The human genome project is a rough draft with an error rate of 30%, not a blueprint for making a human being. Most of the genes found in humans are shared by all other forms of plant and animal life, including your pet dog. Humility is called for.
Producer: Maria Gilardin Uploaded by: Maria Gilardin
Genetic Engineering of Human Beings Paul Billings is a physician and Director of the Council on Responsible Genetics. What really is the nature of the human genome project? It is a rough draft, with an error rate of 30%. The human genome is not a blueprint for making a human being. Its industrial model doesn't hold. The number of proteins produced by the human genome is several times larger than the number of genes - proteins are more influential than genes.
Our genes are not particularly different from those in mice and dogs. Human genes match some of those in flies. Most of the genes found in humans are shared by all other forms of plant and animal life. The genome is not a stable thing. It is dynamic and responsive to the environment.
As genetic engineering progresses, issues from the past return to the fore, among them eugenics, genetic discrimination, classification of people as uninsurable or unemployable. These violate the fundamental right to privacy, including genetic privacy.
Marcy Darnovsky has a Ph.D. from UC Santa Cruz and teaches at Sonoma State. She talks about a new twist in human genetic engineering, techno-eugenics, a technology involving human clones that makes "designer babies" possible. This technology would employ direct manipulation of parents' genes in order to "improve" their offspring.
These procedures are being refined in animal models; they are not science fiction. There is an aggressive campaign by scientist-entrepreneurs to promote and profit from such a post-human future.
The risks of cloning are huge. In the animals actually born (the total is less than 1%), many abnormalities occur either immediately or later. The claim made is: "We will work out those glitches." We do need global bans on human cloning and on human germ-line engineering, and effective regulations of other new genetic and reproductive technologies. These are the most immediately consequential decisions that humanity has ever faced.
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