UK's HFEA Lowers the Bar, Again
Posted by Jesse Reynolds April 30, 2007
Biopolitical Times
The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority - Britain's regulatory body for reproductive and genetic technologies - has just given the green light for IVF embryos to be screened for the "breast cancer genes". Two couples, whose families have histories of breast cancer, will be permitted to use pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to screen out embryos carrying the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations before going forward with assisted reproduction.
This is part of the HFEA's recent lowering of the bar in expanding PGD's use. Initially, the HFEA approved PGD only in limited circumstances: (1) when genes are certain to lead to disease, not merely probable (2) when the disease is early onset and (3) when it is almost always fatal. Remarkably, the HFEA changed course last year, stating it would consider PGD for hereditary cancers on a case-by-case basis. The mutations that have now been approved for PGD are associated with a 60% of female children eventually developing breast cancer - much lower than the HFEA's original standards.
But besides this dropping bar, this also highlights two roles played by government in promoting what some call a "new eugenics."
Many defenders of using today's biotechnologies to improve the human gene pool accurately cite a key difference with 20th century eugenics: decisions now ultimately lie with individuals, not the state. Yet here with the HFEA's loosening its PGD rules, we are witnessing a widely-respected government agency approving the deselection of genes that have about a fifty-fifty chance of causing disease, which only the females could develop, not to mention the growing number of therapies to treat people with these conditions.
Moreover, the ability to detect breast cancer genes was developed with public funds at the University of Utah, a public university. While no coercive laws mandate the deselection of certain embryos, saying that government is not involved here in weeding out undesirable embryos is like saying the government had not role in the recent deaths from Vioxx. Government action is not merely limited to writing laws, but also funding certain types of research and regulating (or failing to) certain areas of commercial activity such as assisted reproduction.
This is part of the HFEA's recent lowering of the bar in expanding PGD's use. Initially, the HFEA approved PGD only in limited circumstances: (1) when genes are certain to lead to disease, not merely probable (2) when the disease is early onset and (3) when it is almost always fatal. Remarkably, the HFEA changed course last year, stating it would consider PGD for hereditary cancers on a case-by-case basis. The mutations that have now been approved for PGD are associated with a 60% of female children eventually developing breast cancer - much lower than the HFEA's original standards.
But besides this dropping bar, this also highlights two roles played by government in promoting what some call a "new eugenics."
Many defenders of using today's biotechnologies to improve the human gene pool accurately cite a key difference with 20th century eugenics: decisions now ultimately lie with individuals, not the state. Yet here with the HFEA's loosening its PGD rules, we are witnessing a widely-respected government agency approving the deselection of genes that have about a fifty-fifty chance of causing disease, which only the females could develop, not to mention the growing number of therapies to treat people with these conditions.
Moreover, the ability to detect breast cancer genes was developed with public funds at the University of Utah, a public university. While no coercive laws mandate the deselection of certain embryos, saying that government is not involved here in weeding out undesirable embryos is like saying the government had not role in the recent deaths from Vioxx. Government action is not merely limited to writing laws, but also funding certain types of research and regulating (or failing to) certain areas of commercial activity such as assisted reproduction.