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smaley's picture

Gene line therapy is a slippery slope

 One of the issues that has resonated with me is that of gene line therapy, and whether it is ethical or not.  While the technology may not currently exist, there is no way of knowing how soon such a thing will be feasible.  While I do not believe that there are any problems with gene line therapy in order to cure a chronic, and potentially debilitating, genetic disorder, I think that caution must be taken when such therapy is used.  While there are some diseases, such as Tay Sachs, that such gene line therapy would be perfectly suitable for, and it could be considered unethical if such therapies were not used, as that would guarantee the suffering of a child who inherited two copies of the mutated gene that causes this disease.  However, I personally feel that there are many diseases that such therapy could lead to a very slippery slope.  Take for example dwarfism.  There are many different genes that cause different forms of dwarfism, each with different medical implications.  While a form of genetic dwarfism that causes debilitating medical problems could, and possibly should be treated with gene line therapy, does a more mild form that just causes short stature also deserve such treatment?  What about people who are just short?  While there are some diseases that, in my opinion, absolutely deserve to be treated with gene line therapy, if society is not careful we could end up with nothing but 5'10, 130 lb individuals with supermodel good looks, all because some doctor decided to treat an individuals height, weight, hair color, etc. with gene line therapy.    

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