Genetic Crossroads #31 (11/6/2003) | |
Another excellent newsletter from the Center for Genetics and Society. The IN THE NEWS sections and SUMMER READING particularly recommended. These 2 excerpts make for an interesting juxtaposition: *Many newspaper, radio and television accounts of the 50th anniversary of the discovery of DNA's double helix focused on the eccentric genius and baffling charm of co-discoverer James Watson. Meanwhile, largely unnoticed, Nobel laureate Watson celebrated in his own way: by continuing to aggressively advance his agenda for genetically re-engineering the human species--even if that requires engaging in medical experimentation that puts lives at risk. [Watson is, of course, also a big supporter of GM crops which he also used the anniversary to punt] *Gene Therapy 'Causes Leukaemia' (June 1) --- CONTENTS Very soon, RejoovenEsense hoped to hit the market with the various blends on offer. They'd be able to create totally chosen babies that would incorporate any feature, physical or mental or spiritual, that the buyer might wish to select. The present methods on offer were very hit-or-miss, said Crake: certain hereditary diseases could be screened out, true, but apart from that there was a lot of spoilage, a lot of waste...."These are the floor models," [said Crake.] "Not everyone will want all the bells and whistles, we know that. Though you'd be surprised how many people would like a very beautiful, smart baby that eats nothing but grass. The vegans are highly interested in that little item. We've done our market research." - Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake, pages 304-5 II. FEATURE: SUMMER READING Authors of speculative fiction have long pondered the making and marketing of tools that could re-engineer future human generations. Fortunately for those of us wishing to enrich our collective consideration of this troubling prospect, they are still mulling over its many implications. Also fortunately, they are now being joined by some of the finest writers and thinkers working in other genres. The mini-reviews here represent a sampling of recent works focused on the technologies and ideologies that could push us into a "post-human" era. Nonfiction Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age, Bill McKibben (2003) The Future of Human Nature, Jurgen Habermas (2003) Fiction Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood (2003) As this partial synopsis hints, Atwood's political sensibilities are piercing and caustic. Their effect is simultaneously heightened and relieved by her hilariously florid linguistic inventions: Young elites in pre-collapse gated communities play Extinctathon and Kwiktime Osama, while their parents labor at biotech companies called OrganInc and Helth Wyzer making wolvogs, pigoons, and other lucrative transgenics. Atwood's anthropological imagination is both droll and provocative: Her story begins with Jimmy literally coming down from the trees; as it ends, we are left to wonder whether and where humanity will pull through. Will it be through Jimmy's discovery of a handful of other human survivors? Or as an evolutionary development of the Crakers' tentative dabbling in art and religion? Critical reaction to Oryx and Crake has been strangely polarized. Lisa Appignanesi expresses what seems to be the majority view (and mine) when she writes in The Independent (UK) that "Oryx and Crake is Atwood at her best-dark, dry, scabrously witty, yet moving and studded with flashes of pure poetry." That a couple reviewers sharply disagree with this assessment is not in itself remarkable. But it may be significant that these critics seem reluctant to contemplate the future that Atwood extrapolates. Thus Deborah Blum (Minneapolis Star-Tribune) complains that Oryx and Crake "is preachy, and its apocalyptic catastrophe is unbelievable" and Michiko Kakutani (New York Times) calls it "didactic, at times intriguing but in the end thoroughly unpersuasive." On the other hand, Atwood's chilling futurology is unreservedly appreciated by The Economist: "The scary thing is that this latest book seems less contrived, less invented than [The Handmaid's Tale]." Ronald Wright uses nearly the same phrase in the Times Literary Supplement: "The truly frightening thing about Atwood's dystopia is that so little of it is far-fetched." Wright's one quibble with the book serves also as a telling comment on our collective predicament: "If Oryx and Crake has a failing," he writes, "it is that too little is left to the reader's imagination, but this is also a strength: most of our troubles as a culture stem from failure to imagine the worst." (For links to these and other reviews, see http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/oryx_and_crake/.) Feed, M. T. Anderson (2002) But reprogenetics and environmental collapse are, in a sense, just background details. The teen protagonists--like everyone else in the world of Feed--literally have computer chips where their brains should be. Their implants bombard them nonstop with individually tailored commercial incitements, rendering them almost incapable of utterances beyond an instant-messaging / Valley-speak pidgin. ("Omigod! Like big thanks to everyone for not telling me that my lesion is like meg completely spreading.") Feed pits frenetic technology-enhanced consumerism and heartless corporate logic against a few very ragged remnants of human caring. The outcome, as in several of the other books on this list, is uncertain. M. T. Anderson's novel is ominous, tender, and savagely funny. It is categorized as "young adult" literature, but is also suitable for adults mature enough to contemplate the possible futures of today's teenagers. The Secret, Eva Hoffman (2001) Iris is a teenager when she discovers that she is her mother's clone. Her first reactions clearly echo the ordinary angst of adolescent struggles for autonomy, and clearly depart from them: "I was a replica, an artificial mechanism, a manufactured thing. I was unnatural. My sense of myself as a young girl with her very own, unique self-an illusion. My feelings, my precious feelings-an illusion. A sleight of hand. I was nothing more than a Xerox of her cellular matter, an offprint of her genetic code." In a later scene, Iris confronts the scientist who cloned her. He is at first smugly proud of his handiwork--"I'd say you're practically perfect"--and then baffled by her accusations. "[W]e had lots of discussions," he tells her defensively. "Lots of American-style talk. We had ethics panels, with