Historic birth of cancer-immune baby

There was a thread about this a couple weeks back in the Medicine Forum too.

I'm very concerned about where this is leading.

First off, as Sonya points out, there's the moral gray area of in vitro fertilization – deliberately producing fetuses that you have no intention of carrying to term. It's questionable enough when done for parents who otherwise cannot have children, but if everyone with a genetic condition they don't want to pass on to their child starts doing it? I don't know, it just creeps me out. And I'm pro-choice. I don't understand how anyone who thinks abortion is immoral can support this.

Next, there's statements like:

"The parents will have been spared the risk of inflicting this disease on their daughter. The lasting legacy is the eradication of the transmission of this form of cancer that has blighted these families for generations,'' he said.

Think for a second about what that means – the parents "inflicting this disease" on their children.

If a woman with a similar family history of breast cancer decides not to use this technology, is she then guilty if her daughter develops cancer? Even if the answer is no, will she be made to feel guilty?

Third: we don't know absolutely that there isn't some other effect of this gene that makes it a valuable resource to the gene pool. While it seems at first like a laudable goal to rid the population of cancer-causing genes, I fear that we don't have a good enough understanding of gene expression yet to appreciate all the repercussions.

And that's all without even going into the moral vacuum of a world where people want to choose their fetuses based on genes associated with intelligence, or particular sorts of looks, or male versus female, etcetera.

I say

If a woman with a similar family history of breast cancer decides not to use this technology, is she then guilty if her daughter develops cancer? Even if the answer is no, will she be made to feel guilty?

Nahhh...it will never get to that point. Though some strongly inherited diseases (like huntingtons disease quite nasty, and 50% of the offspring will get it with only 1 parent having the gene) I can see that causing some guilt.

But I guess it doesn't cause guilt because they all have it, it is part of their family heritage. It becomes a "clan" thing, and they all live with the fear of it.

Though I do think those that are prolife should NOT use invitro. Those crazy folks that go the invitro route, and the mother ends up implanted with a litter of babies, like 6 or 7 of them, and then tries to carry them all to term and half of them are messed up as a result. Now THAT should be banned. Though I suppose it couldn't be banned. The parents would just lie to have it done, and then refuse the selective abortions when it comes time to reduce the number.

[edit on 9-1-2009 by Sonya610]

reply to post by Oodain

I believe I used Newtons second law correctly, we are all in motion and what we do now effects what will happen later.

There may be a little problem with bringing emotion into the equasion, but there should be ethics involved,
placing a splint on a wound is helping, medication is also done in nature, It has been Known for a while now that chimps self medicate to treat for intestinal worms as well as other disorders.

as much as I admire the leaps in moden medicine
I do believe there is a difference in treating a disease or even aiding people with prosthetics rather than scanning an embryo for undesirable traits.
This can only lead to a society which lacks compassion, a very well known dictator was "Time" man of the year 3 times
his eugenics ideas of killing off those who where of feeble mind or disabled in body where very popular at the time and applauded by the scientific community.

with this knowledge it only takes 1 more "Time man of the year" to try the whole agenda again.

Originally posted by americandingbat
T

Third: we don't know absolutely that there isn't some other effect of this gene that makes it a valuable resource to the gene pool. While it seems at first like a laudable goal to rid the population of cancer-causing genes, I fear that we don't have a good enough understanding of gene expression yet to appreciate all the repercussions.

And that's all without even going into the moral vacuum of a world where people want to choose their fetuses based on genes associated with intelligence, or particular sorts of looks, or male versus female, etcetera.

I say

Completely agree...we're finding out that our genes do alot more than we originally thought they did and further research should be done before we decide on full scale eliminations of certain genes...same debate for GE food

[edit on 9-1-2009 by borachon]

Originally posted by Solomons
So if you had a genetic form of cancer,and you knew it was more than likely to pass on to your child.There was a possible treatment not for that child to never get cancer but this genetic form that has plauged much of your family history, you wouldnt have the procedure?

[edit on 9-1-2009 by Solomons]

No I wouldn't. I would do what I consider the right thing to do and NOT have children and hence not pass on my deffective genes to the rest of humanity. In fact my genes are screwed up. I have SO many genetic issues which are all minor but add up to me having faulty genes and I will NEVER pass these faulty genes on to the rest of humanity.

I'm my opinion it is morally reprehensible and terriblly selfish to have children when you know your genes are faulty.

Vas

Originally posted by munkey66
There may be a little problem with bringing emotion into the equasion, but there should be ethics involved,

Yes but you don't know what the mother has gone through. There are women that carry that gene, and have seen multiple female relatives die horrid deaths as a result. Some women will opt for double mastecomies to PREVENT the possibility of cancer.

It seriously messes some up. And if the mother has been traumatized by the reality of cancer, I can see why she would want to ensure that her child would NOT be similarly traumatized. Plus she may not believe sentient life begins at conception, therefore what she has done is ensure the best for her daughter. Sheesh some forms of the pill are the same as invitro.

[edit on 9-1-2009 by Sonya610]

At first I used to worry about the genetic underclass which people are worried about, but I don't anymore. If anything, I think those with the money for these designer babies will become the genetic underclass.

