Symposium Encourages Dialogue on Genetic Research
The "Ethical Boundaries in Cancer Genetics" symposium, hosted by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (Memphis, TN), brought together the country's leading legal and theological experts with top cancer researchers. Echoing the concern of many in the scientific community, ethicists and genetic experts expressed hesitation in using existing genetic techniques before fully exploring—on personal, generational, and societal levels—the future ramifications of altering the human blueprint. They argued that our current ability to manipulate our genes brings with it an obligation to a worldwide discourse that has not yet occurred.
"Sometimes, as a society, we see what we want to see in technology and fail to look at the downside,'' said W. French Anderson, director of Gene Therapy Laboratories at the University of Southern California School of Medicine (Los Angeles). "With something like genetic screening for cancer, the same technology that gives us the ability to eradicate deadly disease carries with it a great potential for misuse."
Anderson also discussed the difference between treatment (using genetic therapy to cure disease) and enhancement (using genetic therapy to create genetically superior humans). He cautioned that genetic engineering may alter our humanness.
Eric Juengst, associate professor of Biomedical Ethics at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine (Cleveland) and member of the Committee on Human Genome Diversity of the National Research Council, warned that the problem with enhancement is that it corrupts an individual's ability to honestly achieve a goal. "We need to have fair competition in society," said Juengst. "Getting top grades, or pole vaulting with pharmaceutical help is cheating—and exclusionary based on cost."
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is a biomedical research center dedicated to finding cures for catastrophic diseases of childhood.
For more information: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, 332 N. Lauderdale St., Memphis, TN 38105. Tel: 901-495-3300.