MEETING BRIEF
Ifgene and
"The Future of DNA"
A Conference on Ethical Issues
of DNA Technology

By David J. Heaf and Pat Cheney
Reprinted with permission of the authors and Ifgene, UK.

(Issue 5; posted April 4, 1997; archived April 18, 1997)

The International Forum for Genetic Engineering (Ifgene) broke new ground with its conference held October 2-5, 1996, at the Goetheanum school of spiritual science in Dornach, Switzerland. It was the very first time that non-anthroposophical lecturers, workshop leaders, and other key speakers were in the majority. In addition to the customary conference events, more adventurous interactivity was added in the evenings in the shape of a roundtable discussion between leading personalities on the gene scene.

Johannes Kühl, head of the Science Section at the Goetheanum, opened the conference by welcoming the approximately two hundred participants. In the first evening lecture, practical philosopher of nature Klaus Michael Meyer-Abich addressed the common discomfort over biotechology: are we supposed to leave our planet untouched as if we had never been here, and if not, how far may we go in changing it? Somewhat mischievously, Meyer-Abich identified Goethe as the founder of the new biotechnology. He substantiated this with Goethe quotes, but no one rose to the bait. He went on to argue that culture is what mankind adds to the unfolding of nature, and asked whether limits of culture could be identified in the development of biotechnology. Though we were given no answers, several contrasts hinted at a possible fruitful direction; for example, the gentle yet powerful way in which nature harnesses energy through photosynthesis compared with the way we do it. The emphasis on questions carried over into the ensuing discussion when the chairman, Henk Verhoog, in answer to a passionate eulogy for genomic medicine, rejoined somewhat startlingly, "Do you want to eliminate all disease from the world?"

The next three mornings were each filled with three lectures and plenum discussions.

DNA-thinking in science and society

Carla Keirns, standing in for Susan Lindee, who was unable to give her lecture in person, showed how, especially in the United States, popular ideas of genes, DNA, and heredity seem to determine fate, identity, and social place, thus facilitating institutional goals for employers and schools, and defining individuals as "simply DNA writ large." She argued that DNA functions as the contemporary equivalent of the Christian soul, containing the essence of the individual, and conferring genetic "immortality." Ernst Peter Fischer, biophysicist and science historian, amply demonstrated just how vague the concept of "the gene" is even in its scientific usage. Yet it is just this "fuzziness" that accounts for its success both within and beyond the bounds of science. It cannot be understood as an empirical entity, but like other concepts such as the atom, fields, or energy, as an archetypal one. Archetypes, he argued, influence the "synchronicity" of events that are neither causally related nor a matter of chance, and they hold the key to the future of DNA.

The anatomist Jaap van der Wal, speaking from vivid experience of his own and his students' reactions to the dissecting room, contrasted two possible approaches in science: onlooker (reductionist) and participant (holist). The DNA code, the parts, is a secondary reality from which the whole cannot be derived. "The primary reality is the bauplan of the organism," he said, "but people have grown accustomed to treating what is secondary as primary. The human being unfolds in spite of, not because of, its DNA."

Henk Verhoog set the tone for the ensuing plenary discussions by calling for value clarification. Participants were asked to accept an opposing point of view and try to understand how its author reached it. The discussion puzzled mainly over the way to unite Wal's two worlds. One cannot cross the threshold from participant to onlooker and simply expect to step back again. A higher viewpoint becomes necessary to achieve unity. Scientists were dubbed as "addicted" in their role as onlookers. "No, just intrigued!" rejoined a molecular biologist. If one rolls a ball and deduces the law of its motion, is one an onlooker or a participant? While dissecting or applying biotechnology, is one not also a participant? Yes, if we always look to nature for guidance. Faced with Down's Syndrome, for instance, by all means do gene diagnosis, but do not forget to look at the phenomenon, the real human being you have before you. Of course, this triggered the abortion debate and took the discussion off course.

DNA and living organisms

The second lecture trilogy was initiated by Guenther Stotzky, a microbial ecologist from New York University, who spoke about the possible consequences of artificial "novel" DNA entering the soil microenvironment and persisting there for long periods as "cryptic" DNA adsorbed to clays. Because soil teems with bacteria and bacteria can easily pick up DNA and exchange it with one another, the possibility of gene transfer from the added GMO is very high. He described experiments with an herbicide and an insecticide that showed that cryptic DNA can produce unexpected latent effects in soils that would be unacceptable to both farmers and environmentalists. He cautioned that GMO releases should all be taken on a case-by-case basis.

