World media celebrate the first gene therapy approved by the European Medicines Agency, a decision which will open the way for more personalized treatments adjusted to each patient’s needs. [1, 2, 3]

However reading below the headlines reveals another truth. This is not the first gene therapy approved after all: the Chinese had approved a gene therapy well before that – in 2003. Why do we have such grandiose headlines then?

What is it with us Westerners that makes us so arrogant and selfish? Why didn’t we have such headlines when China approved that gene therapy so long ago? Why do we celebrate a success which is not a success but a sad reminder of West being always behind other cultures in medicine?

After we have denied ourselves the possibility of other kinds of treatments on the basis “we know better” (see the prohibition of American Indian medicine, the defamation of homeopathics or the attacks modern medical society attacks on alternative methods of therapy like acupuncture), we are now trying to convince ourselves that we are the best in genetics.

Maybe it is in our genes to lie…