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A US-based startup called Heliospect Genomics is charging parents tens of thousands of dollars to "screen" embryos they conceive for their IQs, according to startling new reporting from The Guardian.
Details of the secretive startup were largely revealed by undercover video footage collected by a UK-based advocacy group called Hope Not Hate, with further research conducted by the Guardian. The covertly collected videos reveal company officials openly bragging that their controversial genetic screening tactics can boost a future child's IQ by upwards of six points.
To be clear, whether Heliospect's technology works as claimed remains to be seen. Though IQ is determined in part by genetics, there's not simply a gene for "smart" that can be turned off and on; rather, a person's IQ is influenced by an overlapping, intersecting array of dozens of different genes — not to mention that intelligence itself is a slippery and notoriously hard-to-measure concept.
And beyond the question of whether something like this could feasibly work as promised, there are obvious biomedical ethical concerns. It's not like these folks are reviewing embryos for serious, life-threatening conditions — this is genetic selection based on preference alone. Or what's generally known as eugenics, for the parents who can financially and morally afford it.
Regardless of any scientific or ethical murkiness, however, the Guardian reports that Heliospect is offering its services to wealthy parents undergoing IVF for upwards of $50,000 for the screening of 100 embryos. And as company leaders tell it, people are buying.
"There are babies on the way," Heliospect CEO Michael Christensen said during a conference call dating back to November 2023, while claiming that five couples it worked with already had embryos screened for intelligence and successfully implanted.
"Everyone can have all the children they want and they can have children that are basically disease-free, smart, healthy," Christensen said on the same call. "It's going to be great."
In another clip, according to the Guardian, a Heliospect employee promised buyers they could rank embryos by "IQ and the other naughty traits that everybody wants." Those "naughty" traits allegedly included obesity risk and risk of mental illness.
On that note, the company unsurprisingly has strong ties to some noteworthy figures in the pronatalist and pro-eugenics communities. To wit: one of its senior staffers, a philosopher named Jonathan Anomaly who has held professorships at prestigious universities including Duke and Oxford, is a noted eugenics defender. That's not an exaggeration; in 2018, he published a paper literally titled "Defending Eugenics." He's also described his ideology as "Liberal Eugenics."
One covertly recorded video gathered by Hope Not Hate featured the glasses-wearing couple Malcolm and Simone Collins, the Pennsylvania-dwelling pronatalists who frequently garner lengthy profiles exploring their lifestyle, which essentially revolves around the belief that they should repopulate the Earth with optimized babies.
Though the outspoken couple has defended their ideology as "completely different" than eugenics, you might be surprised to learn that in a recording taken at a London restaurant, the glassed-up pair explained to a clandestine Hope Not Hate reporter that they'd sought the services of an IQ-screening service from an outfit PolygenX — another company conveniently registered to the same Wyoming address as Heliospect Genomics. (The tail ends of either venture are hard to make out, but it appears that PolygenX is the alleged screening product, and Heliospect is the corporate wrapper around it.)
As one might expect, experts are sounding the alarm bells. One researcher, Oxford professor of reproductive genetics Dagan Wells, emphasized the lack of say that the public has had in the onset of these technologies.
"Is this a test too far, do we really want it?" Wells told the Guardian. "It feels to me that this is a debate that the public has not really had an opportunity to fully engage in at this point."
Elsewhere, associate director of California's Center for Genetics and Society Katie Hasson emphasized that Heliospect "normalizes this idea of 'superior' and 'inferior' genetics." She also noted that screening for certain genetic traits and rendering some traits inferior "reinforces the belief that inequality comes from biology rather than social causes."
Again, it's unclear whether Heliospect's product even works. That folks with enough cash are biting on the offer, though, feels like yet another ominous signal that gene-selection ventures are only gaining steam — with little, if any, say from the public.
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