World Health Organisation statement on governance and oversight of human genome editing
The World Health Organization (WHO) has accepted the interim recommendation of an advisory committee that researchers not proceed with clinical applications of human germline genome editing, at least for now, asserting that doing so would be “irresponsible at this time.” The WHO’s expert advisory committee on governance and oversight of human genome editing also advised regulatory or ethics authorities to refrain from issuing approvals concerning requests for clinical applications for work that involves human germline genome editing.
The advisory panel met in Geneva in August to evaluate effective measures to deter and prevent initiation of human pregnancy via genome edited embryos. As a result it will now launch a global registry for human genome editing research.