Julia Brown, PhD
@juliaehbrown.bsky.social
Senior Research Fellow at Monash Bioethics Centre | Adjunct Assistant Prof at UCSF | currently focused on prenatal genetic tech, previously on mental healthcare | Author of 'The Clozapine Clinic: Health Agency in High-Risk Conditions'
Exclusive: Death of girl in Chinese gene-editing trial was never made public | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...
Exclusive: Death of girl in Chinese gene-editing trial was never made public
Parents want accountability after study went disastrously wrong, Science and Retraction Watch investigation reveals
science.org
Great piece by @andreabeckerphd.bsky.social gently pushing back on FemTech narratives about hormonal shifts and needs for optimisation, which claim to empower women but may in fact do the opposite www.theatlantic.com/health/2026/...
The Cost of ‘Natural’ Womanhood
Hormone hype is out of control.
theatlantic.com
Disturbing insights throughout. Eg Elon Musk went from avoiding genetic tech entrepreneurship bc of what he described as “the Hitler problem”, to funding and using it. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Creating baby geniuses to thwart the AI threat? (Yes, really.)
The new wave of Silicon Valley–backed gene-editing startups is straight out of “Brave New World.”
motherjones.com
'The goal, he says, is to create thousands of sperm from a standard tissue biopsy. The company has had a high success rate in generating sperm from dozens of tissue samples.' www.wired.com/story/startu...
A Startup Says It Grew Human Sperm in a Lab—and Used It to Make Embryos
Paterna Biosciences says it has determined the set of instructions needed to turn sperm-making stem cells into "normal, mature" sperm.
wired.com
Cathy Tie described a future of germline and somatic "correction" options as "like Tylenol and Advil"; "it's about choice", where germline is more effective and cheaper, using otherwise discarded embryos. Sees IVG as just "hypothetical" competition... Thanks for hosting @hastingscenter.bsky.social 👏
The Hastings Center for Bioethics@hastingscenter.bsky.social · 4mo agoLast chance to join us virtually TOMORROW for our Annual Daniel Callahan Program. We will have a lively debate...Should we edit human #embryos to prevent disease—or does it go too far? #GeneEditing ⚖️ 🔗: https://bit.ly/47LdOXR
'No. 1 Fertility's Dr. Lynn Burmeister on why women should freeze their eggs: "we're actually becoming extinct. I say that I'm helping the future of Australia." 🤔https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF_21aMkTGg
Dismal dating climate pushing more and more women to freeze their eggs | 60 Minutes Australia
YouTube video by 60 Minutes Australia
youtube.com
Thank you for writing this, Andrew Solomon 🙌 www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/o...
Opinion | My Hope for Nick Reiner
nytimes.com
Trained in science, a leader in moral public engagement: "informed media types hobnobbing on a fossil fuel company’s dime makes people think well they must think this isn’t so bad so maybe it isn’t". Jon @kudelka.bsky.social was a treasured member of my family. theconversation.com/as-beautiful...
As beautiful as they were powerful: Jon Kudelka’s political cartoons were made with true conviction
The award-winning cartoonist Jon Kudelka died in Hobart on Sunday, aged 53. Over 30 years, his work resisted the polarisation of the contemporary Australian media.
theconversation.com
“Care is treated as a logistical issue to be solved by institutions, markets, or private families. But care is relational, time-consuming, and emotionally demanding” jacobin.com/2026/01/birt...
To Give Birth or Not to Give Birth
Global fertility decline has made reproduction a site of reactionary family policies and moralized childlessness. But a healthy society would let people choose to have children or not without turning ...
jacobin.com
🆕 New Hastings Bioethics Forum essay by @daphmarts.bsky.social & @juliaehbrown.bsky.social : As #fertility fears rise, #pronatalism pushes for more children—and increasingly, “better” ones...Genetic tools like polygenic embryo selection, raise serious ethical concerns. 👉 https://bit.ly/3YF5UdM
The reproductive technologies that are being promoted by the tech-elite #pronatalists are new. The push to have as many babies as possible—and the best babies—is not. @daphmarts.bsky.social and @juliaehbrown.bsky.social explain in Hastings Bioethics Forum. www.thehastingscenter.org/more-and-bet...
More and “Better” Babies: The Dark Side of the Pronatalist Movement : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
There is growing concern that falling fertility rates will lead to economic and demographic catastrophe. The social and political movement known as
thehastingscenter.org
www.thehastingscenter.org/more-and-bet... New piece out with my dear friend @juliaehbrown.bsky.social
More and “Better” Babies: The Dark Side of the Pronatalist Movement : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
There is growing concern that falling fertility rates will lead to economic and demographic catastrophe. The social and political movement known as
thehastingscenter.org
A person's genetics has a role in susceptibility to many diseases (Figure), but has little correlation with how the disease may progress or lead to a fatal outcome. nature.com/articles/s4158
What to Know About Painkillers, Vaccines, Genes and Autism: For decades, researchers have looked for links. Most believe the disorder springs from a complex interplay of genetics and environmental factors. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/h...
