Transcript gaining immense new power to heal

Lecture 10
Eugenics and Genetics:
Excitements
(Philosophical Perspectives)
“The 21st century will be
the Century of Biology, just
as the 20th Century is the
Century of Physics”
1953
J. Watson Feb 22, 2003
J. Watson and F. Crick, Feb 1953
Louise Brown, born July 25,1978
the first baby to be conceived outside its mother's womb
2003
1978
Born: 1996
Dead: 2003
Completed 2003
Human Cloning – blastocyst stage
• February 2004, South
Korea
• 30 embryos have
grown for about 6 days,
containing about 100
cells
• Dr. Woo Suk Hwang,
Dr. Shin Yong Moon
National Seoul University
(II) Eugenics before Genetics
• Francis Galton
(1822-1911)
• improving future
generations by
encouraging the
"best" in society to
have more children
(p.2)
• “negative eugenics” –to prevent the birth
of people with “poor” conditions (the “unfit”)
• “positive eugenics” – to create “better”
humans (the “fit”)
Negative Eugenics via
Compulsory sterilization
• by the late 1920s, similar laws had been
passed in 28 states of U.S.A.
• 15,000 individuals were sterilized before
1930
• Many European countries did the same
• Nazi Germany
• improving future generations by
eliminating the socially “unfit”
An Infamous Case
Buck v. Bell (1927)
• “The principle that sustains compulsory
vaccination is broad enough to cover
cutting the Fallopian tubes…. Three
generations of imbeciles are enough.”
• U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver
Wendell Holmes, 1927.
(p.3)
Positive Eugenics via
Directed Mating in vitro
• “Genius sperm banks”– Nobel prize
winners
• Ivy league eggs wanted (1999) – SAT
minimum score 1400, athletic ability, height
of at least 5’10”
• US$50,000 (HK$400,000)
• Yale-New Haven Hospital: only US$5,000
Drawback
(i) unreliable because of the lottery of
chance inherent in all sexual
reproduction
(ii) unreliable because traits are not
determined by heredity alone
(iii) most couples would rather have “their
own” children.
Eugenic utopianism renewed
(p.4)
“Today we are learning the
language in which God
created life….
With this profound new
knowledge, human kind is on the
verge of gaining immense new
power to heal….”
President Bill Clinton
The New York Times, June 27, 2000, D8.
Watch video
• How to Build a Human? (BBC)
• Episode 2 “The Predictor”
“Further, it will not be amiss to distinguish the
three kinds….of ambition in mankind…. But if a
man endeavor to establish and extend the
power and dominion of the human race itself
over the universe, his ambition (if ambition it
can be called) is without doubt both a more
wholesome and a more noble thing than the
other two. Now the empire of man over things
depends wholly on the arts and sciences. For
we cannot command nature except by obeying
her.”
p.4
(Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, CXXIX)
The Power over Nature
The Mastery of Nature
“Today we are learning the language
in which God created life….
With this profound new knowledge,
human kind is on the verge of gaining
immense new power to heal….”
President Bill Clinton
Not just the Power to heal !!
Application One
Gene Therapy
Gene Therapy
A technique for correcting defective genes
responsible for disease development.
How does gene therapy work?
• In most gene therapy studies, a "normal" gene is
inserted into the genome to replace an "abnormal,"
disease-causing gene.
• A carrier molecule called a vector must be used to
deliver the therapeutic gene to the patient's target cells.
• Currently, the most common vector is a virus that has
been genetically altered to carry normal human DNA.
Target cells such as the patient's liver or
lung cells are infected with the viral vector.
The vector then unloads its genetic material
containing the therapeutic human gene
into the target cell.
The generation of a functional protein
product from the therapeutic gene restores
the target cell to a normal state.
Setback
• In 1999, gene therapy suffered a major setback
with the death of 18-year-old Jesse Gelsinger.
• Jesse was participating in a gene therapy trial
for ornithine transcarboxylase deficiency
(OTCD).
• He died from multiple organ failures 4 days
after starting the treatment.
• His death is believed to have been triggered by
a severe immune response to the adenovirus
carrier.
(p.5)
Ethical Issues
• What is normal and what is a disability
or disorder, and who decides?
• Are disabilities diseases? Do they need
to be cured or prevented?
