ETHICS VS SCIENCE

The scientific discoveries that in the last decades of the 20th century have regarded both the fields of

genetics and neurophysiology as well as the perspectives opened by the recent achievements concerning artificial intelligence, make it absolutely between science and ethics, moving from the doubt that the latter might be going to lose the orienteering function it held in our lives. The technological function and scientific progress ( especially in the military context), the more and more negative influence of economic production on the natural environment, the factual possibility of running out of not renewable natural resources , and much more, are bringing mankind to reconsider the bond between ethics and science. Since science appears to be strictly connected to mass production and to every significant area of human life, the negative consequences of a certain use of scientific discoveries become socially relevant, which means anyone can be aware of them in a short time, and they may be so serious that a simple recall of individual responsibility cannot be sufficient to fix the mistake or to make sure it will not happen again. Ever since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the divorce between ethics and science has entered a profound crisis. Some people as the American biochemist E. Chain still maintain that ethical or physical problems only appear when it come to applying the knowledge that has been acquired. But, more in general, the prevailing opinions are those of people like the English researcher into the ethics of science, A. Belsey, who state that it is impossible for a scientist to proceed with a descriptive study of the laws of nature without acting , at the some time, on nature itself. In other words, if science is the result of a social awareness, then the ethical question regards both the acquisition of scientific data. Furthermore, it should not be forgotten that, before Hiroshima, no one listened to the scientists who pleaded not to employ the nuclear against civilians and neither to apply it to military weapons. The scientist s professional ethics include the problem of his responsibility to wards society.

AGAINST GENETIC ENGINEERING

Erwin Chargaff, an old Austrian biochemist living in the U.S. since 1987, is the author of Engineering a Molecular Nightmare, a leading article first appear on Nature, disputing the reductionist trends of modern biology ( We don t know what life is, yet we handle it as if it were a solution of inorganic salts), as well as the inconsistency of the ethical norms adopted by scientists and the growing commercialization of science. He maintains that The great progress made in our time by science especially in its applications- are made up of a huge amount of small steps, each appealingly harmless or even beneficial in the eyes of public opinion[]. But one can already see the beginning of human breeding, of plants of industrial reproduction. Who can stop the mass production and industrial exploitation of human embryos? What I see on the horizon is a gigantic slaughterhouse, a molecular Auschwitz, where instead of gold teeth will be entracted hormones, enzymes and other valuable proteins

The main objections are both o fan ethical kind ( is sit morally justifiable to rear animals which are born to suffer? Till what point does the end justify the means?) and o fan ecological kind: Less accessibility to food resources for the poorer countries because of the property rights on the new organisms, since the farmers of the Third World will be employed by a dozen of multinational firms, holding the patent for the modified organisms which will rule the economy of several countries and the alimentary and financial destiny of many peoples. More spreading of chemical herbicides, since it has been proved that 71% of transgenic plants turns out to be highly resistant to common pesticides, so that the growing cultivation of such plants will bring a wider employment of chemical herbicides. Development of insects and diseases resistant to pesticides, since insects have been exposed to the toxin Bt for too long, they can develop some sort of resistance. In this case, the most resistant ones wil be selected. In the course of their evolution those insects will even become injured by that toxin. Therefore, not only something entirely useless has been introduced but, since the toxin is employed as a form of defense for biological cultivations, biological agriculture has been seriously harmed ( according to the studies of the Agriculture Department of the U.S.). Serious unbalance of the ecosystem, since, for example, the admission into the environment of a genetically modified bacterium able to produce alcohol from vegetable waste, has had serious consequences: when the production waste, containing live bacteria, left the labs to be employed as a fertilizer, the effects were devastating and all the wheat that should have been fertilized, was actually destroyed; also the soil ecosystem was modified by the explosive proliferation of a harmful worm. Toxic and allergenic properties in new foodstuffs. It has happened in the case of soy with the addition of a gene coming from the Brazilian Walnut ( J.A. Nordlee et al., in New England Journal of Medicine, March 14th, 1996). But especially an English research ( Dr. Graham from the York Nutritional Laboratory, in the Daily Express of March 12th 1999) proved that, in the first year of employment of modified soy, there was a 50% increase in the allergies to soy ( a stricter relationship cannot be proved, since modified soy is sold together with traditional soy). The risk of allergies regards also the Aventis transgenic maize, called Sterlink which in the U.S.A. has been authorized only for animal feeding. Unfortunately, as reported by the Washington Post of October, 13th 2000, the Starlink maize has been found in several products for human use, having been put on the market without the warning of a transgenic product and November 28th the Food and Drug Administration denounced that already 44 people, among those who had eaten products based on the Starlink maize, reported sickness. Risk of bio-piracy as regards the genetic resources of developing countries. Some countries like India , China and Brazil are trying to stop the access to their rich genetic possessions, after the heavy thefts they have already been subject to. One ought to remember the battle led by the Indian scientist and philosopher Vandava Shiva against the American patent office and the one she won against the European patent office (EPO) to defend her people from the expropriation of the precious neem tree. Many drugs have already been prepared in this way by pharmaceutical industries, which have exploited the cultural traditions of

