Human genetic engineering

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Environment

Human Potential

While we read daily headlines of actions and laws in opposition to genetic engineering of plants, there is a strange silence on the subject of human genetic engineering. Yet, the proponents of genetic eugenics are working hard to acquire the technological and scientific know-how necessary to shape mankind to the liking of their twisted minds.

This ideology is gaining acceptance among scientific, high-tech, media and policy elites. A key foundational text is the book Remaking Eden: How Cloning and Beyond Will Change the Human Family, by Princeton University molecular biologist Lee Silver.

Silver looks forward to a future in which the health, appearance, personality, cognitive ability, sensory capacity and the lifespan of our children all become artifacts of genetic manipulation. Silver acknowledges that financial constraints will limit their widespread adoption, so that over time society will segregate into the "GenRich" and the "Naturals".

In Silver's vision of the future, "The GenRich -- who account for ten percent of the American population -- all carry synthetic genes. All aspects of the economy, the media, the entertainment industry, and the knowledge industry are controlled by members of the GenRich class ... Naturals work as low-paid service providers or as laborers. [Eventually] the GenRich class and the Natural class will become entirely separate species with no ability to crossbreed, and with as much romantic interest in each other as a current human would have for a chimpanzee."

An excellent article in the Earth Island Journal of Spring 2001asks "Where is the opposition?" - their conclusion: "... the prospect of re-designing the human species is beyond anything that humanity has ever before had to confront. People have trouble taking this seriously -- it seems fantastical and beyond the limits of what anyone would actually do or that society would allow."

Article posted on Italy Indymedia

found by Ivan - Grillo Parlante

We are fast approaching the most consequential technological threshold in all of human history: the ability to directly manipulate the genes we pass on to our children.

Development and use of these technologies would irrevocably change the nature of human life and human society.

It would destabilize human biological identity and function. It would put into play a wholly unprecedented set of social, psychological and political forces that would feed back upon themselves with impacts quite beyond our ability to imagine, much less control.

These technologies are being developed and promoted by an influential network of scientists who see themselves ushering in a new epoch for human life on Earth. They look forward to the day when parents can quite literally assemble their children from genes listed in a catalog. They celebrate a future in which our common humanity is lost as a genetically enhanced elite increasingly acquires the attributes of a separate species.

There is little public awareness of the full implications of the new human genetic engineering (HGE) technologies or of the campaign to promote them. There are few popular institutions and no social or political movements critically that are addressing the immense challenges these technologies pose.

The Science

While some applications of HGE are benign and hold great potential for preventing disease and alleviating human suffering, other applications could open the door to a human future more horrific than our worst nightmares.

Two very different applications of genetic engineering must be distinguished.

One application changes the genes in cells in your body other than your egg and sperm cells. Such changes are not passed to any children you may have.

Applications of this sort are currently in clinical trials and are generally considered socially acceptable. The technical term for this application is "somatic" genetic engineering (after the Greek "soma" for "body").

The other application of genetic engineering changes the genes in eggs, sperm, or very early embryos. This affects not only any children you might have, but also all succeeding generations.

It opens the door to the reconfiguration of the human species.

The technical term for this application is "germline" genetic engineering (because eggs and sperm are the "germinal" or "germline" cells).

Many advocates of germline engineering say it is needed to allow couples to avoid passing on genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis or sickle cell anemia. This is simply not true.

Far less consequential methods (such as pre-natal and pre-implantation screening) already exist to accomplish this same goal. Germline manipulation is necessary only if you wish to "enhance" your children with genes they wouldn't be able to get from you or your partner.

The History

The ability to directly manipulate plant and genes was developed during the late 1970's. Proposals to begin human gene manipulation were put forth in the early 1980's and aroused much controversy.

A small number of researchers argued in favor of germline manipulation, but the majority of scientists and others opposed it. In 1983, a letter signed by 53 religious leaders declared that genetic engineering of the human germline "represents a fundamental threat to the preservation of the human species as we know it, and should be opposed with the same courage and conviction as we now oppose the threat of nuclear extinction."

In 1985, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) approved somatic gene therapy trials, but said that it would not accept proposals for germline manipulation "at present." That ambiguous decision did little to discourage advocates of germline engineering, who knew that somatic experiments were the critical first step toward HGE experiments.