• Does searching for a cure demean the
lives of individuals presently affected
by disabilities?
• Is somatic gene therapy more or less
ethical than germline gene therapy?
Application Two
Pre-Implantation Genetic
Diagnosis & Selection
Screening Embryos for Disease
•Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) is a test that
screens for genetic flaws among embryos used in in vitro
fertilization.
•With PGD, DNA samples from embryos created in-vitro by
the combination of a mother's egg and a father's sperm are
analyzed for gene abnormalities that can cause disorders.
•Fertility specialists can use the results of this analysis to
select only mutation-free embryos for implantation into the
mother's uterus.
•Before PGD, couples at higher risks for conceiving
a child with a particular disorder would have to
initiate the pregnancy and then undergo chorionic
villus sampling in the first trimester or
amniocentesis in the second trimester to test the
fetus for the presence of disease.
•If the fetus tested positive for the disorder, the
couple would be faced with the dilemma of whether
or not to abort the fetus.
Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis & Selection
Hope on a slide: A biopsy of one cell
of an embryo on the third day of
development. With eight cells (seven
visible on this side), the embryo
seemed to be developing well. But
preimplantation genetic diagnosis
(P.G.D.) can reveal problems with
selected chromosomes.
Embryo no. 3 was the only
"normal" one out of the eight.
Though it started out smaller,
it showed no signs of down
syndrome or other trisomies.
This was the embryo that
was implanted.
Launch GenoChoice in: Flash | Quicktime | HTML
Elizabeth Preatner, Ph.D., M.D., Prenatal Geneticist and
Embryologist at the GenoChoice Institute
March 14, 2003
Thank you for considering GenoChoice to plan the future well-being of
you and your family. My name is Dr. Elizabeth Preatner, a prenatal
geneticist and embryologist here at GenoChoice. Using our state-of-theart technologies, you can quite possibly ensure that your child's life may
be free of such diseases as cancer, Alzheimer's, and heart disease -as well as conditions like obesity, aggression, and dyslexia.
(pp.5-6)
Ethical Worries
• Many of us live with asthma, allergies,
learning disabilities, diabetes, heart disease,
deafness and albinism – and live quite nicely
• Quest for a Perfect Child?
• What will happen when testing extends to
height, eye color, muscular strength, hair
color and other traits that are highly
determined by our genes?
• To design our descendents?
蘋果日報 2006.11.15 A26
India loses 10 m female births
•
•
•
•
Ultrasound + selective abortion
A million girls lost each year
Ultrasound in use for 20 years
In most countries women slightly
outnumber men, but just the opposite in
India for 2001 (BBC News, 2006/01/09)
• With PGD, even less Indian girls will come
into this world!!
Application Three
Genetic Enhancement
Improved natural
endowments
•Greater resistance to
fatigue
•Lowered distractability
•Better memory
• Dream of “superman” since Nietzsche
• “it is probable that [through genetic
engineering] we would get, in a few
generations, men of more than average
intelligence, and possible that among them
would be found men superior to anything
we have known.” (Jean Rostand, French biologist, Can Man
Be Modified?: Predictions of Our Biological Future, [ET 1959], quoted from
Glenn McGee, The Perfect Baby [1997], p.29
Brian Stableford, social theorist
•
•
•
•
•
•
small extra lungs
better backbone
tougher skin around our vital organs
eye sight of a fly, an owl,
sonar “seeing” of bat and whale
hearing of many animal forms
From Future Man (1984), and Glenn
McGee, The Perfect Baby (1997),
pp.27-29
Lee M. Silver, Princeton biologist
To augment our sense perception by inserting
genes from other living beings
• Light-emitting organs (fireflies)
• Generators of electricity (eels)
• Magnetic detection systems (birds)
• Sophisticated sense of smell (dogs)
• Ability to “see” in complete darkness through
sonar (bats)
Remaking Eden (1997) pp.237-38.
Re-watch
• Lee Silver speaking in the BBC video
(p.7)
Reaction 1
• “At last, we can escape from the tyranny
of fortune and bring our inheritance under
rational control!”
