PLAYING GOD?

A survey, last year, by USA Today, indicated more than 80% of Americans believe cloning should be illegal. Recent polls also show the majority of Europeans oppose cloning. Some scientists believe the practice could lead to a society flooded with deformed children. These fears are based on the results of tests on animal which highlight the perils of the process.

graphic 'Seeing Double' by Nick McFarlane.

All of the data on animal cloning demonstrates exceptionally high rates of foetal loss, abortion (and) neonatal deaths, and many animals have devastating birth defects.
(Gerald Schatten, vice-chairman of reproductive medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine )

Sheep, pigs, cattle and mice have all been cloned but not without such problems as enlarged foetuses or lung, kidney, cardiovascular, brain and immune system abnormalities. While human cloning may eventually prove possible, the results could be even more devastating as deformities are often undetectable until after birth. Dr Patrick Dickson, author of The Genetic Revolution is opposed to cloning on ethical grounds.

It is open to gross abuse. It undermines the "uniqueness bf the individual and raises profound religious and ethical questions.

Proponents of human cloning claim the benefits for mankind are manifold and will bring an end to emotional and physical suffering. Infertile couples stand to be major beneficiaries, says Simon Smith of the Human Cloning Foundation.

Current infertility treatments are less than 10% successful. Human cloning could make it possible for many more infertile couples to have children than ever before possible.

Smith says that infertile couples could also clone their first child, giving them a younger, identical twin - which could help parents recover from a child taken early through illness or accident.

Dr Richard Seed, one of the leading advocates of the new technology, proposes that cloning may eventually allow us to reverse the ageing process. But a more likely prospect, according to Smith, is engineering people without the genes which cause cancer, once the genetic link is determined.

The above information is adapted from an ar1icle by Gereurd Rober1s in SX Magazine, Jan 2003

PLAYING GOD?
The Cloning & Genetic Engineering Debate

Dr Anthony Pisano

Dr Anthony Pisano is a former member of Blavatsky Lodge, Sydney. He has a PhD in carbohydrate and protein chemistry and recently left an employed position in the field of genetic engineering at a prestigious medical research institute for ethical reasons. He now lives near London where he is a schoolteacher.

Over the past twenty years genetic engineering, through its vehicle biotechnology, has captured the imagination of virtually all the major industrialised countries of the world where it has since become institutionalised without referendums or serious public discussion. This introduction took place without due consideration of religious doctrines, cultural or ethical standings and as a result we are now witnessing fundamental changes arising in how we view and treat life itself. This has had a major impact on all the major bio-industries and even our social fabric, the way we view ourselves and other human beings, as we are forced to align ourselves with life in a biotech world.

As human beings our moral philosophy (that is, our ethics) is fundamental to our well being and evolution -both physically and spiritually. This is true at the level of the individual and it applies equally at the group level of family, nation and to humanity as a whole. Yet in the rush to biotech colonise our world many competing governments, their institutions and multinational corporations have given no serious consideration to important ethical questions which affect us all and which, at a deeper level define our humanity,

Questions arise such as, do we have a right to:
I. Own another sentient being's life or its genetic information - and is this ruthless exploitation in another guise?
2. treat animals and plants as mere commodities - to be abused and then discarded without regard for the life experience of the animal or plant?
3. repair our own bodies with high-tech vampirism - do we have the right to kill our unborn children and animals so that a dying person may keep their frail physical body alive for a few more months or years?
4. direct our own evolution through eugenics ('improve' our race) -and discriminate against people based on the content of their genome, Let us take a moment to examine how each of these four ethical pillars has been shaped by the ubiquitous application of genetic engineering,

Life as Intellectual Property

It has been said that' A fool becomes full of evil if he gathers it little by little like a water-pot collecting single drops of water' (paraphrased from the Dhammapada). It can be said that in a similar 'drop by drop' fashion our current ethical dilemma, life as intellectual property, has arisen. The first fall came when our industrialised nations lost all reverence and respect for nature and started describing nature (including all sentient beings, later even ourselves) as 'resources'.

Plants became 'crops', animals generally became 'stocks', bovine in particular became known as 'beef', et cetera. Their life experiences were no longer seen as relevant, they were seen as unconscious pre-programmed machines, their only importance was what we could harvest from them and this conceptual change was reflected in our language. So at first animals and plants became the property of farmers, then in a world increasingly ruled by large rich multinationals the ownership was transferred to corporations through the agent of genetic engineering and genome sequencing.

