April 6, 2024 • 9 mins
A THRILLING NEW WORK OF FICTION WAS JUST RELEASED, WHICH TAKES A THOUGHT-PROVOKING LOOK INTO THE NEAR FUTURE AND WILL MAKE READERS QUESTION THE PRICE OF GROUNDBREAKING TECHNOLOGY IN THE REALM OF FERTILITY. WE SPEAK WITH KIRA PEIKOFF, AUTHOR OF: “BABY X.”
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(00:00):
Welcome to American Medicine Today, presentedby the Benati Spine Institute, featuring internationally
acclaimed inventor of the Benati spine procedures, Alfred Benatti, MDI here your host
Kimberly Bermel Benati and co host EthanYucker. Welcome to American Medicine Today.
I'm alongside Ethan Yucker and world renownedorthopedic surgeon, doctor Alfred Benatti. So
(00:21):
a thrilling new work of fiction wasjust released which takes a thought provoking look
into the near future and we'll makereaders question the price of groundbreaking technology in
the realm of fertility. Joining usto discuss is Kiara Peacoff, author of
Baby X. Thank you for joiningus. Thanks for having me today.
Now, the premise behind your bookhas been called terrifying, and really it
(00:46):
is. Can you explain the plotand how you really came up with that
idea and how it is kind ofbased on reality? Yeah. So I
got the idea for this book whileI was in graduate school at Columbia studying
bioethics, and it revolves around anew medical breakthrough that is already in the
works today in labs in Japan.Primarily already in real life. This has
(01:08):
been proven to work in mice,so we're not in humans yet, which
is what my book projects as anear future world. But essentially, this
breakthrough allows the cells of any partof your body to be turned into sperm
or egg cells to then be usedto create embryos. So this would eradicate
(01:30):
IVF. It would mean that anyoneof any age, any gender, or
any fertility status could have a babywith anyone else and all they need to
do is give a small sample oftheir cells, like from a cheek swab.
So that is the premise at theheart of my new book. See,
and my mind goes straight to,especially as a female who can bear
children, how would that factor outas far as like paternity, right,
(01:55):
Because if you can just take salivoor any cell and I'm pregnant by anyone
at any time, and then allof a sudden you approach the would be
father and go, okay, payme child support? Like how does that
work? And would how would theybe able to prove Hey wait a minute,
I had nothing to do with that, So great questions, which is
(02:16):
what I really explore at the heartof the book. So there's this idea
that bioethicists have been worried about foryears, ever since this technology first came
on the scene, and the firstpaper was published around twenty twelve, so
it's quite new still and it's rapidlyprogressing. There's this idea of the celebrity
(02:36):
scenario, which takes what you saidto a whole new level. So you
can imagine there would be a blackmarket for the cells of highly desirable people
like pop singers or athletes. Andalready today we have parents who are extremely
competitive, want the best for theirkids, want to endow them with the
best possible futures. And what wouldhappen if the cells from celebrities were suddenly
(03:00):
subject to this pursuit in this blackmarket. So that's the heart of the
thriller aspect of the story. It'sfunny that you bring that up because my
next question, My first thought was, there's already celebrities already have a problem
with paparazzi stalking them around just totake photos. Can you imagine when and
if this proposed scenario becomes a reality. I mean, again, back to
(03:22):
the ethics and morality of it.You know, if paparazzi wants to stalk
around and pluck a hair out ofBritney spears head unless she shaved her head
bald again, you know, somebodycould end up with basically or saliva or
any of that. I mean,do you know again you're you're a fiction
writer, but obviously you did alot of You had to have done a
(03:43):
ton of research into this. Didyou speak with any experts? Like how
did you research for Baby X?I did. So. There's a top
professor at Stanford whose name is HenryGreeley. He wrote a book a few
years ago called The End of SexThe Future of Human Reproduction, and it's
all about the nonfiction aspects of thisstory. So what would happen legally,
(04:06):
ethically, medically, how would societycome to terms with this technology? And
how should it because it's coming downthe pike anyway. So he's kind of
the go to person to really havea solid understanding of what's coming. And
I did speak with him a numberof times for the story. I asked
him all kinds of weird questions,like if somebody was creating a black market
(04:27):
for these cells, how long couldthey get away with storing them? And
how would they transport them? Andwhat equipment would they use in a lab
to you know, manipulate them intoembryos and all kinds of things like that.
