Perennial Anna

‘There is no way to stop this’: ‘Biotech Barbie’ Cathy Tie on her mission to genetically modify babies

Gene editing has the power to alter the trajectory of human evolution for ever; the direction it takes will depend on who wields the editing tools. “There is no public funding available for researchers in the space,” Tie explains. “Everything is privately funded.” It’s up to entrepreneurs to demonstrate the potential benefits for humankind, she says, so regulators may soften their hardline stance and allow them to rewrite human DNA.

Also, just look at the people who are funding this, and we think that this is the C21st equivalent of Citizen Kane trying to make his mistress an opera star.

And as for this, I don't think she can really get away from it?

“Eugenics is a very heavy word,” Tie says just before taking questions from the floor. “I would prefer to stop throwing that word around.”

- and somehow I have been thinking all week about Charles Darwin moseying around the Galapagos, and over the subsequent decades gradually evolving the theory of evolution....

Unfortunately 'The Big Idea' on AI children as the future of reproduction is not yet online.

I also think of the fairly parlous state even in relatively advanced countries of women's ability to reliably control their fertility, have high-quality safe obstetrical care, etc, issues around children' nutrition, early years care, education....

But I guess these things do not have a gosh-wow factor.

France overturns law classing people as property – 178 years after it abolished slavery

Have been for some considerable time casting sceptical glances at the whole liberte egalite fraternite thing, because that third element did seem rather to circumscribe the application....

(And also the historical tendency to consider that o-la-la, they were far more sorted in matters erotique - a good deal of this was surely the perception of gents Britannique en vacances, surely.)

I was a bit stunned by this: Argentina’s ‘European’ self-image under renewed scrutiny after racist incidents in Brazil, but agreeably surprised to find that Brazil (which was very late to abolish slavery) has a law of 'racial insult'. Although it has significant racial problems.

I may just possibly have fulminated heretofore about the assumption that a woman over 35 is But A Barren Stock and her fertility has fallen off a cliff and She Should Have Frozen Her Eggs while there was still time -

- and this may be a factor of age and reading certain novels at an impressionable age not to mention being a historian with interest in that area -

- but honestly, is the existence of The Menopausal Baby - You're Not Having The Change, Duckie, You're Preggers! - unknown to the present generation?

I will state, for information, that my sources in organisations such as BPAS indicate that a significant % of their custom comes from women who believed that their ovaries had shrivelled up and they no longer needed to employ contraception, and WHOOPS.

Misinformation about perimenopause on social media ‘putting women at risk’: Dangers include unintended pregnancies, taking unnecessary medication and missed diagnoses, say experts

(Okay, maybe there's some kind of pendulum thing going on here, from No-One is Talking About The Menopause to Everything is Attributed to the Peri/Menopause once a woman is over a certain age?)

Briggs said misinformation around perimenopause is concerning.
“I look at things like Instagram to see what they are exposed to and I am horrified,” she said, citing examples of women in their 30s being told to demand HRT if they are unable to sleep or are struggling with migraines – and to switch GPs if denied. Or women being told they should seek testosterone treatment.
“I’m not anti any of these things in the right person, but females produce their own testosterone lifelong, even women without ovaries, so the idea that everybody has to demand testosterone is bonkers,” Briggs said.
Dr Channa Jayasena, an expert in reproductive endocrinology at Imperial College London, also raised concerns.
“It’s great that there’s better [public] awareness [about perimenopause]. And I think many doctors are completely unaware about how debilitating the symptoms of perimenopause can be,” he said. “But the flipside of that, I think there’s a risk that some women are being mislabelled as having perimenopause when they have other things that are wrong.”

I am very much inclined to think that the President of the British Menopause Society knows whereof she peaks:

[T]here is a perception that any symptom affecting women between the ages of 40 and 60 is due to perimenopause or menopause and that HRT is required.
“I think HRT is completely wonderful,” Rymer said. But, she added, “it’s not for women who don’t need it,” noting that in such situations it can cause heavy bleeding.