Genetic Engineering Is Kinda Bad

Human embryo research has been the subject of extensive debate for some years. In some countries it is prohibited, in others it is not. The main problem is due to the lack of consensus on a basic human question: when does a fertilized human egg become a human being? This is a fundamental ethical question because a human being has human rights, including the right-to life. Biologically, there is nothing more special about a fertilized egg than an unfertilized one. Life is a continuum.

Genetic screening is an issue that will continue to be discussed for many years to come. Points of issue include whether genetic screening of embryos should be permitted. This procedure allows the detection of a defective gene in an embryo. The genetic screening of newborn babies also raises ethical problems. We think that this is a very dangerous practice not only because it can distress parents who have not asked to know the future of their children, but also because these genetic data have the potential to be misused by insurance companies and employers. In a human society, which so often mistrusts those who are different, a genetic passport can be a huge handicap.

The release of genetically engineered organisms into the environment could cause unexpected environmental problems. We need to realize that it is possible to make combinations of genes in organisms in a way that would be impossible by natural selection.

The last issue is the biggest of all. Should we try to change or add genes in the human germ line, the cells in our bodies that have the potential to make gametes? Changes to the germ line therefore have the potential to be inherited. But what is not possible today can be possible next year or in 5 years. Perhaps it is time for a novel form of democracy, in which only those who can successfully complete a questionnaire that will test their background knowledge take decisions! We end with another quotation from the Bible:

The Lord God ... said, 'The man has become one of us, knowing good and evil; what if he now reaches out and takes fruit from the tree of life also, and eats it and lives for ever?' So the Lord God banished him from the garden of Eden to till the ground ... and he stationed the cherubim and a sword whirling and flashing to guard the way to the tree of life. (GENESIS, 3: 22-24)

"Life would enter a new phase" says biophysicist Gregory Stock - "one in which we seize control of our own evolution".

IT IS only a matter of time. One day - a day probably no more distant than the first wedding anniversary of a couple who are now teenage - a man and a woman will walk into an in-vitro fertilisation clinic and make scientific history. Their problem won't be infertility - the reason couples choose IVF now. Rather, they will be desperate for a very special child, a child who will elude a family curse. To create their dream-child, doctors will fertilise a few of the woman's eggs with her husband's sperm as IVF clinics do today. But they will inject an artificial human chromosome, carrying made-to-order genes like pearls on a string into the fertilized egg. One of the genes will carry instructions ordering cells to commit suicide. Then the doctors the place the embryo into the mother's uterus. Left without the artificial genes if her baby is a boy, when he became an old man he, like his father and grandfather before him, would develop prostate cancer. But the suicide gene will make his prostate cells self-destruct. The man, unlike his ancestors will not die of the cancer. And since the gene that the doctors give him will copy itself into every cell of his body, including his sperm, his sons too will beat prostate cancer. Genetic engineers are preparing to what has long been an ethical Rubicon. Since 1990, gene therapy has meant slipping a healthy gene into the cells of one organ of a patient suffering from a genetic disease Soon, it may mean something much more momentous: altering a fertilized egg so that genes in all of a person's cells, including eggs or sperm also carry a gene that scientists, not parents, bequeathed them.

The therapy would cure the foetus, before it was born. But the introduced genes, though targeted at only blood or immune system cells, might inadvertently slip into the child's egg, (or sperm) cells, too. If that happens, the genetic change would effect the children to the nth generation. - "Life would enter a new phase," says biophysicist Gregory Stock of UCLA "one in which we seize control of our own evolution." Judging by the 70 pages of public comments the national institutes have received since Anderson submitted his proposal in September, the overwhelming majority of scientists and ethicists oppose gene therapy that changes the germ line (eggs and sperm). But the opposition could be boulevard wide and paper-thin. "There is a great divide in the bioethics over whether we' should open this Pandora's box says science-policy scholar Sheldon Krimsky of Tufts University.

But something else is suddenly making it OK to discuss the once forbidden possibility of germline engineering. Molecular biologists now think they have clever ways to circumvent the ethical concerns that engulf this sci-fi idea.

There may be ways for instance to design a baby's genes without violating the principle of informed consent. This is the belief that no one's genes, not even embryos - should be altered without his or her permission.

Presumably a few people would object to being spared a fatal disease. But what about genes for personality traits, such as risk-taking or being neurotic?

But the child of tomorrow might have the final word about is genes says UCLA geneticistJohn Campbell. The designer gene for say patience could be paired with an of-off switch, he says. The child would have to take a drug to activate the patience gene. Free to accept or reject the drug, he retains informed consent over his endowment.

There may also be ways to make an end run around the worry that it is wrong to monkey with human evolution. Researchers are experimenting with tricks to make the introduced gene self-destruct in cells that become eggs or sperm. That would confine the tinkering to one generation. Then if it became clear that eliminating the genes for say mental illness also erased genes for creativity that loss would not also become part of the man's genetic blueprint.

There is no easy technological fix for another ethical worry however. With germ-line engineering only society's haves will control their genetic traits. It isn't hard to foresee a time like that painted in last year's film Gattaca where only the wealthy can afford to genetically engineer their children with such 'killer applications' as intelligence,