The Social Management of Genetic Engineering

Peter Wheale, René von Schomberg

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429752162
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política social

First published in 1998, this volume why and how genetic engineering has emerged as the technology most likely to change our lives, for better or worse, in the opening century of the third millennium. Over twenty international experts, including moral philosophers and social scientists, describe the issues and controversies surrounding modern biotechnology and genetic engineering. They explore ways in which lay individuals and groups can join in an effective and constructive dialogue with scientists and industrialists over the assessment, exploitation and safe management of these new and important technologies.

Topics covered include a discussion of the issues surrounding 'Dolly', the cloned sheep, the politics and ethics of the international research programme to sequence the entire human genome, the ethical questions raised by the creation of transgenic farm animals, the morality of genetic experimentation on animals, the controversy surrounding the patenting of genetic material and of the transgenic animals themselves, the ethical implications of engineering animals for transplanting their organs into humans, and the environmental hazards of releasing genetically engineered organisms.

1 The Social Management of Genetic Engineering: An Introduction

Peter Wheale and Ruth M^cNally

Many complex technologies pose substantial hazards and risks to individuals, communities, regions, or even to the entire planet. To impose such risks on people without even their tacit consent is undeniably an act of tyranny. (Zimmerman 1995, p. 92.)

Genetic engineering is the manipulation of heredity or the hereditary material, and its aim is to alter cells and organisms so that they produce more or different chemicals or perform better or new functions. It is a pre-modern activity in the sense that people have tampered with heredity for as long as they have been cultivating crops and breeding livestock, and are responsible for countless alterations of the inherited properties of life forms on the planet. However, in this century, the science of genetics has transformed the traditional craft of genetic engineering into a modern science-related technology (see Freeman and Soete 1997, p. 15). The basic principles of classical genetics, which were developed between 1910 and 1940, changed the study of inheritance from a descriptive, anecdotal account of various hybrid crosses to a rigorous science. Applications of the principles of classical genetics had a profound effect on crop plant and domestic breeding, as 'rule-of-thumb' breeding procedures were replaced with rational regimes of artificial selection and hybridization, and artificial in vivo mutagenesis was used to generate genetic variation (see, for example, Stent 1971; Maener 1979).

Scientific breakthroughs in microbiology, biochemistry and molecular biology since the Second World War comprise what is now often referred to as the 'molecular revolution' in the science of genetics, and it is 'molecular genetics' which underpins recombinant deoxyribo(se)nucleic acid (rDNA) technology. Scientists are now able to decode, compare, construct, mutate, excise, join, transfer and clone specific sequences of DNA, thus directly manipulating genetic material to produce organisms, cells and subcellular components. It is this microgenetic engineering (Wheale and M^cNally 1988, chapters 1&2) which distinguishes late twentieth-century genetic engineering from earlier genetic engineering methods, enabling genetic manipulation at the molecular level rather than at the level of whole animals and plants. It is now possible to combine the genetic material of totally unrelated species that cannot interbreed and to produce new varieties of bacteria, plants, animals and viruses much more rapidly than using traditional breeding practices.

Microgenetic engineering, in association with fundamental innovations in electronics and information technology (IT), underpins the development of a new 'expert system' (Giddens 1990, p. 27) which we call the 'bio-industrial complex' (Wheale and M^cNally 1988, Part 11, 1994). The 'bio-industrial complex' comprises new techniques, new scientific knowledge, new systems of classification, new vocabularies, new professions and professional specialisations, and new organisational structures whose systems of technical accomplishment and expertise are involved in, as well as conditioned by, the institutions of modernity. This world-wide complex of scientific expertise, technological capabilities and transnational capital accumulation operates in international markets, and interfaces with all industrial sectors including chemicals, food and agriculture, energy, resource-recovery, environmental control, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, and numerous bureaucratic agencies, government and the military.

Innovations from the 'bio-industrial complex' promise to provide us with such benefits as more effective and cheaper pharmaceutical products, increased global food production, new techniques for diagnosing disease and treating illnesses, cheaper energy, and less pollution. However, these same innovations are posing complex social, economic and ethical questions and provoking deep anxieties amongst the public (or more strictly speaking 'publics' to reflect the diversity and fragmentation of groupings in modern society). For example, data collected in a recent European Commission survey of public attitudes to modern biotechnology and genetic engineering (European Commission 1997) suggest that large sections of the European public are deeply ambivalent about these developments and '[t]he prevailing focus of this ambivalence appears to be moral, a collection of anxieties about unforeseen dangers that may be involved in a range of technologies that are commonly perceived to be unnatural' (Nature 1997a, p. 847).

