Genetic Engineering – Pandora’s Box?

We all know the promises that genetic engineering holds for our future. Well the future is coming much faster than we thought. So are we on the verge of opening Pandora’s Box? Read the article below to find out the opinion of Robert Freer on this important and complex subject.

Robert E. Freer, Jr., President of The Free Enterprise Foundation

In mythology, in punishment for Prometheus’ theft of fire from the gods and its presentation to mankind, Zeus and the pantheon punish both Prometheus and mankind for Prometheus’ transgression. Prometheus is doomed to have an eagle peck away at his liver, but mankind receives a special punishment.

Each of the gods provides the gift of a trait to the creation of Pandora, a woman conceived as man’s ideal. Not all of her traits were alluring. Zeus made her idle, mischievous and foolish. Hera endowed her with unquenchable curiosity, while Hermes endowed her with cunning, boldness and charm. Pandora also was given a large earthen storage vessel as a gift for mankind.

When Pandora arrives on the scene with her vessel, mankind lives an Eden like existence. At this point, I am sure you are way ahead of me…..Despite Prometheus’ warning to her not to accept any gifts from the gods and Epimetheus insistence that she never open it, Pandora accepts the vessel, and in quick order lifts its lid, and all the world’s woes are released to plague us forever.

Not all was lost; however. In addition to pestilence, fire, disease, evil and death, man received self awareness and, through the exercise of will and the noble part of his being, perfectibility. From the depths of our fall, we have stumbled, crawled and gradually lifted ourselves towards self respect and our lost nobility. We may be fallen creatures, but we don’t have to stay that way. Pandora’s “gifts” are still with us, however, and we are constantly presented with the dilemma of good and evil.

Genetic engineering and testing, thought to be a part of the distant future, present us with just such dilemmas. Since Watson and Crick discovered DNA, scientists and researchers throughout the world have been manipulating the gene pools of numerous plants and animals by introducing new genes into the key to identity. Often the research is in an effort to better understand and treat diseases and cancers. This is not always true, or it is not always the only by-product of the research. The research and discovery creates a profitable market for scientists, universities, and corporations which sometimes overshadow the benevolent efforts of those who work for the common good.

Public polls have shown that 92% of the American public is against the bioengineering and genetic engineering industries. Genetics’ complexities provide very few concrete resolutions, but huge potential for profit. The public yearns for the benefit but is properly scared of the potential impact of “mutants” on our society and is alarmed that the vast profitability that beckons will blind us to its risks. Genetic research regulation is in its infancy, and there is no worldwide consensus on an appropriate protocol to follow. Whatever we may do, labs elsewhere will not be bound, and there is little we can do to channel the knowledge that has been discovered along pathways with which we would be comfortable.

To continue the classical allusion, we are twixt Scylla and Charybdis. Genetic research proffers cures for cancer and other debilitating diseases, healthier lives, and healthier plants and animals on the one hand and potential genetic disaster on the other.

Not unexpectedly, Michael Crichton in his copyrighted manner weaves an edge of disaster story in his most recent novel, Next, that plays our responsible selves against our greedy selves in looking genetic disaster in the eye before pulling us back from the edge.

He argues and I agree. The implementation of rules and regulations is essential to channeling the value and benefits of genetic research along a responsible course. Courts have decided research issues according to property laws. They analogize tissues to, say, the donation of a book to a library. But there is only one such “book” in the world, and we have rightful feelings of ownership about our unique selves, and that feeling will never be abrogated by some skewed notion of contract law. The law should ensure that a patient has permanent control of his or her tissue. “If a magazine can notify you that your subscription has run out, a university can notify you if they want to use your tissue for a new purpose.” And it should require your permission and not impair your children’s rights who bear similar if not exact DNA.

Research data needs to be made public so that the public awareness will help channel the research along responsible pursuits. Researchers are hiding the adverse results of their experiments saying that they are trade secrets. Deaths during research should be fully disclosed in a timely manner. Studies publicized about a drug or research should not be sponsored by the researcher who owns the rights to the drug or research. This practice creates skewed results and the lack of public confidence in the results.

Patenting genes has become a lucrative market. It is highly questionable whether gene patents should be permitted at all. If at all they must be under the most stringent restriction. Not only does patentability encourage a eugenics approach to procreation, genes are part of nature and unique to each individual. They are in no way inventions by the human hand. The purpose of patents is to insure that a person’s invention is protected but encourage others to make their own versions. With gene patents, no person can innovate any other use of the patent without violating the patent itself, so further innovation is closed. Gene patents are bad public policy. They suppress research and that harms patients. Dr. Crichton argues that while scientists, universities, and corporations fear the end of gene patents saying that it threatens research, it is more likely to result in a burst of new products for the public.

Crichton argues that in order to stimulate research efforts, all bans on research should be avoided. Bans serve no purpose. If research is not allowed in the United States, it will be conducted illegally or in some other country where it is lawful. Finally, Dr. Crichton argues that we must rescind the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 that permits university researchers to sell their discoveries for their own profit, even when that research had been funded by taxpayer money. The Act led many scientists to create corporate ties to biotech companies skewing their judgment through the inherent conflict. Today, universities attempt to maximize profits by conducting more and more commercial work themselves, thus making their products more valuable to them when they are fully licensed.

The velocity of technological change in the last half century leaves most of us stunned. Mankind is quick to make use of the product of our own inventiveness, but the interplay among the digits in the digital world we have created has not been lived with long enough to weigh cost versus benefit to us as a species for the velocity of ongoing genetic research . I realize to say that is to shout at the surf that graces our shores. At times like this we are thrown back to Pandora, who in her second look into the vessel released Hope to sustain us in times like these.

Copyright © 2007 by Robert E. Freer, Jr. All rights reserved

About the author: Robert E. Freer, Jr. is President of The Free Enterprise Foundation. He is a Visiting Professor, at The Citadel and elected in 2005 to be their first John S. Grinalds Leader in Residence. A regular contributor to the Mercury, He can be reached by E-mail at The Citadel . Copies of his earlier columns can be found The Free Enterprise Foundation.

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