this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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[–] Railcar8095@lemm.ee 66 points 1 day ago (18 children)

Is nobody concerned that illegal experiments on babies only gets you 3 years?

Maybe they were Uyghurs so it was classified as "property damage" in Chinese law.

[–] Jhex@lemmy.world 19 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

The devil is in the details....

You are likely thinking (as I am) that he implanted robotic arms on babies but he may have just rubbed sage oil on them for all we know

[–] I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 17 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (3 children)

He used CRISPR to make babies immune to HIV.

[–] andros_rex@lemmy.world 24 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

No, he inserted a gene that is associated with resistance to HIV, but is also associated with increased risk of some cancers. He did this without informed consent, he did this without running it by an ethics board, he did this without knowing whether it would work or not.

Let’s stop pretending that he’s a good guy that just magically made HIV immune babies.

Edit: it also didn’t work. The babies have genes both with and without the mutation.

[–] T156@lemmy.world 5 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

We also don't know if it was just that gene that was altered, or if there are other effects. Modern gene editing isn't so precise that we can edit just the gene we want. A lot of genes with similar sequences as the target can also be affected.

It's basically like firing a shotgun at the house they live in. You might hit the one you want, but you may also hit other unrelated genes in the process.

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 32 points 23 hours ago (4 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Jiankui_affair

Laws were changed after this incident:

In 2020, the National People's Congress of China passed Civil Code and an amendment to Criminal Law that prohibit human gene editing and cloning with no exceptions

So, in case you actually meant that weird ignorant remark you made about Uyghurs, the answer is no and no.

[–] ghost_of_faso3@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

Oh shit someone tell the ~~fascist scum~~ liberal toads that its actually blue on blue, this guy was working for a honky kong universty!!!

[–] alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml 13 points 21 hours ago

Lemmitors downvoting you because actually learning about the case conflicts with their "cHiNa BaD" circlejerk.

[–] drislands@lemmy.world -3 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Thanks for the information -- good to know. I assume that like American law, he couldn't be punished for something that wasn't illegal when he did it?

Regarding the Uyghur comment the other guy made, definitely a bit tasteless but I don't think it's that ignorant given the genocide China perpetrated against them.

[–] Railcar8095@lemm.ee 1 points 41 minutes ago

What he did was illegal. Even without specific laws about genetic modification or cloning, he did perform experiments with babies without the necessity approvals from ethics and safety, without informed consent from the parents and likely misusing funds allocated to other research.

3 years is still to short.

[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com -3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

he couldn’t be punished for something that wasn’t illegal when he did it?

I don't think CCP cares about the principle of no ex post facto punishments.

[–] ghost_of_faso3@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 11 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Railcar8095@lemm.ee 1 points 40 minutes ago

"If everything else fails, pull the racism card"

Source: the ml handbook

[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 32 points 23 hours ago (12 children)

Be careful, you might get banned from lemmy dot ml for hatespeech against dictatorships.

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 5 points 16 hours ago

It's literal misinformation, so it probably should be removed, yes.

[–] ghost_of_faso3@lemmygrad.ml 13 points 20 hours ago

Hong kongs a dictatorship? You know, the place this doctor was working?

Well observed, its been an apartheid state since its inception as a colony to the UK.

[–] Probius@sopuli.xyz 3 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Why did you self censor by saying "dot"?

[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 11 points 22 hours ago

I wrote that on my phone's touch keyboard, and I didn't want to use \. to escape the dot character to avoid autohotlinking.

[–] Railcar8095@lemm.ee -2 points 14 hours ago

I've blocked that instance, but if they need more material to ban me I have it.

[–] Aux@feddit.uk -3 points 15 hours ago

Who cares about a tankie instance?

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[–] Revan343@lemmy.ca 5 points 18 hours ago

Depends how successful the experiment is (and probably on what the goal is as well).

If he'd been testing the effects of grass vs grain feed on human fat marbling, I'd imagine the sentence would have been a little more severe

[–] nope@jlai.lu 0 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

And in what context medical experiments should be allowed on babies ?

[–] Railcar8095@lemm.ee 3 points 14 hours ago

A lot of contexts? Like the development depending on formula vs mother's milk? Experimenting doesn't need to mean vivisection or injecting unregulated drugs, but if you need to do the experiments illegally, I'm not sure it was something "safe"

[–] Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee 5 points 19 hours ago

Yet we still have default circumcisions in the US, no?

[–] easily3667@lemmus.org 1 points 17 hours ago

Not babies, embyros

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