sep 26°70

‘Genetic Manipulation’
To. the Editor:

Professor Amitai Etzioni’s Sept. 5
“Topics”. column “Genetic Manipula-
tion and Morality” is another contri-
bution to the demonology of.genetic
engineering that’ obscures the im-
portant dilemmas of. health policy
requiring open-ended. public discussion

and participation. ..

. ————

| tion, cystic fibrosis, heart disease, dia: |

The Congressional. committee testl-

-mony to which he alludes gives no

justification for “ordering supermen”
by: the task force which I advocated.

“Itcis.a- ‘plea for ‘establishing the rela-

tive urgency of various categories of
human misery, like mental retarda-

betes and many” other conditions™

which have an important genetic com-
ponent.

“Shopping for genes” is a phrase
of: his own invention; perhaps he
means nothing more than the aspira-
tion for healthy life to which most
of us plead guilty. I also stressed
that it would be both technically and
socially advantageous to concentrate
on ways of modulating the untoward
effects of deleterious: genes whenever
possible for therapeutic purposes in
preference to strenuous. efforts at
modifying the genes themselves.

- His point that we ought to explore

‘the aggregate social effects of indi-

vidual decisions is an excellent ‘one.
This.of course is important in -the
therapy of: genetic disease, but also
in the assessment of every other claim
on precious resources like scientific

talent and medical service. It is espe- |

cially needed when. humanitarian mo-
tives Jead us out of the conventional

~marketplace, where each consumer

makes ‘his own allocation of. limited
resources for the most valued aims.

Such an exploration is, however,
confused rather than advanced by.
phrases like “genetic engineering,”
which are as prejudicial as it would
be to call surgery “anatomical manip-
ulation,” . education ‘psychological
control,” or scientific nutrition “‘mold-
ing a superbaby.” JosHUA LEDERBERG

' Stanford, Calif., Sept. 10, 1970
The writer, Professor of Genetics at
Stanford School of Medicine,:.won the
Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medi-
cine, 1958. ob,