Chapter 23: Prometheus Unbound?

A great public furor over recombinant DNA research broke out in the 1970s. While Lederberg saw its great promise for the study of cancer and pathogenic viruses, and for such medical products as vaccines and antibiotics, others pointed to environmental risk, public safety, and the ethics of “tampering with life” just for the curiosity of scientists. For the first time, some declared, the “species-barrier” that prevents genetic crosses between unrelated organisms had been broken. There was a range of reactions to this: some called for government guidelines restricting certain kinds of experiments, others wanted all gene-splicing experiments stopped, and still others were concerned about the partnership between university and industry that biotechnology seemed to entail…