These days simply recording 'novel' hereditary information on a plant, animal or human is all that is required to file an intellectual property patent. Here are a few high profile examples of 'biopiracy' where industrialised nations and their affiliates have used life-patents to undermine the heritage and/or livelihood of poor nations and indigenous people:
a) Basmati rice from India where over 10,000 different strains have been cultivated over many millennia. All strains were patented in 1998 by RiceTec Inc, an American Company. (1)
b) Quinoa (high protein cereal) cultivated by indigenous people of the Andes over hundreds of years (more than 100 different strains) was recently patented by two scientists from Colorado State University (USA). After public pressure and costly legal proceedings this patent was dropped. However Nestle still holds another controversial quinoa patent.
c) In the mid-1990s turmeric (an Indian herbal plant) and the Australian smokebush (a shrub ), both part of the heritage of the indigenous people of these nations for many millennia, were patented by Mississippi University (USA) and US National Cancer Institute, respectively. Australia had the resources to challenge the smokebush patent and reached a compromise. India did not.
d) Even groups of people with genetic characteristics considered desirable have been patented.
Patents on life are highly unethical, they undermine the mutual 'life-bond' many indigenous people have with their environment, giving no recognition to their heritage, stopping them and their nations from selling any excess seeds or processed products which infringe those patents. It really is a very ruthless form of exploitation targeting those least able to defend themselves. Patents can also be regarded as the 'life blood' of biotechnology and a major motivational factor for the decrease in biodiversity as corporations use their influence to replace thousands of locally produced varieties with their own single (usually less suited and/or nutritious) version, which currently occurs in the Philippines with a Chinese hybrid rice.

Sowing the Seeds of Pain -Transgenic Organisms

There is a famous Buddhist story which graphically illustrates universal love and compassion for all sentient beings. In this story Gautama describes to Ananda one of his earlier incarnations as a young Indian Prince in which, while on an outing in the forest with his brothers, he came across a starving mother lioness with her malnourished cubs. He was so overwhelmed with compassion and empathy for her suffering (and that of her cubs) that he placed himself before her and offered the lioness his life. When he realised that she was too weak to take his life he slit his own throat. The lioness weakly licked at his spilt blood until she had enough strength to feed herself and produce milk for her cubs.

There is no room for such 'sentimentalities' in the world of biotechnology where the 'interconnectiveness' of sentient beings is interfered with to create genetically modified organisms (GMOs) also known as transgenic organisms - reducing them to the status of disposable commodities.

The true scope of humanity's indifference to animal welfare is vividly illustrated by biological research laboratories around the world where animals, particularly mice, are genetically bred to be sick from birth. In this world of transgene research death comes as a blessing for many millions of laboratory animals ( each year) as biological scientists seek to understand the physical mechanisms of life and at any cost. While this type of research is hidden from public view other transgenic animal experiments are getting media attention such as 'Polly' and 'Tracy', female transgenic sheep, that secrete a blood clotting agent (factor IX) and -antitrypsin, respectively, into their milks (both by the Roslin Institute, England).

What is less well known is that most of these transgenic animals die before or at birth and the few that survive are regularly treated with hormones to make them produce milk from an early age and forced to maintain high production levels throughout their lives. These animals are under constant metabolic stress and usually become arthritic, are immuno-compromised to disease including autoimmune diseases such as cancers, and often develop cardiovascular abnormalities.

Such is the case with Monsanto's bovine RNA somatotrophin (2) where cows are injected with a substance which forces them to make more milk and keep producing it until they die. This occurs in many parts of the USA, South America, Mexico and South Africa. The practice has recently stopped in Europe. At the moment apart from Monsanto's somatotrophin cows, and transgenic fish (in fish farms, such as Atlantic salmon, carp, catfish et cetera) there is no official commercial scale release of transgenic animals.
Humanity prides itself on its technological wizardry and boldly equates technological advance with becoming more civilised. Perhaps our civilisation should not be judged by the strength of our technology but rather by the way we treat our fellow animals. To become civilised means to become morally awake and morally responsible, to recognise the underlying unity in all nature and to take our place in nature, harmoniously, to the benefit of all sentient beings.

The Black Bio-Magician

In the Dhammapada it is said 'There is no evil the man will not do who violates the good law, who scoffs at the existence of another world. ' These ancient noble words acquire a prophetic meaning with full comprehension of what genetic engineering is about to offer the medical industry to 'sustain life' -for commercial gain. In this group of technologies we have cloning, stem cell research and xeno- transplantation.
Cloning and stem cell research are, strictly speaking, not a form of genetic engineering, though both these technologies are absolutely vital to genetic engineering. In the case of cloning (developing a genetic replicant from one parent), this technology is required to 'quality assure' transgenic animals or cells since transgenes are unstable and are not readily transferred to successive generations. This technology, nonetheless, has improved considerably since 'Dolly' (a sheep, the first cloned mammal, Roslin Institute, England) and is already used extensively by large agribusinesses in the propagation of farm animals and in aquaculture, in the USA, Europe, New Zealand and Australia. The 'newer' versions of this technology involve killing embryos as does stem cell research. Stem cells are generally used to revitalise body tissue. For example, they can repair areas of neurological trauma and slow down degenerative neurological diseases.