An instance of public anxiety over genetic engineering has been the recent expression of public concern following news of the first cloning of a mammal - a lamb - from an adult sheep cell. 'Dolly', anthropomorphised after Dolly Parton, the country and western singer, was produced, so the scientists claim, by means of somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning, a technique developed at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh in collaboration with PPL Therapeutics, a Scottish animal genetic engineering company. The technique for making Dolly involved extracting the nucleus (containing genetic information) from a cell from sheep A. taking the nucleus out of an egg from sheep B, and then inserting the nucleus from sheep A into the egg from sheep B. This manipulated egg was then grown into an embryo and implanted into the womb of sheep C. The resultant lamb Dolly - born to sheep C was claimed to be a clone of sheep A (Wilmut et al. 1997). Since Dolly. PPL Therapeutics has combined nuclear transfer techniques with genetic engineering to create a sheep called Polly. When creating Polly, PPL Therapeutics modified the donor nucleus by adding the human gene for factor IX (a blood clotting protein) before transferring it into the egg. Thus Polly carries a human gene that enables her to lactate milk containing human factor IX. If Polly were cloned then, theoretically, whole flocks of human factor IX-producing sheep could be made, and their milk used for treating patients suffering from haemophilia Β (Mitchell 1998). PPL Therapeutics has also produced a bull calf, called Mr. Jefferson (because it was born on this former US President's birthday), cloned from a nucleus from a cell line derived from a Holstein foetus. ABS Global, a United States (US) biotechnology firm, has also produced a bull calf, which the company has called 'Gene', cloned from a nucleus from cells of a 30-day old calf foetus (Nature 1977b).

It is claimed that by combining nuclear transfer techniques with genetic engineering, animals will be produced which secrete human proteins in their milk (which will be able to be used for treating diseases ranging from haemophilia to osteoporosis), act as models for human diseases such as cancer and ageing, and provide human-compatible organs and tissues for human transplantation. The use of these techniques is also proposed for cloning farm animals which have been genetically engineered to have specific qualities such as longevity and disease-resistance.

Animal clones like Dolly, Mr. Jefferson and Gene raise the sorts of questions which the contributors to this volume wish to explore. First of all the validity of the Roslin cloning experiment, which it is claimed produced Dolly (the first example of an adult vertebrate cloned from another adult vertebrate), is in question because other scientific teams elsewhere have, to date, been unable to replicate this experiment. On a more fundamental level, some people question the morality of interfering with 'natural' processes in this way. In the case of Dolly, animal welfare campaigners have criticised PPL for using a breed of small sheep, the Scottish Blackface, as a surrogate mother for the embryos of the larger Finn Dorset breed. Furthermore, of the 276 cloning experiments it took to produce Dolly, only 29 resulted in implantable embryos, and all of these except one - the one which produced Dolly - resulted in defective pregnancies or grossly malformed births. Moreover, concern has been expressed over whether Doily will suffer adverse health effects because the donor nucleus which was used to make her was from an adult sheep: 'The age of Dolly's DNA may be the same as the engineered original sheep, of which she is a clone. She may have a shortened life-span or a greater susceptibility to cancer. Even though she appears to be fertile, her progeny may show an increased abnormality rate, owing to the accumulation of damage to the DNA' (HGAC & HFEA 1998, p. 19). Some of these concerns are also relevant to the use of nuclear transfer technology to make organs and tissues for human transplantation

Because cloning technology could theoretically be applied to clone humans, the media have created something of a 'moral panic' out of the prospect of cloning individuals either from desires for immortality or for eugenic purposes, for example, to create so-called 'designer' children. The typical institutional response to this 'moral panic' has been to demand a ban on all human cloning. Thus, the political leaders of 40 member countries of the Council of Europe have called unanimously for a ban on 'all use of cloning techniques aimed at creating genetically identical human beings' to be incorporated into the European Convention on Bioethics. The European Commission's bioethics group of advisors have decided that the cloning of humans is unacceptable and should be subject to unequivocal condemnation (DE, EN, FR 1997), Japan's Council for Science and Technology is setting up a committee to discuss a legal ban on human cloning, and in the US there is now a five-year federal funding moratorium on any attempt to create a child by somatic cell nuclear transfer, although the cloning of embryos in private in vitro fertilisation clinics is not prohibited - only implanting a cloned embryo into a woman's uterus for gestation is forbidden (Wright 1997). The US moratorium is supported by the National Bioethics Advisory Commission on Cloning Human Beings, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), and is now embodied in the Cloning Prohibition Bill of 1997, which is currently before the US Congress. (Although the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) argue that that they already have the authority to regulate human cloning experimentation, including the authority to ban it.) And in the United Kingdom (UK), the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 (HUFEA) explicitly prohibits human reproductive cloning. It would appear therefore, that, at least in the Anglo Saxon world, the right of couples to reproduce without state interference does not apply where the use of cloning techniques are envisaged (Wadman, 1998). (However, it could be argued that the wording of some of these bans would not apply to the technique used to produce Polly because Polly is not, strictly speaking, a clone because the donor nucleus used to create her was genetically modified.)

