The Cline affair.

Documentary on the first recorded instance of genetic engineering carried out on a human. This took place in 1980, when (having failed to secure the necessary authorisation in the U.S.) Dr. Martin Cline operated on a 21-year old Israeli girl in Jerusalem to renew her defective blood system by implanting human genes. His intervention neither improved nor harmed the patient. Dr. Cline was severely disciplined for having violated the rules on experimentation on human beings and he was removed from the leadership of his department. The programme examines the difficult ethical and moral questions surrounding the field of genetic manipulation and looks at the future of gene therapy.