How we can engineer an independent genetics body

Mary Warnock, the woman who chaired the influential inquiry into test-tube babies in the 1980s, makes the case for a Royal Commission on the future of genetic engineering.

There has been much talk in recent weeks of setting up a standing Royal Commission to examine the issues that may arise in genetic engineering, not only in humans but in animals, crops and plants.

This commission, modelled on the committee I chaired in the 1980s to investigate human fertility and embryology, would present findings that might, in turn, lead to legislation.

The commission's meetings and the evidence presented to it could be made public, and anyone would be entitled to give evidence. It would be strictly independent, its members having neither political nor commercial interests that might conflict with its impartiality. If such independence could be guaranteed, then there is a lot to be said for the establishment of such a body.

Twenty years ago the United Kingdom was especially good at this kind of arm's-length free discussion, to which government was inclined to give credence, and whose findings were respected by the general public.

There were numerous bodies, from the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution to the University Grants Committee, whose members were genuinely non-political. Sadly, political cynicism has steadily increased over the years, and with reason. It is difficult to believe any longer that a body could be established that was independent, or that, if it were, its voice would be heard.

The 1990 Human Fertility and Embryology Act was concerned mainly with the interests of the infertile, after advances were made in the treatment of infertility involving the fertilisation in the laboratory of embryos that could then be transferred to the womb of the would-be mother. IVF seemed a tremendous breakthrough for the infertile; and so, up to a point, it was.

The possibility of fertilising egg and sperm in the laboratory drew attention to the equally revolutionary possibility of keeping embryos alive for other scientific research. Indeed, research seemed necessary to improve the rather low success rate of in vitro fertilisation.

By the time the Embryology Bill came to be discussed in Parliament, there was a notable shift in interest from the treatment of infertility to the wider uses of research using early embryos. The debate took place at the same time as the explosion of interest in the human genome project and the new possibilities that seemed to be opening up for genetic intervention to prevent the development in the embryo of diseases for which there was no cure.

It was in the interests of medical knowledge that the act permitting research using human embryos up to 14 days from fertilisation was finally passed and became law.

There are still problems, mainly social rather than strictly scientific, surrounding permissible treatments for infertility. Who should be treated? Who should pay for treatment? Are there desirable limits to the use of procedures involving an "external" participant, as in artificial insemination by donor or surrogacy?

But these problems have faded into the background, while in the foreground are the ethical problems that centre on genetic intervention to select embryos for implantation into a woman's womb or, through cloning, to ensure the birth of children free from genetic defects. These are the anxieties that people now feel about genetic engineering.

I cannot see any moral objections to a programme of fertilising in vitro a number of embryos from couples at risk and selecting for implantation only those free from disease, if this is what the couple wants. I do not believe that this opens the way to so-called designer babies, nor that it casts doubt on the value of other human beings who have been born with inherited disabilities. I do not believe that the preference that most parents feel not to have a child who will suffer from a crippling disability rather than one who is well is a sign of damaging prejudice against the disabled.

If medicine can either prevent children being born with genetic diseases or create genetically engineered drugs to cure those not now capable of treatment, then I cannot see this as anything but a benign advance, just as the discovery of insulin for the treatment of diabetes was.

But there are still extraordinary anxieties experienced by the general public about the advances in genetic intervention.

If we try to analyse the nature of people's deep fear about the cloning of humans, for instance, it seems that it cannot be on the grounds of the genetic identity that would hold between the new child and the adult from whom a cell was taken (the "father" or "mother", but of course in reality the sibling of the new child). For no one feels horror at the idea of identical twins, who, sharing even the mitrochondrial cells that come from their mother's egg, are in fact more thoroughly identical to each other, genetically, than are artificial clones.

The revulsion seems to be more social or political than biological. There is a fear that people might be able to choose what kinds of babies are created and thus have some overwhelming power over the new generation of children, making them into beings who will, for the time, be politically correct. I believe there must be more non-sensational discussion of these fears if a rational judgement about cloning, whether of tissue or of whole embryos, is to be reached.

Apart from these deep fears, there are newly arisen fears of the possible effects of genetically modified crops, and their use in food production. Some people have an almost superstitious fear of eating genetically modified products. Others fear the ecological effects, not on themselves but on the environment, that might flow from the growing of genetically modified crops.

The first group has a low level of evidence to support its fears. People have unknowingly been eating genetically modified products for a long time, especially in the form of soya flour, used, for example, in the batter or breadcrumb coating of convenience foods. It would be extremely difficult to sort out and label all such modified content, though doubtless it could be done (or imports of soya flour from the United States could be drastically reduced). In any case, there is so far no serious evidence of any harm to human health from the consumption of such products. Nevertheless, anxiety has been increased by a general cynicism about government-inspired reassurances, especially in the light of the recent memories of BSE.

The environmentalists have a better basis for their fears. But it is difficult to conceive of any experiment that could, within a reasonable time-scale, prove or disprove the validity of their anxiety. The growing of experimental crops in a confined environment may not properly model the general growth of modified crops in an unrestricted environment. Nor may a time-limited experiment predict what might happen in an indefinite future. As in the case of germ-cell intervention in humans, it is impossible to predict long-term effects. Ignorance may seem in such cases a sufficient moral reason for not proceeding down the genetic modification path.

Yet there are some grounds for hope. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics, funded jointly by the Nuffield Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council, has long been a genuinely independent body, producing reports on all aspects of bioethics and biomedicine. It has established a sub-committee, scheduled to report in May, on genetically modified crops, their effect on the environment, on food, on biodiversity and on commercial profits. This is a broad range of issues, but they appear to be most urgent.

Perhaps this body, chaired by the political philosopher Alan Ryan, could somehow be kept in being as a permanent commission, royal or otherwise, with a duty to publish its findings, and to take on, one after another, the new issues that will arise as genetic knowledge increases and as the temptations of huge profits become greater among the international companies involved in new research and development.

The days of legislating for our own back yard are probably over. But the need for real confidence that the long-term future of the world is not being sacrificed to quick profits is more urgent than it has ever been.

Baroness Warnock chaired the Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation from 1982 to 1984. This article is based on her 1999 Darwin Lecture.