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1st
EMBL/EMBO Joint Conference 2000 |
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Session
III |
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The genomic turn Is the genome the new name of the soul? |
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Alexandre Mauron, Professor, Bioethics, University of Geneva Medical School, Switzerland
Human Genome Project highlights the emergence of the genomes of
a wide variety of organisms as distinct objects of scientific study
and of genomics as a new subfield of genetics. I refer to this as
the "genomic turn", by analogy to other "turns" in modern thought,
such as the "linguistic turn" of analytical philosophy. My hypothesis
is that the genome is important in shaping the publics perception
of genetics and of the role played by genes in defining human nature.
In the last few years, the genome has come to the forefront as an
explicit object of investigation and representation. This reinforces
a kind of popular "genomic metaphysics", namely a belief that the
human genome constitutes the ontological core of humanhood, both in
its individual and species dimensions. In other words, it becomes
a forgone conclusion that the genome somehow contains the essence
of what it is to be human and that a particular human genome defines
a particular human individual. Thus the genome becomes the functional
equivalent of the soul [the concept of the soul referred to here is
that used in classical philosophy rather than in religious discourse].
No matter how simplistic, this "genomic metaphysics" lies at the
root of many current controversies on genetics, often obscuring
their more pragmatic and genuinely ethical dimensions. Because genes
are popularly associated with stable, unchanging characteristics
of an individual, they tend to be seen as closer to ones "true"
nature. In this way, genetics becomes highly relevant to emotionally
and ideologically charged issues about human differences and human
responsibility. For instance, the controversies about behavioural
genetics are fuelled by the belief that if some behavioural tendency
is "in the genes" [for what such a statement might be worth], there
is nothing that can be done about it, except genetic intervention.
On the other hand, if it is "in the environment", it becomes amenable
to social intervention. This leads directly to the kind of silly
debates about genetic reductionism, where the Right votes for the
genes and the Left votes for the environment. These debates are
energised by genomic metaphysics because, against the background
of this belief structure, it is hoped [or feared] that genetics
has something essential and definitive to say about human nature.
What is at fault here is not so much an over- or under-emphasis
on genes as a false hope that general statements about human nature
can truly illuminate the ethical choices raised by new life-shaping
technologies.
Biography
Alex Mauron is Associate Professor of Bioethics at the University
of Geneva Medical School, where he teaches ethics to medical students.
He holds a PhD [Lausanne, 1978] in molecular biology, with research
experience in molecular genetics and neurobiology.
Current scholarly interests [since moving to the field of bioethics
in 1988] include ethical issues in human genetics [gene therapy,
diagnostics, social implications of genetic data], standing of the
human embryo, biological concepts in ethics, teaching bioethics,
and clinical ethics [futility, end-of-life issues].
He is a member of the Central Ethics Commission of the Swiss Academy
of Medical Sciences, the Federal Ethics Commission on genetic engineering
and several other ethics committees. He has published widely on
the ethical issues of genetics and reproduction, as well as on clinical
ethics and participated in the formulation of ethical guidelines
and/or other policy documents on several bioethical issues. In addition,
he is a regular columnist on bioethics in the French-language Swiss
daily Le Temps
Genetics offers the promise of contributing to better medical treatments
by improving drug efficacy and safety. The individual response to
a drug is affected by genetic variation altering the mechanisms
of drug absorption, distribution and metabolism, as well as the
functioning of the target receptors or enzymes. Genetic approaches
will also improve disease classification by defining the underlying
cause of disease. In the short term it may be possible to identify
subgroups of patients who will benefit from a drug as well as those
most likely to suffer an adverse reaction. In the long term, genetics
may be used to identify new targets for therapeutic intervention.
To gain these benefits, it will be necessary to collect medical
data on large cohorts of individuals and to seek correlations with
genetic variation within the same cohort. The data set generated
at the population level could have implications at the level of
the individual for life insurance, medical insurance, criminal tracking
[e.g. rape cases] and employment practises. As a society, we need
to judge the risk benefit ratio of applying these new approaches.
The issues are not new but the scale of the opportunity and the
potential risks are now much greater. |
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