Jornal de Genética e Terapia Gênica

Gene Therapy: Ethical Issue for Developing World

Viroj Wiwanitkit

The new biotechnology is usually the useful thing for biomedical society. There are many new emerging biotechnologies that exist and widely available at present. The usefulness of the new technology can be expected. On the other hand, the possible adverse effect of the new technology should also be kept in mind. In regulation of the new biotechnology, there must be the good control of users and technologies. At present, gene therapy is a new biotechnology based on advance genetic knowledge. The advantage is medicine is expected and there is the need for control of this new technology. For control of the new technology, the new law is usually needed. Nevertheless, the better control should be the ethical control. If one has a good ethical practice, the problem should not occur. The ethical issue on gene therapy is very interesting. As noted by Fogleman et al., As the technology progresses, it is important that the ethical considerations herein emerge and become more established [1]. Portin noted that until now, all gene therapies in the world have belonged to the regime of somatic therapy, germ line therapy having been a theoretical possibility only and mentioned that In addition to technical challenges, severe ethical problems are associated with germ line therapy, demanding opinion statement