History, Eugenics, and Genetics
Personal Genetics Education Project (pgEd)
Harvard Medical School
www.pged.org
The Beery twins, Noah and Alexis
http://the-scientist.com/author/lucy-reading/ (2011)
Genome sequencing technology
Oxford Nanopore MinION
Molly and Adam Nash
Fanconi anemia (disorder of DNA repair)
Cure: PGD, umbilical cord blood
stem cells
http://tvnoviny.sk/sekcia/spravy/zahranicne/vo-francuzsku-sa-narodilo-prve-dizajnerske-dieta.html
PGD:
Preimplantation genetic diagnosis
Schwartz
2011 Jewish
News
Public attitudes regarding the use of PGD
Fatal Transplants
Men
Women
Adult
illness
Gender Strength &
Intelligence
Hudson 2006 Fertility & Sterility
American eugenics movement
Big idea:
Improving society
and humanity via
selective breeding
and sterilization.
First half of the
20th century.
State and Federal laws addressing
issues ranging from immigration to
mandatory sterilization
Burlington Free Press, January 24, 1925, p. 1.
Photo by Jacob Riis, courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York
http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/view_image.pl?id=348
“Fitter Family” contests: 1920s – 1940s
Georgia State Fair 1924
http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/792.aspx
Laws Against Interracial Marriage
http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/static/images/958.html
Carrie Buck
http://www.saponitown.com/eugenics-carrie-buck/eugenics-carrie-buck.htm
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
“...society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from
continuing their kind...
Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”
http://www.hsl.virginia.edu/historical/eugenics/
Raymond Pearl
Eugenics preaching is “contrary to the
best established facts of genetical
science.”
Carnegie Institution Visiting
Committee, 1935:
Most of the ERO’s work was without
scientific merit and it should cease
sponsorship of programs in
immigration restriction, sterilization,
and race betterment.
“We do not stand alone”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wir_stehen_nicht_allein.jpg
Nuremberg Code
4 of the 10 directives for Human Subjects Research
1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is
absolutely essential…
2. The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful
results for the good of society, …
4. The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all
unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.
9. During the course of the experiment the human
subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an
end…
Pamphlet from the Human Betterment League
of North Carolina – 1950
http://www.wfae.org/
Protests against forced sterilization
http://rt.com/usa/news/north-carolina-eugenics-vote-372/
Los Angeles Times
North Carolina
•Eugenic sterilization law enacted February 18, 1929.
•Sterilization suitable for “mentally defective person’s.”
•“The 7,600 victims of the program, which was dissolved in
1977, were largely women and disproportionately members of
minorities” (New York Times).
•Any person (i.e. a neighbor) could request someone be
sterilized, which would then be considered by a state
sterilization board.
•After 10 years of debate, the NC legislature passed a budget to
provide $10 million to to victims (about 200 remaining victims
will receive $50,000).
•This is the first time reparations have been granted to victims of
eugenic sterilization.
Elaine Riddick –
sterilized without her knowledge at the age of 14
http://abcnews.go.com
Presidential Commission
on Bioethical Issues