1. HLS - the Xeno connection
2. giving Junior a better set of genes - Caplan on ANDi
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1. HLS - the Xeno connection
The Scotsman January 18, 2001, Thursday
THE pounds 25 million Royal Bank overdraft is not the only link between Huntingdon Life Sciences and Scotland. Until a few months ago, HLS was receiving genetically-modified pigs from a facility near Alness. This "farm" bred pigs with genetic modifications designed to make their organs less likely to be rejected by human transplant patients before it closed last autumn. Owned by a company which contracts animal experiment work to HLS, the farm was so secret that until Animal Concern exposed it, Highland Council and the Scottish Executive did not know it had been there - despite the risk genetically-modified pigs pose to human health.
Nearly 20 years ago, when animal to human transplants (xenotransplants) were first mooted, I was laughed at for suggesting scientists could create a bridge for new diseases to cross the species barrier. It was said, by claiming we faced epidemics of disease to which we have neither immunity nor medical treatments, I was resorting to science fiction. Fifteen years later, after tens of thousands of animals had died in experiments, it was admitted this was a very real possibility. The emergence of AIDS and nvCJD, both thought to have transferred from animals to humans, did a lot to alert politicians to the dangers of interfering with nature. Those in favour of xenotransplantation now admit to a small risk of disease transfer from animal donor to human recipient. The real risk is far greater.
Huntingdon first hit the headlines when undercover investigators filmed beagles being badly treated by laboratory workers. When shown on TV, the footagecaused national outrage. At the end of last summer more information emerged concerning pig-to-primate transplant research carried out in Scotland for Huntingdon. Papers mysteriously appeared on the internet claiming animals endured severe pain and suffering in these experiments. If RBS, or more importantly, their shareowners and account holders, want to call in the GBP 25 million Huntingdon overdraft, Tony Blair should not interfere. Whether the overdraft facility is withdrawn over concerns for animal welfare or as good business practise should not concern politicians. If Blair and his government want to get involved in this issue, they should start by breaking down the official secrecy which surrounds animal research labs and come clean about the real dangers.
John Robins is campaign consultant for Animal Concern
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2. Caplan on ANDi
Prof Patrick Bateson, Vice-president of the Royal Society, wrote to the Guardian the other day to complain about their linking ANDi the GM monkey to human genetic modification (ANDi, first GM primate. Will humans be next?, January 12).
The public, Bateson said, " expects the media to behave responsibly when reporting" claiming "The prospect of genetically modified human beings has not moved a step closer"
Technically this may be the case, for as Bateson says, "Demonstrating that it works with rhesus monkeys is not a technological advance. It would already have been theoretically possible to try this technique on humans". But what is more doubtful is his follow-up statement "responsible members of the scientific community have no intention of making such an attempt, even if it was legal"
The piece from TIME below by Arthur Caplan makes it all too clear that there are members of the science community with a very different agenda. As Richard Hayes has written, "Well below the radar screen of both the general public and policy makers, a concerted campaign is underway to perfect and justify the technologies that would allow the engineering of 'designer babies.' " [http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/gmhuman.htm]
Note also the eagerness of many scientists, such as Stephen Hawking recently, to authoritatively declare this kind of genetic engineering of humans "inevitable."
Needless to say, the biotech industry is actively developing the technologies that would make it possible to offer human germline engineering on a commercial basis.
According to bioethicist Arthur Caplan in the piece below, we're all going to "fall over one another to be first to give Junior a better set of genes" and we should plan accordingly.
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SCIENCE/HUMAN ENGINEERING: What Should the Rules Be?
Arthur Caplan
Time January 22, 2001
So what are we to make of this? Does it really matter that scientists can make a slightly fluorescent monkey? How much demand is there for glow-in-the- dark cats, dogs or wayward kids out too late at night on their bikes? Probably not much. But ANDi represents something much more important. The tiny light cast by this baby monkey shows that it is possible to genetically engineer ourselves. The scientists in Oregon have taken a tiny step toward doing what many scientists have said no scientist would ever want to do--use genetics to change, improve or enhance our children. Sticking genes into eggs and growing a healthy monkey means that someday scientists could and most likely would insert genes into human eggs to try to make kids smarter, stronger, faster, healthier or happier than their parents. So is the prospect of a Catherine Zeta-Jones with the mind of a Stephen Hawking something we should celebrate or outlaw? Some will surely argue that we need tough laws to prevent some kook from setting up a DNA shop on a deserted island and breeding superbabies--a genetic Temptation Island. Others will say we need an international ban lest we find ourselves taking orders from the next Saddam Hussein's eugenically brewed army. No such laws are needed. Renegade scientists and totalitarian loonies are not the folks most likely to abuse genetic engineering. You and I are--not because we are bad but because we want to do good. In a world dominated by competition, parents understandably want to give their kids every advantage. There is hardly a religion on the planet that does not exhort its believers to enhance the welfare of their children. The most likely way for eugenics to enter into our lives is through the front door as nervous parents--awash in advertising, marketing and hype--struggle to ensure that their little bundle of joy is not left behind in the genetic race. Most parents are willing to spend a lot of their money to send their kids to college, to get them piano, tennis and language lessons, to make sure they eat well and are safe.
There is little reason to think that the drive to do right by our kids will be any different if and when we are offered the chance to improve them genetically. No one will have to fool us or force us--we will fall over one another to be first to give Junior a better set of genes. The antidote to the blind application of genetic engineering is to start talking about what should and should not be allowed, who will pay and what standards ought to apply to those who want to promote and sell services that promise to make utopian children. The proper response to ANDi is not legislation to stop the mad scientists but a public debate that will teach us how best to control ourselves.
--By Arthur Caplan
Caplan is director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center