So I acknowledge him in the book, and also for anyone who's interested
in the real world ramifications of this, highly recommend his book as well.
And so give us the plot ofthe book, And what sort of little
(04:50):
nuggets of facts from this guy didyou actually put in weave into the plot.
Yeah, so the plot centers arefound. The main character is a
biosecurity guard. She was a researcherwho abandoned her academic career and invented this
new business of protecting celebrities from wouldbe stalkers and anyone who might want to
(05:14):
claim a part of their cells thatthey inadvertently left behind in public. So
she goes around with this pop singeron tour to kind of clean up and
make sure none of his hair ormucus or saliva or anything that's a living
part of his tissue was left behindon anything. And they end up falling
in love. So that's very earlyin the story. But I remember asking
Professor Greeley, like, if shewas going around cleaning up things after him,
(05:40):
would it have to be a livingcell, and how long does the
cell stay alive or you know,we lose skin cells all the time,
does that count? And it reallycomes down to to be able to create
a ferm an egg cell, ithas to be living tissue which does stay
around for a couple of hours.So like if you sip on a water
bottle you have saliva, there couldhave some living cells on it still for
(06:01):
a while. And if you getit into the right kind of culture medium,
which is a stabilizing liquid, youcould transport that sample into a lab
if it wasn't too far away,and then start deriving cell lines, which
are just you know, copies andcopies of those cells to then manipulate chemically
and turn into the sperm or theegg, which means a celebrity could become
(06:24):
truly a mother or a father technically, because it's agnostic, the cells can
become either with the technology, sothat goes into the plot as well.
But you're saying they could be bothmother and father at the same time.
Well, not in the same okay, okay, but potentially if like somebody
took a sample of your cells,you could get either eggs or sperm from
(06:45):
that. So the whole idea oflike paternity and maternity is no longer behold
into today's limitations. That is crazy. But I wanted to go back to
something you said previously when you werediscussing the research with the other gentlemen,
And did he say sex is goingto fall by the wayside or just the
(07:06):
way we reproduce. Well, everyone'sstill going to have sex, right,
we're animal, animal beings after all, and we have needs, so that
will never go away. But todo it for reproduction, he projects that
will eventually fall away. Because whatwe're doing when we reproduce our way,
the old fashioned way, is weroll the genetic dice. We may have
(07:28):
mutations we pass on to our kidsthat will haunt them down the road or
cause fatal diseases. And why ifwe have a way to get around that
and have let's say, dozens ofembryos created from ourselves with our partner,
and then we could have the abilityto screen those which we already have today.
Imagine that ability even more sophisticated inthe future. Why wouldn't parents have
a demand to do that and makesure they're only implanting the embryo that's free
(07:51):
of Alzheimer's and cancer risks and allkinds of things like that. So eventually
this would become the norm, andthe old way of doing things would be
seen as reckless or irresponsible even,And that's the ethical part of this.
Well, It's interesting because cos probablydecades ago, wasn't there a Sandra Bullock
and Sylvester Stallone movie where they werenot reproducing in the typical way and they
(08:18):
were able to have children by dumblishingman. Okay, So I mean truth
is stranger than fiction, and wealready know that it's working on lab lab
mice, so probably not that faroff from human trials, I would think,
yeah. And also I just wantto add two from the way things
are today with screening embryos. Ifsomebody's doing IVF already today, this was
(08:43):
just came out on the market inthe last couple of months, it's possible
to pay around twenty five hundred dollarsfor a whole genome sequencing of the embryos
created through IVF, So every genecan already today be sequenced and then provide
information to the prospective parents on whatthese embryos may be predisposed to. So
(09:05):
we're already there in a sense,and it's just going to get cheaper and
more accessible in the future. It'sfascinating and scary all at the same time.
I guarantee they're already doing this inChina. I'm just saying, you
know, that's that'd be the countrywe're in. These secret labs, you
know, they're they're they're cloning allof their eleand of doctor Moreau, I
tell you all the time. It'sreally all the editing and animals and people,
(09:28):
and we're getting there. We are. But thank you so much for
being on to discuss doctor Kara Peakoff, author of Baby X, thanks for
being on the program. Thank you, and I can only claim I'm not
actually a doctor, but I'll takeit just as a fictional poetic license.
