Off Target CRISPR Report Retracted

The world is poised to hate gene editing technologies, much like they hated refrigerators, cars, open heart surgery and in vitro fertilization.  There has not be a revolutionary technology yet that consumers haven't rejected first, and asked questions later.  Except stuff Apple sells. 

So when a paper came out last year claiming massive off-target effects of CRISPR-based gene editing, the critics went ballistic. 

The scientific brain trust at Mercola.com jumped on the news story, as to the biotechophobe the genetic sky was falling. 

But to the rest of us we looked carefully at the paper and had a lot of questions.  Mostly, it appeared that what the researchers were calling "off target changes" were not changes from gene editing at all, but instead were just natural sequence variations found between mice.  Bee. Eff. Dee. 

One year later, the paper has been retracted.  But the damage has been done.  This revolutionary technology now gets a sideways look when mentioned.  This one paper, and subsequent media explosion, truly harmed public perception. 

The detractors also fail to point out that the therapy rendered allowed blind mice to see, so they may argue that even with a bit of collateral DNA damage the ability to see cheese and mousetraps was a fair tradeoff. 

The point is simple.  This toothpaste is out of the tube and nobody needed to brush their teeth in the first place.  The reputation of this stellar technology has been effectively sullied by activists, the media, and even scientists that failed to look critically at the work before caving into group hysteria. 

The answer?  Be skeptical.  When you hear claims about the dangers of new technology, be aware that there are plenty of people out there that would love to see it fail.