alt Hacker NewsI didn't read it as making the doctor a monster. What I saw in the story is an example of how the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I didn't read it as making the doctor a monster. What I saw in the story is an example of how the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
He's pretty clearly a monster or at least monster adjacent. He and his team
* Took hundreds of thousands of dollars under the table to develop the treatment
* Neglected to take steps that would determine whether the treatment was safe to use on humans
* Didn't inform the family that the treatment could possibly kill their daughter
* After the treatment did kill their daughter, he published the study anyway except stripped of any mention of the failed human trial and of any negative side effects caused by the immune system reacting to the virus
The most generous interpretation of this is that Qiu and his team were racing to be the first to cure a mental disorder using gene editing and neglected to take the necessary safety precautions, but that still makes him a horrible person because it resulted in the unnecessary death of a child just because he was hoping to be first. I'm glad the parents decided to go public about this (especially since they must feel devastated about their daughter's death) if it means he won't get to try the same risky procedure on other children.