The Flaw is Human

 (The End of the Human Genome Reclamation Project)

by Jim Kling

(Appeared in the journal Nature, August 31, 2000)

 

Memo

To: Talbot Howard, Chair, North American Federation

From: Ronibus James, Senior Medical Advisor to the Chair of the North American Federation

Date: March 25, 2403

Dear Talbot,

You've asked me to give an official comment on requests for funding for research to re-introduce engineering of the human germline. I apologize for the delay in my response -- the cystic fibrosis flared up again this week and the pulmonary treatments have put me behind in my work.

I have misgivings, Talbot. Not long ago, I was digging through the United States historical archive and some of the surviving political documents from that era, and I came across this exchange. I found it instructive, and perhaps you will, too. It is a transcript from a Senate budgetary committee meeting, dated August 18, 2238. Present are Alan Gillman, a Senator from Colorado, and the Chief Geneticist of the Human Genome Reclamation Project, Timothy Hopkins:

Gillman: Sir, your budget proposal contains a request for $152 billion dollars for the coming fiscal year, nearly one percent of the federal budget. Surely you are aware that funding for agricultural and housing projects to cope with ongoing global warming leaves little room for superfluous expenditures. Why should we continue funding a program that seeks to resurrect genetic elements that we have spent eight generations expunging from the human gene pool?

Hopkins: Sir, ecologists have been collecting and storing genetic data from endangered and extinct animal and plant species for years -- surely you can see the value in a similar project dedicated to human beings? We can celebrate human diversity by establishing a database of human alleles -- even harmful ones. These polymorphisms are the products of millions of years of evolution, Senator, and should be categorized and preserved with the same respect we give plant and animal species.

Gillman: That is a quaint notion, Mr. Hopkins. But our forebears went to great expense and effort -- in the face of no small societal resistance, I might add -- to preserve us from genetic disease. Cancer, heart disease, cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, all have been effectively eliminated. And yet you seek one percent of the federal budget to flaunt humanity with its historical frailties, all for the sake of some genetic preserve.

Hopkins: No, sir. I assure you we have no intent of producing human clones with these traits, only to store the alleles in a database…

Gillman: Frankly, I find such a notion offensive. We have achieved the greatest possible measure of health and contentment for the greatest possible number of human beings. Who are you to challenge the great work of your forebears?

Hopkins: I don't challenge it, sir. We only wish to preserve the alleles that define what it is to be human.

Gillman: Surely by selecting dominant physical and intellectual traits, and removing abnormalities, we have produced the best of humanity.

Hopkins: I disagree. There is no perfection. We are either well adapted to our environment or we are not. We have indeed made ourselves an excellent match for the current environment, but the Earth is not a stagnant place. Things change.

Gillman: And what good could cancer genes do us, sir? Or genes that bring on heart disease, or cystic fibrosis? Should things change, we will simply give our children the genes necessary to meet new challenges.

As the exchange suggests, the Senate budgetary committee chose not to continue funding of the Human Genome Reclamation Project, and it was disbanded in 2239.

As you are well aware, Hopkins' words were prophetic. Fourteen years later, the climactic and ecological changes brought on by global warming unleashed an epidemic of Thai spotted fever that swept through the world's population, killing off nearly 98% in just three years. We have only recently recovered from the resulting breakdown in social order.

Most of the survivors of Thai fever were 'sports' -- the term often applied to lower class citizenry, whose ancestral poverty had denied them the benefit of genetic manipulation of their bloodline. We now know that they carried recessive alleles that contributed to various genetic disorders. These had long been removed from engineered children, but in those less fortunate they continued to produce cases of Tay-Sachs disease and cerebral sphingolipodisis, and cystic fibrosis. In heterozygous individuals, however, they also conferred resistance to Thai spotted fever.

Perhaps my opinion is already apparent. We should not seek to again engineer the human germline. Although cystic fibrosis and Tay-Sachs continue to be the leading causes of death in the North American Federation, we should fund only transient therapies. These conditions are our birthright -- we renounce them at our peril.

 

Faithfully yours,

Ronibus James

Private addendum: On a happier note, Elizabeth gave birth this past Wednesday. Mother and daughter are doing beautifully. Elizabeth is heterozygous for CF, and we of course anxiously await the results of the tests.