Splicing life : a report on the social and ethical issues of genetic engineering with human beings / President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research.

  • United States. President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research.
Date:
1982
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Splicing life : a report on the social and ethical issues of genetic engineering with human beings / President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    91/132 (page 79)
    Protecting the Future 4 The material presented in the earlier chapters provides the basis for the Commission's recommendations on the means through which the issues generated by genetic engineering can continue to receive appropriate attention. These issues are not matters for a single day, deserving of only occasional attention. They v^ill be of concern to the people of this country—and of the entire globe—for the foreseeable future; indeed, the results of research and development in gene splicing will be one of the major determinants of the shape of that future. Thus, it is important that this field, with its profound social and ethical consequences, retain a place at the very center of the conversation of mankind.^ Specifically, in the preceding material the Commission has seen that: (1) The careful attention paid by scientists, private groups, and government officials to the immediate health and environmental risks has been rewarded with a record of safe and fruitful research and development. (2) Although the Federal Interagency Committee on Recombinant DNA Research has been inactive for several years, the Recombinant DNA Advisory Com¬ mittee (RAC) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH] has provided an informal means for intragov¬ ernmental communication, as well as overseeing the safety of NIH-funded research. (3) The issues raised by the projected human uses of gene splicing, which heretofore have not received ^ Michael Oakeshott, The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind, in Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, Metheun, London (1962) at 197.