this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2026
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This is an exclusive report from Science News', jointly organized with Retraction Watch, on a gene editing tragedy.

The tragedy involved two parents paying $860,000 to partially fund an unapproved clinical trial of 1 to save their daughter from a rare neurodevelopmental disease, the work being done by a superstar researcher in China working at a highly prestigious research hospital, the girl subsequently dying because the research behind the trial was shoddy, and the death of the girl being buried. The research behind this was subsequently published in Nature, but the human trial component was completely erased.

This might shape up to be one of the largest gene editing scandals for a while

Try this Wayback Machine link if you are paywalled

There's also a brief follow-up article by Science News

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I mean… the researchers lied to the parents about the risks. How are parents supposed to make an informed decision with false information.

…Qiu and his team downplayed the trial’s risks in describing them to the parents, overlooked safety signals in animal studies, and proceeded even though success was unlikely. “This shouldn’t have gone to trial,” says Steven Gray of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center… … “Learning the reality of these missing safeguards has fundamentally changed how we now view the entire project,” says the father… “We did not realize how unusual and dangerous many of the arrangements were.