Two proposals have been presented concerning the issue of gene therapy. The first was a proposal to treat cancer. With the p53 gene being recognized as a tumor suppressor, by manually inserting the p53 gene into different parts of the body, it can potentially cure lung cancer by prevention. I would agree with this gene therapy basically because if this gene therapy worked, the consequences and potential for the greater good of the community would be increased immensely.
I first warn you, however, that what I am about to say is entirely theoretical.
I believe that if the inhalation of the p53 gene into the lungs preventing lung cancer works, a window of economic opportunity would show itself. Heres how it would turn out: Supposedly that this new gene therapy would work, it could be anticipated that there would be an increase in smokers and a higher demand in tobacco and cigarettes. With this higher demand, the prices would go up for cigarettes.
With more and more money flowing into these tobacco businesses, the government can tax higher these businesses. With this extra money, investments in research in the cures for other diseases or from city projects can be started. There are relatively few objections religiously to agreeing with the treatment.
The counter-arguments for this would be as follows: lifestyle would dictate how these people who are addicted to the nicotine in the cigarettes. By making this choice, it would interfere with natural selection and survival of the fitness. Another argument that would counter my proposal would be the idea of the slippery slope.
If this prevention was successful, then the overall lifestyle of the society could suffer, potentially worsening their lifestyles.
The second proposal, however, I would lean towards rejecting the idea of tampering with the germatic gene therapy. I feel this way because of all the future complications on this matter. By supporting germatic gene therapy, a whole series of other ethical issues are introduced. Stem cell research would be related to this decision whether to apply germatic gene therapy on embryos or not. Needless to say, the cost of this kind of gene therapy does not come lightly, which would create a much larger social gap between the wealthy and the poor. Some religions also would not agree with gematic gene therapy. Generally speaking, the orthodox Jewish would not agree with this because, to them, it would be creating a perfect race, just as Hitler attempted to do in World War II.
Not only would this create disturbance in the Jewish populations, but also the pro-life activists. By using in vitro fertilization and tampering with the genome by adding the tumor suppressant gene, mistakes can occur which would lead to trashing the fertilized egg. Other potential problems like by adding genes into the human genome, this could potentially harm or alter the positioning of other genes. If this is not realized and the fertilized egg is nurtured to being born, other genetic problems could occur which would lead to a life of suffering and pain.
Perhaps the most effective counter-argument would be that if this does work, and if the germatic gene therapy works to avoid lung cancer, then there will be no more lung cancer in our society. However, again, only a minority of the population can afford this treatment and there is no guarantee that lung cancer will be a distant memory. If this treatment is successful, however, then one can view that this would be a great thing for humanity, just one less thing to worry about. On the contrary, the way we live and the way we view our bodies will be altered dramatically. Only the people can afford this gene therapy would have the pleasure to not worry as much about their health lifestyles, which would inevitably create a large hole in the social hierarchy.
I feel by using treatment with inhalers would be much more practical, and would have less of a dramatic effect on the community. With a new market for the economy, my proposal would help take the stress off of the peoples taxes and the government could tax these tobacco corporations often and more liberally. This money could be used for other research for medicine. By having germatic gene therapy, I feel that the consequences created fiddle with the already sensitive subjects of biological and medicinal advancements for the human body.
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