Earlier surveys of Americans (here and here) have found a reluctance to support human genome editing…But the new survey, conducted by social scientists from the University of Wisconsin (UW) in Madison and Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, found that two-thirds of the 1600 respondents thought genome editing was generally “acceptable.”
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The survey, described today in a Policy Forum published by Science, randomly presented people with different vignettes that described genome editing…acceptance depended strongly on the specific purpose and its impact on future generations. For instance, there was scant support for using genome editing to enhance a germline; just 26% of people found that acceptable and 51% said it was unacceptable. But acceptance jumped to 39% if the enhancement was in somatic cells, and only 35% objected.
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“There’s not a general, broad opposition to this technology,” says co-author Dietram Scheufele, who specializes in science communication at UW Madison. But the survey “does show very clearly that, if you look at germline enhancement in particular, that’s where you see the majority of the of public expressing concern.”
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A person’s religious beliefs affected their views. In people who reported “low religious guidance,” support for using genome editing to enhance health jumped to 79%; in the religious, it dropped to 50%.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: Americans are becoming more open to human genome editing, survey finds, but concerns remain