However, their major use in the future will be to 'grow' human body parts - but we don't have the technology to do that just yet. So, in the meantime we have organ transplantation, where we recycle our own kind. However, the demand for organs is so great that industrialised countries are 'humanising' pigs, through genetic engineering and mass producing them via cloning to serve as 'organ donors' for sick and fragile people unwilling to shed their worn-out bodies.

In theosophical literature a black magician, when faced with death, is said to sustain the body, physical or astral, for as long as possible by taking other lives (3). Evil and total disregard for life eventually dooms this individual to annihilation. Is humanity, in its denial of spirit, following a similar path? All these technologies are nourished by our fear of death, our inability to touch our inner self and recognise the eternal nature of life. Our science and what it does is a reflection on us all. Our challenge, then, is to unify material (objective ) science with spiritual (subjective) science so that a new holistic science may emerge in a new world in which the black bio- magician will have no place!

A Phoenix Aryan Race

Those of us who do not learn the lessons from our history are doomed to repeat it. This certainly appears to be the case for industrialised nations of the world in regard to eugenics. After the lessons of World War II and the disgraceful practices of forced sterilisation of 'feeble minded' individuals legislated in many states of the USA and a few European countries (1930s -1970s) one would have thought such erroneous thinking was confined to the scrap heap of history. Not so, the practice of eugenics has been revived by new technology such as genetic screening. In 1995, China introduced compulsory genetic screening for couples planning to marry. Those with predispositions to genetic illness are already discouraged from marrying, forced onto long term contraception planning or sterilised.

In Western countries, individuals with a history of genetic illness in their families are actively encouraged to seek genetic counselling (which usually involves genetic screening). If a pregnancy should occur the couple is usually pressured to have the unborn child genetically screened too, and if the child carries a hereditary illness which is perceived as 'costly and deemed by society to result in poor quality of life', abortions are recommended. So effectively, in Western countries, the burden of eugenics has shifted from the 'state' to couples by the removal of support services for 'disabled' individuals.

Additional pressure on couples to terminate genetically 'disabled' pregnancies comes from community stigmatisation attached to couples who defy convention and have a child with screenable genetic illnesses, such as muscular dystrophy, haemophilia, cerebellar ataxis, cystic fibrosis, etc.

Discrimination is not limited to unborn children. In the USA, Britain and many other European countries genetic screening is compulsory for life insurance" polices4 Iff the USA large corporations use genetic tests to screen potential employees. This moral crisis is getting worse as genetic determinists influence social- economic policies by eroding welfare and community support for the disadvantaged, blaming all of the failures of our society such as poverty, illiteracy, drug abuse, mental illness, et cetera, on the affected individual's genes (5). There is no scientific evidence whatsoever for this view!

In this new millennium humanity is faced with many challenges, arising out of our own past short-sightedness, material greed and indifference. Genetic engineering challenges us further as it is poised to infiltrate every aspect of our lives -potentially leaving us morally bankrupt in its wake. Yet, there is an undeniable emergence of a new consciousness within humanity evident. with the rise of worldwide public dissent, movements against globalisation and exploitation and a corresponding shift towards ecological and spiritual awareness. In science, new paradigms of thinking are arising such as Morphic Resonance, Gaia and Complexity theories that clearly show that there is much more to our universe than 'soulless' matter. The universe is very much alive and on our world all life is precious and interdependent. It is up to humanity to recognise this inherent unity, the spirit in nature, and take up this unique opportunity to become truly civilised, fully human -not just physically, but emotionally, mentally and intuitively.

FOOTNOTES:
1. www.american.edu/TED/basmati. htm#rl
2. Bremner, Moyra, GE: Genetic Engineering and You, Harper Collins, London, 1999, pp.153-171
3. Leadbeater, C. W., The Astral Plane, TPH, Adyar, 1987, pp.34-44.
4. Gesche, Aastrid, 'Genetic Testing: A Threat to Privacy' , pp. 105-110 in Altered Genes II, the Future? , R. Hindmarsh and G. Lawrence, Scribe, Melbourne,2001.
5. Mae- Wan Ho, Genetic Engineering: Dream or Nightmare? , Gateway, Dublin, 1999, pp.42-44 and 221-242.

The Theosophical Society 2003
reproduced from 'Insight' Nov/Dec 2003, The Journal of The Theosophical Society in England