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China’s government ordered a halt Thursday to work by a medical team that claimed to have helped make the world’s first gene-edited babies, as a group of leading scientists declared that it’s still too soon to try to make permanent changes to DNA that can be inherited by future generations. Chinese Vice Minister of Science and Technology Xu Nanping told state broadcaster CCTV that his ministry is strongly opposed to the efforts that reportedly produced twin girls born earlier this month. Xu called the team’s actions illegal and unacceptable and said an investigation had been ordered, but made no mention of specific actions taken. (Marchione, 11/29)

“At this summit we heard an unexpected and deeply disturbing claim that human embryos had been edited and implanted, resulting in a pregnancy and the birth of twins,” said the summit’s organizing committee, which called for independent verification of He’s claims that have so far not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. “Even if the modifications are verified, the procedure was irresponsible and failed to conform with international norms,” the organizers said in the summit’s highly anticipated consensus statement that is usually seen as setting the tone and direction for the fast-changing field. (Johnson and Shih, 11/29)

Much more research is needed before anyone tries to prevent diseases by editing human embryos, the organizers concluded. ... But enough scientific advances have been made since the last summit in 2015 to begin plotting a course for how that could happen some day, according to the statement. "Progress over the last three years and the discussions at the current summit, ... suggest that it is time to define a rigorous, responsible ... pathway toward such trials," said Baltimore, a Nobel-prize winning U.S. biologist. (Stein, 11/29)