Sickle Cell Patients Face a Tough Choice: Be Cured or Have Kids

When Celenise Mahmood first learned about two new gene therapies that could cure sickle cell disease, she felt a wave of relief.

Her 9-year-old son, Navid, has the inherited blood disorder. By age 5, he’d had over 30 life-saving blood transfusions. He has also lost hearing in his left ear. Though he’s too young to get the treatments now — eligible patients must be 12 or older — Celenise began to imagine a brighter future for him.

But then she learned about a significant drawback: Patients who undergo the therapies must take a toxic drug that can leave them infertile. ...