Xref: utzoo sci.research:643 talk.politics.misc:21640 sci.bio:1825
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From: ogil@tank.uchicago.edu (Brian W. Ogilvie)
Newsgroups: sci.research,talk.politics.misc,sci.bio
Subject: Re: animal research
Message-ID: <1746@tank.uchicago.edu>
Date: 7 Feb 89 23:01:31 GMT
References: <5963@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <674@intvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: ogil@tank.uchicago.edu (Brian W. Ogilvie)
Organization: History of Science, University of Chicago
Lines: 52

In article <674@intvax.UUCP> morimoto@intvax.UUCP (Alan Morimoto) writes:
>
>So, if there were a major disaster that restricted medical professionals to
>treating those who were injured, i.e. a war, then we would have a lot of
>dying people out there, dying from cronic illnesses.  My point is that maybe
>we need to look at what long term effects we are creating by breeding
>diseases into our future generations.  I can imagine that countries that are
>not as medically advanced inherit a stronger gene pool of people simply
>because the weak will perish.  Will the future of the world be inherited by
>us, the medically pampered, or the third world?
>
>Alan

Whoa! Wait a minute. Most of the diseases which are being controlled through
the use of antibiotics, reconstructive surgery, etc. are not genetic
diseases. Influenza, polio, and the like are caused by viruses and bacteria,
and as such there is no way that our medical technology is causing these
diseases to be "bred into future generations."

We _may_ be slowing down the evolution of genetic compensations for these
diseases, but as an examination of sickle-cell anemia or any other genetic
antimalarial shows, the cure is often nearly as bad (though the logic of
selection prevents it from being worse) than the disease. A far worse
result of the _indiscriminate_ use of antibiotics is the development of
resistant strains of bacteria, which can pass on this resistance to other
strains during conjugation. This has nothing to do with the gene pool.

Of course, a number of genetic diseases have been identified, and many are
treatable. For example, phenylketonuria, which is caused by an inability to
digest the amino acid phenylalanine and which results in brain damage, may
be identified and prevented by a special diet. If phenylketonurics reproduced
at the same rate as the rest of the population, the gene would remain fixed
at the same frequency in the population. However, phenylketonurics are aware
of their genetic deficiency (otherwise they would have suffered severe brain
damage during youth), and they can choose not to have children. As long as
they have fewer children than non-phenylketonuric families, the frequency
of the phenylketonuria gene will decrease.

The fear that we are becoming "genetically inferior" to "third world"
populations is not really justified. Perhaps, after a few centuries of
advanced medicine the frequency of recessive lethals will be higher in our
gene pool, but then our population size is much larger (because of 
transportation, etc.). The major problem, antibiotic-resistant microorganisms,
will affect everyone equally. Furthermore, it seems likely that in any
situation where we lose our biomedical technology, more of us will be
dying from starvation or exposure than from any nasty recessives in the
gene pool.

-- 
Brian W. Ogilvie  /  ogil@tank.uchicago.edu
"Cartesianism is the most popular 'popular science' ever invented."
					--Noel Swerdlow