Gene mapping is one of the hottest areas of science now, and a
unique international effort has been undertaken to locate and define
all of the chemical instructions that create a human being,
collectively known as the human genome. Researchers are working
to map the position of each of the 100,000 or so genes contained on
the body’s 46 chromosomes. They must then determine the
sequence of a four-letter code contained on the DNA of each gene,
known as the genetic code.This code controls everything from hair
color to some aspects of personality and consists of about 3.5 billion
characters for the entire genome. The United States has announced
plans to invest more than $3 billion over the next 15 years in the
National Institutes of Health’s gene-mapping project, making it the
largest in the world. France also has a well-advanced gene-mapping
program. The European Community plans to invest $20 million over
the next two years on a genome project. And Japan, the Soviet
Union, Italy and Canada have announced plans for national programs.
Consequently, gene mapping raises a host of social and ethical issues,
such as rights to privacy raised by genetic testing, the prospects of
more abortions to eliminate the “genetically unfit” and whether gene
therapy should move from the treatment of a disease to the
alteration of a person’s genetic makeup to eliminate the possibility of
disease. Victor McKusick, director of an international group called
the Human Genome Organization (HUGO) that is trying to
coordinate gene-mapping research worldwide, said that scientists
may think they have no place in setting social policy, but in this area
“we have to take (ethics) seriously. “The truth is we are going to have
genetic information,” he said. “We must make decisions on how it
will be used.” The NIH haS set up a working group on ethical issues
connected to the genome project led by Nancy Wexler, an associate
professor of clinical neuropsychology at Columbia University and
president of the Hereditary Disease Foundation.
SH;, R. P. R. B. M. F. H. (n.d.). Ethical issues in genetic research:
Disclosure and informed consent. Nature genetics. Retrieved April 24,
2022, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8988163/
