Following is a selection of notable statements made by participants at the 1998 Symposium, Engineering the Human Germline. All of these statements were taken from the Symposium Report (http://www.ess.ucla.edu/huge) or from Chapter II, "A Panel Discussion" in Engineering the Human Germline: An Exploration of the Science and Ethics of Altering the Genes We Pass to Our Children by Gregory Stock and John Campbell, eds., (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

"And the other thing, because no one has the guts to say it: If we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we? What's wrong with it? Who is telling us not to do it? ...[I]f you could cure what I feel is a very serious disease—that is, stupidity—it would be a great thing for people who are otherwise going to be born seriously disadvantaged."

"If I had to project, I think fifty years from now we will be doing everything through the germline rather than in somatic tissues."

"What's good about cloning is that we're not doing it to everybody all at once; we're doing it incrementally. In the case of a childless couple, using a process that will give them a child means an enormous amount; it is very different from a couple with several children interested in a slight enhancement. Individuals are going to have to decide how much risk they'll take to try to get an optimal result. I think we need to be careful about flat prohibitions."

"As I pointed out...when we did the first somatic-cell gene therapy, if it was successful it would open the door for a vast number of protocols. We are now seven years later, and there are over 300 approved clinical protocols. The same thing will happen, I hope, if we do the first fetal gene therapy correctly, which I am now proposing. If we are successful, it will open the door, and if nobody else does it, I'll be the first one that does germline gene therapy."

"I think it would be a complete disaster to try and get an international agreement. I just can't imagine anything more stifling...I think our hope is to stay away from regulations and laws whenever possible."

"Because we lack a regulatory model in this country, the more we can develop incremental policy from the clinics on up, from the scientists on up—to be able to work on these questions of when it's ethical to begin, at what stage safety is assured, at what stage the effectiveness is appropriate—the more that can substitute for governmental interventions."

"If we look at the fertility reproductive technologies, this country is unique in that there are no federal regulations of IVF clinics...I don't see why you need extra regulations for germline engineering."

"Dr. Watson dismissed the slippery-slope argument, the argument some people make that, if we start to do these things, then gradually we will go down to who knows where. It has always seemed to me that either we're already on that slippery slope, and so we might as well forget about it, or that it doesn't exist."

"Geneticists can manipulate the germline of an animal in three different ways...Double addition—adding new genes to a newly added chromosome—is necessarily the least intrusive strategy. Already, geneticists have developed auxiliary human chromosomes that might serve as the basis for this type of manipulation. These Human Artificial Chromosomes can be injected into human cells and they will persist for many divisions, faithfully copied from each cell to its progeny...The chromosome would serve as a sort of universal delivery vehicle for modules of genes that disparate collaborators had fashioned to achieve various therapeutic purposes. Such modules would be integrated into the docking sites using enzymes...

"Initially, only a few genetic modules will have been shown to be safe and effective, but eventually hundreds might be incorporated, each offering its own particular extension of the genome. Technicians might inject the loaded chromosome into an egg using a micro-syringe, which could be done in a laboratory similar to an infertility clinic. Today, eggs are collected from a woman, fertilized in vitro, and implanted in the womb. Germline engineering would require an extra step before implantation in which the extra chromosome would be injected into the fertilized egg."

"What IVF does is to bring the embryo out of the darkness of the womb and into the light of the day. And in so doing, IVF provides access to the genetic material within. And it's through the ability to read, alter, and add gene[s] to the embryo, that the full force of IVF will be felt...We now have the power to seize control of our evolutionary destiny...Human evolution will be self-driven."

"If we find something that enables us to live to be two hundred, even if I'm an MD I'm not going to say no to it, even if it's abnormal. I mean, what can be abnormal can be fantastic."

"At every generation, a parent will presumably want to endow his or her child with the newest and the best modifications and improvements that are possible, instead of relying on the chromosome that was given to that person, or the parent, a whole generation ago. So, it'll be important not to have this problem of inheritance."