It has been hailed as the “elixir of life” for genetic engineering. It is touted as the “ultimate surgery” on a cellular scale. It is the legendary CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing method, and various “improvements” of it.
For those who still don’t know, it’s a gene editing method that works by cutting and replacing pieces of DNA considered responsible for various (“genetic”) diseases – using an enzyme that acts as a “scissors”. CRISPR is now everywhere: from “gene therapies” (for humans) to engineered animal and plant mutations – anything that can be sold.
And yet: studies and research that prove that this “tampering” with genetic codes creates more (far more) problems than it is supposed to solve continue to be added one after another… Somewhere in the dark, somewhere far from the demagogy, which paid by the “salvation companies” continue to bombard the captive citizens with “successes”.
The latest such study was published by the “Immugene Clinical Research Program” of the University of Zurich. The research team tested the “original” CRISPR/CAS9 and current “improvements” in the case of the gene considered responsible for chronic granulomatous disease, a particularly rare illness that weakens the immune system. What they discovered was that the genetic intervention/correction led to the destruction of a large portion of the DNA, reaching millions of bases and the loss of many genes (in one case 17). One of the consequences of such destruction could be the induction of leukemia.
Someone would hope that if something is proven problematic or destructive, it gets withdrawn. Its use stops. Not anymore! The difference between ideal techno-science and the existing one is enormous. Capital speaks from an economic and ideological point of view: if wounds can be sold as salvation, exactly that will happen…