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Human Breeding Control Dominated By Rich, Not Ethics
$30,000 Estimated Cost Of Superior Genes Considered Cheap Compared To Harvard's $40,000 Tuition Physicist envisions 'hereditary castes'
A Princeton physicist yesterday warned that a
genetic "caste" system may arise in the future if
science, government and business promote a
free-market trafficking in human genes.
"Wealthy parents will be able to buy what they
consider superior genes for their babies," said
Freeman Dyson of Princeton's Institute for Advanced
Study. "This could cause a splitting of humanity into
hereditary castes."
In a public address last night at the Washington
National Cathedral, Mr. Dyson portrayed how
rapidly genetic change could happen, taking humanity
back to a time of masters and slaves.
"Within a few generations, the children of rich and
poor could become separate species," he said.
The visionary speech, which came as part of a
ceremony for Mr. Dyson's Templeton Prize for
Progress in Religion, is not uncommon in the debate
over mapping the human genome.
"For many years, we've had talk like this," said
Jonathan Moreno, director of the Center for
Biomedical Ethics at the University of Virginia. "I
don't think anyone can say we're at that stage of the
technology yet. But it is worth talking about."
The debate over who will control the information
deciphered from the 3 billion chemical codes that
make up tens of thousands of genes on the 46 human
chromosomes has been heightened this year by a
race between government and private ventures.
The federally funded Human Genome Project,
begun in 1990, expects to lay out an "average"
human DNA code by 2001. The private venture of
Celera Genomics in Rockville, Md., is claiming to
have nearly completed the project, and soon will be
ready to sell its data to "subscribers."
In response, the federal Human Genome Project
already pouring its data onto the Internet
announced it will step up that effort to make genome
information free in the public domain.
Meanwhile, the federal-private debate, or what
has been called "science by press conferences," has
put biotechnology stocks on a roller coaster in recent
months.
Mr. Dyson, who has worked in the World War II
defense of England and later in small nuclear reactors
and nuclear arms control, says biotechnology
demands government regulation.
"The ultimate danger of green [biological]
technology comes from its power to change the
nature of human beings by the application of genetic
engineering to human embryos," Mr. Dyson said.
"No matter how strongly we believe in the virtues of
a free market economy, the free market must not
extend to human genes."
He said biotechnology meanwhile has produced
"tremendous goods" such as medicine and genetic
improvement of food for a hungry world.
"The two great evils to be avoided are the use of
biological weapons and the corruption of human
nature by buying and selling genes," he said.
Mr. Dyson's ethical message from atop Mount
Saint Alban, where the cathedral stands, resonates
along Maryland's Interstate 270 Technology
Corridor. The 25 miles of highway are home to
nearly half of Maryland's 235 biotechnology
businesses.
"If handled properly, genetic information can be
used without creating ethical problems, such as
insurance discrimination," said Robert Burrows,
director of corporate communications for Gene
Logic Inc. in Rockville.
The company will distribute genome information
on how genes seem to be "switched on and switched
off" so pharmaceutical companies may experiment
with medical solutions to diseases.
With this market approach, he said, "Our
information allows drug discovery and development
to arrive more quickly and safely."
Scientists say the earliest application of genome
material will be to diagnose diseases such as cancer
or assess a person's potential for a disease.
Production of medicines still is on a far horizon,
and farther still the "therapy" of inserting healthy
genes into human cells to correct malfunctioning
genes.
In the ethical debate which takes place while
there is no government regulation on genome
information and some patent rights for researchers
the question is whether gene knowledge will be used
to heal people or to "enhance" people by genetic
manipulation of looks, intelligence or strength.
Enhancement is the specter raised by Mr. Dyson,
though Mr. Moreno of the bioethics center said there
has long been moral debate on parents contributing
to the success of their offspring through economics,
health, social mobility and the luck of genetic
endowment.
"People with money can already shape what their
children become," Mr. Moreno said. "It is not clear
how these things are morally different."
The Rev. Richard Land, who heads the ethics and
policy office of the Southern Baptist Convention, said
moral concerns about abuse of gene technology must
trump the free market.
"We have an Atomic Energy Commission, and I
believe we need the same kind of commission for
biotechnology," he said. "There's a similar possibility
of catastrophe."
Washington Times
(5/22/2000)
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