Poll: Majority Of Americans Oppose Gene Editing, Even To Prevent Disease

Published February 11, 2016 at 1:52 PM EST

A majority of Americans think that editing a baby’s genes before birth should be illegal, according to a new poll from STAT and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

The poll finds that 65 percent of people think that altering an unborn baby’s genes for the sake of preventing a serious genetic disease should be illegal. And 83 percent believe that genetic editing for the sake of improving IQ or looks should be illegal.

Here & Now’s Robin Young gets more on the poll results, and why people are so opposed to genetic editing, from STAT senior science writer Sharon Begley.

Read more via STAT

Guest

Sharon Begley, senior science writer at STAT. She tweets @sxbegle.

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