Before cochlear implants and hearing aids, there were dubious treatments like electrotherapy and skull hammering. Virdi argues that gene therapy and gene editing are just a new version of the same old idea, only with even more profound implications.
“Improvements in science don’t necessarily mean that we need to eliminate human variety, especially human conditions that are not life threatening, like deafness,” she says.
Emily Mullin interviews me for her article “The End of Deafness,” which is the debut of the new science publication, Future Human. This piece examines how gene therapy and gene editing could end inherited deafness and questions whether DNA altering is a necessary “cure.”
jaivirdi.com 