Medical technologies are risky and many are performed too often. People tend to focus on the achievements of modern medicine rather than the uncertainty of many medical procedures. (Mike 1987)

Princeton University microbiologist Lee M. Silver says that he can see a day a few centuries from now when there are two species of humans – the standard “naturals,” (Deneen 2001) and the “gene-enriched” (Deneen 2001) an elite class whose parents bought for them designer genes, and whose parents before them did the same, and so on for generations.

It will all start innocently enough – birth defects that are caused by a single gene, such as cystic fibrosis and Tay-Sachs disease, will be targeted first, and probably without any controversy. Then, as societal fears about messing with mother nature subside, Silver and other researchers predict that a genetic solution to preventing diabetes, heart disease and other big killers will be found and offered, as well as genetic inoculations against HIV. Eventually, the mind will be targeted for improvement – preventing addiction to alcohol a

To combat the inevitability of this new technologically advanced future, Marcy Darnovsky, a Sonoma State University instructor calls for three things to happen. First, she believes that a global ban is needed on inheritable genetic engineering on humans. Secondly, there should be another global ban on human reproductive cloning and lastly, and effective regulation of other human genetic technologies. (Borchard 2000)

Humans may already be on the path to change the very nature of nature. On June 26, 2000, scientists and the Human Genome Project announced that they had completed a working draft of a genetic blueprint for a human being, although many details sill need to be filled in before scientists can build a human from scratch.

Silver believes that by around 2010 parents will be able to genetically ensure their babies won’t grow up to be obese or alcoholic, and by 2050 they’ll be able to insert an extra gene into single-cell embryos within 24 hours of conception to make babies resistant to AIDS. It is already possible to insert foreign DNA into mice, pigs and sheep, but due to technical obstacles they haven’t yet been able to successfully do the same for humans. At this point in human knowledge, it could lead to mutations, so scientists are developing techniques to avoid that. (Deneen 2001)

Neighbourhood clinics could insert a block of genes into a newly fertilized egg. As one cell broke into two, then four, and so on, each cell would contain the new traits. And the child would then pass these on to each generation after them. But according to a professor of cell biology and anatomy at New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York, Sturt Newman, the effect on human biology cou

Some topics in this essay:
Genome Project, HIV Eventually, Environmental Research, Lee Silver, Sonoma University, Sturt Newman, Boris Rubinsky, , March Berkely, deneen 2001, UCLA’s Stock, human genetic, genetic engineering, chemical “letters”, human genome, intelligence traits, global ban,