Gene Editing/Gene Therapy - Ethical?
Discussion
Just been watching this on iplayer:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07g8p3m/pano...
It goes on about the advances we've made in science in relation to gene therapy, and how techniques are being developed to, eventually, be able to 'grow' human organs in pigs, allowing us to have a farm of organs ready for transplants.
Is this right? Should we be able to play god by, for example, using other animals for our own gains? Or should we have a certain amount of vulnerability and accept the fact that we can't save everyone?
I just worry that editing the very material that makes 'us' is going to end in disaster as it becomes used for non-medical, personal uses.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07g8p3m/pano...
It goes on about the advances we've made in science in relation to gene therapy, and how techniques are being developed to, eventually, be able to 'grow' human organs in pigs, allowing us to have a farm of organs ready for transplants.
Is this right? Should we be able to play god by, for example, using other animals for our own gains? Or should we have a certain amount of vulnerability and accept the fact that we can't save everyone?
I just worry that editing the very material that makes 'us' is going to end in disaster as it becomes used for non-medical, personal uses.
I'm OK with it. A human life is worth more than a pig's life in my book. And one day that human might be one of your family. 'Can you cure them?' 'Well we could have done if you'd let do us the research; we'll send some flowers instead'.
Don't let the prospect of 'disaster' stop progress or we'll get nowhere. Remember that Columbus was going to sail off the edge of the world.
Don't let the prospect of 'disaster' stop progress or we'll get nowhere. Remember that Columbus was going to sail off the edge of the world.
You appear to have already made up your mind Hazza.
The media have a tendency to portray science in the manner of a comic book. Dr. David Banner would have actually died a rather unpleasant death after his gamma ray exposure.
Similarly, gene splicing is about as advanced currently as a caveman making a knife from a sharpened flint. It will probably be centuries before there is even a chance of us "losing ourselves" through regular manipulation of our genome and realistically most people quite enjoy the natural approach to baby making.
Leave the basic research to run and ponder the moral issues when it becomes a commonplace reality ready to market, if it ever does.
The media have a tendency to portray science in the manner of a comic book. Dr. David Banner would have actually died a rather unpleasant death after his gamma ray exposure.
Similarly, gene splicing is about as advanced currently as a caveman making a knife from a sharpened flint. It will probably be centuries before there is even a chance of us "losing ourselves" through regular manipulation of our genome and realistically most people quite enjoy the natural approach to baby making.
Leave the basic research to run and ponder the moral issues when it becomes a commonplace reality ready to market, if it ever does.
Monty Python said:
There is no god.
That doesn't stop us playing god.However, I don't see using animals to grow organs as immoral in any way. It is no more playing god than diverting a river, breeding racing horses or salting clouds. It is much less godlike than, for instance, the Bush government in banning various bits of research that, in their mind, contradicted some book. That's really thinking you are god, or at least his/her chosen one.
Floobal,
We're not as far away as you think. AFAIU there are quite strict regs on using techniques such as CRISPR on human embryo in the "western world"
But China? North Korea?
I'd be surprised if they weren't tweaking a gene here and there in human embryo subjects within 5 years, maybe even already have created people with genes thought to effect physical size/ intelligence etc...
GSK just received the first marketing authority for a gene therapy treatment for kids with ADA Scid, it's an immunology disease that's fatal, and by a bit of gene editing of the kids immune system (and rebooting it!) theyve had great results.
So a Flint compared to where we'll be in 20 years? yes. but we have a flicking sharp flint that can be used to cut and splice and do stuff already, hell yeah!
It will be interesting to see where it leads in terms of ethics. Society will change and adapt IMO, always have, always will!
We're not as far away as you think. AFAIU there are quite strict regs on using techniques such as CRISPR on human embryo in the "western world"
But China? North Korea?
I'd be surprised if they weren't tweaking a gene here and there in human embryo subjects within 5 years, maybe even already have created people with genes thought to effect physical size/ intelligence etc...
GSK just received the first marketing authority for a gene therapy treatment for kids with ADA Scid, it's an immunology disease that's fatal, and by a bit of gene editing of the kids immune system (and rebooting it!) theyve had great results.
So a Flint compared to where we'll be in 20 years? yes. but we have a flicking sharp flint that can be used to cut and splice and do stuff already, hell yeah!
It will be interesting to see where it leads in terms of ethics. Society will change and adapt IMO, always have, always will!
Edited by stuthemong on Thursday 9th June 09:30
If you object to 'using' animals as a source of human donor organs, I think you have to start by being a full-on Vegan.
Eating or using animal products of any sort invalidates your squeamish concern.