Following the first approved clinical attempts at somatic gene therapy in 1990, advocates of germline engineering began writing advocacy pieces in medical, ethical, legal and other journals to build broader support.

By the mid- and late-1990s, the progress of the federally funded Human Genome Project in locating all 80,000-plus human genes fueled speculation about eventual applications, including germline engineering.

In 1996, scientists cloned the first genetic duplicate of an adult mammal (the sheep "Dolly").

In 1999, researchers mastered the techniques for disassembling human embryos and keeping embryonic cells alive in laboratory cultures. These developments made it possible, for the first time, to imagine a procedure whereby the human germline could be engineered in a commercially practicable manner.

HGE advocates were further encouraged by the social, cultural and political conditions of the late 1990s -- a period characterized by technological enthusiasm, distrust of government regulation, the spread of consumerist/competitive/libertarian values, and the perceived weakened ability of national governments to enforce laws and treaties, as a result of globalization.

In March 1998, Gregory Stock, director of the Program on Medicine, Technology and Society at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), organized a symposium on "Engineering the Human Germline." It was attended by nearly 1,000 people and received front-page coverage in The New York Times and The Washington Post. All the speakers were avid proponents of germline engineering.

Four months later, one of the symposium's key participants, HGE pioneer W. French Anderson, submitted a draft proposal to the NIH to begin somatic gene transfer experiments on human fetuses. He acknowledged that this procedure would have a "relatively high" potential for "inadvertent gene transfer to the germline."

Anderson's proposal was widely acknowledged to be strategically crafted so that approval could be construed as acceptance of germline modification, at least in some circumstances. Anderson hopes to receive permission to begin clinical trials by 2003.

The New Ideology

Advocacy of germline engineering and techno-eugenics (i.e., technologically enabled human genetic manipulation and selection) is an integral element of a newly emerging socio-political ideology.

This ideology is gaining acceptance among scientific, high-tech, media and policy elites. A key foundational text is the book Remaking Eden: How Cloning and Beyond Will Change the Human Family, by Princeton University molecular biologist Lee Silver.

Silver looks forward to a future in which the health, appearance, personality, cognitive ability, sensory capacity and the lifespan of our children all become artifacts of genetic manipulation. Silver acknowledges that financial constraints will limit their widespread adoption, so that over time society will segregate into the "GenRich" and the "Naturals".

In Silver's vision of the future:

"The GenRich -- who account for ten percent of the American population -- all carry synthetic genes. All aspects of the economy, the media, the entertainment industry, and the knowledge industry are controlled by members of the GenRich class ...

Naturals work as low-paid service providers or as laborers. [Eventually] the GenRich class and the Natural class will become entirely separate species with no ability to crossbreed, and with as much romantic interest in each other as a current human would have for a chimpanzee.

Many think that it is inherently unfair for some people to have access to technologies that can provide advantages while others, less well-off, are forced to depend on chance alone, [but] American society adheres to the principle that personal liberty and personal fortune are the primary determinants of what individuals are allowed and able to do.

Indeed, in a society that values individual freedom above all else, it is hard to find any legitimate basis for restricting the use of repro-genetics. I will argue that the use of reprogenetic technologies is inevitable. Whether we like it or not, the global marketplace will reign supreme."

The Environment

HGE enthusiasts typically anticipate a future in which genetic technology permeates, transforms and reconfigures all sectors of the natural world -- plants, animals, humans and ecosystems. Many look forward to what they call the "Singularity" -- that point in the next few decades when any distinction between the natural and the technological has been completely dissolved.

Many couple their enthusiasm for genetic engineering with an explicit disparagement of environmentalist values. Nobel Laureate James Watson, for example, has complained that "ever since we achieved a breakthrough in the area of recombinant DNA in 1973, left-wing nuts and environmental kooks have been screaming that we will create some kind of Frankenstein bug or Andromeda strain that will destroy us all."

Gregory Stock has stated: "Even if half the world's species were lost, enormous diversity would still remain. When those in the distant future look back on this period of history, they will likely see it not as the era when the natural environment was impoverished, but as the age when a plethora of new forms -- some biological, some technological, some a combination of the two -- burst onto the scene.

We best serve ourselves, as well as future generations, by focusing on the short-term consequences of our actions rather than our vague notions about the needs of the distant future