Genetic Research—Blessings And Moral Questions

Gene research is already blessing us all. At the same time some serious ethical and moral questions are surfacing. Doctors told me that one of the reasons I have heart disease may be because I inherited a certain genetic disposition for it from my parents. My father and grandfather both died from heart disease. That may explain, in part, why I had to have a heart bypass operation a few years ago. Medical conditions, such as heart disease and diabetes  do run in families. Amy Sturm, a clinical assistant professor and genetic counselor at Ohio State U. Medical Center says that learning about your relatives' health conditions may alert you to possible inherited diseases and/or risk factors you are facing. Check out the following link:

Climbing the Family Tree Could Save Your Life - Local News - - KBKW News: Medical conditions which run in families include heart disease, diabetes, asthma and some types of cancer.

. . . When combing through the family medical history, Sturm says, look for a high number of relatives with the same or a related disease. The closer the relative, she says, the higher risk you may face for contracting the same disease or condition. One of the biggest red flags, she says, is an early age of onset.

Medicine Net has a large number of articles that discuss the nature of genetic diseases. The articles ask

• What is a genetic disease? 
• What are the different types of inheritance? 
• What's the difference between single gene inheritance, i.e. cystic fibrosis, and multifactorial inheritance, i.e. heart disease?
• What are chromosome abnormalities?
• What is mitochondrial inheritance?

You may want to study them in detail for your own sake. 

The Human Genome Project, completed in April 2003, provides the first holistic view of our genetic heritage. The 46 human chromosomes (22 pairs of autosomal chromosomes and 2 sex chromosomes) between them house almost 3 billion base pairs of DNA that contains about 20,500 protein-coding genes. The coding regions make up less than 5% of the genome (the function of all the remaining DNA is not clear) and some chromosomes have a higher density of genes than others. Genes carry information for making all the proteins required by humans and by all other organisms. These proteins determine, among other things, how we humans look, how well our bodies metabolize food or fight infection, and sometimes even how we behave.

Most genetic diseases are the direct result of a mutation in one gene. However, one of the most difficult problems ahead is to further elucidate how genes contribute to diseases that have a complex pattern of inheritance, such as in the cases of diabetes, asthma, cancer, and mental illness. In all these cases, no one gene has the yes/no power to say whether a person will develop the disease or not. It is likely that more than one mutation is required before the disease is manifest, and a number of genes may each make a subtle contribution to a person's susceptibility to a disease; genes may also affect how a person reacts to environmental factors.

Many ethical and moral issues have arisen in this area. The following list is only illustrative:

• Screening to identify individuals who carry one copy of a gene for a disease that requires two copies for the disease to be expressed.
• Testing embryos used in in vitro fertilization so that only mutation-free embryos are implanted in the mother's uterus. Embryos with mutations are destroyed. 
• Prenatal diagnostic testing and the suggestion that mutated babies be aborted. 
• How can “good” and “bad” uses of gene therapy be distinguished?
• Who decides which traits are normal and which constitute a disability or disorder?
• Will the high costs of gene therapy make it available only to the wealthy?
• Could the widespread use of gene therapy make society less accepting of people who are different?
• Should people be allowed to use gene therapy to enhance basic human traits such as height, intelligence, or athletic ability?
• Germline gene therapy - targeting egg and sperm cells to allow the inserted gene to be passed on to future generations. 
• Stem cell research to provide raw materials for treating a wide range of human diseases, including diabetes, heart disease, some forms of cancer and Parkinson's disease.

In future posts I'll try my hand at discussing some of these issues in the light of God's Word. The Christian community is struggling with them. We need to be in serious dialog as we use these gifts of modern medical research. They can, as ever, be misused.