China confirms birth of gene-edited babies, blames scientist He Jiankui for breaking rules
- Official Xinhua news agency says preliminary investigations revealed that scientist had acted on his own and forged review papers
The Chinese authorities are holding scientist He Jiankui wholly responsible for creating the world’s first gene-edited babies.
He had announced their birth in November, after which the authorities announced an investigation into the matter.
A team of investigators told the official Xinhua news agency on Monday that a preliminary investigation had concluded that He had “organised a project team that included foreign staff, which intentionally avoided surveillance and used technology of uncertain safety and effectiveness to perform human embryo gene-editing activity with the purpose of reproduction, which is officially banned in the country”.
Between March 2017 and November 2018, He forged ethical review papers and recruited eight couples to participate in his experiment, resulting in two pregnancies.
One of the mothers gave birth to twins nicknamed “Lulu” and “Nana”, the investigators said. Another woman is still carrying a gene-edited fetus.