Some people make a distinction between the morality of cloning human embryos for reproductive purposes and the morality of cloning them for research or for therapies which benefit individuals other than the embryo itself. Ian Wilmut, the scientist chiefly responsible for Dolly, can see no ethical objection to using cloning techniques to create human embryos for research purposes provided they are not implanted. His position is in line with the opinion of the Human Genetics Advisory Commission (HGAC) and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). In a jointly published consultation paper, they suggest that human embryos may be produced through cloning for use in medical research, for example, for studying cell development, or for creating cell lines with the aim of developing therapeutic treatments, but not for human reproductive purposes (HGAC & HFEA 1998, p. 15).

The ethics of human embryo cloning for research and reproduction are complex and are dependent upon the values and beliefs people hold. The ethical stance above condemns the use of embryo cloning for reproductive purposes but condones the use of embryo cloning for research or therapy for the benefit of others. The values and beliefs upon which it is based could include a valorisation of genetic uniqueness after birth, a lack of trust in people's reproductive judgements and motivations, a naturalised view of reproduction, and insufficient respect for human life at the embryonic stage to sustain the idea of the embryo as a moral personality. However, if one had different values and beliefs, one could arrive at the opposite ethical position, namely, that the use of embryo cloning for research or therapy for the benefit of others is morally wrong, whilst the use of embryo cloning for reproduction is not. This ethical position would follow from a belief that the embryo has the status of a person, and cloned people are just as socially desirable, and as likely to be as psychologically and emotionally well-adjusted, as non-cloned people.

Another ethical position is that using cloned human embryos, either for therapeutic purposes or for reproductive purposes, is a 'slippery slope' leading to a total disrespect for human dignity (Nature 1997c; 1997d; Wadman 1977a). This ethical position could follow from the belief that the embryo should be accorded the same moral status as individuals (or people), and that their cloning for whatever purpose - treats them as means rather than ends, thus violating Kant's maxim in the second formulation of his 'Categorical Imperative' which enjoins us to treat people always as ends and never 'merely as means' (Kant 1948). Therefore, human cloning would violate the Kantian conception of equality. However, writing in the science journal, Nature, John Harris, a utilitarian thinker, questions how the creation of cloned embryos for reproductive purposes might so contravene human dignity (Harris 1997a). He argues that 'so long as the individual will have the capacity for autonomy ... the motives for which the individual was created are either morally irrelevant or subordinate to other moral considerations' (Harris 1997b, p. 433).

The 'Dolly experiment' also raises the important ethical question of whether it is right to allow the patenting of genetically engineered animals as human 'inventions'. Before Wilmut and his colleagues made the results of their cloning experiment public, a patent on their technique was filed with the World Intellectual property Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva, which, if granted, would cover the cloning of all animals, including humans. Leaving aside the questionable morality of such patenting, another question is, ^lls it right to allow individuals to benefit from patents when the research on which they are based has been publicly funded?' Should PPL Therapeutics, a commercial company producing transgenic animals, and the Roslin Institute, a government-funded research centre, be allowed to commercially exploit their nuclear transfer cloning technique through patent monopoly? Some people think not, and, indeed, at the time of writing, the patent application for the Dolly-cloning technique is being challenged by the non-government organisation (NGO), Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) (see Nature 1997e).

According to the recent European Commission survey ol the public's attitudes to modern biotechnology and genetic engineering referred to above (European Commission 1997), the majority of the respondents consider the creation of transgenic animals for research and development (R&D) and for xenografting (defined as the transplantation of organs, tissues and cells from one species to another) to be morally unacceptable where the other species is human. There are many reasons for this moral approbation. For example, the transgenic animals may suffer pain before they are killed and there is also the...