Why not? Okay, perfect,take great care. Thank you so much.
(09:50):
Make sure you stay tuned. We'llhave more after the break. You
are listening to American Medicine Today.
Welcome to American Medicine Today, presentedby the Benati Spine Institute, featuring internationally
acclaimed inventor of the Benati spine procedures, Alfred Benatti, MDI here your host
Kimberly Bermel Benati and co host EthanYucker. Welcome to American Medicine Today.
I'm alongside Ethan Yucker and world renownedorthopedic surgeon, doctor Alfred Benatti. So
(00:21):
a thrilling new work of fiction wasjust released which takes a thought provoking look
into the near future and we'll makereaders question the price of groundbreaking technology in
the realm of fertility. Joining usto discuss is Kiara Peacoff, author of
Baby X. Thank you for joiningus. Thanks for having me today.
Now, the premise behind your bookhas been called terrifying, and really it
(00:46):
is. Can you explain the plotand how you really came up with that
idea and how it is kind ofbased on reality? Yeah. So I
got the idea for this book whileI was in graduate school at Columbia studying
bioethics, and it revolves around anew medical breakthrough that is already in the
works today in labs in Japan.Primarily already in real life. This has
(01:08):
been proven to work in mice,so we're not in humans yet, which
is what my book projects as anear future world. But essentially, this
breakthrough allows the cells of any partof your body to be turned into sperm
or egg cells to then be usedto create embryos. So this would eradicate
(01:30):
IVF. It would mean that anyoneof any age, any gender, or
any fertility status could have a babywith anyone else and all they need to
do is give a small sample oftheir cells, like from a cheek swab.
So that is the premise at theheart of my new book. See,
and my mind goes straight to,especially as a female who can bear
children, how would that factor outas far as like paternity, right,
(01:55):
Because if you can just take salivoor any cell and I'm pregnant by anyone
at any time, and then allof a sudden you approach the would be
father and go, okay, payme child support? Like how does that
work? And would how would theybe able to prove Hey wait a minute,
I had nothing to do with that, So great questions, which is
(02:16):
what I really explore at the heartof the book. So there's this idea
that bioethicists have been worried about foryears, ever since this technology first came
on the scene, and the firstpaper was published around twenty twelve, so
it's quite new still and it's rapidlyprogressing. There's this idea of the celebrity
(02:36):
scenario, which takes what you saidto a whole new level. So you
can imagine there would be a blackmarket for the cells of highly desirable people
like pop singers or athletes. Andalready today we have parents who are extremely
competitive, want the best for theirkids, want to endow them with the
best possible futures. And what wouldhappen if the cells from celebrities were suddenly
(03:00):
subject to this pursuit in this blackmarket. So that's the heart of the
thriller aspect of the story. It'sfunny that you bring that up because my
next question, My first thought was, there's already celebrities already have a problem
with paparazzi stalking them around just totake photos. Can you imagine when and
if this proposed scenario becomes a reality. I mean, again, back to
(03:22):
the ethics and morality of it.You know, if paparazzi wants to stalk
around and pluck a hair out ofBritney spears head unless she shaved her head
bald again, you know, somebodycould end up with basically or saliva or
any of that. I mean,do you know again you're you're a fiction
writer, but obviously you did alot of You had to have done a
(03:43):
ton of research into this. Didyou speak with any experts? Like how
did you research for Baby X?I did. So. There's a top
professor at Stanford whose name is HenryGreeley. He wrote a book a few
years ago called The End of SexThe Future of Human Reproduction, and it's
all about the nonfiction aspects of thisstory. So what would happen legally,
(04:06):
ethically, medically, how would societycome to terms with this technology? And
how should it because it's coming downthe pike anyway. So he's kind of
the go to person to really havea solid understanding of what's coming. And
I did speak with him a numberof times for the story. I asked
him all kinds of weird questions,like if somebody was creating a black market
(04:27):
for these cells, how long couldthey get away with storing them? And
how would they transport them? Andwhat equipment would they use in a lab
to you know, manipulate them intoembryos and all kinds of things like that.
So I acknowledge him in the book, and also for anyone who's interested
in the real world ramifications of this, highly recommend his book as well.
