The Southern African Society for Human Genetics (SASHG) has called for potential legal and ethical loopholes in South Africa's research ethics guidelines to be closed.
An amendment to the guidelines published in November 2024 could be read as permitting the use of heritable human genome editing (HGGE) to treat genetic diseases (see BioNews 1265). The 120 members of SASHG said in a statement that the guidelines 'should not be seen to permit HGGE just because they don't explicitly prohibit it' but agreed that the guidelines 'should be subject to rigorous ethical review.'
Nature Africa has more.