Which country has the most progressive human GM laws? China?

[Nathan McCorkle]

While this article is really talking about informed selection, and not
actually performing any genome editing, it got me wondering... Where
should I go to have my unborn fetus tweaked when I am ready to have
kids?

http://www.vice.com/read/chinas-taking-over-the-world-with-a-massive-genetic-engineering-program

--
-Nathan

[Cathal Garvey]

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Best approach would be to modify your sperm instead of trying to
modify a fetus. Not only because it's ridiculously unethical to
"tweak" a person in ways that could screw them up for life if done
incorrectly (at least you can sanity check gametes prior to use..),
but because there is no effective 100% transformation system for whole
organisms, but there are systems known to lead to 100% gamete
transformation, if you're willing to radiation-ablate your gonads.

I think it goes without saying "don't do this, the technology isn't
there", but I'll just tag that onto the end regardless.

Please note my new email: cathal...@cathalgarvey.me
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[Nathan McCorkle]

On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 2:42 PM, Cathal Garvey
<cathal...@cathalgarvey.me> wrote:
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> Best approach would be to modify your sperm instead of trying to
> modify a fetus.

whatever the method that works best, sure, but my point was that here
in the U.S. people are trying to outlaw IVF and such, so the
prevailing opinion is probably negative in regard to human GM
regardless of the route.


--
-Nathan

[Cathal Garvey]

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My personal feeling on human "reproductive engineering" is that if the
fundamental goal is to create a healthy, happy human being, then
that's Ok, but if the goal is to make yourself happy by choosing or
tweaking a human being to your tastes, that's selfish and not-ok.

I have a certain amount of room in my ethical buffer-zones for
attempts to, ah, stabilise some of the traits that can cause us
trouble; so if you're aiming to create a person who is less likely to
catch and propagate a pandemic, or who has an even-more-versatile
immune system, or more efficient autophagic systems to perhaps prolong
healthy life, then maybe; with ethical oversight and only when the
technology is really beyond ready.

So while I think it's silly to ban IVF, I don't think it's silly to
ban human cloning (because I don't see any non-selfish or narcissistic
reasons to clone humans), and I don't think it's silly to put a
moratorium on human selection/engineering beyond "this one will
survive gestation, this one won't", for now.

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[Nathan McCorkle]

On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 3:12 PM, Cathal Garvey

<cathal...@cathalgarvey.me> wrote:
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> My personal feeling on human "reproductive engineering" is that if the
> fundamental goal is to create a healthy, happy human being, then
> that's Ok, but if the goal is to make yourself happy by choosing or
> tweaking a human being to your tastes, that's selfish and not-ok.

isn't that what everyone does when they choose a 'beautiful' woman or
man over an 'ugly' one? Why do the two have to be positioned
diametrically? I have no doubt I could conceive of some 'cool' genetic
mods that wouldn't detract one bit from the 'being' being happy (I can
also think of seemingly boring mods that would not impact their
happiness too)... I know plenty of people who have kids
mindlessly/aimlessly because it simply 'happened'.

Who's ever mentioned GM-ing humans so they specifically ended up
unhappy? I could foresee that as being an unintended side-effect, but
it doesn't seem like a purposefully unhappy human would even be
valuable for the most shrewd economist. Depressed people don't have
high GDP.

--
-Nathan

[Cathal Garvey]

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The hot person you'd like to mate with should have a choice in the
matter. Whether the resulting child has any choice is just the hard
fact of nature, but imposing further unilateral decisions on someone's
genetic fate based on your perceptions of "cool" is against the basic
outlines of bioethics; informed consent and beneficence.

When you act in the direct, objective interests of the child it's
acceptable, although that requires two prerequisites:
A) The technology must be ready, or you are taking a risk with someone
else's entire life and genetic fate. That rules out
germ-line/embryonic genetic therapies for the next decade at least.
B) You must have someone objective and disconnected to sanity check
your idea of "beneficent", *especially* if discussing your own
offspring, for whom you will certainly have no objectivity.

You'll be thinking "a child, much less an unborn one, can't give
informed consent, so it falls to the parent". Yes, that's true, so the
parent must give informed consent. But you have to accept that, as a
parent, your ability to be "informed" when you give your consent is
undermined by your lack of objectivity; get a second, objective opinion.

It is likely that, after lots and lots of legal, ethical and moral
wrangling, society will come to a set of legislation-backed norms that
will effectively act as a hard "bioethics committee" by simply banning
what's decreed to be unethical. In fact, that's essentially what the
moratoria on human cloning and engineering are; a state-level
understanding that it's wholly unethical at this point in time to mess
with the genetic fate of a human being without a sound medical basis.
And as time goes by, I expect those rules to relax as the technology
becomes more predictable and as social attitudes to engineering
change. We'll see where time takes us in that regard. By that time,
we'll probably be considered outdated old farts by our younger kin,
who'll whine about legislation getting in the way of making GFPeople
at the drive-thru zygote hackshop.

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[Nathan McCorkle]

On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 4:49 PM, Cathal Garvey

<cathal...@cathalgarvey.me> wrote:
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> The hot person you'd like to mate with should have a choice in the
> matter.

I never said my partner wouldn't be in on it.

> Whether the resulting child has any choice is just the hard
> fact of nature, but imposing further unilateral decisions on someone's
> genetic fate based on your perceptions of "cool" is against the basic
> outlines of bioethics; informed consent and beneficence.
>

But simply put, people choosing to mate, choosing to smoke and drink
while pregnant still happens. Weird experimental drugs that in the
past lead to child birth deformities were intended to harm the
children, it just turned out that way, then the drugs were banned for
that use (can't remember the drug name now).

