Steve, when the Dengue Fever looked to get out of control in downtown
Tokyo last fall they became very interested indeed. West Nile
outbreaks occur in the US every year. What do people do? They do what
is widely perceived to be the right thing: they spray. A lot. It may
not be the best solution (it may not actually work very well at all,
depending on the situation, but even "astute" folks seize on what they
think is logical and will work when it hits the fan ).
I'm not quite sure that there will turn out to be a clean line between
germline and non-germline gene therapy. Many genes (most?) are
regulatory, they make new capabilities (a gene is something you can do
with your genome) by turning other genes and/or gene products on and off
depending on situations encountered. Some combinations will turn out to
be useful or deleterious depending on, well, what happens to the
environment or other genes sometime in the future. So, I don't think it
will be possible to judge safe or non-safe outcomes based solely on
observed effects. Yet we have to get better at regulation (the cat has
left the bag, if not the building), which doesn't mean abjuring that
activity because we currently believe we suck at it.
Victoria, I have boxes of Analogs that are looking for some possibly
fortunate young adult to infect. Any ideas?
All, where do musicians fall on the Faber, Sapiens, Ludens continua?
Do we need to redefine any of the 3 to accommodate them?
C.
On 2/15/15 5:35 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
This also could be considered another salvo *in* the politics of
fear. "/If you *don't* approve on my schedule, the unregulated use
of any given promising technology to relieve my specific
life-threatening condition, you are harming me/".
What I would hope is that regulators would stick to their testing.
If the safety protocols are met, then approve the treatments (like
any other treatment). But don't slow the scheduling of the testing
because people conflate germline and non-germline gene therapy, or
just object because it offends them in some way.
I would hope the same, I have no idea what the current practice is. I
have an instinctual distrust of bureaucrats to actually become
familiar enough with that which they administer to develop and
practice good policy. This could be a mostly unfounded bias.
At the same time, I don't trust us, the unwashed masses, to be
informed and astute enough to make the kinds of distinctions required
to have a properly informed opinion (when we sign petitions, carry
signs, write our congresspeople, or vote). We constantly exercise
/the tyranny of the masses/ when allowed. But I also defer to Winston
Churchill's famous "Democracy is the worst form of government, except
for all of the rest".
I know the difference between germline and non and appreciate
generally the acute difference and understand that the latter has
significantly less (obvious) intrinsic risks. On the other hand, like
so many of us, I can admit to a bias *against* rapid technology
deployment (not necessarily against rapid scientific development. )
I believe that a lot of "conflation errors" are based more in a
"camel's nose" or "slippery slope" concern more than anything. I
tend to forgive others' their own "conflation errors" based on these
kinds of worries, even while I might try to disabuse them of their
misunderstandings. I suspect your own concerns have an overtone of
this nature as well, that you recognize that one semi-righteous win
for the opposition will fuel them on to a dozen un-righteous wins. I
feel the same way on every topic under public scrutiny/opinion... I
don't want "them" to start a landslide in favor of "their" particular
brand of ignorance, whether it be sheepish or wolfish.
My daughter is researching West Nile and Dingue Fever mechanisms, she
is more worried that her work will languish on a shelf at the NIH or
megaPharmaCorp, waiting until the threat of these diseases is on the
first world economy before the therapies implied by her work will be
implemented and made available those already under extreme threat
(third world equatorial population) by these diseases than that one
of "us" will be exposed to same, contract it, and not have a quick,
easy, affordable remedy. I think I fully appreciate the economics
and politics that drive these things, but that doesn't stop me from
being sympathetic with her frustration. She ditched becoming a third
world doctor to do this work, her heart still seeks to help those
whose circumstances are not as fortunate as our own (or perhaps are
deliberately suppressed to elevate our own?). She has much stronger
opinions about this than I do, but hers may be informed by my own and
then in recursion, mine informed by my loyalty to her.
I'm not personally terribly worried about advanced medical development
because for the most part, I prefer to avoid traditional medicine...
but the same logic that demands obligatory vaccination of babies for a
wide spectrum of "public health threats" and criminalizes assisted
suicide makes me uncomfortable about empowering the medical
bureaucracy any more than it already is? More of my "slippery slope
down the camel's nose" fears I guess.
- Steve
Marcus
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