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+# Gene Drives and Vivisectors
+
+Genetic engineering is one of the most popular research fronts in modern
+medicine and biology.
+It's in its infancy, with preliminary studies struggling to even select
+or splice the right genes.
+But previous genome work, a widening availability of the tools used to
+genetically modify organisms, and breakthroughs with CRISPR mean that,
+although it is reasonably safe (ethically speaking) now, the field's
+semi-hypothetical ethics questions will become very real very soon.
+
+Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are controversial in public
+opinion, and carry much of the same rhetorical argument as vivisection.
+Scientists, for the most part, "side" with genetically modified
+organisms, noting them as mostly safe for small modifications, but fears
+about large-scale intervention by "Big Agra" (Monsanto and companies
+like it) and fears about excessive Western influence on GMO standards
+have degraded the image of these technological improvements.
+Just like with vivisection, fears about the potential of the technology
+run rampant.
+These are typically unsupported by reality, but like Dr. Moreau's
+beastfolk, they capture public imagination.
+The ideas that large corporations want to kill the people and that
+vivisectors really want to cut up humans block progress.
+
+[IMAGE: A shrew holding up a sign with "Give Monsanto a Death Blow"
+written on it. CAPTION: This is part 12 of a 15 part series advocating
+exclusively against Monsanto, demonstrating the great public animus
+https://live.staticflickr.com/4110/5038913099_b5f589c91f_b.jpg]
+
+[IMAGE: A comic about "kill genes" from ALTHEADLINES. CAPTION: The
+conspiracy of large corporations has depicted GMOs as a weapon of the
+plutocracy. SRC: https://live.staticflickr.com/8023/7538325182_b4534f5761.jpg]
+
+Progress is poorly defined, but scientists use it as a motivator
+regardless.
+The "reckless expert scientist" places faith in the power of experiment,
+The New York Times, in its article about gene drives---one
+of the more promising and more alarming gene technologies---discusses
+this divide between the reckless expert scientist and the fretful
+uneducated public.
+Dr. Moreau plays the character of the reckless expert scientist, having
+been thrown out of society yet still pursuing mythical progress.
+Gene drives allow geneticists to insert genetically modified copies of
+an organism (mosquitoes for example) into a population and rapidly
+spread that gene across the population.
+Scientists and public health experts want to stop malaria by genetically
+modifying mosquitoes and releasing them into the West African wild.
+But fears about using this to sneak in harmful gene drives, "colonial
+medicine," and wide ecological failure abound, paralleling fears about
+vivisectors and even dissectors.
+Their practitioners had some valid use cases for vivisections, and
+despite poor minimization of harm, made scientific breakthroughs similar
+in impact to erasure of malaria.
+
+Rioting and unease about vivisection was much louder and direct than
+gene modification protests can likely become because gene modification
+is invisible, but new science remains poignant.
+Fears about gene modification transferring to humans largely correspond
+to fears about vivisection transferring to humans, although the line in
+the sand may be ultimately drawn differently.
+And the way that scientists shrug off risk and harm in the pursuit of
+experimental truth is equally frightening to a general public despite
+ethical regulations.
+
+Sources:
+- The Island of Dr Moreau
+- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/magazine/gene-drive-mosquitoes.html
+- "Say NO! to monsanto! Pt. 13" by adriansalamandre is licensed with CC
+  BY-NC 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit
+  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/
+- "GMO Kill Gene" by altheadlines is licensed with CC BY-ND 2.0. To view
+  a copy of this license, visit
+  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/ 
+- Images found by search.creativecommons.org
+NOT USED: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:CRISPR