Its job is to slave away producing a substance that millions of people use routinely. That substance is insulin. Virtually the entire commercial supply these days is produced by genetically modified e-coli bacteria that contain human DNA, live in a fungal substrate and secrete human insulin. I take it that the President isn’t planning to put every Type I Diabetic in America into hypoglycemic shock. I don’t think it would be a popular policy plank.
Knee-jerk hysteria about genetic engineering distracts people from the benefits, real and potential, it provides to people in need.
[via Crooked Timber]
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What do you think about human animal hybrids. Should similar research be allowed or banned?
ReplyDeleteThe point of the post was that there are already human-animal hybrids, such as the bacteria that produce human insulin.
ReplyDeleteI don't think any research should be banned that gives due consideration to the desires of its subjects. There is nothing about human-animal hybridization that makes it inherently any different than any other research, other than the "yuck factor."