Of course, while the animal is alive, their welfare has to be good.
And it'll never be a 'stockpile' of human organs. Each will be grown and harvested to order. The objective is to do away with the need for rejection suppressant drugs after transplant. Tissue immunology is far more complex than blood transfusion, and an organ bank as in blood bank isn't possible.
John
Eating or using animal products of any sort invalidates your squeamish concern.
Of course, while the animal is alive, their welfare has to be good.
And it'll never be a 'stockpile' of human organs. Each will be grown and harvested to order. The objective is to do away with the need for rejection suppressant drugs after transplant. Tissue immunology is far more complex than blood transfusion, and an organ bank as in blood bank isn't possible.
John
Monty Python said:
There is no god.
The more I think about the Fermi Paradox and Simulation Theory, the more convinced I am that there is a god - in the sense that our universe was "created", not that they even know or care we exist.On topic - the faster they can grow animals without a brain, the better. I want ethical meat. They can use the same animals to grow human organs for transplant. Nobody knows or cares where their meat comes from now, so I don't believe people will care if it comes from a big blob of unconscious muscle.
Also - I want to know if you grow human organs in a pig and then eat them, is that cannibalism? Or if you pull the pig organ out of a human and eat it, what about that?
R E S T E C P said:
On topic - the faster they can grow animals without a brain, the better. I want ethical meat. They can use the same animals to grow human organs for transplant. Nobody knows or cares where their meat comes from now, so I don't believe people will care if it comes from a big blob of unconscious muscle.
Already in progress and supposedly on the market within 5 years. Which'll be nice.As for playing God, well it all depends if you see life as some supernatural miracle, or whether we are simply biological machines, really. The use of animals for organs is no different to the use of them for meat or hide IMO.
Have no problem with it whatsoever, in fact I find the objections to it rather quaint and old fashioned tbh. In a 100 years time we'l be using it to cure all sorts of ails, hereditary diseases, cancer, re-growing organs etc and no one will bat an eyelid and historians will probably find our current reluctance bizarre IMO.
I sometimes get really annoyed that the progress of the human race is stifled by ignorance, greed and political machinations. Just think where we'd be if science was totally free of all this BS.
I sometimes get really annoyed that the progress of the human race is stifled by ignorance, greed and political machinations. Just think where we'd be if science was totally free of all this BS.
If we were all vegetarians I could understand it being seen as unscrupulous breeding animals just to make organs for ourselves.
But given that we already have industrial levels of animal murder with crap living conditions for no goal higher than having a kebab or greasy burger after a night out, I find objections to breeding animals to save lives a bit weak.
What I find interesting from an ethical point of view is whether or not such organs would be banned from athletics if they were found to be performance enhancing.
But given that we already have industrial levels of animal murder with crap living conditions for no goal higher than having a kebab or greasy burger after a night out, I find objections to breeding animals to save lives a bit weak.
What I find interesting from an ethical point of view is whether or not such organs would be banned from athletics if they were found to be performance enhancing.
glazbagun said:
If we were all vegetarians I could understand it being seen as unscrupulous breeding animals just to make organs for ourselves.
Or put another way, 'I could save myself but in the interests of this animal I'll allow myself to die'. That's not the approach which got us to be #1 species on the planet.TwigtheWonderkid said:
What does the catholic church say about it. Find that out, take the opposite view, and in 95% of cases you'll be doing the right thing.
If I remember from my reading of various bibles, they say that we can do what the hell we like with animals. We are their masters and in total control.Not the actual words, but the sense is there.
CrutyRammers said:
Already in progress and supposedly on the market within 5 years. Which'll be nice.
As for playing God, well it all depends if you see life as some supernatural miracle, or whether we are simply biological machines, really. The use of animals for organs is no different to the use of them for meat or hide IMO.
You see, it's not necessarily the use of animals that I have a problem with. As long as the growing of these organs doesn't harm them in any way, then fine. But it is the concept that we can get anything we want as a species, using any means possible. The program portrayed this by suggesting that "we can eradicate all diseases"; we can "make malaria-carrying mosquitoes extinct". The idea of that; eradicating whole species because they are harmful. Who knows what effects this may have? In my opinion this is the 'playing god' part that I don't like.As for playing God, well it all depends if you see life as some supernatural miracle, or whether we are simply biological machines, really. The use of animals for organs is no different to the use of them for meat or hide IMO.
