The Future
Page 64
Al Gore, “Planning a New Biotechnology Policy,” Harvard Journal of Law and Technology 5 (1991): 19–30.
128 who were confident that such an event was absurdly implausible
Ibid.
129 diversion of trillions of dollars into weaponry
Wil S. Hylton, “How Ready Are We for Bioterrorism?,” New York Times Magazine, October 26, 2011.
130 threatened the survival of human civilization?
George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2007.
131 are now often described as probably overblown
Wil S. Hylton, “Craig Venter’s Bugs Might Save the World,” New York Times Magazine, June 3, 2012.
132 “I don’t think anyone knows”
Ibid.
133 is the possibility of a new generation of biological weapons
Alexander Kelle, “Synthetic Biology and Biosecurity,” EMBO Reports 10 (2009): S23–S27.
134 Soviet Union in a secret biological weapons program
Ibid.
135 “to attack genetically specific sub-populations”
Ibid.
136 publishing the full genetic sequence that accompanied their papers
Ibid.
137 involved in monitoring genetic research that could lead to new bioweapons
National Institutes of Health, Office of Science Policy, “About NSABB,” 2012, http://oba.od.nih.gov/biosecurity/about_nsabb.html.
138 research teams working on projects considered militarily sensitive
Sample, “Nature Publishes Details of Bird Flu Strain That Could Spread Among People.”
139 federally funded research into the cloning of human beings
Center for Genetics and Society, “Failure to Pass Federal Cloning Legislation, 1997–2003,” http://www.geneticsandsociety.org/article.php?id=305.
140 legal implications of human cloning
Mary Meehan, “Looking More Like America?,” Our Sunday Visitor, November 3, 1996, http://www.ewtn.com/library/ISSUES/LOOKLIKE.TXT.
141 government-financed research program into ethics
Edward J. Larson, “Half a Tithe for Ethics,” National Forum 73, no. 2 (Spring 1993): 15–18.
142 “possible copying mechanism for the genetic material”
J. D. Watson and F.H.C. Crick, “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids,” Nature, April 25, 1953.
143 science of cloning, genetic engineering, and genetic screening
See, for example: Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight and the Subcommittee on Science, Research, and Technology, Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, “Commercialization of Academic Biomedical Research,” June 8–9, 1981; Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, “Genetic Screening and the Handling of High-Risk Groups in the Workplace,” October 14–15, 1981.
144 and fifteen years later they succeeded with Dolly
U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Human Genome Project, “Cloning Fact Sheet,” May 11, 2009, http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/cloning.shtml#animalsQ.
145 they have cloned many other livestock and other animals
Ibid.
146 ethical concerns that had prevented them from attempting such procedures
Dan W. Brock, “Cloning Human Beings: An Assessment of the Ethical Issues Pro and Con,” in Cloning Human Beings, vol. 2, Commissioned Papers (Rockville, MD: National Bioethics Advisory Commission, 1997), http://bioethics.georgetown.edu/nbac/pubs/cloning2/cc5.pdf.
147 human cloning has been made illegal in almost every country in Europe
Ibid.; “19 European Nations OK Ban on Human Cloning,” National Catholic Register, April 18, 1999.
148 “protection of the security of human genetic material”
Brock, “Cloning Human Beings.”
149 clear form of harm to the individual who is cloned or to society
Brian Alexander, “(You)2,” Wired, February 2001; “Dolly’s Legacy,” Nature, February 22, 2007; Steve Connor, “Human Cloning Is Now ‘Inevitable,’ ” Independent, August 30, 2000; John Tierney, “Are Scientists Playing God? It Depends on Your Religion,” New York Times, November 20, 2007.
150 a line of identical embryonic stem cells that reproduced themselves
David Cyranoski, “Cloned Human Embryo Makes Working Stem Cells,” Nature, October 5, 2011.
151 Several countries
Tierney, “Are Scientists Playing God?”
152 has broken this modern taboo against human cloning
Steve Connor, “ ‘I Can Clone a Human Being’—Fertility Doctor,” New Zealand Herald, April 22, 2009; Tierney, “Are Scientists Playing God?”
153 There has yet been no confirmed birth of a human clone
National Human Genome Research Institute, Cloning Fact Sheet.
154 other forms of technological progress
Brock, “Cloning Human Beings.”
155 that it is inevitable in any case
Roman Altshuler, “Human Cloning Revisited: Ethical Debate in the Technological Worldview,” Biomedical Law & Ethics 3, no. 2 (2009): 177–95.
156 most experiments because of the medical benefits that can be gained
Brock, “Cloning Human Beings.”
157 individuals and run the risk of “commoditizing” human beings
Ibid.; Altshuler, “Human Cloning Revisited.”
158 views of the rights and protections due to every person
Leon Kass and James Q. Wilson, Ethics of Human Cloning (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1998).
159 more generalized humanist assertion of individual dignity
Brock, “Cloning Human Beings”; Altshuler, “Human Cloning Revisited.”
160 In yet another illustration
“Meat on Drugs,” Consumer Reports, June 2012.
