THE NEW HUMAN BIOTECHNOLOGIES A Threshold Challenge for Humanity

1

• pasting multpile presentations into one show

• THE NEW HUMAN BIOTECHNOLOGIESA Threshold
  Challenge for Humanity

C E N T E R F O R G E N E T I C S A N D S O C
I E T Y
2
(No Transcript)
3
(No Transcript)
4
Start Making Sense
Science Technology
Culture Ideology
Commercialization Marketing
Politics Governance
5
CONVERGING TECHNOLOGIES
GMO PLANTS/ANIMALS
GMO HUMANS / Eugenics
COGNO
NANO
SYNBIO
INFO
6
CONVERGING IDEOLOGIES
Market Fundamentalism Libertarianism
Social Darwinism Scientism
Poor
Middle
Affluent
6
7
7
8

NEW HUMAN BIOTECHNOLOGIES
Cloning Gene Therapy
Stem Cells SEX-SELECTION
Designer Babies Eugenics
Post-Humans
Synthetic Biology Bioweapons
IMMORTALITY
9
CLONING
2005
1996
2008 ?
?
10
HUMAN GENETIC MODIFICATION
11
Inheritable Genetic Modification
Germline Modification Designer
Babies IGM
12
Inheritable Genetic Modification
like it or not
inevitable
not if but when
13
SEX SELECTION
7,600 per treatment 16 successfulpregnancies
13
14

• Abandoned girls,
• New Delhi, 2001

World wide18,000,000 missing girls
15
TRAIT SELECTION
Congratulations! Its a Viking! Danish sperm
bank advertisement
16
Consumer Eugenics
16
17
GENES FOR

• Shyness Laziness
• Empathy Aggression
• Curiosity Mood
• Political views

18
Athlete of the Future

• 18

19
Immortalism
20
NEUROTECHNOLOGY

• Psychopharmacology
• Neural Prosthetics
• Brain-Computer Interface
• External control of emotions, behavior,
  thoughts
• Sensory extensions

21
Stem CellResearch

• May help find cures for disease
• But cloning-based stem cells pose risks
• - therapies very expensive - uses womens eggs
• - opens doors to eugenics

22
Cloning-based Stem Cells 100,000 per
treatment
22
23
Antibiotics 56 cents per treatment
23
24
Womens eggs as commodities

• For research

• For fertility

Loving, caring couple seeking egg donor.
Candidates should be intelligent, athletic,
blonde, at least 5'10", have a 1400 SAT score,
and possess no major family medical issues.
50,000. (1999 ad in Ivy League college
newspapers)
24
25
The Tuskegee syphilis experiment 1932-1972

• 25

26

• 20 of human genome has been patented

26
27
Human Bioprospecting/Biopiracy

• 1990s Human Genome Diversity Project

• 2005 Human Genographic Project

• Three centuries ago they came for sandalwood.
  Today the bastards are after our genes! Lopeti
  Senituli, Tonga Human Rights Democracy Movement
  

28
STEM CELL SCANDALS

• gt Scientific dishonesty
• gt Coercion of women to donate eggs
• gt Buying womens eggs for research

Disgraced stem cell scientist Hwang Woo Suk
gt Financial fraud gt Complicit scientific
journals
Womens groups protesting egg coercion
29
Gene Therapy Experiments
Jolee Mohr (top rt), 1971-2007
Jesse Gelsinger, 1981-1999
29
30
Sheep-Goat Chimera

• 30

31
CLONE ENDANGERED SPECIES?

• gt Giant Panda
• gt Asiatic Cheetah
• gt Bucardo Mountain Goat
• gt European Mouflon
• gt Javan Banteng Calf

32
7 cloned cats, 2002-2004 Cost to new owner
32,000 each
32
33

• Founder Anne Wojcicki (wife of Google founder
  Sergey Brin)
• May 2007 Google invests 3.9 M
• Craig Venter, consultant

GOAL insight into your ancestry,history and
inherited traits.
34
Bioweapons

• Genetically Enhanced Pathogenicity
• Sterilizing Corn
• Ethnicity-specific pathogens

34
35
Synthetic Biology

• Rapid Gene Synthesis 60 firms worldwide
• Infrastructure
• Platforms
• Circuits
• BioBricks
• Alien Genetics
• Open Source

36

• CRAIG VENTER
• Tried to patent human brain genes lost court
  case
• Sequenced tried to commercialize human genome
• Used his own DNA
• Lied to his ethics committee
• Got fired by his Board of Directors
• Wants to create patent first artificial life
  A trillion dollar product.

