Black Scientists on Prestigious Genome Project Voice Concerns

Each step forward in the quest to unlock the mysteries of human life and its diseases takes genetics researchers deeper into an ethical, legal and financial minefield.

Consider the following hypothetical multiple choice item:

Advances in genetic research:

(a) reveal life's biochemical infrastructure and gain precious ground for scientists in the search for cures for diseases that can be linked to hereditary traits;

(b) provide lawmakers with new justification for mandating desirable behavior, law enforcers with tools to predict who'll commit crime and lawbreakers with more excuses;

(c) allow insurance companies to reduce their liabilities;

(d) fuel the fears of groups that believe there are forces conspiring to eliminate them; or

(e) all of the above.

The answer is (e) according to African-American genetic scientists, who say that those statements are a mere sampling of the philosophical barriers that are piling up as fast as breakthroughs in genetic research.

"In many ways (gene research) is an example of how scientific advances are outpacing our ability to deal with them," says Dr. James B. Bowman, pathology professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he teaches a course in evolution and human diversity.

Bowman, co-author of "Genetic Variation in Peoples of African Origin," was talking about opposition to genetic research. In that arena, scientists are exploring the properties and characteristics of genes -- short segments of the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) -- that contain the biological instructions for cell behavior.

Bowman and other Black scientists say they spend much of their non-laboratory time either fighting off attempts to use information about genetics to make sweeping judgements about racial characteristics or breaking down resistance to what they do as expressed by some outside the world of medical research.