Hi Karen,
Whenever one goes out on a limb, as I did yesterday in my piece ("Move
over, America"), one immediately retreats mentally and wonders whether it's
so. At least I do. For the rest of the day, as I went about my normal jobs,
I wondered whether I had gone too far in saying that if America fails to
develop the nascent technology of organ replacement then China might take
over as the next economic power in the next decade or two.
(I must also declare a personal interest in this matter because three of my
grandchildren are triplet girls who were produced by in vitro fertilisation
-- which I'll briefly return to later.)
My case essentially depends on deciding just what the consumer demand might
be if perfectly-matched organ replacements could be bought in order to
prolong life. By the end of the day, after I had wobbled somewhat, I'd
returned to my early morning view -- that this is almost certainly going to
be the most sought-after product of all time (after food and water).
I'd intended to let the matter drop so I could continue to ponder it at
leisure over the coming weeks/months but, lo and behold, the matter came up
on BBC Radio news this morning. This concerns another byproduct of stem
cell research. It involves an English couple who have a son, Zain, who
suffers from thalassaemia, an incurable genetically-linked blood condition
from which he will inevitably die.
The couple proposed to produce embryos in vitro from which one will be
selected that closely matches their existing son's DNA but without the
thalassaemia propensity. The selected embryo will then be implanted in the
mother. Then, at the birth of the child, the stem cells from the unbilical
cord will be harvested and then used to treat Zain. This has been popularly
termed as a 'designer baby'. (Actually I'm not sure whether the new child's
umbilical stem cells are needed or whether his/her bone marrow will be used
for Zain. But no matter, it's the same issue.)
This procedure was allowed to go ahead by a committee called the Human
Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) which is given some degree of
authority by an Act of Parliament in 1990. The HFEA is an unelected body
and contains a mixture of specialists and non-specialists -- including
liberally-inclined people of the sort I mentioned yesterday (who generally
seem to be shaping up against radical biogenetic research).
An intense controversy has already arisen because, the Zain researchers
say, the HFEA took far too long in coming to a decision (which, of course,
they welcomed). Prof Austin Smith, a leading stem cell researcher at the
University of Edinburgh, said that the HFEA was not only slow but "lacking
in specialist knowledge".
On the other hand, Life, other pro-life groups and fundamentalists have
forcefully objected to the decision. And, on top of that, some politicians
have now pitched in saying that the HFEA exceeded the authority given to it
by Parliament.
Going back a few years, the HFEA were involved in a previous controversy of
great public interest. A Mrs Blood, whose husband was in a deep coma (after
a road accident and from which he didn't recover) asked some specialists to
extract his sperm and put it in deep freeze. This they did. But Mrs Blood
was obliged then by the 1990 Act to ask the HFEA if her husband's sperm
could then be used to fertilise her own eggs. The HFEA decided against
this. There was an uproar from the general public, of course. Mrs Blood
then went to the High Court and won her case that she should at least be
allowed to keep her dead husband's sperm as her rightful inheritance.
Mrs. Blood then took her dead husband's sperm to specialists in another
country (Denmark I think) and one of her eggs was fertilised in vitro,
re-implanted and she had a son. (Coincidentally, two days ago, she had
another son by the same father and the same procedure.)
Now then, let's put the ethical controversy to one side (by being gracious
in saying that both sides have a strong case in theory), and dwell on the
customer aspect. Years previously to Mrs Blood's and the Zain case, there
arose the controversy of in vitro fertilisation in principle. There were
very strong pressures by pro-life groups for this to be forbidden but
desperate mothers-to-be, like my daughter, prevailed, and this is why the
1990 Act was passed and the HFEA was formed.
What I'm saying here is that, at the end of the day, the customer will
prevail if there is a sufficient desperate need. Therefore, sooner or
later, radical research into cloning and stem cells will have to be allowed
by law because there'll be too much intense pressure. I've no doubt that
the law will be relaxed in both America and England in due course so that
(to choose just one case) organ replacement research can continue.
The matter in hand, however, is *when*. Because of the intense pressure
from American religious fundamentalists, who have a sizeable chunk of
votes, then freedom for human cell cloning is surely many years away. (Some
years ago America was falling very badly behind some Asian countries in
computer chip design and manufacture and, by a supreme effort of
politicians and commerce, managed to set up an R&D fund from which America
managed to regain supremecy after a few years. But in that case, there was
no resistance from any part of the electorate. It was just a matter of
overcoming commercial inertia.)
I suggest, therefore, in the case of human cell cloning, that a required
change of legislation is going to be intensely controversial and protracted
in America, England and several European countries, even while Lu Guangxiu
and other researchers in China forge ahead.
My apologies that this has been yet another long piece on something that
may not interest you directly. But this started from my main thesis that
empires come and go on the basis of the leading technologies of the day,
and America's turn for going is now probably due (even though America is
not a territorial empire in the old-fashioned sense). China has huge
problems of corruption, massive unemployment, totally bankrupt state banks
and may, in fact, collapse in the next decade or so as a major economic
power. But somehow I think not. China has had a longer civilisation than
any other country on earth, despite three intermissions -- the
fast-disappearing communist one being the last.
My money is therefore on China as being the next predominant economic
power, not because it has the capacity to export large quantities of very
cheap products into the West (the consideration that economists usually
dwell on) but because it is now resuming its traditional role of being a
supremely inventive culture, and is now already leading in the most complex
technology of any in mankind's history -- and for which there'll be an
unstoppable customer demand.
The looming battle over human cloning research will, in the West, test our
'democratic' governmental systems to the limit I believe. Indeed, I think
our present sorts of governances will actually fail this particular test
for a long time to come. In comparison, the present corruption scandals in
America are pretty minor, and if Bush fails to bring about radical reform,
this will be but a preliminary in leading to a much larger failure of our
present sort of governmental system in dealing appropriately with anything
that is of great importance. (And, in modern times, our problems in most
areas are more crucial than ever before.) We need a new type of 'policy
forum' type of governance, not the present sort of jamboree.
The morning's newspapers have arrive. My dog is pestering me. It's dog-walk
time!
Keith
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Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com
6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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