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Medicine

US Startup Charging Couples To 'Screen Embryos For IQ' 70

Posted by BeauHD from the ethical-minefield dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A US startup company is offering to help wealthy couples screen their embryos for IQ using controversial technology that raises questions about the ethics of genetic enhancement. The company, Heliospect Genomics, has worked with more than a dozen couples undergoing IVF, according to undercover video footage. The recordings show the company marketing its services at up to $50,000 for clients seeking to test 100 embryos, and claiming to have helped some parents select future children based on genetic predictions of intelligence. Managers boasted their methods could produce a gain of more than six IQ points. [...]

The footage appears to show experimental genetic selection techniques being advertised to prospective parents. A Heliospect employee, who has been helping the company recruit clients, outlined how couples could rank up to 100 embryos based on "IQ and the other naughty traits that everybody wants," including sex, height, risk of obesity and risk of mental illness. The startup says its prediction tools were built using data provided by UK Biobank, a taxpayer-funded store of genetic material donated by half a million British volunteers, which aims to only share data for projects that are "in the public interest".

Selecting embryos on the basis of predicted high IQ is not permitted under UK law. While it is legal in the US, where embryology is more loosely regulated, IQ screening is not yet commercially available there. Asked for comment, managers at Heliospect said the company, which is incorporated in the US, operated within all applicable law and regulations. They said Heliospect was in "stealth mode" before a planned public launch and was still developing its service. They added that clients who screened fewer embryos were charged about $4,000, and that pricing on launch would be in line with competitors. Leading geneticists and bioethicists said the project raised a host of moral and medical issues.

US Startup Charging Couples To 'Screen Embryos For IQ' More | Reply

US Startup Charging Couples To 'Screen Embryos For IQ'

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  • The GOP is calling for the end of IVF.

    • But Trump just said the other day that he was "The Father of IVF" in a room full of women. Surely he wouldn't be lying.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Hadlock ( 143607 )

      IVF is hugely popular on both sides of the asile, I don't think it's going anywhere

  • Mistake (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Friday October 18, 2024 @06:56PM (#64875809)
    People with high IQs are known to have worse problems with anxiety and depression. Yet it means very little in terms of potential for success in the world. Don't know why parents would want to do that to a kid.
    • If you want happy kids, just gift them below-average IQ, good strength and an interest in sports and beer. Intelligent people may or may not be prone to medical depression but it sure must be depressing living in late-stage capitalism and still working all hours to survive!

      • Just gift them money. It may not buy happiness, but it definitely removes a lot of sources of unhappiness.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          Just gift them money. It may not buy happiness, but it definitely removes a lot of sources of unhappiness.

          But it generally creates entitled people who believe their money makes them "better" than everyone else. The world does not need more rich a**holes.

    • Might be easier to select for happiness than intelligence. Or maybe even that rare (according to you) combo of both.
    • If those traits could also be isolated to specific genes they could also be select for high IQ individuals who dont express those traits. There may be some genes that increase both, but I think it's fairly obvious that the correlation isn't 100%.

      • It is more like playing with fire. For every thing one might find a positive correlation there could be numerous negative other traits not considered.

        Genuinely wise people are those that as they learn more, they learn that they know a lot less then they thought.

        This is a very dangerous path, and should likely be illegal. It is one thing to screen for major disease. It is quite another to try and make designer babies.

    • You clearly have not met an Asian parent.
    • Numbers go brrrr! It's like 90s CPU clock speed for meatbags; finding a stat to brag about

  • Here comes.. (Score:3)

    by Kelxin ( 3417093 ) on Friday October 18, 2024 @06:58PM (#64875819)
    The age of sociopaths, or are we already in it?

  • I could raise IQ by more than 6 points. (Score:3)

    by jddj ( 1085169 ) on Friday October 18, 2024 @07:00PM (#64875829) Journal

    Don't give the young'un a smartphone or tablet and keep 'em TF away from Fox "News" and the like.

    • Honestly if you really want more intelligent kids (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday October 18, 2024 @07:21PM (#64875877)
      Cleaner air and water coupled with free school lunches is a better way to do it. Also more assistance to pregnant women. We cut WIC massively and we slashed the Medicaid resources they rely on. We're going to have some pretty major problems in about 15 years because of that.

      Of course the people who cut WIC and Medicare are also going to campaign on tough on crime bullshit so I guess they need it to create a new generation of petty criminals for them to win elections with...
      • In propaganda politics you don't even need to create a new set of evil doers. In the real world violent crime statistics are down across the board, but Republican hate mongers are still screaming about crime in racist dog-whistle rhetoric.
      • If the free school lunches are full of HFCS and devoid of any actual nutritional value, they'll probably do more harm than good. The air quality in the U.S. is better now than it was 100 years ago and water quality is generally good as well. There was a previous story about too much fluoride potentially resulting in lower IQ, but the water quality for the average American is also better now than it was 100 years ago.

        Your other claim about WIC funding being cut is false. There is lower spending, but that'

        • A truer post I have not seen in ages. I wish I could mod parent up.

