USING germ-line gene therapy to make changes to people鈥檚 DNA that can be inherited should be outlawed, says an independent committee of scientists, lawyers and ethicists set up by Jacques Delors, the president of the European Commission. 鈥淲e say it鈥檚 foolish and ethically unacceptable,鈥� says No毛lle Lenoir, of the Group of Advisers on the Ethical Implications of Biotechnology.
Lenoir says that while the committee unanimously backed this recommendation, members differed in their reasons. Some believed it was unacceptable purely on ethical grounds, while others said that the technology was too risky.
Delors set up the group to offer the European Commission advice on controversial aspects of biotechnology. The group backed the rapid development of gene therapies to treat disease, but it urged caution to ensure that, for example, viruses cannot transmit altered genes from gene therapy patients to others.
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