This week marks the 50th anniversary of the discovery of DNA. Tothesource sat down with Dr. Nigel Cameron to discuss with him the promises and the perils of biotechnology since Watson and Crick's breakthrough. Dr. Cameron is known internationally for his work on bioethics. He is senior fellow of The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, Director of the Council on Biotechnology Policy, and founding editor of Ethics & Medicine: An International Journal of Bioethics. He has given testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Hearing on Embryonic Stem Cell Research.

tothesource: The scientific community is currently celebrating the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the double helix by Watson and Crick. You have recently released a biotechnology manifesto. What was the purpose of putting that document together and getting people to sign it?

Dr. Nigel Cameron: The purpose of the manifesto was to bring together representative Christian leaders and to say one thing and to say it loud and long, and that is that the sanctity of life is not simply a term for abortion. The sanctity of life has implications for how we handle human life right across the whole field of medicine and bio-science and specifically the sanctity of life has profound implications for how the new technologies in bio-science are to be handled. The manifesto asserts that cloning must be banned comprehensively and that we need to ban germ-line interventions resulting in inheritable gene modifications. And then two rather different concerns that are integral to the sanctity of life agenda, one of which is a radical revision of our patent law that currently permits far too much ownership of human body parts, and secondly we need to revisit the question of genetic discrimination, which is basically another term for eugenics. The eugenics agenda is going to be the biggest threat to human liberty in the future.

tts: I read the manifesto rather carefully this morning and it seems to be somewhat inconsistent on this point, that you promote the notion of scientific research for the alleviation of suffering through that research but you discourage any modification to the inheritable germ-line. If science comes up with a cure for cancer, would you not support that cure to be imbedded in the genetic structure of the human race?

Cameron: There are a couple of different issues here. One is the fact that, until just a few years ago, almost everyone working in the trade, quite apart from those of us who are ethicists and policy makers, was so alarmed by the implications of germ line changes that they opposed them altogether. Essentially they were opposed to them because they saw that there was no way to stop with narrowly therapeutic interventions, for example dealing with Huntington Chorea and other inheritable diseases. They recognized the slippery slope from life threatening diseases to issues like baldness, or cholesterol preventatives. Once you medicalize these you get a eugenics agenda.

This concern in fact lead to the Wellington National Treaty on these issues. The European Convention on Human Rights and Bio-Medicine outlaws all germ-line changes, and it has been signed by many of the European countries. The Germans won’t sign it because they see it as too liberal and the Brits won’t sign it because they see it as too conservative. Most of the European states have signed the European Convention. There is a center ground position that we wanted to offer (in the Biotech Manifesto). The other comment to make is that as I understand the science of this, anything you could change that would be inheritable you can also change in the individual so there is no reason why you couldn’t make a genetic intervention in the individual in the embryonic stage or later to deal with a particular inherited disorder.

tts: Don’t you think that would be very hard to sell, though, given the utilitarian mindset of most Americans who would question sustaining an inheritable disease when we could eliminate it? And then you are exactly right. Once that starts it opens the door for everything coming into play. In Fukuyama’s book (Our Post Human Future) he says the real temptation for the eugenic experiment will come from families who want the best for their kids, not from a state imposed program like we saw in California in the thirties or in Hitler’s Germany ten years later.

Cameron: I think it is very difficult. There are two or three strains here. Certainly, there is the case of dealing with genetic disease. Plainly an inheritable disease like Huntington’s is a very difficult one and certainly there will be a difference of opinion among well intentioned people on that question.

I think we must beware of how the new eugenics is being sold to us. Some quite articulate purveyors speak in terms of public versus private eugenics which they see as what went wrong with eugenics in the past. The notion is “What’s wrong with eugenics if you privatize it?”. It reminds me of the county fairs of the thirties with the better white baby competitions. We have to make decisions ahead of time about what temptations we will allow ourselves to be exposed to. As a community we could make responsible decisions about not wanting to have some of those choices. Once those choices are on the shelves in Walgreens it will be too late because people will say, ‘Gee, if I pay a thousand bucks I get a better baby’, and that will be a no-brainer. Whereas those same people might well say now I don’t want to be in the position of commodifying my baby at Walgreens. So I think this is a hugely difficult task and certainly the reason we need to get this discussion going.

tts: Let’s say that America does resist the temptation to make this available. I often hear people in the business community say that such isolationism on America’s part will ultimately be ineffective.

Cameron: It is very easy to argue that someone will do this somewhere. We will lose the business. This position sees ethics as a luxury rather than a necessity. What is interesting is there is an emerging consensus in many other countries. I mean the U.S. is unique in many respects, one is the power of the conservative pro-life movement in this country. Yet ironically it is in the European countries that are more liberal, left of center, progressive, in their politics that you have seen the most initiative devoted to these questions. The one big hold out here is the People’s Republic of China. In Germany there are two big forces coming together. One is the German conscience, because the Germans have been there and done that. Consequently Germans of all political persuasions are very conservative on these issues. And the other is the influence of the Green movement in Europe, the environmentalists, whose prime concern has been things like genetically modified food, but who have also become concerned about genetically modified people. If the U.S. decides to act prudently and ethically in these matters we will begin to feel the consensus in the free world.

tts: Another take on this argument is that if the U.S. remains isolationist on this that we will lose the opportunity to project our moral influence on the course of this new technology. That by stepping aside we are giving up the chance to affect the outcome so it is not just a financial issue but a moral issue.

Cameron: That would assume that the major areas in the emerging bio-sciences are these unethical areas. It seems to me that is not the case. Bio-technology will flourish within ethical constraints and it will do very well if it sets these lines in place within which it is permitted to flourish. It is really no different than we’ve done with medicine always. I mean, we have the FDA along with other things. We’ve always taken the view that there have to be ethical practices and policy, and that is all we are talking about doing in biotech. The stakes are higher but the principles are the same. The converse logic seems to me to have no logic at all. If you take the view that we should be doing these bad things to set an examples around the world to stop even worse things from happening I think people will come back and say you are already doing bad things that you acknowledge to be bad things, who are you to teach us that these worse things shouldn’t be done. I think the most articulate alternative view is coming from the People’s Republic of China.

tts: What is it?

Cameron: That anything goes. They have a huge investment in biotech, recognizing that the West may be constrained from doing some of these things so they can take a leadership role. By and large, thankfully, we don’t take our social policy orders from Beijing.

tts: For those who want to take a deeper look at these issues, what would you recommend?

Cameron: The principal needs to be educational. Those of leadership in the church and other social organizations need to begin to inform themselves about these questions. There are websites they can use. I would recommend Biotechpolicy.org, the web site of the Counsel for Biotech Policy that I direct in Washington, and CBHD.org, the site for the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity in Deerfield, Illinois. And of course here in Oakland, the Center for Bioethics and Culture (CBC.org). These sites contain a lot of accessible material. It is available to people with only high school biology.

The biggest issues facing the culture today are the biotech issues. There is a tremendous opportunity and need to provide leadership on these important questions.

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