Pretty much everything that science has discovered which makes life better for man, has unwanted side effects, the list is endless, but to name a very few: labour saving devices, which make us fat and unhealthy. Pesticides, fluoride, vaccines, aspartame, gm foods.

I have pretty much no doubt that genetic tinkering with our bodies is going to have some unforseen side effects somewhere along the road. But it's not the job of science to have any foresight.

reply to post by Mekanic


well, natural selection will be replaced by artifficial selection. However in this case I am not sure if the kid is getting an upgrate or an downgrate . A gene could probably produce brest cancer, so they remove it. Like you would remove a little part of your engine just because it has the potential to breake..

reply to post by Lazyninja


lol, it will be like Windows Vista then. We let the rich test it, and when the bugs are fixed we also go and buy it

reply to post by Sonya610


so then what next?
do they scan for the low IQ gene?
do they scan for the possibility of being a criminal gene?
do they scan for the "will not conform gene?"

where will it end? as we know invitro was a great success
just look at the amount of women over 65 giving birth, the oldest I heard of was 72.
do you think it is ethical to impregnate a 70 year old woman? or impregnate a man?

reply to post by sty


Lol I still wouldn't buy it. We didn't create this code, we're reverse engineering it. Actually that makes it sound more technical than it is. They're basically chopping out unwanted bits of code and hoping that the rest of the code wont notice or have any errors. That poor girl is just a guinea pig.

Originally posted by Lazyninja
Lol I still wouldn't buy it. We didn't create this code, we're reverse engineering it. Actually that makes it sound more technical than it is. They're basically chopping out unwanted bits of code and hoping that the rest of the code wont notice or have any errors. That poor girl is just a guinea pig.

Uhhh...yeah...but we have been doing that for 100 years. Coming up with ways to keep people alive that should NOT be alive if it were up to nature.

Vaccines, surgery, insuline, chemotherapy, antibiotics, caesarian sections, on and on.

If it were about letting "nature" write the code, we would not do any of those things.

And no the girl is NOT a guinea pig. They did not change her dna, they just selected her because her dna naturally did not contain a certain mutation.


[edit on 9-1-2009 by Sonya610]

reply to post by munkey66


i wonder if they will be ever able to do the "gene therapy" for existing adults.. like the IQ one you mentioned. I guess that the absence of the "follow the leader" gene would be enough to make someone having a decent IQ haha

Originally posted by sty
i wonder if they will be ever able to do the "gene therapy" for existing adults.. like the IQ one you mentioned. I guess that the absence of the "follow the leader" gene would be enough to make someone having a decent IQ haha

Actually the iq thing is pretty simple. Other than issues like downs syndrome, IQ is typically fairly predictable. The kids will generally be fairly close to the parents, maybe somewhat higher but it is not a crapshoot.

Originally posted by ravenshadow13
I think that gene altering our children in ways like this to protect them from disease would be amazing if everybody could access/afford it.

I don't think gene altering our children is cool to select the color of their hair or the strength of their athletic ability.

It is free on the NHS. We don't have to pay for health care in the UK. Good luck in the US, I understand health care is very expensive.

Originally posted by Oodain
what if cancer is just a freak of nature and serves no real purpose?

Cancer is just that: a freak. Canada must have a much better education system, because in grade 8 I learned that "cancer cells" were just cells that didn't replicate properly.
Here's a quote from the Wikipedia page on it:
"Nearly all cancers are caused by abnormalities in the genetic material of the transformed cells. These abnormalities may be due to the effects of carcinogens, such as tobacco smoke, radiation, chemicals, or infectious agents. Other cancer-promoting genetic abnormalities may be randomly acquired through errors in DNA replication, or are inherited, and thus present in all cells from birth. The heritability of cancers are usually affected by complex interactions between carcinogens and the host's genome. New aspects of the genetics of cancer pathogenesis, such as DNA methylation, and microRNAs are increasingly recognized as important."

I think the title to the story is misleading. It said the child was born without the BRCA 1 gene, which causes breast and ovarian cancer. What about all of the other cancers out there?

reply to post by Sonya610


Sorry , i mean gene therapies that would increase the IQ rather than predict it..

Originally posted by nyarlathotep
I think the title to the story is misleading. It said the child was born without the BRCA 1 gene, which causes breast and ovarian cancer. What about all of the other cancers out there?

hm.. i understood different : that the existance of the BRCA 1 gene will bring a 80% chance for cancer, so they removed the gene. Actually it says that the fetus was scanned for this gene , then the gene removed. At least this is what I understood..

Originally posted by flyindevil
Cancer is just that: a freak. Canada must have a much better education system, because in grade 8 I learned that "cancer cells" were just cells that didn't replicate properly.

Good post.

Cells are like people. You got 6 billion people? Some of them are going to be born messed up.

Cancer cells are quite common. We all have cancer cells in our bodies at any given time. It just comes down to whether the cell can reproduce, and whether the mutated cells have the ability to go wild and accidentally shut down the entire organism.



[edit on 9-1-2009 by Sonya610]