What to Know About Painkillers, Vaccines, Genes and Autism
nytimes.com
In a proposed update to its guidelines, the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence retains its recommendation of three NHS-funded IVF cycles for those eligible under 40 and critiques unproven IVF add-ons. The draft is open for consultation until October 21.
NICE publishes draft update to Fertility Guideline | PET
Updated NICE draft guidance recommends three NHS-funded IVF cycles for eligible under 40s and recommends against IVF add-ons.
progress.org.uk
Excellent piece by @alanlevinovitz.bsky.social @awaisaftab.bsky.social on the therapeutic effect of diagnosis + the need for qual research. Reading Parson’s “sick role” theory in undergrad sociology was the moment I realized how much is missed by psych models. www.cambridge.org/core/service...
cambridge.org
“Metrics can be measured only by taking into account the starting point and ending point, as well as relevant features of the journey — the whole story.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/o...
Opinion | What I Got Wrong About D.E.I.
nytimes.com
“Declining fertility is only a disaster if you don’t adapt" (by valuing individual lives more through better access to education and healthcare) www.nature.com/articles/d41...
People are having fewer babies: Is it really the end of the world?
Steep population declines in most countries are expected to have negative impacts over the next several generations, but adaptation is possible.
nature.com
What a shame that Fox News couldn’t publish this instead. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/o...
Opinion | I’m a Proud Conservative. My Disabled Son Needs Medicaid to Live.
nytimes.com
NEW: People are being involuntarily committed to psychiatric care facilities — and even ending up arrested or jailed — after becoming fixated on ChatGPT and other chatbots and spiraling into psychosis. futurism.com/commitment-j...
“I feel like the balance that is being discussed right now, is actually very much out of kilter with what are acceptable risks for me as a parent, acceptable risks to me as physician and what I think should be acceptable risks to FDA and Sarepta” www.statnews.com/2025/07/24/d...
For many Duchenne families, halt to gene therapy is heartbreak upon heartbreak
As gene therapy maker Sarepta Therapeutics tangles with FDA over its Duchenne treatment, patients and their families are caught in the middle.
statnews.com
Not a good idea, uninformed Front page @washingtonpost.com today www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
Another tragic case of the risks of coming off clozapine altogether (and why psych meds are complicated). In Australia, clozapine takers also need blood monitoring each month, a crucial community-oriented check in that I believe helps as much as the medication itself.
go follow @news.abc.net.au@abc-news.bsky.social · last yr.How Bondi Junction killer fell through cracks in mental health system: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-01/bondi-junction-killer-fell-through-cracks-mental-health-system/105355258
“I had been the pregnant woman fetishizing the normal test result. Now that I was the mother of a child with a rare condition, I found an enemy in my past self”. Just finished Second Life by @amandahess.bsky.social. It is brilliant.
It’s also true that therapy teaches how those that upset us reflect unresolved parts of ourselves. It allows for more intentional parenting, ideally with more compassion for grandparents, & the littlest versions of ourselves. Too many boomers & their kids missed out. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/o...
Opinion | There’s a Link Between Therapy Culture and Childlessness
nytimes.com
"when deciding complex policy questions ... resisting empathy impairs our decision-making. It keeps us from understanding what’s at stake ... it is vital to ask ourselves what policies we would favor if we were ... fully informed of the plight of others." theconversation.com/empathy-can-...
Empathy can take a toll – but 2 philosophers explain why we should see it as a strength
Empathy affords us a more accurate understanding of others’ experiences and emotions. Just like pain, it can be hard to bear – but that’s also the source of its strength.
theconversation.com
🧵 Speaking at the Global Observatory for Genome Editing summit at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in Cambridge this week, I highlighted a critical challenge: the deliberate fracturing of our knowledge ecosystems along ideological lines. www.statnews.com/2025/05/27/g...
At a major genome-editing summit, spotlight turns to the value of human life
Earlier gatherings focused on gaining public acceptance for what scientists want to do with CRISPR. This meeting flipped that on its head.
statnews.com
Great discussion highlighting limitations to genetic determinism. More discussion still needed on parental pressures and variations of "autism", including insights from people with lived experience www.npr.org/2025/05/28/1...
Can doctors test embryos for autism? And should they? : It's Been a Minute
A newly available kind of genetic testing, called polygenic embryo screening, promises to screen for conditions that can include cancer, obesity, autism, bipolar disorder, even celiac disease. These c...
npr.org
