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Not So Fast, Genome Boy

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On Abortion, Who's the Extremist?

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Genome Breakthrough

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The British Are Crying, the British Are Crying

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Al Gore's Groundhog Day

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Dogs Fighting under a Carpet

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Life on Mars?

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Buckeye Gas Pains

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The Guilty Are Being Executed

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PETA Puts Rats First & People Last

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How the Religious Right Sank Lincoln

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A Supreme Corruption Buster

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Gas Pains II

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Nader Inc.

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The Once and Future King?

6.21.00
Never Mind the Riots

6.21.00
Gore's Plan Is ADud

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The Pablum Platform

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High Noon for Vouchers

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Elephant Mania!

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A Bronx Cheer for Football Player

6/27/00 2:10 p.m.
Not So Fast, Genome Boy
This scientific revolution will hurt people.

By Neil Munro, staff correspondent at the National Journal

But first, a word from our sponsors. Obviously, President Bill Clinton is trying to grab whatever credit he can for this marvelous scientific step, which received its initial impetus in 1990 under then-President George Bush. Don't expect the elder Bush, or the other past presidents who stoked the federal research engine since 1945, to be given their share of the glory. Next, industry will try to prompt a rush into biotech stocks. Over the next few decades, many of those investments will fail, sometimes with gruesome consequences for the patients. But some stocks will succeed dramatically, if only because so many members of the Baby Boom generation will spend every last red cent of their children's inheritance to extend their own lives — or more importantly, their sex lives — for even a few months.

These celebrations also provide a wonderful opportunity for the biotech industry's lobbyists in their permanent search for regulatory and legal advantages. Their overall strategy has two sides. First, head off a possible public backlash against biotech with a steady stream of happy news and alluring promises. To that end, the industry is already spending millions of dollars, perhaps $50 million, on a three-year TV campaign offering the phrase "Biotechnology; A word that means Hope." We can assume they mean hope for patients, not just for venture capitalists.

The second part of industry's strategy is an uncomplicated rush for beneficial laws, starting with prompt approval of draft patent rules which give companies a 20-year right to license the commercial use of genes whose purposes and processes they first identify. Some of those gene-patents will be worth billions of dollars to the owners, although critics argue that no one has the right to own genes, and that inevitable patent disputes will slow the development of medicines and treatments based on those genes. The draft rules don't seem all that unreasonable, although it would seem that politicians and the public are in position to demand more than tax revenue and disease-cures in exchange for the granting of these lucrative licenses. Perhaps, in exchange, the researchers should agree to greater public scrutiny, and tougher science-ethics regulations that also carry a real threat of heavy fines and jail sentences for executives and scientists.

The industry also wants the feds to hand out more research money to the universities, where many scientists have side-deals with private companies for the commercialization of government-funded advances. Getting the extra cash won't be difficult; politicians are entirely sincere in their willingness to offer voters a cure for everything from cancer to the common cold.

The university researchers and industry executives will also use the celebrations to loosen federal restrictions on promising but rather unpleasant "stem-cell research." Human stem cells can be persuaded, under the right laboratory conditions, to grow into a variety of other tissues, thus holding out the wonderful prospect of another promising path to curing cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other medical catastrophes. The gene map is speeding this research; the mapping firm Celera Genomics recently signed a deal with Dolly the cloned sheep's corporate parent, Geron Corp., for joint work on human stem cells. The trouble is, researchers now get stem cells by killing embryonic humans that are deemed surplus by prospective parents at in-vitro clinics, or by cutting them out of aborted human fetuses, and this unpleasantness is only partly hidden by media-borne euphemisms such as "the cells are derived from embryos."

Worse still, from the researchers' point of view, federal law bans the use of federal money in research during which human embryos are killed, which makes it difficult to raise money on Wall Street for the same purpose. Needless to say, the meaning-of-is White House — cheered along by the researchers — has tried to leap over this ethical fence with a rather innovative interpretation, namely that federal scientists can do stem-cell research providing that embryos are killed by someone else, preferably while the researchers are out on their lunch-hour. Such is what passes for bioethics these days.

Anyway, the law is supported mostly by social conservatives, who would prefer that the feds spend billions researching a different type of stemcells, those which can be harmlessly extracted from adults. Researchers oppose this adult alternative, not least because there is a limited supply of adults who will give up some of their stem cells, but also because those adults will hire lawyers to claim a share of any profits.

The researchers will likely win this stem-cell battle, mostly because they've mobilized a myriad of people desperate to lobby for any promised cure — no matter how faint or distant — to the disease that is killing them or a loved one. Very soon, those deregulatory-minded patients will be supplanted in Congress by a larger number of regulatory-minded voters seeking laws that hide the details of each person's DNA. Those details could betray a person's personal and professional weaknesses, such as a heightened vulnerability to certain diseases, delusions, or behaviors.

If shielded by DNA privacy laws, genetic risks could be hidden from prospective employers and insurers, although not from prospective parents or spouses.

Understandably enough, the insurance industry, quietly backed by millions of subscribers who like the low monthly rates made possible by DNA-aided cherry-picking, will fight fiercely against any laws that would limit their use of genetic tests to screen out risky subscribers. And even if some anti-DNA discrimination laws are passed, many citizens — not, I rush to say, necessarily myself and my fortunate descendants — will gladly display their genetic advantages when seeking a job, health insurance, or a better spouse (SWM, rated AAA by Genetech, ISO genetically complementary SWF, for medium-term cohabitation contract and procreation. Ivy League education irrelevant. Interests; Money, self, and cloning).

Under such circumstances, our soon-to-be-antiquated conceptions of "class" and "digital divide" would be replaced by affirmative-action policies intended to bridge the genetic divide between the gen-rich and the gen-poor. In that new world, expect Generation X-ers and Y-ers to be working very long hours to close this gap by paying a torrent — nay, a Biblical Flood — of Medicare and Social Security bills piled up by the aging Baby Boomers eager for new hair, reliable sexual organs, and an extended lifespan.

To muddle through this biotech revolution with a minimum of mistakes, all we need are principled politicians and a well-informed public, who can judiciously analyze complex biotech controversies, maintain a firm sense of right and wrong, and resist industry's temptation of everlasting life, immense wealth, great sex, and the perfect body. No problem. By 2099, at the very latest, Microsoft-Gentech-General Motors Inc. will be able to mass-clone citizens with the required level of selfless civic virtue. Of course, there may be some defective citizens created by production errors, but they can be sent to work at Nike's shoe-factories.

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