TY - CHAP
T1 - How bioethics can inform policy decisions about genetic enhancement
AU - Cook-Deegan, Robert
AU - Lohr, Kathleen N.
AU - Palmer, Julie Gage
N1 - Funding Information:
As our previous section argues, the chief arbiters of which technologies might become available for enhancement purposes by expansion from medical use might well be health care payers, particularly government health programs (e.g., Medicare, Medicaid, the Veterans Health Administration, Indian Health Service, and Federal Employee Health Benefits Program). Research on uses would likely be funded by the National Institutes of Health or the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. One principal gatekeeper for which technologies are available for use will likely be the Food and Drug Administration. These are all units of government under the President’s jurisdiction. The President’s Council gives only a hint of direction based on literary analysis, leavened with a final chapter that addresses American political philosophy. The Council’s main client, the U.S. President, might want a better analysis of the decisions he faces.
Funding Information:
Acknowledgments The authors wish to thank Matthew DeCamp and Allen Buchanan of Duke University, as well as Judy Illes of Stanford University, for their helpful comments. The work has been supported in part by a grant from the Ford Foundation to Rice University and Davidson College, by a P50 Center grant to Duke University from the National Human Genome Research Institute and U.S. Department of Energy, and by RTI International. Andrew Lustig and Baruch Brody convened the group and organized the overall efforts. Lisa Rasmussen edited this chapter.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2008, Springer Science + Business Media B.V.
PY - 2008
Y1 - 2008
N2 - Among its many functions, bioethics applies philosophy, law, history, social sciences, humanities, and religion to normative analyses of new biotechnologies. We show how explicit moral analysis, religious perspectives, and contributions from the humanities informed public policy decisions about the beginning of human DNA transfer experiments; we also examine the value that bioethics added to the policymaking process. We then turn to an emerging genetic technology that appears thorny through the bioethics lens: genetic memory enhancement. We describe current and potential contributions of bioethics to public policy in this arena. Finally, we contemplate how bioethics might contribute to similar policy-making for enhancement technologies in the future. We conclude that genetic interventions such as inserting or altering DNA to enhance memory or cognition—whether inherited or affecting only the person whose cells are genetically altered—will likely be introduced from the edges of medicine, and we call for broad bioethics conversations regarding genetic changes in memory and cognition. The previous chapter in this volume (“Religious Traditions and Genetic Enhancement”; Chapter 3) addresses genetic intervention, focusing particularly on its links to eugenics, and religious and moral perspectives on its acceptability. That chapter is a review of normative analyses, and we do not plow that ground again here. Instead we focus on how normative analysis informs policy, and we specifically examine the roles bioethics and religion have played—or failed to play—in making policy decisions about genetic intervention.
AB - Among its many functions, bioethics applies philosophy, law, history, social sciences, humanities, and religion to normative analyses of new biotechnologies. We show how explicit moral analysis, religious perspectives, and contributions from the humanities informed public policy decisions about the beginning of human DNA transfer experiments; we also examine the value that bioethics added to the policymaking process. We then turn to an emerging genetic technology that appears thorny through the bioethics lens: genetic memory enhancement. We describe current and potential contributions of bioethics to public policy in this arena. Finally, we contemplate how bioethics might contribute to similar policy-making for enhancement technologies in the future. We conclude that genetic interventions such as inserting or altering DNA to enhance memory or cognition—whether inherited or affecting only the person whose cells are genetically altered—will likely be introduced from the edges of medicine, and we call for broad bioethics conversations regarding genetic changes in memory and cognition. The previous chapter in this volume (“Religious Traditions and Genetic Enhancement”; Chapter 3) addresses genetic intervention, focusing particularly on its links to eugenics, and religious and moral perspectives on its acceptability. That chapter is a review of normative analyses, and we do not plow that ground again here. Instead we focus on how normative analysis informs policy, and we specifically examine the roles bioethics and religion have played—or failed to play—in making policy decisions about genetic intervention.
KW - Gene Therapy Trial
KW - Genetic Enhancement
KW - Genetic Intervention
KW - Human Gene Therapy
KW - Mild Cognitive Impairment
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U2 - 10.1007/978-1-4020-6923-9_5
DO - 10.1007/978-1-4020-6923-9_5
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:84872144611
T3 - Philosophy and Medicine
SP - 161
EP - 198
BT - Philosophy and Medicine
PB - Springer Science and Business Media B.V.
ER -