Biotechnology Unzipped: Promises and Realities (1997)
Joseph Henry Press (JHP)
The views expressed in this book are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Academies.
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but might these same techniques paradoxically devalue human life, reducing us to collections of medical raw materials? Genetic analysis offers sophisticated advances in early detection and diagnosis, but does this only give more ways to tell us our likelihood of getting a particular disorder, without offering any real remedies?

The medical industry is today's biggest customer for biotechnology. The industry includes everything from physicians in hospitals to manufacturers of every kind of equipment, diagnostic techniques, drugs, hormones, vaccines, and other biochemicals. While each addition to the health-care arsenal may be cause for comfort to present and future patients, many applications raise questions that go beyond the scientific and technical, bringing social, economic, ethical, and legal issues in their wake.

New parts for old

If we view the body as an assembly of parts, it doesn't seem odd when we treat faulty or worn-out parts by replacing them. Physicians first achieved limited success doing this as far back as the 1800s, grafting pieces of fresh skin onto burn victims, but it wasn't until well into the 20th century that scientists discovered the secret to transplanting entire organs.

Organ transplants were a psychological as well as a surgical breakthrough, a step towards understanding the body by literally deconstructing it. While a body might be more than the sum of its parts, transplant techniques proved that a single organ could be responsible for disease in the whole. These developments laid the groundwork for the finer probings of biotechnology, which ulti-


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