Using CRISPR on Human Embryos.
Using CRISPR as we feared could be here. I don’t want to alarm you, but it is here. The Eugenics Wars of Star Trek fame are just another example of Trek fiction about to come true. I’d love to know what your thoughts are on the subject.
Evolution by natural selection is about to end for Homo sapiens. CRISPR BABIES
I have interrupted my writing jag to bring you this article as soon as I heard about it. Of course, this kind of science is the foundation of my current series, The Jackson Saga. That aside, as this technology is honed and focused, which I think is marvelous, I also worry. I worry that someone “in charge” will be deciding what is a disease, what is a mutation, what’s worth fiddling with, and do we want to end up like the society in GATTACA?
OVERPOPULATION.
I expand on this theme with the biggest single threat
to humanity: Overpopulation. I’m not talking numbers of bodies here. I’m talking about the carrying capacity of the planet to support humans and their need for power (yes, both political and electrical). The United States, by the standards of carrying capacity, is the most overpopulated country on the planet. Americans are about 5% of world population and use 20% of the world resources. Americans waste more food, hence energy and political power, than some people have to eat in the whole day. We use more for cars (tires, gasoline, junkyards), trash (landfills), and especially electricity (air conditioners, big screen televisions, refrigeration).
This could roll on a tangent, but when India and China live their lives at the same standard as Americans (and why shouldn’t they?) overpopulation will finally move to the forefront as the foundation for climate change, food shortages, medical and elderly care issues, with a host of others, including poverty and war (power is both energy and politics).
Genetic Engineering
to remove harmful “whatever” is not my argument. In fact, as I said, Paradox is all about the risk of a genetically engineered vaccine. After administration it carries on in the offspring of vaccinated adults, but with unexpected results. Millions and millions of humans die prematurely or become sterile. When we play with Natural Selection, we must also play with Reproductive Rights. Are those with money, who can afford this medical technology, going to dictate who can and cannot have children without diseases? Will it be available to everyone regardless of their political views or the color of their skin or the money in their bank account?
From the article, I quote:
Gene-editing scientist, Fyodor Urnov* reviewed the Chinese documents said called the undertaking cause for “regret and concern over the fact that gene editing—a powerful and useful technique—was put to use in a setting where it was unnecessary.” Indeed, studies are already under way to edit the same gene in the bodies of adults with HIV. “It is a hard-to-explain foray into human germ-line genetic engineering that may overshadow in the mind of the public a decade of progress in gene editing of adults and children to treat existing disease,” he says.
Stop and Think
I find it a revolutionary tool, and worth exploring to the fullest possible good it can do. I wouldn’t want to wish disabilities on people just to keep the population from explosion, but clear, rules must be in place. We must prevent a group from using this to take power, placing genetic superiority in the hands of the wealthy alone, the political party of party alone, or, without looking forward to reduce the chances of a “Eugenics War”. If one race becomes so powerful the world over, humans will lose the diversity of our evolution. We are amazing animals, adapted to various climates, producing different cultures, and having the ability to see that we have so much more in common than we we have as differences. Let us keep what makes us human, and remove what hurts us most.
This is indeed a slippery slope, but an adventurous one to be sure. Talk about the Final Frontier. We should let Nature run the most of the show. It’s done a pretty fair job so far.
*associate director of the Altius Institute for Biomedical Sciences, a nonprofit in Seattle, Washington.
Genetic engineering is arguably the most significant single tool humans possess to change their future. It affects everything you can think of. Eradicating viruses, eliminating bacterial resistance, stopping birth defects, cleaning up polluted water, increasing crop yields, all on the radar in the genomic future of humans. I’d like to elaborate on each of those, but suffice to say the essay would become a text book.
Genetic engineers have found a way to reduce the severity of mental retardation in children with an extra chromosome 21 (Down’s syndrome) if they are aware of the mutation and can intervene before 10 weeks when the neural pathways begin to develop. New technology allows doctors to use fragments of fetal DNA found in the mother’s blood to diagnose the condition so an amniocentesis or CVS doesn’t have to be performed (increasing chance of miscarriage), which by the way is performed too late to correct the issue. Although heart development and characteristic features are already set, the mental retardation that accompanies Down’s Syndrome can be significantly reduced offering these children a more traditional future of independence and community acceptance.