the best experts. We followed all their recommendations." The exchange soon becomes openly hostile. It ends with the cloner playing the cards that he believes trump all--cards that will be familiar to those following the ongoing debates about human genetic manipulation. "I am a scientist.I can't hold back change," he asserts. And in any case, the cloning procedure was "what your mother wanted." Iris' mother, he says, gave her informed consent, and she is the party with standing in the matter. "She was my customer, not you." Beggars in Spain (1994), Beggars Ride (1996), Beggars and Choosers (1997), Nancy Kress The relationship between the decidedly non-identical twin sisters provides an intimate launching point for this "hard sci-fi" epic that spans several hundred years and more than a thousand pages. Kress' story moves from discrimination and mob violence against the Sleepless, to the machinations of the next-generation (or rather, new-release) SuperSleepless, to a nuclear exchange between the now radically divided human subspecies, to an almost-happy ending in which altruistically motivated genetic enhancement gives the normals the ability to photosynthesize. Kress is well attuned to the dire social and political risks of human genetic enhancement. And she is clearly aware of--and often unabashedly didactic about--the divergent political values and visions in play. Her plot is driven, and at times bogged down, by the irresolvable conflict between radical libertarianism and a commitment to human solidarity. At the end of it all, Kress seems unable to make up her own mind about either the political theory or the technological path she prefers. But she raises key questions about the possible social consequences of future human redesign. She also poses an urgent challenge that too many of us manage to dodge: What do we make of the fact that human beings today live in biologically distinct realities? (Think life span, infant mortality, access to clean water, caloric intake.) What are the responsibilities of "choosers" when social structures and power arrangements consign billions to be "beggars?" Will we dismantle the walls that enforce those divisions, or head toward a world in which they're inscribed in our genes? III. IN THE NEWS Clonaid Nothing But Double Talk? (June 2) Gene Therapy 'Causes Leukaemia' (June 1) Stem Cell 'Master Gene' Found (May 30) Mule Birth Marks Equine Cloning Breakthrough (May 29) 'A Clone Would Be Uglier, Sicker and Dimmer' (May 21) Designer Baby Couple Begin Treatment (May 20) Boys' Gene Therapy to Continue (May 20) Pushing for a UN Ban on All Human Cloning (May 17) UN Panel Studies Medical Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering (May 12) IV. RESOURCES Television: Bloodlines: Technology Hits Home (June 10) Article: Ralph Brave, "James Watson Wants to Build a Better Human," AlterNet.org (May 28, 2003) Many newspaper, radio and television accounts of the 50th anniversary of the discovery of DNA's double helix focused on the eccentric genius and baffling charm of co-discoverer James Watson. Meanwhile, largely unnoticed, Nobel laureate Watson celebrated in his own way: by continuing to aggressively advance his agenda for genetically re-engineering the human species--even if that requires engaging in medical experimentation that puts lives at risk. http://www.genetics-and-society.org/r.asp?s=gc31&t=resources/cgs/20030528_alternet_brave.html Newsletter: GenInfo Journal: The New Atlantis V. LEGISLATIVE BEAT Around the World European Union health ministers reached an agreement on a proposed directive setting quality and safety standards for the donation, procurement, testing, storage and distribution of human tissues and cells. The health ministers rejected amendments proposed by the European Parliament that would have prohibited the creation of human embryos solely for research purposes or to supply stem cells. It was agreed that the directive only applied to human tissues used in clinical trials, and did not apply to research activities. News: http://www.eubusiness.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=111611 Landmark legislation that would establish a comprehensive framework for assisted reproductive technology is still pending in the Canadian Parliament as it approaches the end of its session on June 27. It is unclear whether a vote will take place. the landmark legislation will see a vote this session. Bill Summary and Text: http://www.parl.gc.ca/common/Bills_ls.asp?lang=E&Parl=37&Ses=2&ls=C13 In the States The Louisiana House passed a bill (HB 1810) that would ban both reproductive and research cloning. Louisiana currently has a law banning reproductive cloning which is set to expire on July 1of this year. The state Senate recently passed legislation that would extend the current ban for an additional three years. Bill: http://www.legis.state.la.us/leg_docs/03RS/CVT5/OUT/0000K8X5.PDF Legislation was introduced in the Wisconsin state Assembly (AB 104) and Senate (SB 45) that would ban cloning for both research and reproductive purposes. The University of Wisconsin-Madison and private biotech companies currently conduct embryonic stem cell research, and fear that research funding would be lost to other states if the total cloning ban becomes law. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Governor Jim Doyle (D) has promised to veto the legislation. Assembly Bill: http://www.legis.state.wi.us/2003/data/AB-104.pdf Senate Bill: http://www.legis.state.wi.us/2003/data/SB-45.pdf News: http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/may03/142185.asp The Delaware state Senate passed a bill (SB 55) banning reproductive cloning. The bill would allow cloning for research purposes. Scientists who violate the law would face fines of up to $250,000. Senate Bill: http://www.legis.state.de.us/Legislature.nsf/ With only seven days left of the legislative session, the Nebraska Legislature decided last month to table a bill (LB 602) that would prohibit the production of cloned embryos for research or reproductive purposes. The Legislature will likely take up the measure next session. Bill: http://www.unicam.state.ne.us/PDF/INTRO_LB602.pdf VI. NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIPTION AND FORMATS For information on subscribing and unsubscribing to the CGS email newsletter Genetic Crossroads, and on changing between enhanced HTML and plain text formats, go to http://www.genetics-and-society.org/r.asp?s=gc31&t=newsletter. For information about the Center for Genetics and Society go to |