A Voluntary Moratorium?

In this brief piece, then-Editor-in-Chief of Molecular Therapy draws on the occurrence of multiple adverse events in clinical trials of retrovirus-mediated gene therapies to address the question of whether a voluntary moratorium is necessary. Verma argues that it is not, on the grounds that it is difficult to identify the root causes of the adverse events and that a moratorium would be unfair to potential gene therapy patients. In short, the author weighs the “obligation to science and to society to continue to find ways to combat incurable disease” against concerns of patient safety and finds in favor of the former on a risk-reward basis in a field fraught with uncertainty.