Minutes of the Meeting held on 17 December 2001
Tue, 16 August 2005
9th meeting
NUFFIELD COUNCIL ON BIOETHICS
WORKING PARTY ON GENETICS AND HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
Minutes of the Meeting held at the Nuffield Foundation 28 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3JS on Monday 17 December 2001
PRESENT
Professor Bob Hepple (Chairman)
Mr Pushpinder Saini
Professor Nicholas Rawlins
Professor Martin Richards
Dr Paul Pharoah
Professor Tom Baldwin
Professor Anita Thapar
Professor Andrew Wilkie
Professor Annette Karmiloff-Smith
SECRETARIAT
Sandy Thomas
Tor Lezemore
Yvonne Melia
Nicola Perrin
APOLOGIES
Professor Sandy McCall Smith
Professor Terrie Moffitt
Dr Tom Shakespeare
Professor Martin Bobrow
CHAIRMAN’S INTRODUCTION
1 The Chairman welcomed the group.
MINUTES OF MEETING HELD ON 8 NOVEMBER 2001 (RECIRCULATED)
2 The minutes were approved as correct.
MATTERS ARISING
3 It was agreed that Lord Justice Stephen Sedley would be invited to peer review the Report, to provide a legal perspective from the UK. It was noted that progress with regard to education and behaviour genetics had been rather slow but that there was still to be a section on this topic in the last chapter of the Report.
DISCUSSION OF CONTRIBUTIONS
4 A first draft of the Introduction would be prepared in time for the circulation of the draft Report to the Council. It would include a brief discussion of the problems in defining normal behaviour and would justify how the Working Party had chosen to define the scope of its study. There were notes in minutes of earlier meetings that would be useful for this drafting.
5 It was noted that, aside from the question of coercion, it was hard to find good arguments against eugenics. It had to be remembered that not all eugenic practices in the 20th century had involved coercion, which made ethical distinctions between past and current practices more problematic. This issue would need to be addressed more fully, drawing on the relevant section in From Chance to Choice. It was not enough to say that eugenics was wrong; one had to explain why. The group agreed with the recommendations in the Chapter. Ultimately, these recommendations might be moved elsewhere in the Report.
6 It was agreed that the conclusion in paragraph 19 needed to be highlighted. It would also appear in the final chapter that drew together all the conclusions and recommendations from the Report. An additional difficulty, that of post-translational changes, would be added to the list in paragraph 14. There was a confusion that needed to be clarified regarding the use of the terms risk and prediction. In general, prediction referred to a behavioural trait that was not yet present in an individual. In many cases discussed later in the Report, a genetic test would not be predictive, but would provide additional information about an existing trait that could already be measured in other ways. There was a difference between an observed characteristic and a risk factor and it would be important to be clear about which was being considered in each case.
7 It was agreed that it would be appropriate to refer to ‘genetic factors’ rather than ‘genetic risk factors’ since risk was commonly associated with disease or pathology. It was not usual to speak of a risk factor for a behavioural trait within the normal range. Cross references to Chapter 2 would need to be inserted. The summary text at the end of the chapter that referred to the ability of quantitative genetic research to inform about particular genetic or environmental factors would be clarified. The chapter should also emphasise the fact that behaviour genetics research had not shown that shared environmental factors were unimportant in influencing behaviour. A final clarification would be to ensure that heritability estimates for IQ and other traits were consistent between chapters.
8 It was agreed that the evidence reviews had been satisfactorily condensed, but it was felt that a short additional chapter summarising the main themes that emerged would be useful. In addition, the sections on practical applications of the research in each review would be moved to Chapter 14 where they would inform the ethical discussion.
9 The paragraph explaining the various models of personality should be revised to make it clear that consensus among researchers in the field on the number of core traits did not exist.
10 The phrase ‘dignity of man’ should be replaced by ‘human dignity’. It was suggested that a recommendation might be made in this chapter about the duty of scientists and the media not to oversimplify or overstate research findings in behaviour genetics. It was agreed that in addition to reference to Christian beliefs, it would be interesting to consider the role of the immaterial self in other religions. There were various places in which the arguments that were not accepted by the Working Party could be set out in more detail before they were rejected.