161 a truly shocking 80 percent of all U.S. antibiotics
Gardiner Harris, “U.S. Tightens Rules on Antibiotics Use for Livestock,” New York Times, April 11, 2012.
162 new rule that will require a prescription from veterinarians
“Meat on Drugs,” Consumer Reports.
163 Since the discovery of penicillin in 1929 by Alexander Fleming
“A Brief History of Antibiotics,” BBC News, October 8, 1999, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/background_briefings/antibiotics/163997.stm.
164 Although Fleming said his discovery was “accidental”
Douglas Allchin, SHiPS Resource Center, “Penicillin and Chance,” http://www1.umn.edu/ships/updates/fleming.htm.
165 who first discovered that CO2 traps heat
Spencer Weart, “The Discovery of Global Warming: The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect,” February 2011, http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm.
166 was not used in a significant way until the early 1940s
“A Brief History of Antibiotics,” BBC News.
167 many other potent antibiotics were discovered in the 1950s and 1960s
Ibid.
168 discoveries have slowed to a trickle
Ibid.
169 life-saving antibiotics is rapidly eroding their effectiveness
“The Spread of Superbugs,” Economist, March 31, 2011.
170 ways that circumvent the effectiveness of the antibiotic
Brandon Keim, “Antibiotics Breed Superbugs Faster Than Expected,” Wired, February 11, 2010.
171 only when they are clearly needed
Alexander Fleming, “Penicillin,” Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1945, http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1945/fleming-lecture.pdf; E. J. Mundell, “Antibiotic Combinations Could Fight Resistant Germs,” ABC New
s, March 23, 2007, http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthday/story?id=4506442&page=1#.UDVmwo40jdk.
172 they stumble upon new traits that make the antibiotics impotent
Keim, “Antibiotics Breed Superbugs Faster Than Expected.”
173 Some antibiotics have already become ineffective against certain diseases
Katie Moisse, “Antibiotic Resistance: The 5 Riskiest Superbugs,” ABC News, March 27, 2012, http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/antibiotic-resistance-riskiest-superbugs/story?id=15980356#.UC7l0UR9nMo.
174 rate that is frightening to many health experts
Moisse, “Antibiotic Resistance: The 5 Riskiest Superbugs.”
175 multidrug-resistant tuberculosis
Ibid.
176 the FDA formed a new task force
Stephanie Yao, “New FDA Task Force Will Support Innovation in Antibacterial Drug Development,” Food and Drug Administration press release, September 24, 2012.
177 in spite of these basic medical facts, many governments
Worldwatch Institute, “Global Meat Production and Consumption Continue to Rise,” 2011, http://www.worldwatch.org/global-meat-production-and-consumption-continue-rise-1; Philip K. Thornton, “Livestock Production: Recent Trends, Future Prospects,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, September 27, 2010.
178 including, shockingly, the United States government
“Meat on Drugs,” Consumer Reports.
179 but the impact on profits is very clear and sizable
Matthew Perrone, “Does Giving Antibiotics to Animals Hurt Humans?,” Associated Press, April 20, 2012.
180 superbugs that are immune to the impact of antibiotics
Ibid.
181 the antibiotics are given in subtherapeutic doses
“Our Big Pig Problem,” Scientific American, February 8, 2012.
182 not principally used for the health of the livestock anyway Harris, “U.S. Tightens Rules on Antibiotics Use for Livestock.”
183 dispute the science while handing out campaign contributions
Ibid.; 2012 PAC Summary Data, Open Secrets, http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00028787&cycle=2012, accessed August 22, 2012; National Cattlemen’s Beef Association lobbying expenses, Open Secrets, http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Cattlemen’s_Beef_Association#cite_note-1, August 22, 2012.
184 Last year, scientists confirmed that
Richard Knox, “How Using Antibiotics in Animal Feed Creates Superbugs,” NPR, February 21, 2012, http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/02/21/147190101/how-using-antibiotics-in-animal-feed-creates-superbugs.
185 have thus far been successful in preventing a ban
Harris, “U.S. Tightens Rules on Antibiotics Use for Livestock.”
186 until recently, a regulation limiting this insane practice
Ibid.
187 European Union has already banned antibiotics in livestock feed
Knox, “How Using Antibiotics in Animal Feed Creates Superbugs.”
188 but in a number of other countries
Ibid.; “Meat on Drugs,” Consumer Reports; Worldwatch Institute, “Global Meat Production and Consumption Continue to Rise”; Thornton, “Livestock Production.”
189 only one of many bacteria that are now becoming resistant
Knox, “How Using Antibiotics in Animal Feed Creates Superbugs.”
190 mad cow disease
“Bill Seeks Permanent Ban on Downer Slaughter at Meat Plants,” Food Safety News, January 13, 2012.
191 infected by the pathogen (a misfolded protein, or prion) that causes the disease
World Health Organization, “Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy,” November 2002, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs113/en/.
192 Animals with later stages of the disease
I. Ramasamy, M. Law, S. Collins, and F. Brook, “Organ Distribution of Prion Proteins in Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease,” Lancet Infectious Diseases 3, no. 4 (April 2003): 214–22.
