Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
of international capital and the impact of international patents that exac-
erbate differences between the rich and the poor. Her chapter ends on
an optimistic note, as she cites the examples of a variety of international
organizations working to establish hedges against international capital
in favor of a renewed sense of the common good. She suggests that these
efforts, such as those by Oxfam or the pharmaceutical company Cipla,
Ltd., or even China's State Council, are limitations on foreign-funded
genetic research, and are hopeful indications that genetic research and
engineering can be limited and guided by an internationally shared sense
of the common human good. Thus, Cahill, like Rollin and Langdon
Winner, looks to a political and institutional solution to the questions of
genetic engineering. Insights offered by the tradition may be helpful in
such discussions, but those insights are not metaphysically compelling
and cannot be relied on to answer practical questions in a pluralistic
world. Only a shift in discussion to the social conditions of humans can
provide the resources to work out acceptable principles of guidance for
the opportunities offered by genetic engineering.
LeRoy Walters's “Human Genetic Intervention: Past, Present, and
Future” is a review and analysis of the fortunes of federal oversight of
human-gene-transfer research by the Recombinant DNA Advisory Com-
mittee (RAC) within the National Institutes for Health (NIH). Walters
summarizes the past, present, and future prospects of the RAC, tracking
its bureaucratic fortunes and the parallel problems of oversight regard-
ing cutting-edge—and dangerous-human-gene-transfer research. He then
gives an account of the degeneration of the RAC, originally formed as a
proactive group of research academics to foster the public transparency
of research and standards of evaluation, to provide anticipatory over-
sight for researchers, and to develop clear and current research guide-
lines. He argues that when policy makers at the NIH and the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) weakened the RAC in 1996-97, genetic
researchers and their financial backers began to operate with increasing
secrecy. The loss of transparency led to a refusal to disclose adverse
results, a loss of objectivity in planning research projects, self-interested
manipulation of results, a failure to submit full and timely reports of
progress and difficulties, and ultimately to the death of a patient.
Walters is well aware that the RAC was not without its detractors and
inherent difficulties. Indeed, the difficulties inspired the attention from
