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In medical terms,
it can be argued that to repair defective DNA so that the correct
functioning of a gene is restored is a further extension of medicine,
that has in the last 50 years taken us into unknown regions such
as organ transplants, radiation therapy and in vitro fertilisation.
As our knowledge of the human body and its functioning has increased,
we can now envisage treating patients at a genetic level. In this
sense, it would seem to raise no ethical problems if, instead
of injecting a vital protein that is deficient in a patient, the
gene which should be stimulating the body to produce that protein
might have its normal function restored.
Somatic Gene
Therapy, is it ethically acceptable?
Somatic
gene therapy can be seen as a special case of medical treatment,
in the sense of focussing familiar questions by the risks of a
relatively unknown area of science, and the novel power and specificity
of the level of intervention in the body.
Somatic gene
therapy is directed at the body's non-reproductive cells 
, it only
affects the genetic makeup of that one individual, and is not
passed on to any children they may subsequently have.
In its report
to the Government on the ethics of gene therapy, the Clothier
Committe reported that although somatic gene therapy did not,
in their view, represent a major departure from established medical
practice, that familiar issues such as safety, unpredictable consequences
and consent would assume greater importance because of the nature
of genetic disorders. With the new degree of power and specificity
of treating the body at the genetic level comes also a new degree
of sensititivity to error and uncertainty in a relatively young
science.
Leslie
Gornstein
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