The Washington Post
Gene Panel Rejects Ban
October 30, 1984
Author: Cristine Russell, Washington Post Staff Writer
A National Institutes of Health advisory committee yesterday unanimously rejected a
proposal to ban experiments in which genes from higher animals, including man, are
transferred into members of other species.
After a discussion that ranged from the philosophical to the practical, the panel concluded
that "both the importance of this class of experiments and the long-term possibilities for
treatment of human and animal disease and the development of more efficient food
sources make it a moral imperative that we strongly oppose the blanket prohibition."
The vote was taken by 22 members of the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee, an
influential panel that advises the NIH director on federally funded genetic-engineering
experiments. The panel comprises mostly scientists and physicians, with some lawyers,
ethicists and lay members.
The group was petitioned by genetic-engineering critic Jeremy Rifkin, who is seeking to
halt research in which genes from one animal are inserted into the reproductive cells of
another and passed on to subsequent generations.
Rifkin, who heads a group called the Foundation on Economic Trends, recently joined
with the Humane Society of the United States in filing suit against the Department of
Agriculture, which is carrying out experiments to produce sheep and pigs twice as large
as current livestock by injecting animals with a synthetically produced human growth
hormone gene.
After yesterday's vote, Rifkin said he is "very, very likely" to broaden his suit to include
the NIH. The agency has funded basic research at the University of Pennsylvania that
first demonstrated successfully in the laboratory that a human gene could be transferred
into the genetic material of mice.
Rifkin was unable to persuade the NIH committee that such experiments are "morally
reprehensible" and violate the "rights of every species to exist as a separate, identifiable
creature."
The Humane Society's Michael Fox also urged the committee to "look through the eyes
of animals when you come to address these issues."
But their arguments were denounced by the committee members and in more than 300
letters sent to the government from prominent scientists and professional groups, as well
as the public.
"There is an impressive body of evidence, almost all of which opposes Mr. Rifkin's
notion," said Dr. Royston C. Clowes, a University of Texas biologist.
He and others said it was particularly important for researchers to insert human genes into
animals to be able to study crippling diseases and eventually to cure them.
Dr. Susan Gottesman, a senior researcher at the National Cancer Institute who led the
effort to defeat Rifkin's proposal, said it was "utter nonsense" to suggest that the
experiments would "change a whole species . . . . We are not making sheep that tell jokes
and laugh or people with bat wings."
"I think the vast majority of the people in this country would come down extremely
strongly on the side of using animals" for such research, she said.
Gottesman and others did express concern about future experiments involving the
manipulation of human "germ" or reproductive cells, but argued that such experiments
would receive public scrutiny before they are attempted.
Dr. Leroy Walters, head of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, said he believes it will be five
to 10 years before such experiments are attempted. He said it would be "premature" to
make a decision on them now.
Walters heads a subcommittee of the recombinant DNA panel that is drafting
recommendations for human gene therapy involving attempts to cure genetic disease in
one person without affecting genetic material passed on to future generations. The panel
was told yesterday that the first experiments involving rare immune system deficiencies
may be ready for review next year.
Although Rifkin's attempt yesterday to have gene-transfer experiments banned was
regarded by some scientists as a nuisance attack, his criticism is taken seriously. In
another novel suit against the NIH earlier this year, he succeeded at least temporarily in
stopping government-funded experiments involving the deliberate release into the
environment of genetically engineered organisms such as microbes designed to help
protect crops against frost. The NIH is appealing.
Copyright (c) 1984 The Washington Post