And so give us the plot ofthe book, And what sort of little
(04:50):
nuggets of facts from this guy didyou actually put in weave into the plot.
Yeah, so the plot centers arefound. The main character is a
biosecurity guard. She was a researcherwho abandoned her academic career and invented this
new business of protecting celebrities from wouldbe stalkers and anyone who might want to
(05:14):
claim a part of their cells thatthey inadvertently left behind in public. So
she goes around with this pop singeron tour to kind of clean up and
make sure none of his hair ormucus or saliva or anything that's a living
part of his tissue was left behindon anything. And they end up falling
in love. So that's very earlyin the story. But I remember asking
Professor Greeley, like, if shewas going around cleaning up things after him,
(05:40):
would it have to be a livingcell, and how long does the
cell stay alive or you know,we lose skin cells all the time,
does that count? And it reallycomes down to to be able to create
a ferm an egg cell, ithas to be living tissue which does stay
around for a couple of hours.So like if you sip on a water
bottle you have saliva, there couldhave some living cells on it still for
(06:01):
a while. And if you getit into the right kind of culture medium,
which is a stabilizing liquid, youcould transport that sample into a lab
if it wasn't too far away,and then start deriving cell lines, which
are just you know, copies andcopies of those cells to then manipulate chemically
and turn into the sperm or theegg, which means a celebrity could become
(06:24):
truly a mother or a father technically, because it's agnostic, the cells can
become either with the technology, sothat goes into the plot as well.
But you're saying they could be bothmother and father at the same time.
Well, not in the same okay, okay, but potentially if like somebody
took a sample of your cells,you could get either eggs or sperm from
(06:45):
that. So the whole idea oflike paternity and maternity is no longer behold
into today's limitations. That is crazy. But I wanted to go back to
something you said previously when you werediscussing the research with the other gentlemen,
And did he say sex is goingto fall by the wayside or just the
(07:06):
way we reproduce. Well, everyone'sstill going to have sex, right,
we're animal, animal beings after all, and we have needs, so that
will never go away. But todo it for reproduction, he projects that
will eventually fall away. Because whatwe're doing when we reproduce our way,
the old fashioned way, is weroll the genetic dice. We may have
(07:28):
mutations we pass on to our kidsthat will haunt them down the road or
cause fatal diseases. And why ifwe have a way to get around that
and have let's say, dozens ofembryos created from ourselves with our partner,
and then we could have the abilityto screen those which we already have today.
Imagine that ability even more sophisticated inthe future. Why wouldn't parents have
a demand to do that and makesure they're only implanting the embryo that's free
(07:51):
of Alzheimer's and cancer risks and allkinds of things like that. So eventually
this would become the norm, andthe old way of doing things would be
seen as reckless or irresponsible even,And that's the ethical part of this.
Well, It's interesting because cos probablydecades ago, wasn't there a Sandra Bullock
and Sylvester Stallone movie where they werenot reproducing in the typical way and they
(08:18):
were able to have children by dumblishingman. Okay, So I mean truth
is stranger than fiction, and wealready know that it's working on lab lab
mice, so probably not that faroff from human trials, I would think,
yeah. And also I just wantto add two from the way things
are today with screening embryos. Ifsomebody's doing IVF already today, this was
(08:43):
just came out on the market inthe last couple of months, it's possible
to pay around twenty five hundred dollarsfor a whole genome sequencing of the embryos
created through IVF, So every genecan already today be sequenced and then provide
information to the prospective parents on whatthese embryos may be predisposed to. So
(09:05):
we're already there in a sense,and it's just going to get cheaper and
more accessible in the future. It'sfascinating and scary all at the same time.
I guarantee they're already doing this inChina. I'm just saying, you
know, that's that'd be the countrywe're in. These secret labs, you
know, they're they're they're cloning allof their eleand of doctor Moreau, I
tell you all the time. It'sreally all the editing and animals and people,
(09:28):
and we're getting there. We are. But thank you so much for
being on to discuss doctor Kara Peakoff, author of Baby X, thanks for
being on the program. Thank you, and I can only claim I'm not
actually a doctor, but I'll takeit just as a fictional poetic license.
Why not? Okay, perfect,take great care. Thank you so much.
(09:50):
Make sure you stay tuned. We'llhave more after the break. You
are listening to American Medicine Today.
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