• Human beings can control their own
evolution (artificial selection)
• From chance to choice; no more
reproductive roulette; birth control
• We can correct Nature’s (God’s) mistakes
(Remaking Eden)
Reaction 2
• “What hubris! Scientists are trying to
play God!” Quest for “Superhuman”: failure
to acknowledge human finitude
• Widening the gap between the rich and
the poor
• Distort the meaning of procreation
• Distort the parent-child relationship
(Excessive parental power over
descendents)
Genetic Modification
• Plants
• Animals
• Human beings
Genetically modified
goldfish
February 2004
ANDi (inserted DNA) -- a
monkey with an extra gene
taken from a jellyfish
January 2001
The story behind Dolly
• GM sheep produce human
proteins in milk for use in
the drug industry
• Mass cloning a GM sheep
can save the trouble of
genetically modifying sheep
after sheep
• Dolly’s experiment was
financed by a
pharmaceutical company
Genetically modified human beings !!
"Remaking Humanity?" International Conference
July 17-19, 2003 Chicago
“The earth does not need more humans;
that seems clear. But perhaps it needs
better humans, humans more diseaseresistant, genetically superior, more
intelligent, sympathetic, moral, and
spiritual, better adjusted to and able to
cope with their environment. With our
rapidly increasing knowledge about the
human microsphere and our developing
technology, we stand in a position to
improve our progeny.” (Bruce R. Reichenbach and
V. Elving Anderson, On Behalf of God, 1995, p.50)
Moral reservations
To watch when
you want to relax
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
in Fantasia & Fantasia 2000
1940
AVI 791.4372
G228
TUTORIAL DISCUSSION TOPICS:
Joseph Fletcher, “Genetic Engineering,” Chapter 7
of Humanhood: Essays in Biomedical Ethics,
1979, pp.79-92.
1. “Coital reproduction is, therefore, less human
than laboratory reproduction.” Explain this
statement that is found on p.88 of the reading
above.
2. According to Joseph Fletcher, why should we
enhance the genetic make-up of our
descendents?
Gregory E. Pence, Re-creating Medicine,
2000, Chapter 5, “Re-creating Children:
Choosing Traits,” pp.95-118.
3. What is Gregory Pence’s arguments for
parental choice in creating the best
possible child? (esp. pp.100-101, 04-107.)
Fletcher’s affirmation
• “Man is a maker and a selecter and a
designer, and the more rationally contrived
and deliberate anything is, the more human
it is.” (pp.87-88)
• Agree?
• “Coital reproduction is, therefore, less
human than laboratory reproduction.”
(p.88)
• Sexual intercourse is only for pleasure or
for intimate affection
• Fertilization and the embryo’s genetic
make-up is to be under strict medical
control
• Agree?
Worldview of Fletcher and Pence
Human Beings’ Predicament and Suffering
• Nature (natural reproductive process) as
accidental, random, unpredictable, blind,
risky; “invisible hand”
• Fatalism – arbitrariness in human life’s
vicissitude ; no special care for humans
• Human beings -- submission willy-nilly
• A basic distrust of Nature (coital
reproduction is to be avoided)
Technology as gospel
• With technology, human beings finally can
rebel against this bad natural force
• Reproduction -- Technology assisted
• Human genome -- Artificially modified (new
genes)
• Reproduction should be willed, chosen, (with
design, selection), and controlled
vs. accidental, random, risky, uncontrolled
• p.91
Gregory Pence
• “kids can be harmed by doing nothing
and letting ‘nature take its course’.” (2000,
p.98)
• “Fatalism versus Expanded Genetic
Choice.” (2000, p.100)
• “Why should a couple be happy with any
child that the flick of the genetic roulette
wheel sends their way?” (2000, p.101)
• “why shouldn’t such parents be allowed
to try to create the best possible child..?”
(p.101)
• “Historically, even twentieth-century
parents tried to improve on the fickle
allotments of fate: pregnant women didn’t
drink alcohol, parents stimulated infants…,
didn’t smoke, and ate nutritional foods. All
these actions contradicted fatalistic
acceptance.” (p.104)
• Agree?
Can Chinese Medicine agree?
•
•
•
•
•
To have control over reproductive nature
Humans know better than Nature
To bend Nature to obey human
Nature and human are not in harmony
Humans should dominate and “conquer” Nature
人定勝天
• Francis Bacon: Knowledge is power!
• The more contrived（有為、人為、人工）the
better ！