193 fifty times more likely to have the disease
“Bill Seeks Permanent Ban on Downer Slaughter at Meat Plants,” Food Safety News.
194 should be diverted from the food supply
Ibid.
195 manifested those symptoms just before they were slaughtered
Ibid.
196 in order to protect a tiny portion of the industry’s profits
Emad Mekay, “Beef Lobby Blocks Action on Mad Cow, Activists Say,” Inter Press Service, January 8, 2004, http://www.monitor.net/monitor/0401a/copyright/madcow4.html; Charles Abbott, “Analysis: U.S. Mad Cow Find: Lucky Break or Triumph of Science?,” Reuters, April 25, 2012.
197 a regulation that embodies the intent of the law rejected
“Obama Bans ‘Downer’ Cows from Food Supply,” Associated Press, March 14, 2009.
198 could be reversed by Obama’s successor
Ibid.
199 In 1922, a “model eugenical sterilization law”
Paul A. Lombardo, Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), p. 91.
200 were sterilized under laws similar to Laughlin’s design
Alex Wellerstein, “Harry Laughlin’s ‘Model Eugenical Sterilization Law,’ ” http://alexwellerstein.com/laughlin/.
201 were burdensome to the state because of the expense
Paul Lombardo, “Eugenic Sterilization Laws,” Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement, http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay8text.html.
202 people who were reproducing at rates not possible in the past
Jonathan D. Moreno, The Body Politic: The Battle Over Science in America (New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2011), p. 67.
203 he obviously believed they were heritable
Ibid., p. 67.
204 Laughlin was himself an epileptic
Wellerstein, “Harry Laughlin’s ‘Model Eugenical Sterilization Law.’ ”
205 Europe was influential in forming the highly restrictive quota system
Ibid.
206 influenced by deep confusion over what evolution really means
Moreno, The Body Politic, pp. 64–67.
207 Sir Francis Galton, and was then popularized by Herbert Spencer
Ibid., p. 65.
208 based on the crackpot ideas of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Ibid.
209 after their birth were genetically passed on to their offspring
Ibid.
210 was also promoted in the Soviet Union by Trofim Lysenko
“Trofim Denisovich Lysenko,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/353099/Trofim-Denisovich-Lysenko.
211 mainstream genetics during the three decades
Ibid.
212 Geneticists who disagreed with Lysenko were secretly arrested
Ibid.; Moreno, The Body Politic, p. 69.
213 some were found dead in unexplained circumstances
“Trofim Denisovich Lysenko,” Encyclopaedia Britannica; Moreno, The Body Politic, p. 69.
214 that biological theory conform with Soviet agricultural needs
“Trofim Denisovich Lysenko,” Encyclopaedia Britannica.
215 rather those that were best adapted to their environments
Michael Shermer, “Darwin Misunderstood,” February 2009, http://www.michaelshermer.com/2009/02/darwin-misunderstood/.
216 “undesirables,” and had enabled them to proliferate
Moreno, The Body Politic, pp. 67–68.
217 led to the proliferation of “undesirables” in the first place
Ibid., pp. 69–70.
21
8 quite a few reactionary advocates of eugenics
Ibid.
219 described as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center
Ibid., p. 70; Southern Poverty Law Center, Intelligence Files, “Pioneer Fund,” http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/groups/pioneer-fund.
220 founding president was none other than Harry Laughlin
Wellerstein, “Harry Laughlin’s ‘Model Eugenical Sterilization Law.’ ”
221 Eugenics also found support, historians say
Moreno, The Body Politic, pp. 67–70.
222 what was appropriate by way of state intervention in heredity
Ibid.
223 theories that were even vaguely similar to that of Nazism
Ibid., pp. 67–69.
224 debate over current proposals that some have labeled “neo-eugenics”
Leroi, “The Future of Neo-Eugenics.”
225 half of all Americans still say they do not believe in evolution
Gallup, “In U.S., 46% Hold Creationist View of Human Origins,” June 1, 2012, http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/Hold-Creationist-View-Human-Origins.aspx.
226 one of the more than two dozen state eugenics laws
Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200, May 2, 1927.
227 the young woman, Carrie Buck, had already had a child
University of Virginia—Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, “Carrie Buck, Virginia’s Test Case,” 2004, http://www.hsl.virginia.edu/historical/eugenics/3-buckvbell.cfm.
228 “Three generations of imbeciles are enough”
Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200, May 2, 1927.
229 which has never been overturned
Dan Vergano, “Re-Examining Supreme Court Support for Sterilization,” USA Today, November 19, 2008.
230 had been forcibly sterilized
Stephen Jay Gould, “Carrie Buck’s Daughter,” Natural History, July 1985.
231 Buck was lucid and of normal intelligence
Ibid.
232 who had been raped by a nephew of one of her foster parents
“Carrie Buck, Virginia’s Test Case.”
233 to avoid what they feared would otherwise be a scandal
Vergano, “Re-Examining Supreme Court Support for Sterilization.”
234 had syphilis and was unmarried when she gave birth to Carrie
“Carrie Buck, Virginia’s Test Case.”