Is genetic engineering ethical?

Thanks to Juniverse0 for this subject. Juniverse0 has written some very interesting stories that involve genetic engineering by scientists with questionable ethics. Check them out.

The best example of this is the short story ‘The New Face of Humanity’. Here Juniverse0 reveals that a main character has devised a cure for a viral disease introduced by aliens to conquer Earth. This character had been the first successful cure for the disease as a child. Now armed with proper knowledge, he modifies stem cells to force the human immune system to evolve and thus resist the alien virus. The mad Dr. Oswald modifies his idea and comes up with a way to make a human into something else much better (so he thought) than human. He tells him that he will be perfect, without emotions or a personality, much to her dismay.

Juniverse0’s ‘Subject 342’ story goes into this genetic engineering idea gone mad with more detail.  In this case Professor Justin works on cure for cancer that went wrong. The cure for Test Subject 342 who has skin cancer involves using a snaketile venom containing serum. Snaketiles are a subterranean species of semi-humanoids that have snake-like attributes. The cellular regeneration idea results in Test Subject 342 changing into a Snaketile, which are considered superior.

Her idea is not so far fetched. The military is conducting experiments to make the perfect soldier by means of genetic engineering. But, how could they do this? Before we answer that question we must explore what has been documented.

Genetic Engineering is the direct attempt to change an organism’s genome, which is the complete DNA genetic structure of an organism. This is accomplished by inserting a desired gene fragment into the chromosome of an organism, mostly a bacterium, to effect a desired biological change. This kind of work is done to make a specific bacteria species produce a chemical or drug or, in the case of plants, to make a new more disease resistant food crop. Genetic engineering has been used to mass-produce insulin, human growth hormones, and monoclonal antibodies. These methods show promise for curing cancer and making transplants more efficient with less rejection. Human gene therapy can be used to fix defective genes that are responsible for many genetic diseases like diabetes, arthritis and Parkinson’s disease. I see no problem with these applications as long as there are safe guards in place to prevent accidents.

Where there is controversy is with genetically modified food. There is concern that genetically modified food could cause problems by changing human DNA. Of course religious groups and naturalists have gotten into this controversy in a big way, but their arguments against modified food are not logical. The most likely effect of changing the DNA of food crops could be the accidental introduction of an allergen. In other words, the modified food could make us allergic to it. Studies, so far, have not shown any deleterious effects of using genetically modified food, but you never know.

The real problem is in genetic engineering of the human genome, which has been called gene therapy. This involves tampering with the somatic (non-sex) cells of a human to cure a genetic disease by inserting DNA into the affected cells. One of the ways this is done is to use a virus with the desired DNA fragment inserted into its DNA. As you can imagine, this is a particularly complicated and possibly dangerous idea. They call the virus used for this purpose a Viral Vector, and this method is being used to do gene therapy. One of the main problems is that the body can produce antibodies to resist the viral vector. The other problem is that the genetic change can produce a tumor. Three people have died from this type of gene therapy. Sounds dangerous to me!

Although gene therapy is a noble venture, use of genetic engineering to produce physical changes, such as appearance, strength, and mental capacity is fraught with both scientific as well as ethical problems. The bottom line is that this use of genetic engineering is considered unethical and morally questionable. I believe it’s stupid. We have enough troubles with genetic abnormalities as it is.

Thanks for reading.