          Further, if you want intelligent/successful/happy kids: keep them away far away from "social media", buy them good books, and regularly have conversations, play, and praise for them. Figure out their strengths and encourage them. Set realistic goals for them, and find activities that grow their strengths. And please teach them responsibility.

      • Cleaner air and water, as well as more self-reliant children, could be realized by reducing and even penalizing dependence on single passenger automobiles for every little thing. However neither Ds nor Rs show any interest in this cultural shift. How depressing.

        • Probably because it only makes any sense to do that in the city. Cities could do that on their own if they really wanted to. Doing that in rural areas is somewhere between boneheaded and pointless.

      • I'd venture a guess that parents who are paying to have their potential offspring Gattaca'd probably earn too much to qualify for government assistance benefits. Even if this ends up being snake oil, it might still appear to work since kids generally do end up more successful when parents have the means to give them every advantage money can buy.

        Yeah, I do realize sometimes children of the wealthy turn out to be layabouts despite having every opportunity handed to them. As the old saying goes, you can lea

  • There's a sucker born every minute (Score:3)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday October 18, 2024 @07:19PM (#64875875)
    But I wish they'd at least wait for the sucker to be born...

  • Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGS) is available for years, and the potential to use the mutations that are known linked to intelligence is done for years as well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] DNA sequencing in adults already provide those (supposed) indications on intelligence. It's just very controversial to select embryos based on such criteria, so until now it wasn't presented to parents that way. Maybe regulations evolved (or devolved) such that now the implantation criteria are not anymore con

  • The Bashirs were unavailable for comment.

    • All that hullabaloo, and it turns out Julian's IQ was only 6 points higher than Miles'...

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by cstacy ( 534252 )

        All that hullabaloo, and it turns out Julian's IQ was only 6 points higher than Miles'...

        But there you are counting in TNG points, which are 10x higher than TOS points. His mind was warped a lot more than if that number used the old warp scales. Now if you'll excuse me I need to go invert the phase shift of my type L phase discriminating amplifier. And polish my lightsabre.

  • I'm surprised they're not claiming to use " AI " to determine an unborn's IQ score :|

    I find this quote to be more and more relevant as time goes on:

    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. - Ernest Hemingway

  • The cycle continues
  • "Naughty traits?" How has no one commented on that? I was already expecting this story of 21st-century eugenics to be chiiling, but my hair stood up so fast hearing that that my hat came off. And it's knit! That's fucking Missy Mengele shit.

  • I bet they could complete this puzzle:

    A ____ and his money are soon ________.

    It's too bad they can't figure it out in time to save their gullible parents $50K, though.

  • No really, how else are we to compete with robots? https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • Probably is one...

  • Waste of money, even if it worked.

    Whoever buys it is just plain stoopid for believing it.
    So, can't be smart enough to have smart genes to pass on to your kids.
    So, if you insist, fill the forms, write the check, do all the p's & q's, then, at the last moment just before you click "Send" or drop it in the mailbox, or whatever, - STOP - you have your answer.
    Now tear up the check and buy a condom.

    (If you haven't seen or read Joseph Heller's "Catch 22", it is about army fliers in Italy during WWII. They all

  • At this point it is probably mostly taking rich people’s money. But we are not that far off before something like this is feasible.

  • And I'm sure all paperwork has lots of protection for the company and weasel language to blunt any protections like lawsuits.

    Meaning since we can't force people to be honest when talking (in person, during ads, even when recorded and announced to the world), maybe we should try to when they take someone else's money for a claimed purpose? Should companies be required to reliably prove they do what they get paid for?

  • Have several tiers of service you offer. The for every extra 5k the parents are willing to spend, knock 5 points off the kid's predicted IQ.

  • Honestly. All of those are very complicated factors that will vary greatly given the environment. I mean just on the gene side, you have epigenetics effects, environmental impact on gene expression. Say nothing of just the plain environmental impacts.

    No to mention that IQ isn't that great of predictor of overall success compared to emotional and social skills combined with the ability to practice and delay gratification.

    But, hey, go on with your neo-eugenic dog whistles there, random bio-startup company.

  • If (couple.paid_for_this_service):
                  baby.IQ=low

  • There are lots of genetic correlations with performance on IQ tests, its well known that different cultures score differently. That doesn't mean that the genetics is *causing* the different scores. (nor does it imply the tests are measuring "intelligence" in any useful way).

    Unless the company is going to do a lot of embryo selection and double-blind tests (which would have all sorts of ethical issues) wait say 15 years and see how the children do, I don't see any way for the company to demonstrate the ef
  • It's the intentional creation and subsequent destruction of human lives. Layering in dystopian eugenics is just the frosting on this sh-t cake.
  • The standard deviation on most IQ tests (there are more than one) is around 10 points. You literally get later swings in your IQ score from skipping a meal or drinking caffeine. This is just a scam for rich racist idiots who have bought into thoroughly debunked eugenics.

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