Bioethics takes stage

People would have genes altered
for their benefit, an expert says

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By Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.com

If people could have genes manipulated to assure that their children were more athletic, intelligent or had other special traits, evidence indicates they would do it, says a specialist in the field.

Medical resources are dwindling, many people have no access to health care and poor children are not vaccinated, yet people spend enormous money to avoid wearing glasses or have plastic surgery, said Dr. Faith Fitzgerald, professor of medicine, University of California-Davis School of Medicine.

The desire to enhance athletic performance or social or individual advantages "makes people do funny things," she said.

Fitzgerald was among experts discussing cloning, stem cell transplantation and ethics of clinical research during an International Bioethics Conference, sponsored by the St. Francis International Center for Healthcare Ethics, at the Sheraton-Waikiki earlier Thursday and yesterday.

Private companies are driven by potentially huge profits to do genetics research, but ethical, legal and moral questions surround the unprecedented technologies, speakers said.

Some clinics and specialists are going ahead with human cloning as soon as feasible regardless of opposition, said Dr. Bernard Lo, professor of medicine and director of the medical ethics program at the University of California-San Francisco and a National Bioethics Advisory Commission member.

Almost all commission members agree human cloning should be banned, although for different reasons, he said. Cloning for reproductive purposes is not safe or effective, he said.

Stem cell technology for transplantation or to regenerate damaged tissue offers hope to battle diseases, Lo said. But, he added, "The whole dream of using stem cells for regeneration of cells is not simple."

Lo said ethical concerns have been raised about taking stem cells from embryos, a major source. However, he said he believes it is morally permissible to obtain stem cells from frozen embryos with parents' consent if they are discarding them after in-vitro fertilization.

Discussing genetic manipulation and therapy, Fitzgerald named five reasons to challenge forces pushing for selective breeding to get good genes: Martin Luther King Jr., Eleanor Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway, Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill, all of whom had impaired parents or personal handicaps.

Dr. Jeffrey Kahn, University of Minnesota School of Medicine professor and director of the Center for Bioethics, discussed the Minnesota case of 6-year-old Molly Nash, who had Fanconi anemia, a rare and fatal genetic disease.

Her parents, Linda and Jack Nash, planned to have another child and had embryos made for in-vitro fertilization. The embryos were screened for Fanconi anemia before being implanted into Linda's womb because both parents carry the gene for the disease.

A boy named Adam was born in August 2000, and his cord blood was flown to the University of Minnesota for a lifesaving bone marrow transplant for Molly. It took five cycles at a total cost of $100,000 -- not covered by insurance -- to get a matched embryo, Kahn said.

A technique called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis identified Adam as a donor while still in the womb, and it is being used to screen embryos for other genetic abnormalities.

"We are at the beginning, the cutting edge, of biotechnology acceptable for us to do," Kahn said.