H
HazzaCrawf said:
You see, it's not necessarily the use of animals that I have a problem with. As long as the growing of these organs doesn't harm them in any way, then fine. But it is the concept that we can get anything we want as a species, using any means possible. The program portrayed this by suggesting that "we can eradicate all diseases"; we can "make malaria-carrying mosquitoes extinct". The idea of that; eradicating whole species because they are harmful. Who knows what effects this may have? In my opinion this is the 'playing god' part that I don't like.
H
If you are really keen to give it a home, even after eradicating it there are some preserved stocks of smallpox. Sure that you could volunteer to be infected ...H
Eradicating mosquitoes which carry malaria is not the same as eradicating mosquitoes. Again, even if some weird total species eradication was carried out we would preserve samples as a precaution.
Everything humans do changes the environment. Ever since Mary Shelley gravely wrote 'there are some things it is not given for man to know' we have been warned to cease study and abandon advances. When it is your wife, child, parent who has died of malaria you are likely to have a different attitude. Or perhaps not.
Flooble said:
Eradicating mosquitoes which carry malaria is not the same as eradicating mosquitoes. Again, even if some weird total species eradication was carried out we would preserve samples as a precaution.
For every action there is a reaction though, we just won't know what that is until it's perhaps too late.TX.
HazzaCrawf said:
We can "make malaria-carrying mosquitoes extinct". The idea of that; eradicating whole species because they are harmful. Who knows what effects this may have? In my opinion this is the 'playing god' part that I don't like.
H
The playing god part that you don't like is simply the law of unintended consequences. Invent antibiotics- everyone uses them for everything until they're no good anymore, except now we rely on them. Invent a more efficient light bulb- we slap them on everything and paradoxically increase our energy consumption.H
I think the difference with, say, eradicating a mosquito or deciding to breed a pig for it's organs is that it is a very deliberate action for a specific reason. Whereas, say, chopping down trees to make toilet paper, buying a cute pet that kills everything, replacing your phone every year, doling out antibiotics to anything that sneezes, etc is that sort of "invisible hand" thing where the responsibility for any ill effects is diffuse and far removed from the eventual ill.
Terminator X said:
For every action there is a reaction though, we just won't know what that is until it's perhaps too late.
TX.
Best sit really really still and try not to breathe then ... that was my last point, everything humans do changes the environment around us. Even insects alter their environment. Trying to draw some sort of artificial line: "I am happy to do X, but doing Y is going too far" is a pointless exercise. Humanity did quite well eradicating entire species long before it even knew what a gene was. And given the opportunity animals will wipe out their own ecosystem too - classic experiment is to set up bacteria in a petri dish and watch them expand until all the food is gone.TX.
On a slightly different tack, the word ethic is almost impossible to define beyond the dictionary definition. The word morals is used as a synonym in almost all explanations.
There are no absolutes. How could there be? One's ethics or morals are one's own. You can, of course, take yours ready-made, a sort of off-the-shelf method, but most, if not the vast majority, go for bespoke. You only have to look at the different sects of christianity, and that even in these, people seem free to accept some and ignore others.
I bet no one was particularly bothered about blood transfusions when they almost always killed, yet now only weirdos and those wanting to feel extra special refuse them on moral (actually religious) grounds.
There are those who are vegetarian on moral grounds. 'It's wrong to kill animals' or, one which gains a lot more sympathy world wide, even with those who eat burgers, 'It's wrong to ill-treat animals'. Ask them to define why, and they often fall back onto what they feel. Which is often where morals come from. It is wrong to stone adulterers, but hanging by judicial process is a different matter.
So the question might well be better put as whether messing around with genes is good for society, groups, families and individuals. Certainly I've made my decision on which way to vote in the referendum purely on what is good for me and mine. In other words, a moral stand.
There are no absolutes. How could there be? One's ethics or morals are one's own. You can, of course, take yours ready-made, a sort of off-the-shelf method, but most, if not the vast majority, go for bespoke. You only have to look at the different sects of christianity, and that even in these, people seem free to accept some and ignore others.
I bet no one was particularly bothered about blood transfusions when they almost always killed, yet now only weirdos and those wanting to feel extra special refuse them on moral (actually religious) grounds.
There are those who are vegetarian on moral grounds. 'It's wrong to kill animals' or, one which gains a lot more sympathy world wide, even with those who eat burgers, 'It's wrong to ill-treat animals'. Ask them to define why, and they often fall back onto what they feel. Which is often where morals come from. It is wrong to stone adulterers, but hanging by judicial process is a different matter.
So the question might well be better put as whether messing around with genes is good for society, groups, families and individuals. Certainly I've made my decision on which way to vote in the referendum purely on what is good for me and mine. In other words, a moral stand.
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