The US House of Representatives is wading into the debate over whether human embryos should be modified to introduce heritable changes. Its fiscal year 2016 spending bill for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would prohibit the agency from spending money to evaluate research or clinical applications for such products.
In an unusual twist, the bill—introduced on June 17—would also direct the FDA to create a committee that includes religious experts to review a forthcoming report from the US Institute of Medicine (IOM). The IOM's analysis, which considers the ethics of creating embryos that have three genetic parents, was commissioned by the FDA.
The House legislation comes during a time of intense debate on such matters, sparked by the announcement in April that researchers in China had edited the genomes of human embryos. The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) moved quickly to remind the public that a 1996 law prevents the federal government from funding work that destroys human embryos or creates them for research purposes.
link.
This infuriates me. There are several diseases which have promise to be corrected genetically (cystic fibrosis, frex) which would be far, far easier to correct while the person was still an embryo. Research needs to be done for this and we can fix problems even before a person's life really begins. But, no, Congress has to be that stupid.
No, they ahve to be worse.
They are requiring a panel of religious figures to review the ethics report of from the IOM! Unless they are qualified scientists, they have no fscking place reviewing that report as government representatives!
1 comment:
Hm, I dunno. IACUC panels for ethically using animals in research that I have known of usually have to have someone from outside in the community sit on them, which could include a religious leader, along with a majority of scientists (peers) and a veterinarian or two. This is so that the ethics committee doesn't become desensitized and out of touch with reality by getting used to going-ons that are questionable (oh, it happens to us scientists, very easily; you wouldn't believe the actual stories we get in ethics training that came before our own IACUC; facts smart does not mean morally or ethically smart) -- an outside observer usually catches and brings up these issues that may otherwise be glossed over. Of course, a minority of outside members can't hijack the committee, and so their view becomes a moral compass rather than agenda. And we are better for it. Ethics is complex, and requires very different views to come to good answers for its questions.
I kinda read this as the same thing, so I can't say I disagree with what they are doing so far as it appears from this snippet of news as it is presented here (this is all I know of it). As long as said religious members are a minority on an -ethics- committee, giving guidance -ethically- but not drafting rules themselves, that is acceptable and useful. Again, just like as it is successfully done for IACUC.
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