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Volume 4
Fall 2005

Genetic Enhancement: Distinctions And Regulation - Page 5
Virginia Mensah

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This problem may not be easily overcome by mere doctor-patient restrictions, but instead requires use of other internal and external constructions that are already present in our current medical system. For instance, Mehlman suggests licensing of the technology to regulate genetic services: "Health care professionals would have to be licensed to dispense enhancement drugs or to provide enhancement services" (157). Licensing could consequently give a way to "limit sales to licensed purchasers, and impose reporting requirements so that sales could be tracked by the government" (Mehlman 157). Thus, other factors such as government legislation and international policies would also need to be present to provide a strong basis for restricted access in the distribution of the technology.

Ultimately, somatic and germ-line genetic enhancement technology, like prenatal screening and IGF-1 therapy, bestow challenges that present and future generations alike must face. Therefore, while it is important to take action, it is imperative to make sure it is the appropriate course of action. One of the first steps is to recognize that treatment and enhancement may be one in the same, as exemplified by vaccinations, and to strip away socially-motivated fear constructs and embrace the technology's possibilities. That is not to imply that enhancement technologies are nothing but good, but rather to urge that society as a whole recognize that the science of enhancement itself is not innately bad; it is the potential social applications that create a threat. Genetic enhancement should therefore be regulated to prevent self-serving patients and self-interested doctors from abusing the technology to gain superior social, political, or economic status. An essential means to accomplish this is to partially allow scientists, genetic counselors, doctors, and other constituents of the greater medical community to restrict access within the bounds of the doctor-patient relationship. Despite the possibility of the corruption of an individual doctor, placing the responsibility in the hands of the medical community first may provide one option to curb self-serving enhancement, but by no means should it be the only regulatory action. Restricted access should be but one source of regulation ¾ a small step in a greater national and international scheme to minimize the dangerous social uses of current and prospective genetic technologies. In the end, as Mehlman argues (156), rather than fear genetic progress, we should channel the advantages of enhancement so that they are employed for the good of present and future generations.

Works Cited

Crenson, Matt. "Tomorrow's doping scandal? It could be genetic enhancement." USA Today 13 Aug. 2004. 20 Nov. 2004 <http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/ techpolicy/ 2004-08-13-oly-genmod_x.htm>.

Fukuyama, Francis. "Biotechnology and the Threat of a Posthuman Future." The Chronicle of Higher Education . 22 March 2002: 1-6.

Gattaca . Dir. Andrew Niccol. Perf. Ethan Hawke, and Uma Thurmon. Columbia/Tristar Studios, 1997.

Glannon, Walter. Genes and Future People: Philosophical Issues in Human Genetics. Boulder , Colorado : West View Press, 2001.

Lupton, Deborah. "Theoretical Perspectives on Medicine and Society." Medicine as Culture . London : Sage, 1994.

McGee, Glenn. The Perfect Baby: Parenthood in the New World of Cloning and Genetics. Lanham , Maryland : Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2000.

Mehlman, Maxwell J. Wondergenes: Genetic Enhancement and the Future of Society. Bloomington , Indiana : Indiana University Press, 2003.

"Staff Background Paper: Human Genetic Enhancement." December 2002. The

President's Council on Bioethics. 18 Oct. 2004. 1-8.
<http://www.bioethics.gov/background/humangenetic.html>.

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