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Abstract
First of all, although gene therapy has been a familiar theme in the medical research community for decades, our study showed that both clinicians and members of the general public have much less awareness of gene therapy (63.1% and 29.9%, respectively) than genetically-modified (GM) food (90.2% and 83.4%, respectively; Q1 and Q2, Table S3 and Figure S2), a gene technology of which the public generally has a greater awareness and usually has been selected to compare with new technology previously.2 These findings are consistent with the results of other studies: Interestingly, although both groups agreed on the promise of gene therapy as a future medical treatment, clinicians appeared to be more conservative than the public when asked if gene therapy would be a common therapy over the next few years (Q10, Table S3 and Figure S3). [...]both clinicians and the public strongly support the use of gene therapy to treat fatal or debilitating diseases in adults and fatal disease in children (Q5–Q8; Table S3 and Figure S3). [...]this may reflect the fact that the broader implications of gene therapy may not have been widely discussed in public due to a culture that does not always encourage freedom of debate on controversial subjects. [...]much of the debate about the ethics of gene therapy and editing in humans over the last three decades has come from commentators in Western countries.1,6 Despite the concerns of clinicians about the “unnatural” nature of gene therapy, our results showed that both clinicians and the public were nearly neutral when asked if gene therapy will raise ethical issues (Q4, Table S3 and Figure S3).
Details
1 Centre for Eye Research Australia, Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, East Melbourne, VIC 3002, Australia; Ophthalmology, Department of Surgery, University of Melbourne, East Melbourne, VIC 3002, Australia
2 College of Management, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518060, China
3 Centre for Eye Research Australia, Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, East Melbourne, VIC 3002, Australia
4 Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
5 School of Marxism, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410011, China
6 Department of Ophthalmology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510630, China
7 Department of Ultrasound, Guizhou Provincial People’s Hospital, Guiyang, Guizhou 550002, China
8 Eye Hospital of China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing 100040, China
9 Department of Orthopaedics, The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410011, China
10 Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Gannan Medical University, Ganzhou, Jiangxi 341000, China
11 Department of Internal Medicine, Gaochun People’s Hospital, Nanjing, Jiangsu 211300, China
12 Department of Ophthalmology, Affiliated Hospital of Chengde Medical University, Chengde, Hebei 067000, China
13 Department of Ophthalmology, Zhejiang Hospital, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310000, China
14 Department of Ophthalmology, The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410011, China
15 Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Affiliated Xingtan Hospital of The First People’s Hospital of Shunde, Foshan, Guangdong 528313, China
16 Department of Urology, The Central Hospital of Enshi Autonomous Prefecture, Enshi, Hubei 445000, China
17 Department of General Surgery, Qinghai Provincial People’s Hospital, Xining, Qinghai 810000, China
18 Department of Ophthalmology, Eye and ENT Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai 200031, China
19 Centre for Eye Research Australia, Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, East Melbourne, VIC 3002, Australia; Ophthalmology, Department of Surgery, University of Melbourne, East Melbourne, VIC 3002, Australia; Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania 7000, Australia