Gode coughed. "We've made a mistake. These are all disorders of sociability. This needs to be the sociability gene."
And so it was.
FromBusiness Online :
SCIENTISTS FIND GENE FOR SOCIABILITY
Is the tendency to sociability inherited? Scientists at the Morecomb Laboratories, at Columbia University, believe that it is. They report they have found the gene that regulates it, and they have applied for a patent on the gene...
Op-Ed Commentary from theNew York Times :
A "SOCIABILITY GENE"? WHEN WILL THIS NONSENSE STOP?
Columbia University researchers now claim to have found a sociability gene. What's next? The shyness gene? The reclusive gene? The monastic gene? How about the get-off-my-back gene?
In truth, researchers are taking advantage of the public's lack of knowledge about how genes actually operate. No single gene controls any behavioral trait. Unfortunately, the public doesn't know that. They think there's a gene for eye color, for height, and for hair curliness, so why not one for sociability? Geneticists will not speak out. They all sit on the boards of private companies, and are in a race to identify genes they can patent for their own profit.
Will this ever stop? Evidently not.
FromGrist online:
FEELING SOCIABLE? THAT'S PATENTED
The research office of Columbia University has applied for a patent on a gene that it says controls sociability. Does this mean that one day everyone on antidepressants, or ADD medications, or anxiety medications, will have to pay a royalty to Columbia? Reportedly, pharmaceutical giants in Switzerland are bidding frantically to license the gene.
Chapter 31-32
CHapter 031
The fact-findinghearing of the Bioethics Review Panel at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda was carefully structured to feel collegial and unintimidating. Everyone sat at the same long table in the third-floor conference room of the main building, a familiar setting, with notices for upcoming seminars tacked on the walls and the aging coffeemaker sputtering in the corner. The coffee was notoriously awful; nobody drank it.
The six scientists on the review panel dressed a little more formally for this meeting. Most had put on jackets; one even wore a tie. But they sat slouched and relaxed as they talked to the person being investigated, Dr. Ronald Marsh, forty-one, who sat at the same table with them.
"And how, exactly, did this twelve-year-old girl die?"
Dr. Marsh was a professor of medicine at the University of Texas in Austin. "She suffered from congenital transport factor deficiency." CTFD was a fatal genetic deficiency. "This girl was treated with diet and renal dialysis from the age of nine months. She showed some stunting of growth but no mental retardation. She and her family both wanted this procedure, in the hope that she could have a normal life. Not be tied to a machine forever. As you know, it's not much of a life, especially for a young kid."
Those around the table listened impassively.
"And looking to the future," Marsh continued, "we all recognized that she could not be maintained through adolescence. Hormonal changes were already affecting her metabolism. She was certain to die in the next three to four years. It was on that basis that we undertook the procedure to insert the gene into her body." He paused. "The risks were known."
One of the scientists said, "These risks were discussed with the family?"
"Of course. In detail."
"And with the patient?"
"Yes. She was a bright girl. She was the one who first proposed the procedure. She read about it on the Internet. She understood that the risks were enormous."
"Did you give the family an estimate of those risks?"
"We did. We told them the chances of success were on the order of three percent."
"And they went ahead anyway?"
"Yes. The daughter pushed them. She felt that if she was going to die anyway, she might as well take the chance."
"She was a minor..."
"Yes," Marsh said. "But she was also the one with the disease."
"You got signed releases?"
"Yes."
"We've read those releases. Some of us felt the releases struck an unrealistic positive tone, minimizing risks."
"The releases were prepared by the hospital's legal department," Marsh said. "And you will notice the family signed off on a statement that they had been fully informed of the risks. What they were told is also noted in the patient's charts. We would not have proceeded without fully informed consent."
During that speech, the head of the panel, Dr. Robert Bellarmino, slipped into the room and eased into a seat at the end of the table.
"So you did the procedure?" Dr. Marsh was asked.
"We did."
"What vector was used?"
"Modified adenovirus infusion, in combination with standard Barlow immunosuppression protocols."
"And the outcome?"
"She spiked a fever almost at once. It ran to 107 degrees. She had signs of multiple organ system failure on the second day. Liver and kidney function did not recover. She died on the third day."
There was a short silence.
"If I may make a personal comment," Marsh said, "this has been a shattering experience for all of us at the hospital, and shattering for me personally. We had cared for this girl since infancy. She was...beloved by everyone on the staff. She was a little ray of sunshine, whenever she came into the clinic. We attempted this risky procedure because she wanted it. But at night I ask myself, was it the right thing to do? And I always feel I had an obligation to take that risk with the patient, if that was what she wanted. She wanted life. How could I deny her that chance?"