer and bio-
ethicist and a conference
organizer.
“I think the failure was
his, not the scientific com
munity,” Charo said.
Gene editing for repro
ductive purposes might be
considered in the future “but
only when there is compel
ling medical need,” with
clear understanding of risks
and benefits, and certain
other conditions, said Dr.
Victor Dzau, president of the
U.S. National Academy of
Medicine, one of the confer
ence sponsors.
“Not following these
guidelines would be an irre
sponsible act,” he added.
Other sponsors of the
three-day conference are
the Academy of Sciences of
Hong Kong, the Royal Soci
ety of the United Kingdom
and the U.S. National Acad
emy of Sciences.
Suicide, at 50-year peak, pushes down US life expectancy
BY MIKE STOBBE
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Suicides
and drug overdoses pushed
up U.S. deaths last year, and
drove a continuing decline
in how long Americans are
expected to live.
Overall, there were more
than 2.8 million U.S. deaths in
2017, or nearly 70,000 more
than the previous year, the
Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention said Thurs
day. It was the most deaths
in a single year since the
government began counting
more than a century ago.
The increase partly
reflects the nation’s growing
and aging population. But it’s
deaths in younger age groups
— particularly middle-aged
people — that have had the
largest impact on calcula
tions of life expectancy,
experts said.
“These sobering statistics
are a wake-up call that we
are losing too many Ameri
cans, too early and too often,
to conditions that are pre
ventable,” Dr. Robert Red-
field, the CDC’s director, said
in a statement.
The suicide death rate last
year was the highest it’s been
in at least 50 years, according
to U.S. government records.
There were more than 47,000
suicides, up from a little
under 45,000 the year before.
A GENERAL DECLINE
For decades, U.S. life
expectancy was on the
upswing, rising a few months
nearly every year. Now it’s
trending the other way: It fell
in 2015, stayed level in 2016,
and declined again last year,
the CDC said.
The nation is in the longest
period of a generally declin
ing life expectancy since the
late 1910s, when World War
I and the worst flu pandemic
in modern history combined
to kill nearly 1 million Ameri
cans. Life expectancy in 1918
was 39.
Aside from that, “we’ve
never really seen anything
like this,” said Robert Ander
son, who oversees CDC death
statistics.
In the nation’s 10 lead
ing causes of death, only
the cancer death rate fell in
2017. Meanwhile, there were
increases in seven others
— suicide, stroke, diabetes,
Alzheimer’s, flu/pneumonia,
chronic lower respiratory
diseases and unintentional
injuries.
An underlying factor is
that the death rate for heart
disease — the nation’s No.
1 killer — has stopped fall
ing. In years past, declines
in heart disease deaths were
enough to offset increases in
some other kinds of death,
but no longer, Anderson said.
(The CDC’s numbers do
sometimes change. This
week, CDC officials said they
had revised their life expec
tancy estimate for 2016 after
some additional data came
in.)
WHAT’S DRIVING IT?
CDC officials did not spec
ulate about what’s behind
declining life expectancy, but
Dr. William Dietz, a disease
prevention expert at George
Washington University, sees
a sense of hopelessness.
Financial struggles, a
widening income gap and
divisive politics are all cast
ing a pall over many Ameri
cans, he suggested. “I really
do believe that people are
increasingly hopeless, and
that that leads to drug use, it
leads potentially to suicide,”
he said.
VoteCast, a wide-ranging
survey of the electorate con
ducted by The Associated
Press, found voters express
ing pessimistic views about
the future: About half of
voters nationwide said they
expect life in America for
the next generation to be
worse than it is today. Nearly
a quarter said life would be
better and about as many
said it would be the same.
VoteCast surveyed more
than 115,000 voters nation
wide as Americans cast bal
lots in this year’s midterm
elections.
Drug overdose deaths also
continued to climb, surpass
ing 70,000 last year, in the
midst of the deadliest drug
overdose epidemic in U.S.
history. The death rate rose
10 percent from the previous
year, smaller than the 21 per
cent jump seen between 2016
and 2017.
That’s not quite cause for
celebration, said Dr. John
Rowe, a professor of health
policy and aging at Columbia
University.
“Maybe it’s starting to slow
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DAVID MAIALETTII Associated Press
Afentanyl user holds a needle near Kensington and Cambria
in Philadelphia. Suicides and drug overdoses helped lead a
surge in U.S. deaths last year, and drove a continuing decline
in how long Americans are expected to live.
down, but it hasn’t turned
around yet,” Rowe said. “I
think it will take several
years.”
Accidental drug overdoses
account for more than a third
of the unintentional injury
deaths, and intentional drug
overdoses account for about
a tenth of the suicides, said
Dr. Holly Hedegaard, a CDC
injury researcher.
OTHER FINDINGS
The CDC figures are based
mainly on a review of 2017
death certificates. The life
expectancy figure is based
on current death trends and
other factors.
The agency also said:
■A baby born last year in
the U.S. is expected to live
about 78 years and 7 months,
on average. An American
born in 2015 or 2016 was
expected to live about a
month longer, and one born
in 2014 about two months lon
ger than that.
■The suicide rate was 14
deaths per 100,000 people.
That’s the highest since at
least 1975.
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