Curious what people on this site think about Timnit Gebru’s (a person I genuinely respect) criticism of EA as a “white savior, colonial, incredibly well funded (of course) ideology, driving so much of “AGI” discourse in “AI”, with strands of it intersecting with literal eugenics”?
Paula Amato
Karma: 165
I’m glad to see SCD on the list. But I feel compelled to point out that SCD is 100% preventable with carrier genetic screening and IVF/PGT-M (pre-implantation genetic testing). Thus any strategy to address SCD should definitely include increasing access to IVF/PGT in low resource countries.
Here is an analysis of Huntington’s Disease.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35618525/
Not sure if a similar one has been done for SCD. But it’s not hard to imagine that eradication of a disease in a population is much more cost-effective (especially in the long, long term) than continuing to create billions more people with SCD and treating them with increasingly expensive therapies eg gene therapies (despite what pharmaceutical companies would have you believe).
Is there a way to get automatically notified regarding a new post?
Hi Everyone, I’m a reproductive endocrinologist and Professor of OB/GYN at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, OR. My research focuses on innovative assisted reproductive technologies for the treatment of age-related infertility/ovarian aging and prevention of heritable genetic diseases (germline gene therapy). I am most interested in reproductive ethics. Looking forward to learning from you all. Thanks, Elika!
Does EAG publish statistics on admission rates? Is there an age and/or gender bias?
Eli, has CEA looked at their admission rates according to age and gender? Are you willing to share this data? It would be interesting to see if there is any systemic bias in the admissions process.
Consider hiring an outside firm to do an independent review.
Would love more demographic data on who applied and who was admitted (in aggregate) if you’re willing to share.
Thanks for posting. Appreciate the response and analysis. Would love to see efforts to increase women attendance and participation at EAG and in EA in general. Also curious about the age breakdown of EAG applicants vs attendees.
Doctors also have the ability to contribute to health policy in various contexts which can impact many, many more people in addition to those they impact with direct care.
Doctors also have the ability to contribute to health policy in various contexts which can impact many, many more people in addition to those they impact with direct care.
Exciting work! Where can I find details about the survey—methodology and results? What contraception methods were most commonly used and how was use assessed? What was the continuation rate? Was there any impact on unplanned pregnancy rate?
Thanks for the link. So the PMA survey shows a significant increase in modern contraceptive prevalence rate starting in Feb ’21 - a full 7 months BEFORE the start of the FEM radio campaign—without any appreciable change on slope of the increase after the beginning of the FEM campaign (shaded area on the graph). How are you attributing ANY increase directly due to the FEM campaign itself? And any thoughts about what led to the increased rate preceding the start of the campaign?
To be clear, I’m a gynecologist. I think increasing contraceptive use is extremely important and impactful and that mass media campaigns are likely to be effective. However, I find some of the claims in this narrative very misleading. I encourage the FEM team to engage in more rigorous research and to focus on capacity-building perhaps by partnering with other organizations that have a great deal of experience working in this space over a long period of time.
“intervention period indicated by shaded area”?
Right, my question is how can you infer causality from the data?
Fair enough. Was going mostly from what I’ve read in their post and on their website in addition to the RP report. I don’t disagree. Although, some international organizations partnering with local public health departments in LMICs have a decent track record in this regard.
As an (in)fertility physician and ART (assisted reproductive technology) scientific researcher, I found this post fascinating. I agree with your conclusions—sperm counts may or may not be falling in some parts of the world, but unlikely to be contributing significantly to the decline in birth rates. This is also unlikely due to increasing rates of infertility. Most likely the decline in fertility rates is due to widely available effective contraception, increasing wealth, and increasing participation of women in the workforce.
The data also suggest that women are having less children than they ideally would like. I suspect the reasons are largely social ie lack of support such as paid family leave, affordable childcare, etc. But I wonder if there is also a biological component? I am curious about the impact of increasing age of first birth. It is well known that female fertility declines with age. I wonder if rates of secondary infertility (ie infertility while trying to conceive the second or third child) are increasing? I also wonder if making infertility treatment accessible to all and new innovative technologies, such in-vitro gametogenesis that would allow women of advanced age to have genetically-related children, would impact the birth rates significantly?