Mae-Wan Ho, molecular geneticist turned biophysicist and holistic biologist, who in the ensuing discussion urged even closer observance of the precautionary principle by calling for a moratorium on commercial GMO releases, focused her presentation on the present demise of the old genetic paradigm and its replacement by the new organicism. She said that a technology based on what she argued was the discredited linear view of information flow, from DNA to enzyme to observable characteristic, is still being sold to the public. The real picture is an epigenetic web or net of interrelations, and at the ecological level, at least the possibility of undesirable horizontal gene transfer between species is supported by dozens of references in recent literature. She traced the manifestation of the zeitgeist of the organicism movement leading from Goethe and the romantics to the Cambridge Theoretical Biology Club of the 1930s and 1940s, though not yet having a firm foothold in science. A video of the internal morphology of live larvae revealed non-invasively by the beautiful colors arising in polarized light microscopy was shown as one example of a possible organicist experimental approach.

Johannes Wirz, molecular biologist and Goethean scientist, abandoned his planned contribution in favor of a more autobiographical one centerd on his "travels" in the two worlds identified by Wal. In wanting to know how living beings develop, his research took him into the minutiae of genetic control of fruit fly development in Walter Gehring's lab at Basel. He found himself doing things he did not like. He faced accumulating reams of gene sequence data, miles from what a fly really is. This he illustrated by showing a gene "sequence gel" pattern and pointing out that nobody, not even the expert, could tell what organism it comes from. He was also concerned about the animals he used as factories for the immunochemicals he needed, as well as the growing pile of radioactive waste he generated. He moved to the Goetheanum research laboratory to learn how to study the whole organism in its context, but eventually his research on adaptive mutations came up against a barrier that could only be crossed by recourse to reductionist technique. He resolved this seeming paradox with the statement that one can progress in molecular biology only if one already has an understanding for the inner or essential nature of an organism. The two are thus complementary to each other and part of a whole.

In the ensuing discussion, the mention of a moratorium sparked a lively and lengthy exchange of views. Stotzky, whose actual data did much to justify such a call, argued for more research on the long-term effects of GMOs under field conditions in order to determine risk probability. This rules out a moratorium even for commercial releases, but accommodates an in-depth, case-by-case scrutiny including well-designed, post-release monitoring. "The trouble is," he said, "that companies don't want to do this." He argued that, in any case, companies do not want their transgenes to persist on farms. They want to be able to sell new ones each year. Another speaker did the thought experiment of replacing GMO with tractor in the context of a developing country. Sending tractors seemed a great idea until they ground to a halt through lack of spares and maintenance. We need a technology appropriate to the context, yet genetic engineering would seek global solutions. As another put it, we need maximum global cohesion with maximum local freedom. Normative ethics requires that people have to be free agents. If gene technology threatens freedom, ethics is compromised. The discussion led into the relative importance of cognition (thought) and feeling in ethical judgment-forming. Their inseparability was illustrated by how feelings (sensing) are needed even for the reductionist to make measurements on, for instance, a scale. This broadening of the discussion brought to their feet gene activists and animal rightists, as well as medical technicians who had experienced what they saw as hopeless and unethical research on patients. Feelings poured out. The discussion bordered on chaos. But chaos precedes creation. Verhoog pointed out that Dutch Ifgene had come to the realization that values have to be sought in relation, both inner and outer, to the being concerned. Peter Grünewald, a general practitioner from the United Kingdom, urged us to develop a loving relationship with the phenomenon (organism, person) so that our feeling for life accords more with its reality than our own inclinations. Manfred Klett from the Natural Science section at the Goetheanum, with an illustration of the perception of farm as organism, added that we even feel our ideas. This becoming one with our ideas can lead to action.

