{"id":99992,"date":"2021-10-17T13:14:04","date_gmt":"2021-10-17T17:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/?p=99992"},"modified":"2021-10-17T13:15:54","modified_gmt":"2021-10-17T17:15:54","slug":"the-mirage-of-the-perfect-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/the-mirage-of-the-perfect-child","title":{"rendered":"The mirage of the \u201cperfect child\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It was 1997 when Gattaca<\/em> was released; a science fiction film about a future in which it would be possible to give birth to human beings with a precise genetic make-up, selected by their parents from a certain group of embryonic cells. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, that future is now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The polygenic test<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In fact, an investigation by Bloomberg<\/a> reveals clinical trials of gene editing on human embryos; the aim of which is to lower the odds of the child having heart disease, diabetes or cancer in adulthood. This is the so-called \u201cpolygenic test\u201d. Companies offering this \u201cservice\u201d to couples wishing to have children according to their desires can be tracked down via the Genomic Prediction<\/a> website. Rafal Smigrodzki, a North Carolina neurologist with a PhD in human genetics and one of the parents who went to one of these clinics, tells Bloomberg that parents have a duty to give a child the healthiest possible start in life. \u201cPart of that duty is to make sure we prevent disease. That’s why we give them vaccines,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd polygenic testing is no different. It’s just another way to prevent disease.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mirage of the \u201chealthy child\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

However, it’s a way to prevent disease that implies results that are by no means obvious. As Bloomberg also reported, (from the New England Journal of Medicine July issue) thirteen scientists <\/em>sounded the alarm regarding this: the risk is that customers, (i.e. parents) are being lured by the mirage of having a 100% \u201chealthy child\u201d. But, the scientists note, \u201cscores\u201d on the polygenic test \u201care only possibilities, not guarantees.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cperfect child<\/strong>\u201d<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But in addition to preventing disease, the growing number of parents are also turning to these clinics to \u201chave a child made\u201d with a certain physical appearance and strong intellectual gifts. Smigrodzki, the parent surveyed by Bloomberg, doesn’t hesitate an instant: \u201cIt’s right and proper that every child should be smart, that every child should be above average,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The risk of \u201cliberal eugenics<\/strong>\u201d<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

However, the prospect of intelligence-based selection raises understandable concerns. Steven Hyman, director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, calls it a more subtle eugenics than the eugenics of the late 19th\/early 20th century<\/a>\u2013i.e. \u201ca liberal eugenics\u201d. For Hyman, it is therefore necessary to set ethical stakes from the outset, before the discriminatory principle of the perfect few<\/a> takes hold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clinics offering polygenic testing are proliferating. The alarm sounds a dire warning of genetic manipulation in the aspiration of making the “perfect child”. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":99244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"Clinics offering polygenic testing are proliferating. The alarm sounds a dire warning of genetic manipulation in the aspiration of making the \"perfect child\". 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He then continued his business with In Terris, and currently with various newspapers and periodicals. In 2020 he wrote the novel \"East Berlin 2.0 - Notes between dystopia and reality\"","sameAs":["https:\/\/x.com\/https:\/\/twitter.com\/fedecenci"],"url":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/author\/fcenci"}]}},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99992"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100706,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99992\/revisions\/100706"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}