{"id":13546,"date":"2017-06-15T13:58:29","date_gmt":"2017-06-15T13:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.re-check.ch\/wordpress\/?p=13546"},"modified":"2019-06-11T11:40:40","modified_gmt":"2019-06-11T11:40:40","slug":"surenchere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.re-check.ch\/fr\/surenchere\/","title":{"rendered":"Surench\u00e8re?"},"content":{"rendered":"

L’excellente Abby Lippman (*) r\u00e9agit ici \u00e0 une r\u00e9cente annonce: celle du lancement<\/em> imminent,\u00a0en Chine, d’un essai CRISPR<\/a> pionnier, le premier du genre \u00e0 tenter d’\u00e9diter le g\u00e9nome des cellules de l’organisme, dans le but d’\u00e9liminer le virus du HPV qui \u00abcause\u00bb le cancer.\u00a0 Dans son texte, l’auteure invit\u00e9e de Re-Check pose notamment une question essentielle face \u00e0 l’ivresse que suscite cette technologie: \u00abPourquoi utiliser cette technologie, ou TOUT AUTRE technologie, alors que les virus HPV peuvent \u00eatre d\u00e9tect\u00e9s dans le cadre du d\u00e9pistage syst\u00e9matique des femmes en bonne sant\u00e9? <\/span>Pourquoi, comme si souvent, chercher\u00a0 \u00e0 r\u00e9parer ce qui n’est pas cass\u00e9?\u00bb Bonne lecture!<\/span><\/span> <\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes, perhaps too often, a \u201cbad idea this way comes\u201d and one of the latest is not just \u201cbad\u201d but rather horrifying to me \u2014 and perhaps to others, too. This is the idea of applying CRISpR<\/a> technology to alter viral genes associated with HPV infections. And to test out this idea in healthy women in a clinical trial for which the ability to give any semblance of \u201cinformed choice\u201d is far from certain.<\/p>\n

Boom in human gene editing as 20 CRISPR trials gear up:\u00a0A pioneering CRISPR trial in China will be the first to try editing the genomes of cells inside the body, in an effort to eliminate cancer-causing HPV virus<\/a> (New Scientist, May 30 2017)<\/p>\n

Just like toddlers who are enthralled by the latest shiny toy they are given, the researchers in China seem overjoyed by the application of their new toy to cut and edit genes linked to whatever, whenever. How else to explain their desire to refashion genes in HPV viruses found in healthy women when ALL the consequences of this gene \u201cfixing\u201d are unknown \u2014 and those that are known are increasingly problematic insofar as ongoing debate suggests that the CRISpR approach may alter not only the targeted DNA but also other base pairs in the genome.<\/p>\n

So even if recent news about what gets to be called \u201ccollateral damage\u201d (i.e., harm that \u201cjust happens\u201d) when genes other than those targeted are unexpectedly edited is shown to depend on specific technical details that can be adjusted (e.g., the length of time cells are exposed to the CRISpR surgery), we are far from knowing what \u201cdetails\u201d will matter. And researchers are perhaps already using their newest sledgehammer not so much to kill a fly as to knockout what is most probably a fly about to take off on its own: in most women, perhaps 99% of HPV infections clear ON THEIR OWN without any intervention. High tech tools become high tech toys too quickly, and these toys become\u00a0 too easily overused.<\/p>\n

So the question remains: why use this technique, perhaps why use ANY technique, when HPV viruses are found through routine screening of healthy women? As in other situations: \u201cif it ain\u2019t broken, why fix it?\u201d Or if there is concern that there could be some future \u201cbreak\u201d maybe consider how to avoid this?<\/p>\n

If there is serious interest in protecting and promoting women\u2019s health, and if persisting HPV infections are of any concern, then would it not be far better to invest in ways to ensure that women have the resources to keep their immune systems strong and healthy? And there are known ways to do this: eliminate poverty, provide toxic-free environments at home and at work for all, guarantee free Pap testing at proper intervals, and support all policies to let women do what they do very well by themselves.<\/p>\n

These could be GOOD ideas to come\u2026.And the \u201ccollateral\u201d effects could be positive, substantial and widespread.<\/p>\n

(*) Abby Lippman est professeure \u00e9m\u00e9rite du D\u00e9partement d’\u00e9pid\u00e9miologie, de biostatistique et de sant\u00e9 du travail \u00e0 l’Universit\u00e9 McGill (Montr\u00e9al). Elle est aussi chercheuse associ\u00e9e \u00e0 l’Institut Simone de Beauvoir de l’Universit\u00e9 Concordia (Montr\u00e9al)<\/em><\/p>\n

Ce texte est paru le 14 juin 2017 sur bioethiqueonline.ca<\/a> (titre original\u00a0\u00abOverkill?\u00bb).<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

L’excellente Abby Lippman (*) r\u00e9agit ici \u00e0 une r\u00e9cente annonce: celle du lancement imminent,\u00a0en Chine, d’un essai CRISPR pionnier, le premier du genre \u00e0 tenter d’\u00e9diter le g\u00e9nome des cellules de l’organisme, dans le but d’\u00e9liminer le virus du HPV qui \u00abcause\u00bb le cancer.\u00a0 Dans son texte, l’auteure invit\u00e9e de Re-Check pose notamment une question… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13545,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[176,174,168],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-auteur-invite-guest-author","category-genetique-genetics","category-hpv-vph-hpv"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.re-check.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13546"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.re-check.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.re-check.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.re-check.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.re-check.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13546"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.re-check.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13553,"href":"https:\/\/www.re-check.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13546\/revisions\/13553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.re-check.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.re-check.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.re-check.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.re-check.ch\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}