DNA and human biography

The medical geneticist Hansjacob Müller illustrated with actual cases how powerful a tool DNA analysis could be diagnosing genetic disease. He told how the Human Genome Project, a worldwide analysis of the DNA sequence and function of the human being, stands to bring huge changes to the way medicine is done in the future. But Müller warned that this molecularization of medicine is causing doctors to lose sight of the human being. Gene testing also raises difficult ethical questions. For his part he will not use such tests without prior genetic counseling. One may be permitted to ask here whether the very existence of such counseling itself already presupposes a particular world view.

Koos Jaspers, a molecular geneticist who works with the Dutch Ifgene group, showed from his work on precise molecular mechanisms in the rare disorder xeroderma pigmentosum (XP) that context was all-important for gene expression. "You cannot get more in the gutter than working with the genes," he said, "You have to get back to the whole human being again." He argued that the use of so-called "knockout mice," which have specific genes deleted in the hope that they will serve as research "models" for human disorders, is fraught with difficulty. Exactly the same gene deletion often gives a totally different set of disease symptoms in the mouse. He asked what significance a particular gene has for "self-fulfilment" and pointed out how genomic medicine for a person diagnosed as a breast-cancer gene carrier, for instance, may simply shift the level at which a person experiences and struggles with a disorder from the somatic, in that the cancer could be avoided, to the spiritual, in that difficult choices have to be made. However, Jaspers showed how an actual gene diagnosis in XP children helps parents greatly in their care of them.

Michaela Glöckler, pediatrician and Medical Section leader at the Goetheanum, gave the final lecture of the conference, taking us onto quite a different plane. She reminded us of the fact, now more widely accepted, that the soul/spiritual condition of a person affects the immune system. It is worth noting here that the body cells that produce the antibodies essential to immune function have to rearrange their genes to code for whatever antibodies are needed. Thus a link between mind and gene, at least in somatic cells, is not implausible. Glöckler led us hintingly to the question, Could our soul/spiritual history affect our gametes? Certainly life is unthinkable without its context, a context that not only involves the sun, but also the other celestial bodies. Human life is a series of metamorphoses in which the forces for growth and life can become transformed into the forces of thought. Reincarnation and karma play their part in the process and help, for example, to account for the differences between twins with identical genomes. From the start the child influences its surroundings, its context, thus bringing about very different results, even in the same family.

In the plenary discussion, the abortion issue was clearly inseparable from the implications of genomic medicine and diagnosis. Jaspers' work on "pre-embryos," somatic stem cells fused in the test tube, came under closer scrutiny: Were they animals, or is there something human about them? He draws the line at working on aborted tissue and therefore uses viable cell lines from volunteers.

Verhoog reminded us of how Lindee's findings regarding the social impact of DNA thinking are a hair's breadth away from a new eugenics, one that is now in the hands of individual members of society. A response to this ran: if we fail to prevent the birth of babies with gene defects, how can we be accountable to their parents? Glöckler responded with a picture of the role of pain in life. It is an awakener, a teacher. Whole world outlooks, lifestyles, and other factors change what otherwise would not. These effects spread from a focus into surrounding society. Of course, if one has no energy for this, the option is to get rid of the handicapped. But then life is in danger of becoming superficial. Verhoog informed us that merely questioning the new eugenics in Dutch Ifgene meetings led a genetic disabilities interests group to write to the government warning it not to listen to such people. In this vein, Müller warned that it would be wrong to go too far in the direction of romanticizing genetic disability. Many sufferers deplore the way in which they are forced to live.

Reflections and future

The process of reflecting on the outcome of the conference was formally begun before it ended. The Dutch sociologist Guido Ruivenkamp, who had no hand in planning the conference, was invited to give his personal impressions of the whole event. His fundamental criticism was that the conference reflected the schism in society between ordinary people and science, between consumer and biotechnologist. What he wanted to hear more about next time was biotechnology as a social/technical ensemble.

Afterward, enthusiastic comments from participants demonstrated that above all, the conference had met a real need at the present time for an open forum where views could be shared without antagonism and in an atmosphere of deep listening. Calls were made for Ifgene to continue its work. One testimony was an eloquent, almost poetic, account of his experience of the Goetheanum and the conference, which Petran Kockelkoren, a Dutch bioethicist, sent to the Dutch Ifgene coordinator. In it, quoting St. Augustine, he voiced more succinctly a key point already touched on above: "Non intratur in veritatem nisi per charitem" - one cannot enter into the truth without love.

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