• 36

37
Synthia
Synthia
Mycoplasma genitalium gt Mycoplasma
laboritorium World Intellectual Patent
2007047148 Biofuels CO2
sequestration Pharmaceuticals Chemicals
Food stuffs EVERYTHING

• Mycoplasma genitalium gt
• Mycoplasma laboritorium
• World Intellectual Patent
• 2007047148
• For biofuels CO2 sequestration
  pharmaceuticals chemicals food stuffs
  EVERYTHING

1999 Ethical Review This proposal raises
no new ethical questions
38

HOWEVER

• The final goal of reproductive engineering
  appears to be the manufacture of a human being to
  suit exact specifications of physical attributes,
  class, caste, colour and sex The powerless in
  any society will get more disempowered with the
  growth of such reproductive technologies.
•   - Saheli Women's Resource
  Centre, India, 2001

39
Dorothy Roberts,Northwestern University

• The biotech agenda
• (will) intensify racial injustice.

gt
40

• . . . Selecting childrens abilities, sex, or
  race reflects the social advantages and
  disadvantages connected to these categories and
  can reinforce an unjust value system that
  privileges some over others.

Dorothy Roberts,Northwestern University
41
George Annas Chair, Boston University Dept. of
Health Law Founder, Global Lawyers and
Physicians

• This genocidal potentialmakes some
  species-altering genetic engineering projects
  potential species-endangering weapons of mass
  destruction, and the unaccountable genetic
  engineer a potential bioterrorist.
• Global Agenda, January 2006

42
E U G E N I C S
43
IN THE UNITED STATES
Three generations of imbeciles are
enough. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver
Wendel Holms, 1927

65,000 involuntary eugenic sterilizations 33
states, 1907-1981
44
IN GERMANY 1933-1945
FORCED STERILIZATION
400,000 EUTHANIZED
200,000 GENOCIDE 6,000,000
44
45
IN OTHER COUNTRIES

• Australia, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Iceland,
  Norway, Panama, Slovakia, Soviet Union,
  Switzerland forced sterilization, 1930s
  1950-60s.
• Sweden 62,000 forced sterilizations,
  1936-1976.
• India forced sterilization as family
  planning, 1975-1977
• Peru 200,000 indigenous Quechua and Aymara
  forcibly sterilized, 1990-2000

46
TODAY

• Libertarian eugenics

Disavows compulsory state programs, but
advocates individual selection for genetic
superiority
46
47
47
48
(No Transcript)
49
(No Transcript)
50
Neo-Liberal Eugenics
51
Lee Silver, Princeton University
the economy, the media, the entertainment
industry, and the knowledge industry will be
controlled by members of the GenRich
class.Naturals will work as low-paid service
providers or as laborers.
51
52
.Eventually the GenRich class and the Natural
class will becomeentirely separate species with
no ability to cross-breed, and with as much
romantic interest in each other as a current
human would have for a chimpanzee.
(Remaking Eden, 1997)
Lee Silver and Dolly the Sheep
53
Gregory Pence, Professor of PhilosophyUniversity
of Alabama
Many people love their retrievers and their
sunny dispositions around children and adults.
Could people be chosen in the same way? Would it
be so terrible to allow parents to at least aim
for a certain type, in the same way that great
breeders try to match a breed of dog to the
needs of a family?
(Whos Afraid of Human Cloning? 1998)
54
Richard Lynnprofessor emeritus,University of
Ulster
TH E N E O - E U G E N I C R E V I V A L

• The new medical technology of eugenics is
  going to take off, because it satisfies the needs
  of individuals... As the technology comes on line
  to allow them to do this, people will take it
  up."
• (from Eugenics
• A Reassessment 2001)

gt
55
T H E N E O - E U G E N I C R E V I V A L
What is called for here is not genocide, the
killing off of the population of incompetent
cultures. But we do need to think realistically
in terms of the 'phasing out' of such
peoples....
Richard Lynn professor emeritus, University of
Ulster
56
TRANSHUMANISM

• The worlds mostdangerous idea?

