“Genome editing” to consider how the birth regulations should be regulated Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare December 5, 6:00
An expert meeting of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has been held to examine the regulation of the act of giving birth to human fertilized eggs that have been subjected to `` genome editing '' that can manipulate genes freely, and there are many opinions that legal regulation is necessary Occupied. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare will consider specific regulations in the future.
There are no penalties for guidelines that prohibiting the birth of a child from a human fertilized egg that has undergone genome editing is prohibited in Japan as a research.
Using this technology, a Chinese researcher actually gave birth to twins last year, and the expert meeting of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is considering whether it can be regulated by stricter laws from summer. On the 4th, a meeting was held for compilation.
During the meeting, there were many opinions that legal regulations were necessary to ensure the effectiveness of the rules.
On top of that, the Expert Meeting compiled the idea that all technologies that artificially control the gene of a fertilized egg, such as “genetic recombination”, should be subject to regulation, as well as genome editing.
On the other hand, as it may lead to the elucidation of the mechanism of illness and the development of new drugs, it should be considered in the future based on whether it will be approved in the future and the situation overseas is.
In the future, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare will study specific regulations with the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.