What are the ethical issues surrounding gene and cell therapy?

1.     Gene therapy

Because gene therapy involves changing the basic instructions of the body, it raises many unique ethical questions. Ethical questions surrounding gene therapy include: (1) How to distinguish between "good" and "bad" uses of gene therapy? (2) Who does decide which traits are normal and which are disabilities or handicaps? (3) Would the high cost of gene therapy make it available only to the rich? (4) Will the widespread use of gene therapy make society less receptive to different people? (5) Should people be allowed to use gene therapy to improve basic human traits such as height, intelligence or athletic ability?

Current gene therapy research has focused on treating individuals by targeting body cells such as bone marrow or blood cells. This gene therapy cannot be passed on to a person's children. However, gene therapy can target eggs and sperm cells (germ cells), so that inserted genes can be passed on to the next generation. This approach is called germline gene therapy. The idea of germline gene therapy is controversial. As it may protect a family's offspring from a particular genetic disease, it may affect fetal development in unexpected ways or have long-term side effects that are not yet clear. Because people affected by germline gene therapy have not yet been born, they cannot choose whether or not to receive treatment. Because of these ethical issues, the United States government does not allow federal funds to be used for human germline gene therapy research.

2.     Cell therapy (Stem cell therapy)

One of the ethical issues raised by research using human stem cells is the development of embryonic stem cells from fertilized eggs. Because obtaining embryonic stem cells requires the destruction of human embryos, it runs up against existing ethical taboos. Some religious and anti-abortion groups argue that the destruction of embryos after stem cells is tantamount to the death of a life. A series of questions are posed before us: "When does human life begin?" "What does it mean to be human?" "What are embryos and when do they become people" and so on. In addition, in order to avoid "human fertilized eggs research is killing life", some people use human and animal cell fusion experiment. Whatever the outcome is, it is now highly controversial and worth pondering.

Meanwhile, the origin of stem cells in stem cell research is also controversial. Some argue that stem cells should be taken from embryos left over from treatments for fertility diseases, others think that stem cells should be taken from embryos created by cloning, and still others believe that stem cells should be taken from adults rather than embryos. At present, the research on adult stem cells is not in depth. Only a few types of adult stem cells have been found. Many types of adult stem cells are still not found in adults. At the same time, adult stem cells may be extremely low in content and difficult to isolate and purify. There is also evidence that adult stem cells may not be as proliferating as embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells may contain more DNA abnormalities due to environmental influences. Most importantly, adult stem cells do not have the potential of embryonic stem cells totipotency.

In addition, there is also a key problem with stem cell research. Embryonic stem cells are the first step to clone human beings, which is opposed by most scientists. Many countries have also banned the research of human cloning.