Foreign Policy, Fall 2004
57
Transhumanist Powerpoint (1)
57
58
Transhumanist Powerpoint (2)
58
59
Transhumanist Powerpoint (3)
59
60
Transhumanist Powerpoint (4)
60
61
Transhumanist Powerpoint (5)
61
62
Mainstreaming

• The Economist
• New York Times
• New York Review of Books
• ABC TV
• The Science Journals AAAS
• World Economic Forum

63
Infrastructure

• World Transhumanist Association 4 Million
  grant
• Institute for Ethics Emerging Technologies
• Oxford University James Martin 21st Century
  School 50 Million grant

64
The Billionaires Club

• John Templeton
• John Sperling
• James Martin
• Larry Ellison

65
Green Transhumanism?

• 1998 - Viridean Greens
• 2003 Worldchanging
• 2004 - Bright Greens (vs Dull Greens)
• 2007 Green Transhumanism

66
(No Transcript)
67
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE NEW HUMAN
BIOTECHNOLOGIES
1976 First biotech company
Genentech, San Francisco 2006 Over 2,500
biotech firms world-wide The Biotech
Century ?
67
68
The Convergence Movement

• US National Science Foundation US Dept. of
  Commerce
• 2002 Converging Technologies for Improving
  Human Performance
• 2005 Managing Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno Innovations
  Converging Technologies in Society

• European Commission
• 2004 Converging Technologies for The European
  Knowledge Society (CTEKS)

68
69
WHAT DO WE NEED?
Policy
Hearts and minds
69
70
Where Do We Draw the Lines?
71

• Many Controversies, eg
• China, India, Viet Nam selection against female
  embryos
• Cyprus covert attempts to create human clones
• Korea worst scientific fraud since Piltdown
  Man
• Russia fraudulent stem cell therapy clinics

71
72
United Kingdom Human Fertilization and
Embryological Authority (1986)
72
73
Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority
(HFEA)

• Publicly appointed - 21 members
• Stakeholders represented
• Sets rules for researchers and commercial firms
• Licenses inspects researchers firms

74
Council of Europe Convention on Biomedicine and
Human Rights (1996)
75
Council Of Europe Declaration 199734 signatures
as of 2007

• CHAPTER IV. HUMAN GENOME An intervention
  seeking to modify the human genome may only be
  undertaken for preventive, diagnostic, or
  therapeutic purposes and only if its aim is not
  to introduce any modification in the genome of
  any descendants.

76
MAJOR INTERNATIONAL TREATIES

• 1972 Biological Weapons Convention
• 1989 Montreal Protocol on Ozone Layer
• 1992 Climate Change 1999
  Kyoto Protocol
• 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention
• Convention on Biodiversity
• 1994 Law of the Sea
• 1997 Convention on Landmines

77
UN DEBATE ON HUMAN CLONING TREATY (2001-2005)

• Inconclusive vote
• Ban all cloning 84
• Ban reproductive cloning,allow research cloning
  34
• Abstain 28
• Not voting 28

78
Growing awareness activism

• Womens Health Feminist Groups
• Environmentalists
• Socially Responsible Scientists Physicians
• Faith Communities
• Disability Rights Organizations
• Human Civil Rights Organizations
• Indigenous Peoples Organizations
• Racial Justice Groups
• Health Science CSOs
• World Sports Community

79
(No Transcript)
80
(No Transcript)
81
SYNBIOPOLITICS

• SynBio I MIT 2004
• SynBio II Berkeley 2006
• OPEN LETTER From Civil Society
• SynBio III Zurich 2007

82
CHALLENGES

• Inevitablism
• Civil Society Deficit
• Ideological Dissonance

83
Bringing it (partially) all together

• GMO Foods CBD Cartegena Protocol
• Bioweapons Bioweapons Convention
• Global Warming Kyoto post-Kyoto
• Nanotech ??
• Synthetic Biology ??
• GMO Humans ??

84
ETC Group International Commission for
Evaluation of New Technologies (ICENT)
85
Hearts Minds ?
86
THANKS!

• Center for Genetics and Society
•