Position of the German Ethics Council on intervening in the human germline

On 3 March 2020, the German Ethics Council (Deutscher Ethikrat) published the “Joint Statement on the Ethics of Heritable Human Genome Editing” together with Ethics Councils of France (Comité Consultatif National d’Éthique pour les sciences de la vie et de la santé) and Great Britain (Nuffield Council on Bioethics). In this joint statement the councils call for “[putting] ethical considerations at the core of any future discussion and of the development of global governance of heritable genome editing.”

Specifically, four demands are put forward:

  1. Genome editing is to be brought within the control of the relevant public authorities and its abuse is to be subjected to an appropriate sanction.
  2. No clinical trials should be conducted without prior public debate.
  3. No further clinical trials are to be conducted until the potential risks have been significantly reduced.
  4. A comprehensive risk assessment of the adverse effects of clinical applications, both for individuals and groups as well as for society as a whole, is to be done prior to approval.
Joint Statement 3 March 2020 Online Version

In May 2019, the German Ethics Council had already published a comprehensive statement on “Intervening in the Human Germline”. Although, from an ethical point of view, there are “no categorical reasons for prohibiting such interventions”, the Ethics Council, however, calls for an international moratorium on the clinical application of germline interventions until the safety and efficiency of the relevant technologies are guaranteed.

Summary and recommendations of the opinion of 9 May 2019 Online Version

Website Deutscher Ethikrat Online Version

Website Nuffield Council on Bioethics Online Version

Website Comité Consultatif National d’Éthique Online Version

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