Experts make progress on gene doping tests. Last updated 04:09 07/06/2013 Anti-doping experts reported progress in the search for a reliable test for gene doping, although they still don't know when it will be ready for use in competition. IOC medical commission chairman Arne Ljungqvist said a test would be put into use at the Olympics and other events as soon as a method is proven reliable - regardless of whether hard evidence exists that athletes are manipulating their genes to improve performance. No such evidence exists so far, although the World Anti-Doping Agency has received information that "there is an interest out there in certain circles," particularly among coaches and other members of athletes' entourages, Ljungqvist said.
"We will certainly as soon as we have a reliable method available make use of it for the purpose of identifying whether there is something going on based on strategic information," the Swedish official said. Gene Doping & Drug Testing: Gary Marchant. v15i1_76%20-%20fore. WADA_Symposium_2008_StPetersburg_Declaration_Dr_Houlihan. Super athletes or gene cheats? -- McCrory 37 (3): 192 -- British Journal of Sports Medicine. P McCrory + Author Affiliations Correspondence to: Dr McCrory, PO Box 93, Shoreham, Victoria 3916, Australia; pmccrory@compuserve.com The threat of gene transfer technology to elite sport The International Olympic Committee (IOC) recently released its new list of banned substances and methods.
The use of gene doping or gene transfer technology to improve athletic performance heralds a significant threat to the integrity of anti-doping initiatives. There is also another side to gene transfer technology which is a more difficult ethical issue, namely the use of gene mapping in talent identification and the use of tissue engineering in the recovery from injury, such as muscle atrophy following cruciate ligament injury. We have known for decades that genetic differences between athletes can result in markedly improved performance.1 At the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, a Finnish competitor Eero Mäntyranta, won two gold medals in cross country skiing. Detecting such abuse will not be easy. Building Baby From the Genes Up. The two British couples no doubt thought that their appeal for medical help in conceiving a child was entirely reasonable.
Over several generations, many female members of their families had died of breast cancer. One or both spouses in each couple had probably inherited the genetic mutations for the disease, and they wanted to use in-vitro fertilization and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to select only the healthy embryos for implantation. Their goal was to eradicate breast cancer from their family lines once and for all. In the United States, this combination of reproductive and genetic medicine -- what one scientist has dubbed "reprogenetics" -- remains largely unregulated, but Britain has a formal agency, the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA), that must approve all requests for PGD.
In July 2007, after considerable deliberation, the HFEA approved the procedure for both families. With knowledge comes power. These fears aren't limited to fiction. Ronald M. Prohibit Genetically Engineered Babies Full Debate- Intelligence Squared U.S. HumanGermlineGeneticMod. The Case for Enhancing People. The essays in this symposium were first delivered at the second conference in the series “Stuck with Virtue.” Sponsored by the University of Chicago’s New Science of Virtues project, this conference examined the various Cartesian, Lockean, and Darwinian premises that help shape and inform the ethics and ethos of modern technological democracy. Held in April 2011 at Berry College in Rome, Georgia, the conference featured four main speakers: Ronald Bailey (below), Charles T.
Rubin, Patrick J. Deneen, and Robert P. Kraynak, with responses to Mr. Bailey by Benjamin Storey and to Professor Rubin by Adam Keiper (here joined by Ari N. See also the response to this essay, “Liberation Biology, Lost in the Cosmos,” by Benjamin Storey. Ronald Bailey Does the enhancement of human physical and intellectual capacities undermine virtue? In answering this question, we must first make a distinction between therapy and enhancement. Strengthening Virtue What is an enhancement? Really? But so what? Quality Control: The Implications of Negative Genetic Selection and Pre-Birth Genetic Enhancement. The Hellfire Club: Genetics, ethics, and the state - revisited. For the past decade, the public sphere has buzzed with arguments about real or imagined genetic technologies, such as embryonic sex selection, reproductive cloning, and human genetic enhancement - much of the noise prompted by the announcement, back in 1997, of Dolly the cloned sheep.
How far have we come in that time? Perhaps not far enough, when we still have priests and priestesses of the Endarkenment wanting to argue on the basis of yuck factor responses. It can, moreover, be disheartening to find that many of the same old arguments are brought up whenever a new group focuses on the issues, though this recent discussion over at Pharyngula, prompted by an article by John Harris (based on his new book), is heartening in some ways. First, there is clearly a high degree of openness to new technology in this blog community; and second, some of the concerns raised are rational ones that I share (and do, I think, create some regulatory questions).
I object to this. Good for me! My comment?