Chapter 13: Legal responsibility
11 Genetic exceptionalism was a general issue for the last section of the Report. It would need to be clear why the Report was focusing on genetic influences on behaviour in the normal range. It would also be important for the caveat in Chapter 14 about the likelihood of practical applications to be emphasised.
12 The new drafting for this section was generally agreed by the group though it would benefit from being linked more closely with the relevant evidence review. The group discussed the proposal by some commentators that the distinction between murder and manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility ought to be replaced by a single offence of unlawful homicide, for which there would be a ‘continuum of culpability’. This would mean that relevant factors could be taken into account without having to be tied to a particular mental illness. If this proposal were to be introduced, it would be easier to see a potential role for behavioural genetic information.
13 There was some debate about whether genetic influences on behaviour should be taken into account in sentencing offenders. The chapter needed to be clearer about the distinction between this potential use and the exculpatory use. It was not clear which factors should be allowed in mitigation. There were various possible influences on behaviour including physiological factors such as genetic predispositions, gender and psychiatric state, and environmental factors such as family background and upbringing. What criteria should be used to decide which were admissible as potential mitigating factors? One criterion might be the frequency of the factor in the population (for example, being male). Another might be the strength of the effect. The Chapter would need to be very clear about which factors it was allowing and which it was not, and the reasons for these distinctions. One view was that genetic influences on behaviour in the normal range would be of such small effect that they ought not to be taken into account in sentencing. There would need to be further drafting on the use of behavioural genetic information in the context of sentencing in the Chapter, and further discussion of this issue among the Working Party. Another area that ought to be addressed was civil liability, which relied on the concept of an ordinary reasonable person, rather than the particular mental state of an individual.
14 It was observed that the dangers of medicalisation outlined in the draft Report may have been overstated. Though it was certainly true that there was anxiety about medicalisation, it was perhaps unfounded. The example of the gay community and the ‘gay gene’ was one in which there appeared to be little or no medicalisation as a result of a claim by behavioural geneticists. Perhaps there was confusion between medicalisation as a result of drug treatments and medicalisation as a result of genetic information. There was also a tendency to offer medical and non-medical interventions and explanations as mutually exclusive alternatives, which was not necessarily the case. It would be important to make clear in each example how it related to genetics
15 The section on prenatal selection required some background detail about what prenatal testing and selection were and the difference between PGD and PND. It would also be useful to clarify the use of terms such as ‘designer baby’. There were two senses in which this term was often used. The first was to refer to a child which had been chosen for what might be thought trivial reasons, such as hair or eye colour. This was a ‘designer baby’ in the sense that it exemplified the values of a consumer society, with an unhealthy focus on unimportant, frivolous characteristics. The second use of the term was to refer to a child whose characteristics had been deliberately selected or manipulated, for whatever reason. For example, the recent case of embryos being selected to provide donor cells for a sibling had generated claims of ‘designer babies’. This second use of the term was inappropriate, since what was at issue was selection, rather than design. The possibility of truly designing a child, by choosing characteristics and creating a child with them, was still in the realms of science fiction: an article by Marcus Pembrey previously circulated to the group argued that for reasons of scientific fact, it would remain there. A more realistic but less accurate possibility was gamete selection based on the characteristics of parents, which currently occurred in various countries. However, there was evidence to suggest that most parents used information about the gamete donors to try and achieve a child who matched their own characteristics, rather than one with characteristics they thought to be desirable.
16 The view was expressed that there was no ethical concern about drugs for enhancing behavioural traits, or ‘lifestyle’ drugs. The argument about authenticity was felt by some of the group to be unconvincing, and the only true ethical problems arose in the context of exploiting consumers and the unnecessary use of such enhancements. Analogies with herbal remedies and alcohol could be made and it would be interesting to discuss these in the draft Report.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS
17 The next Working Party meeting would be on 15 February 2002 from 10:30am-4:30pm, at which the Council’s comments would be discussed. Following that meeting, changes would be made and the Report sent for peer review during March.
Last Updated Tue, 16 August 2005