[deusofnull]

Not tryna be flippant here but probably not. See comment history for other arguments ive made on this.

I am incredibly skeptical that the engineering ethics / practices of any organization currently in existence adequately surpass the requirement for large scale genetic editing.

Im not against the idea in the abstract, but we live in a world full of fragile, profit-motivated institutions that are oft to skimp on engineering best practice and ethics in the pursuit of profit.

Something like NASA circa 1970 maybe could but they arguably had their own problems with ethics re: Wernher von Braun, aerospace engineer responsible for great contributions to the US Atlas V rocket system and the Nazi V2.

In regards to all that and the content of the article using malaria and mosquito editing as a potential argument to do this, consider also that mosqutios are a critical base source of food for many species. Unintended long term consequences are the name of the game when it comes to thinking about if we should do this.

[natechols]

Please don't make the mistake of assuming that pursuit of profit is the only reason for an institution to skimp on best practices. Or rather, please don't assume that non-profit institutions (and governments) can automatically be trusted to follow best practices because their motives are pure. They're no more immune to bureaucratic infighting, external pressure, and general human weakness than any company. (And remember, while NASA does incredible work, the actual hardware is mostly built by for-profit defense contractors... for better and for worse.)

That said, is anyone actually suggesting that for-profit companies should undertake gene drives on their own? Because my assumption was that any such decision would have to be made by governments, regardless of who actually does the work.