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To: SeekAndFind
Is it permissible?

The Lord gave man dominion over the earth, and to my knowledge he placed few limitations on that dominion that would apply to genetic engineering.

The few key ones would be the sanctity of human life and I think it's reasonable that the prohibitions on sex outside of marriage extend to artificial means of fertilization.

What that means to me is that fertilized human embryos should be protected and not killed for science. What's more, fertilization techniques that rely on fertilizing muliple human embryos with the intention of only letting one live is likewise immoral.

I see no prohibition on conducting experiments on animals or plant life.

Is it wise

The real question to me is "Is it safe? Have sufficient safeguards been implemented protect from unintended effects?

But would I ban genetic engineering to cure a human of a genetic disease? No. Would I be concerned that a virus used to implement a genetic change could escape, possibly mutate, and have adverse affects on the general population? Absolutely.

I speculate even now that morgellons disease may have been caused by genetically modified food. It's one thing to be cross breeding fruits. It's another to be introducing insect genes into food crops.

Do we really understand all of the potential things that could go wrong? (RumsfieldSpeak Are there known unknowns or unknown unknowns /RS) Do we have sufficient safeguards against all of them? Are the people implementing genetic engineering taking undo risks in hopes of getting rich?

3 posted on 11/26/2012 8:02:00 AM PST by DannyTN
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To: DannyTN
Decades ago, Asian scientists genetically engineered bacteria to produce Tryptophane. 31 people died, and more were sickened. As usual, the FDA banned Tryptophane, ignoring the real cause of the problem. Yes, there are consequences to tinkering with genetics.

The article talks about curing hunger, etc, but fails to talk about the cost increases to food prices that result from modified crops. And it fails to mention the impact on neighboring fields of regular corn that have been impacted by GE corn. I'm OK with GE food, if it can be controlled and labeled. But labeling isn't allowed, because that might lead to revealing more consequences.

7 posted on 11/26/2012 9:27:53 AM PST by aimhigh
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