# 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