Ethics of Transgenics

[Khethil]

Good afternoon,

The other day, my wife and I saw a TV show on Transgenic advances (for those of you who don't know, transgenic refers to an organism whose genes have been altered to now contain genetic material from another species). I knew this technology existed, but I had no idea how far it had come.

It's far passed the "let's make a better wheat-plant" stage. From the TV show alone, we saw examples of:

• Salmon that grow 4x faster and regardless of temperature
• Chickens who've been engineered to not have feathers
• Cows so big; so packed with muscle, you'd have to see them to believe it

How they're doing this is interesting, but for us layman it involves taking genetic material from one species; for the desired trait, and inserting it into the genome of another species' eff. So yea, that's interesting, then I saw something that was a tad bit disturbing.

Cows, boxed into these machines, standing in a row with each machine a myriad of red tubes leading in and out of the cow. The cow stands there - relatively content - with his blood being harvested. What are we farming? Human antibodies. Yep, that's right; not "compatible cow antibodies"; human. As the camera angle zoomed in on the cow's eyes, the narrator goes on to describe how; in order to GET the human antiviral production genes in place, how 4 sets of different transgenic phases had to be done (as I recall, human-> mice, mice-> hamster, hamster-?????, ?????-> Bovine). My god, this cow's part human! What's more, once that cow begets offspring, they too will be part human, perpetuating their genetic signature.

The ramifications of such technology are, well, both astounding and disturbing and this technology is going forward full-speed. But getting back to the cow...

... I was a bit disturbed; kind of the that feeling you get in your gut when you see an accident victim with one foot pointing one way and the other facing the other way; something about it was a bit disturbing. I'm generally in favor of such sciences; and am indeed of this one as well! But a "yellow-flag" of warning ran up the pole in my head.

This isn't science fiction any more. It's real - cut and paste species. I'm excited and disturbed. The ethical implications of this could - both justifiably and simultaneously - be described as, too dangerous to allow and too potentially-beneficial to ignore. What do you think?

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Web References:
- Transgenic Definitions: Answers.com, MedicineNet.com and Merriam-Webster
- Basics of Transgenics: For you Wiki Fans, Overview of the Process, Article from the Science Creative Quarterly
- The Show: Note, I haven't tried this, I refuse to install pug-ins I don't want (link here)

[sarek]

I have to admit, I am very much torn in half over this subject.
I am a firm believer in the power of science and genetic engineering to improve the human condition.

OTOH I have very little faith in the ability of humanity to handle the heavy responsibility that comes with such power.
Many of the examples you give are definitely ethically unacceptable.

I sometimes believe that my choice depends on my particular mood of the moment.

[jknilinux]

Well, after thinking about it, I'm not too sure where I stand now.

Certainly an interesting subject...

[Deftil]

This isn't a topic that I'm particuarly up on, but from what I've read in the past, it really doesn't seem appropriate to say that "the cow's part human". I'll have to see if I can dig up what I've read in the past that makes me feel this way. But due to common ancestary, all animals share a certain amount of genetic material anyway, and we don't refer to, say whales, as part human, and we don't refer to humans as part whale because of this. I still see why this can seem unnerving and why people would have objections to the practice though. Evolution generally shapes and reshapes genotypes gradually and with transgenics changes are brought about swiftly.

[jknilinux]

Deftil has a point- cows and humans already share 90-something percent of our DNA...

[Aedes]

I'm a consequentialist about this. The ethics are overwhelmingly determined by 1) are the animals suffering and 2) what other harm might we be causing.

I don't believe that nature's "code" is so sacrosanct that we shouldn't try and solve some problems with it. My only concern is that our ability to invent is a lot more powerful than our ability to anticipate consequences.

[Didymos Thomas]

Originally Posted by Aedes

My only concern is that our ability to invent is a lot more powerful than our ability to anticipate consequences.

Don't you just love the non-medical use of petro-chemicals?

This is where I turn into a raging conservative. Technology doesn't bother me, the side effects of technology bother me.

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

Don't you just love the non-medical use of petro-chemicals?

This is where I turn into a raging conservative. Technology doesn't bother me, the side effects of technology bother me.

Along similar lines, I'm the biggest cheerleader of DDT coming back into use for indoor residual spraying to prevent malaria and dengue (and probably other diseases, like Chagas disease). DDT's agricultural use was what caused its (grossly overstated) problems. But it had also gotten malaria under good control and all but eliminated louse-born epidemic typhus. But not malaria has come raging back, and it would take a tiny fraction of the agricultural use of DDT to make a dent in malaria.

[nicodemus]

Bovine). My god, this cow's part human!


eh partial truth, in that they produce certain perfect replicas of human protiens in the capacity we could never dream of is true, and there is almost no chance of them developing that naturally as it is of no use to them, but to us, it could mean an actual treatment for aids, HIV, and other immunodeficiency syndromes, that their offspring might learn to read or be born with just two legs, however, is utter baloney, they have been spliced perfectly, their babies stand only the normal risk of genetic mutations

[Khethil]

Originally Posted by nicodemus

Bovine). My god, this cow's part human!


eh partial truth, in that they produce certain perfect replicas of human protiens in the capacity we could never dream of is true, and there is almost no chance of them developing that naturally as it is of no use to them, but to us, it could mean an actual treatment for aids, HIV, and other immunodeficiency syndromes, that their offspring might learn to read or be born with just two legs, however, is utter baloney, they have been spliced perfectly, their babies stand only the normal risk of genetic mutations

Please note the word "part" in the phrase, "... part human". No ones suggesting an "Oh my god, we're creating humans!"-panic or assertion.

And yes, there are a good number of benefits from such exercises, to be sure. Again, I wouldn't dispute this one iota. I do; however, think there are ethical issues (ripe for discussion) within this area.

Thanks