12.2 Application to Somatic Cell Gene Therapy

So far as we know there has been no committee anywhere that has recommended outright prohibition of all somatic cell gene therapy. The 1982 Report “ Splicing life “ (United States presidential commission for the study of Ethical problem in medicine and biomedical and Behavioral research) laid the groundwork for world-wide recognition that the ethical problems presented by such therapies are not fundamentally different from those presented by other research techniques.

The principal problems in somatic cell gene therapy involve adequate supervision both of the safety of research practices in the laboratory, and of the decision to initiate human trials and the methods for securing full information from them.

From any ethical standpoint we know about, the central responsibility is maximize the gains and minimize the risks, and ultimately decide whether or not the benefits realistically to be gained make legitimate asking others to run the risks involved (Ivanov,1993).