February 21, 2000
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A Gene for Common Sense
Opinion
Yesterday a somewhat absurd column was published in this paper. The first reason I must respond is that it compared the Human Genome Project, one of science's greatest achievements, to Hitler. The second reason is that it was so full of such crazed hyperbole that it could single-handedly give all columnists a bad name.
And third, I tracked down the article in Newsweek that the guy basically paraphrased, and realized that these thoughts were not just a symptom of his warped mind, but in fact a permeation of American culture at large.
Why is the Human Genome Project so much scarier to people than other medical and scientific endeavors? Much of the aversion to all things genetic is clearly the widespread exaggeration of genes' omnipotence in determining our ultimate natures.
In many cases the media is fed complete pseudoscience - one news story reported a gene for supporting capital punishment. With the erroneous notion that genes directly dictate everything from how well you write to how good a kisser you are, it's no wonder that people are anxious about having this kind of information revealed.
Fortunately, the sequence of the human genome will not give us anything resembling that information. Even if scientists eventually match every sequence to the chemical it produces, most of these productions are flipped on or off by other sequences, which are flipped on or off by still other sequences, which are flipped on or off by the first sequence!
And then, of course, are the environmental cues that turn all of those things on or off. Even if a protein is actually made, it can be rendered useless by another protein that happens to be controlled by an entirely separate set of switches!
Essentially, all of the chemicals churn about in a giant soup, simultaneously flipping each other on and off through countless interactions at a time. It's quite a claim to say that any scientist could figure out this ultra-jigsaw puzzle just by knowing what all the pieces look like!
The code that the human genome project will give us is comparable to what the Periodic Table of Elements gave to chemistry. In 1880 we suddenly found ourselves with all of the universe's chemical elements neatly arranged on a page in neat boxes and rows.
There was probably the notion that something revolutionary was in the air, that we could do anything. But 120 years later we still can't seem to make a cure for AIDS, and the best chemical fuel we know of still comes out of the ground.
The truth is that even in the rare case where science establishes a gene directly "for" a trait, such as schizophrenia, that gene probably only wields around 50% of the total influence. The rest is up to any number of things, from books you read to conversations you have, that could never fit on a data card in the files of a totalitarian government.
Another criticism of the Genome Project, also raised by yesterday's column, is the potential it creates for a new form of "genetic discrimination." Proponents of this argument claim that insurance companies will use the information on their beneficiaries against them, so that a person genetically predisposed to heart attacks might be denied coverage.
This has already happened in one case, in which a man was dropped by his insurer after a genetic test revealed that he carried a marker for hemochromotosis, a blood disorder.
Of course, this sort of discrimination would be nothing new. Today if an insurance company knows that your family has a history of heart disease, you will be discriminated against. Yet we have no qualms about tracking genealogical information, because it saves lives.
Whether genetic information exists in a family tree or as a sequence of letters, it's really just the same kind of information with the same costs and benefits. In both cases, while some are hurt through reduced privacy, most would agree that it's a worthwhile tradeoff to provide better health care.
Finally, the column yesterday read, "Imagine a society where parents are creating their children in labs." The columnist neglects the fact that we already live in a society where millions of parents pump their kids full of Prozac, where we irradiate our bodies to kill tumors, and put people with a history of heart disease on a special diet while dilating their arteries.
We routinely perform any number of physiochemical manipulations, from retinal implants to Flintstone vitamins. To write off the therapies that the Human Genome Project advocates as something new or unusually unnatural neglects the fact that we departed from living a natural existence sometime last millennium.
Exercise turns certain genes on and off. Therefore, I propose that nobody be allowed to exercise on the grounds that it is not natural, and the clear and present danger if we allow everyone to exercise we will eventually end up with a race of Arnold Schwarzeneggers that talk with funny accents.
Somehow it's acceptable to take a pill that causes your body to make chemicals, but immoral to make your body produce the same chemicals on its own. It should be no different in God's eyes than when we pull out a human gene, stick it in another organism and then swallow the product.
We already do this with a myriad of drugs, from insulin for diabetes to Factor 8 for hemophilia. Why would internalizing this process be such a fundamental shift that it would destroy the social fabric of our nation?
Arguments like the ones above distract attention from the issues that are immediately central to the policy, that need immediate remediation. For example, who owns the rights to the genetic fragments that will all be discovered in the next year or two? The genome has already been corporatized - Celera alone filed 6,500 patents last year.
As we are seeing in plant biotechnology, mixing patents with genetics can have negative scientific and economic impacts. Scientifically, corporate patents can restrict humane research involving the patented sequences.
Recently, the biotech firm Human Genome Sciences filed a patent for CCR5, a sequence that may be an important weapon in the war on AIDS. AIDS researchers are infuriated at the risk that research on CCR5 may be tied up in red tape, especially because HGS didn't do any of the AIDS research - they just heard it was important and sequenced it.
Nowadays it's a race to the patent office, with the winners usually just being the ones with the most money and thirst for profit, rather than those who hold scientific and public interest at the forefront of their intentions.
The goals of the Human Genome Project - identifying the basis of inherited disease, discovering treatments for problems from obesity and alcoholism to schizophrenia and other recognized mental disorders. All of these, along with prolonging life expectancy, are congruent with the goals of medicine as a whole.
What needs to be recognized is that this is not so much a new class of science as an extension of medical ambition that dates back to before the Hippocratic Oath. That we are suddenly becoming incredibly effective in our treatments is reason for caution, but should not lead us to abandon the entire endeavor. What require legislation are not our methods, but the aspirations to which our human instincts direct us.
The nearing conclusion of the Human Genome Project marks a milestone in a journey that we embarked upon several millennia ago. While its inevitability makes dissension almost futile, it may be useful to take this opportunity to think about the general direction represented by this advance. Is this where we want to be going? Are there alternatives?
It is now accepted that the meaning of the human genome will be incomprehensible without the contributions of traditional fields like biology and medicine. Likewise, biology and medicine will be comparatively ineffective without the critical piece of information that the genome represents.
Many people value the consequences of science for health, but balk at the social distortions it spawns. Unfortunately, the two are truly inextricable.
Nathan Wilson is a graduate student in the College of Engineering. The North Façade appears every Monday.
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