A quarter-century on, the brave new world of genetic engineering is populated by some remarkable and disturbing creations. What's most disturbing is that the genetic reconstruction of life is advancing on a global scale with almost no informed public discussion or effective oversight, and in the case of certain military uses, without even public knowledge. At the outset, it was noticed that gene-splicing had a downside. Grave warnings were issued about its social misuse, about the health and environmental hazards of modified organisms, about the ethical problems of using our technical ingenuity on ourselves and other life-forms. In the course of the debates that followed, millions of pages flowed forth from committees, hearings, international bodies and the courts.
Genetic engineering is perhaps the best-documented technology ever to emerge from a laboratory.
In the early 1970s leaders of biomedical research quickly moved to contain the emerging ethical and social issues. A partial moratorium on research in 1974 was followed by the famous international conference at Asilomar, California, where scientists addressed the hazards of genetic engineering and agreed to impose controls on their own research. These events were celebrated as acts of scientific responsibility. With that definition, genetic engineers were soon back at work under voluntary controls issued by the National Institutes of Health in 1976. When intense controversy over these controls erupted shortly after their inception, however, biomedical researchers closed ranks, launching a sophisticated campaign against legislation designed to regulate genetic engineering and investigate its long-term effects.