Experiments:
Experiment 1: A Rat Model of Male Pregnancy
Experiment 2: Human-Monkey Chimeric Embryos
Experiment 3: Gene-Edited Babies
Experiment 4: Gain-of-Function Experiments on Coronaviruses
Throughout the world, scientific research and experiments involving ethical issues must first pass the scrutiny of ethics committees. In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has conducted many experiments in the field of biomedical and genetic engineering that break human ethical boundaries.
China began implementing the Ethical Review of Biomedical Research Involving Humans on Dec. 1, 2016. However, 122 Chinese scientists who co-signed an open letter in 2018 to oppose gene-edited babies criticized China’s biomedical ethics review as a “sham.”
In the United States, as ethical and moral regulations on animal research have become stricter, budgets and funding have tended to decrease in recent years, making China the most attractive place for such experiments. For example, in 2014, the U.S. government imposed a funding pause of gain of function research involving influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronaviruses, and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronaviruses. In 2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it would stop conducting or funding studies on mammals by 2035.
In 2011, the CCP made it a national development goal to create primate disease models through cloning and other biotechnologies. According to the 2020 China Biomedical Industry Development Report published by Chinese Venture, “the overall biopharmaceutical market in China increased from $28.7 billion to $49.6 billion from 2016 to 2019, at a CAGR (Compound annual growth rate) of 20 percent. It is expected to reach $130.2 billion in 2025.”
Below are four experiments conducted by Chinese scientists that Chinese state media touted as “world firsts.”
Experiment 1: A Rat Model of Male Pregnancy
On June 9, researchers from China’s Naval Medical University published a preprint paper on “a rat model of male pregnancy” on the non-peer-reviewed site BioRxiv.
The paper describes a specific method for getting a male rat pregnant at the expense of three female rats.
BY JENNIFER BATEMAN AND JENNIFER ZENG