old local shamans (no longer ignored or mocked), devastating and endangering the survival of the plans those drugs derive from. Even the human body is an interesting prey for bio-pirates or gene thieves. Thanks to legal action that followed, John Moores story has become well known. He was the man who, without having given his assent, saw an American doctor patent some cells from his spleen. Moores appeal to recover the property of apart of his body was unsuccessful. Nowadays the most primitive and isolated tribes are selected for their resistance (or vulnerability) to some diseases and western scientists have often secretly collected samples of tissues or blood of indigenous populations. Another much talked about example regards the patenting of a genic variation found in some individuals from the population of Limone del Garda, which prevents the hazards of heart and circulatory diseases, even in the presence of a high concentration of cholesterol. This characteristic was discovered by an Italian who have moved to the USA; the Americans kept him under control, and by taking his blood samples they studied this gene and finally patented it. Now the people from Limone, who own those genes by biological heritage, no longer own them legally; they cannot decide, for example, to donate them for research for all mankind, because they are covered by a patent and belong to somebody else! Transmissibility of new pathogenic agents to man, through xenotransplants. The worst danger of mankind is that, when the organ is transferred from an animal to a man, the passage of pathogenic agents may occur. This agents, such as viruses or retro viruses, find the ideal conditions thanks to the immuno-suppressions aimed at avoiding rejections, so that in time they will turn into human pathogenic agents; even more so since natural defends barriers against infections, i.e. skin and the gastro-intestinal tract, can be easily avoided in this way (nature, 407, 93 of September 7th 2000). Many scholars maintain that the HIV virus derived from the monkeys SIV virus (probably through the vaccines these animals were used for). Many other dangerous viruses and infections which have attacked human beings in the last few years originated from animals, like the Ebola virus found in many African regions on several occasions, or the Marburg virus and the Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, transmitted from cows (BSE). Furthermore, it has been discovered there is a link between cancer of lungs, brain and bones, and the SV40 virus, found in the salk anti-poliomyelitis vaccine and bred on monkey kidneys. Just one contagion (only one xenotransplant) might be sufficient to give rise to uncontrollable epidemics, like AIDS. Who would cope with this emergency and would pay for the damages of such a sanitary disaster? The british government, when it was about to authorize the first clinical experiment of xenotransplant, issued some guide-lines for the patients awaiting an organ from an animal: he must put clown in riding his pledge not to have children, to denounce all his sexual partners, to be willing to a confinement should any problem arise.

RADIOACTIVITY
Radioactivity is harmful because it alters the structure of the substances that make up the cells of the human body. For examples, when oxygen and water molecules, present in every biological structure, are hit by radiations, they break up giving rise to free radicals which interact with the cells altering their function. The body can repair the damages caused by low intensity radiations, but

massive or repeated doses may cause irreparable damages. An example of how harmful exposition to radiations can be is the so called gulf Syndrome, which hit the veterans of the 1991 war to Iraq, caused, according to the studies so far carrier out, by the long exposition to impoverished uranium, present in the bullets given as equipment to soldiers.

AGAINST VIVISECTION

The Antivivisection Scientific Committer maintains that the experiments carried out on animals do not bring any real knowledge about the effects of a substance ( i.e. a drug), since animals of different species or of different breeds, or even strains of the same species, respond in a Heterogeneous way to a given stimulus. For the CSA vivisection is dangerous for men for two main reasons: 1) the directed experimentation on man of substances which have not undergone any previous control ( since the results of experiments carried out on animals is not to be considered predictive for man in any way); 2) there is a risk of rejecting substances which , on the contrary, might be a great aid for man, on the plain grounds that they have proved to be toxic for one ( or sometimes more) species. The point is that the differences between men and animals are so marked that if experimentation of drugs produces positive affects on animals, at the same time one cannot be so certain as for as men are regarded; besides, the addressee of each experimental remedy, i.e. man, lives in an environment which is completely different from an aseptic laboratory, whereby
other environment factors will come into play.

Man is therefore a true guinea-pig while an animal is an alibi which allows to proceed with human experimentation. It is impossible to see a scientific basis in animal that the logics of the animalmachine have lost the relations linking together environment, nature and organisms, while only the single parts are considered valuable and the complexity of reality in its wholeness is ignored. From all that derives also a sanitary model whereby man is seen in relation to his single parts, which can get altered and decay, but not in his totality. From an ethical point of view, vivisection ought to be abolished since it represents a supremacy behavior of a species towards the others, highly prejudicial to all the rights that the most advanced currents of philosophical thoughts acknowledge to animals; it is a crime, whichever way one might attempt to justify it, whether it is meant in the interests of mankind or, as is often the case, merely for the sake of personal interests and career.