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The Genetic Revolution
 
The Genetic Revolution
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Chapter 1: The end of the line - intro to genes
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Chapter 2: Playing God - genetic engineering 
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Chapter 3: Cloning copies of yourself 
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Chapter 4: Designer Life - designer people 
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Chapter 5: Strange foods in a strange world 
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Chapter 6: New gene medicines for new people 
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Chapter 7: Takes a virus to catch a virus - mutant bugs? 
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Chapter 8: Could new genes destroy us ? 
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Chapter 9: A practical way forward 
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Gene Charter and References 
Book by Dr Patrick Dixon c 1995 - pub KingswaySee end of book for clarifications
“Early experiments”
 
Startling revelations on page after page . . .
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Identikit animals cloned routinely
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80,000 genetically mutated animals born in 1997 in the UK alone
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Human genes added to sheep, rabbits and fish
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Serious attempts made to clone humans
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Designer families may be waiting for tomorrow's parents
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No labelling for gene foods you are already eating in most countries
 
Within days of publication over thirty British MPs signed a motion calling for thisbook's Gene Charter to be adopted by Parliament covering ethical and safetyissues. But nothing short of international regulation will do. The book is now in asecond edition and has correctly forecast major headlines since first published in1993.
Introduction
This is a book about life or rather a book explaining how scientists are busycreating new animals, plants, bacteria and viruses in the laboratory with thecapacity to cure illnesses like AIDS, solve world food shortages and help theenvironment. By the time you have finished reading through this book, you mayalso have come to the conclusion that these same experiments could have thepotential to devastate this planet.The idea for the book arose out of research I did for two earlier books on AIDS,and subsequent work as a doctor in the AIDS field. Back in 1987 it was alreadyclear to me that the next ten years would be revolutionary in terms of being ableto reprogram the genetic code of other species, and probably of ourselves. Thetechnology has leapt ahead far faster than I speculated it might, with possibilitiesI speculated about four years ago as almost science fiction now becomingtoday's realities.Things are changing so fast that few people are aware of the full impact of whatis going on. If the 1980's were the years of the computer microchip then the1990s have already become the decade of the gene. By the end of the decade,every home will contain substances or living organisms resulting from geneticengineering. We need to understand how it all works, the huge benefits and thevery real dangers. We need this technology very badly, as we will see, but with ithas come big issues which need to be addressed now.Hundreds of scientific papers have been published on genetic engineering overthe last ten years. I have read the originals or digests of a great number of thesein researching this book over the last year. The remainder I have also scannedthe titles of - being largely of a technical nature and unsuitable for inclusion here.I have given you extensive footnotes quoting the relevant recent scientific papersso you can if you wish obtain the papers yourself. I have deliberately includedquite a few references from the 1980s if only to show how things have developedand that some of what you will read about is not as new to scientists as youmight think. It is hard to believe what is already possible. Indeed some of thethings you read here may sound as though they have been lifted from sciencefiction.I have attempted to avoid undue speculation, if only to consider obvious resultsand progress already made.
 
 There are huge ethical dilemmas first. In the final section I have looked atdilemmas raised by all this. I have left these issues to the end, allowing the factsto present themselves at these questions firstly as a doctor with a practicalapproach, and secondly as a church leader with a more intuitive response, basedon a respect for scripture and the teachings of the church. In researching andwriting the book my own thinking has changed. I deliberately left writing the lasttwo chapters until all the research was complete and the major part of the bookwas written. It has been an exciting, interesting - and at times alarming - journey.
Chapter 1: The End of the Line?
 
The first part of this book has been written in an old Tudor farmhouse which mywife and four children stayed in over Easter. It is down a narrow country lanelined with dry stone walls and is part of a cluster of cottages. It was built withthick stone walls, and stone roof, and inside with massive oak beams, oakpanelling, huge fireplace, leaded windows and stone floor. Outside there is agroup of old farm buildings, a sheltered paddock where the horses graze, acovered well, and in the garden an overgrown stone circle with millstones forgrinding corn. People like us but very different -; how different?Built by ancestorsThe unique feature of the house is that it was built by one of my ancestors in1620 according to the inscription he left carved in stone above the front door.John lived here with his wife, eleven children and his parents, but was not thefirst to live on the site -; his grandfather William was living and working on thesame spot around 100 years earlier.I have a family tree before me which traces the descendants of these few rightdown as far as the present day. The farmhouse has been lived in or visited by myancestors throughout the last four hundred years. As we sat in the large livingroom in front of a blazing log fire, and felt our faces glow in the heat, we feltechoes from the past and could imagine clearly what life must have been like sovery long ago.I have often wondered just what else has been passed down over the years -;was it just a memory of stone walls and oak beams? What about inherited familylikeness, temperament or personality. Every generation produces a unique blendof two parents but doubtless some of my three billion pieces of inherited informa-tion are even older than John or William themselves.The words I am writing now (by hand as the word processor is elsewhere) arebeing scribed on a desk that belonged to my grandfather, also an author ofseveral books (together with an encyclopaedia to his name).Again I have oftenwondered how much of the compelling drive to write has come from a set of
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