Safety Issue of Gene Therapy

Safety Issue of Gene Therapy

Introduction

Gene therapy is the method of genetic therapy that uses DNA to treat diseases. It works as a pharmaceutical agent. It is highly developed science and technology in today's global world. In this modern world, society, ethics and science complement each other and work together for the benefit of mankind. If genetic research works without rules of ethics, gene technology cannot bring any benefit to human beings. The premise of carrying out research in area of gene technology is the judgment of the ethics. This is the most common concern related with the research and study of gene technology that it must not contradict with the religion and ethics. It is also important to note that any discovery of human technology, whether it should be applied or not, we must first measure the benefits and drawbacks of human survival and long-term social development associated with it. It is important to have an ethical examination of genetic research on the basis of necessary ethical norms.

Gene therapy entered clinical trials in the 20th century, then it kept continue to broaden the scope and extent of the intervention of human genes. It brought great hope to some patients suffering from genetic diseases, cancer and other serious disorders. However, due to the limitations of the understanding of gene, gene therapy comes with uncontrollability and unpredictability, which is associated with great risk of managing these serious disorders. However, the development of gene therapy promoted other gene technology developments which brought advancement in this study. Due to the current level of technology and information, ethics is strongly against this concept to accept genetically modified germ cells and production of the non-human traits or characteristics. It also involves the technology to enhance cells genetically to produce some kind of improved effects by altering the normal human gene, such as increase in human height and incorporating good qualities in a person. This creates ethical controversy which lies in the human possibility of violation of the rules of nature. But some scientists believe that in favor of germ cells, gene therapy and germ cell gene therapy may be the only way of preventing special biological damage caused by the genetic defect. Due to conflict between the great hope and high risk of gene therapy, gene therapy has stepped into ethical dilemmas.

With the great achievement in the field of life sciences, technology of gene therapy has brought great impact as well as issue to the social ethics. Such as security, fairness, and genetic discrimination and privacy issues, all these difficulties prevent the development of gene therapy technology. But these predicaments illustrate the constraints existing with the ethical and moral concepts of gene therapy, thus converting the genes treatment into a dilemma. Human optimization has become the most controversial ethical issue. Currently, the most controversial is the phenomenon of fetal genetic testing before birth, if the test results are not conducive to mothers or society, then abortion is the only effective medical ...