> When you act in the direct, objective interests of the child it's
> acceptable, although that requires two prerequisites:
> A) The technology must be ready, or you are taking a risk with someone
> else's entire life and genetic fate. That rules out
> germ-line/embryonic genetic therapies for the next decade at least.
> B) You must have someone objective and disconnected to sanity check
> your idea of "beneficent", *especially* if discussing your own
> offspring, for whom you will certainly have no objectivity.

Sure, and this measure will surely differ among groups. What are my options?

>
> You'll be thinking "a child, much less an unborn one, can't give
> informed consent, so it falls to the parent". Yes, that's true, so the
> parent must give informed consent. But you have to accept that, as a
> parent, your ability to be "informed" when you give your consent is
> undermined by your lack of objectivity; get a second, objective opinion.

I agree. I'll probably have a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth opinion.
Maybe I'd post the plans to the DIYbio group.

> It is likely that, after lots and lots of legal, ethical and moral
> wrangling, society will come to a set of legislation-backed norms that
> will effectively act as a hard "bioethics committee" by simply banning
> what's decreed to be unethical.

Again, the point of this thread was to gauge the different worldly
opinions. Maybe I'll have to go to Canada or Mexico, or Thailand or
India or China to get exactly what I want done. The fact that wars
rage says enough about differing opinions, ways of life, ethics.


The real point of this wasn't to dive into ethics at all. I'd like to
keep it to facts, I'm sure there must be countries where they might
not have any ethics board that would care, but also maybe not the
equipment/resources.


--
-Nathan

[Cathal Garvey]

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Ah, well if it's just legal arbitrage, that's an interesting (if
slightly incomplete) question. Lots of places have seemingly no laws
when it comes to foreign business; Thailand comes to mind, given its
lax attitude to what would be considered sex crimes over here for
business tourists, and Mexico/Russia are permissive medically speaking
(that is, we'll do stuff you want done to yourself but can't legally
get done at home) but probably would take issue with stuff done to
*others*: whether they define an unborn as "an other", probably an
unanswered question.

I recall a few years back there was some nutter in Italy claiming to
have cloned a person, can't recall whether he was doing so, ah,
"legally": that is, whether Italy's government seemed to care.

Also, with embryonic stem cell research being South Korea and
Beijing's pet projects, it's possible they'd stretch to tinkering with
gestating embryos. Once you look at embryos as research projects, you
probably won't discriminate based on context. :P

I do think though that it's still worth considering the ethics, not
only because it's the right thing to do, but because the ball doesn't
stop at the law; the doctor/surgeon/basement-hacker you're asking to
do stuff to an embryo is going to have an ethical or moral framework
of their own, and you may find that genetic tourism is fruitless when
the locals won't create babies with multiple hox cassettes just to see
if you can get extra arms in the bundle.

You're thinking of thalidomide, by the way; it was prescribed for
hyperemesis gravidarum, a not-uncommon but extreme form of morning
sickness that can be lethal if untreated (but is, these days, totally
treatable if ridiculously punishing to the mother). At issue is
whether the company knew then that thalidomide posed serious risks to
gestating babies, which it seems they did. Big issue here in Ireland
where lots of thalidomide-babies have grown up and want justice.

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[R Annie O'NieL]

wow they finally came up with a functional way to screen brilliant babies, i don't know whether to be elated or just feel miserable about the chaos we might descend into. I'm not being pessimistic just realistic. Once they go on to actually imply this rule they are just going to come up with more and more innovative 'ideas' that may not necesserily be good for the earth and humanity in general, more weapons of mass destruction, political tactics to dupe 'less smarter people' etc.  when are they going to discover genes that make people work harder, think ethically and morally sound, be responsible for our actions. with this genes we are just getting smarter not wiser. This has been happening for generations, kids keep getting smarter not wiser. you have to consider the fact that with mental aptitude comes responsibility.

[Nathan McCorkle]

On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 12:05 AM, R Annie O'NieL <aliasano...@yahoo.com> wrote:

 when are they going to discover genes that make people work harder, think ethically and morally sound, be responsible for our actions. 

when you write-up the kickstarter.com campaign! Heck BGI would probably pitch in to help just for good media/public relations.

[Mega]

> they are just going to come up with more and more innovative 'ideas' that may not necesserily be good for the earth and humanity in general, more weapons of mass destruction

Yes, but the same is true with all technology. Where is power, there is also the possibility of miss-use of it. But should we ban progress therefore? Shall we stop searching for therapies against illnesses, just because one may wants to try to create a virus*?

(*and how big is the chance that he succeds)  

[Cathal Garvey]

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> This has been happening for generations, kids keep getting smarter
> not wiser.

I think the fact that the average standard of living has increased
almost universally in the last few centuries, coupled with the fact
that proportionally, homocide has practically never been this low,
puts the lie to that.

Wisdom *always* lags behind knowledge; it's possible you could even
draw a direct relationship, such that "Wisdom" (for certain values of
wisdom) is a function of knowledge + time. The fact that wisdom lags
behind is not a good reason to shun knowledge.

However, one *could* make the case that we should focus not on raw
intellect but on ability to "reason" more generally. There are plenty
of highly intelligent but totally unreasonable people out there
causing harm to their fellow person: rather than just making more
bright people, you have a point that we should focus on the factors
(mostly environmental and not genetic, I suspect) that lead to good,
effective people who may help advance society and not merely themselves.

<http://www.vice.com/read/chinas-taking-over-the-world-with-a-massive-genetic-engineering-program>
>
>
> -- -Nathan
>
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