Genetic modification could protect soldiers from chemical weapons

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/genetic-modification-could-protect-soldiers-chemical-weapons

by bookofjoe • 7 years ago

40 38 7 years ago

idclip2• 7 years ago

A Brave New Word.

kanzure• 6 years ago

... Have you read it? You might find that it's not quite the cautionary tale against genetic enhancement that you might think....

"The use and misuse of Brave New World in the CRISPR debate" https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/crispr.2019.0046

"One of the strangest aspects of Brave New World's use in bioethics is that many authors use the novel as shorthand for ethical issues that never appear in the novel at all, and even some issues that contradict those portrayed in the novel."

"... In contrast, some of the most prominent ethical issues with GGE are rarely discussed. For instance, it is hard to draw a connection between Huxley's scenario and the idea of therapeutic genome editing. The use of “biologically superior” gametes for Alphas is mentioned in Huxley's later essays rather than in the novel itself, and even then, it is left unclear what that entails. Nor does the novel address the possibility of these processes causing unanticipated side effects."

"... thus, there does not seem to be any genetic testing in Brave New World, and most of the methods described involve hormones and chemicals rather than heritable interventions. Although Huxley wrote that “eugenics and dysgenics were practiced systematically,”67 this seems to refer only to selective breeding and not to any kind of direct manipulation on the genetic level. (The Bokanovsky process does represent a form of cloning, but this is not ethically equivalent to GGE, and references to Brave New World may lead some readers to confuse the two technologies.)"

"Second, many authors assume that Brave New World is a parable about genetic enhancement.35,43,47 In their report Beyond Therapy, the President's Council on Bioethics suggested that the novel was about “producing improved … perfect or post-human” people.41 While it's true that the upper castes in Brave New World are smarter than the others, this is more because of the deliberate impairment of the lower castes than because the upper castes are “perfect.” Rather than reducing the number of individuals born with genetic disorders or handicaps, Huxley's dystopia involves dramatically increasing their number. Concerns about large-scale disenhancement appear only occasionally in the gene-editing literature,7,13,28,40 making Brave New World a poor match for these concerns. Furthermore, unfair competition for education or career opportunities is not an issue in Huxley's world because there is no real competition: everyone is created to fill a particular niche in society."

"In some of these cases, it is possible that authors are misremembering the society described in Brave New World, or that they have not read the book in the first place. Others may be using the phrase “brave new world” less in reference to Huxley's novel and more to evoke the general idea of a futuristic dystopia. In many cases, this seems to involve reading contemporary bioethical concerns into Brave New World even when they are not supported by the text itself."

"Huxley was particularly enthusiastic about Nobel laureate H.J. Muller's well-known plan to improve the human gene pool by banking high-quality sperm.75 He envisioned a society organized along those lines in his 1962 utopian novel Island, in which the sperm of men with high IQs are provided from a central bank to grateful married couples, and children play board games such as “Evolutionary Snakes and Ladders” or “Mendelian Happy Families.” In many ways, Island serves as an inverted version of Brave New World, demonstrating how a non-totalitarian society might use eugenics to great benefit. Island even suggests that people who were overly susceptible to persuasion could be trained to avoid hypnotism by would-be dictators.76"

"Huxley's lifelong interest in modifying humans at a biological level makes him a poor (and inaccurate) icon for common-sense controls on GGE. Although many ethicists may be unfamiliar with his other writings, these strongly suggest that Brave New World was never meant to be a warning about technologies such as CRISPR. Authors looking to use science fiction in their work might want to cite authors who provide a better foundation for their ethical arguments."

Brave New World is about tyranny and totalitarianism, not a warning against genetic enhancement technologies. The misuse of this book has set us back by decades.

idclip2• 6 years ago

I did but a long time ago, i honestly dont remember it well, i actually used that sentence ironically because while i dont mind mild boosting, just very wary of large scale change.

I actually didnt know the book was being used like that, interesting!

SuperPaintMan• 7 years ago

Pass me the Ketracel White, thanks.

all2• 6 years ago

Ref: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Ketracel-white

rahuldottech• 6 years ago

How about you just stop with the pointless wars and chemical weapon development instead? Wouldn't that be a whole lot cheaper and safer, and give rise to way fewer ethical dilemmas?

Essentially all wars in recent history have led to widespread devastation, no benefit to any people, insane numbers of deaths, and a LOT of profit for corporations for whom war is a business.

See: War is a Racket (1933): https://www.wanttoknow.info/warisaracket HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22012255

wildduck• 6 years ago

Maybe these countries are just dealing with prisoner's dilemma.

Accujack• 6 years ago

a LOT of profit for corporations for whom war is a business.

This is one major reason for the wars - they aren't pointless to certain highly influential wealthy people.

levosmetalo• 6 years ago

How about you just stop with the pointless wars and chemical weapon development instead? Wouldn't that be a whole lot cheaper and safer, and give rise to way fewer ethical dilemmas?

Well, there haven't been any significant chemical weapons usage since at least WW1 and occasionally in WW2, but to much lesser extent.

All recent supposed usage of chemical weapons appeared to exist just as an excuse for the USA government propaganda to make an attack and destruction of the country they don't like more acceptable.

itamarst• 6 years ago

Iraq used chemical weapons in its war against Iran. But the US was supporting Iraq at the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_attacks_against...

samatman• 6 years ago

Would that the last paragraph were true:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_chemical_attack

No reputable source denies that this happened.

jacobwilliamroy2• 6 years ago

I think U.S. policy of using open burn pits from iraqi freedom onwards qualifies as chemical weapons usage. Our boys and girls were dying of cancer after serving fairly short and uneventful tours. I remember Joe Biden's son had died of brain cancer after serving 2 years at camp victory from 07 to 09.

We get to go home, but all that crap is going to linger in the air waters and soils of iraq and afghanistan for a long time.

refurb• 6 years ago

Ending war means changing human nature.

Good luck with that!

jacobwilliamroy2• 6 years ago

Ending war means exploiting human nature, not changing it. We are inherently averse to violence, danger and suffering.

teh_infallible2• 6 years ago

We are so often told that war is human nature, but how many people in your life use violence as their go-to solution to problems? I bet none of them do.

Violence and aggression are glorified in the media, but when people get into a fight in a public place? Does it make them more attractive to bystanders or raise their prestige? Clearly not.

pmoriarty• 6 years ago

For me, the greatest hope of reducing the incidence of war may come from the widespread use of psychedelics.

Use of psychedelics can result in a profound increase in empathy, division of boundaries between oneself and the world and between oneself and others, an increase in care about others, a healing of traumas within oneself that might have hitherto caused one to lash out against others who you projected your own demons on to, and an increase in a sense of the sacredness of all things.

In conjunction with this, widespread psychedelic use might result in another great religious awakening, with the resulting religions reflecting in their values the peaceful and unifying effects described above.

This won't happen overnight. It'll probably take one or two hundred years for psychedelic use to become really widespread, and it can be aborted once more if there's another major backlash against them from the powers that be who are wedded to the status quo.

willis936• 6 years ago

I’ve seen this episode of Star Trek.

arexxbifs• 6 years ago

I'm getting Universal Soldier vibes.

LinuxBender• 6 years ago

And a couple of the movies. Khan!!

AJMaxwell• 6 years ago

Gettin some real Rogue Trooper vibes

Thiez• 6 years ago

I wonder whether we'll end up in a world where the military will advertise with permanent enhancements for recruitment. Peter Watts presents this concept in a pretty interesting way [1] and it looks like this could become a reality in the next few decades.

[1] https://www.rifters.com/echopraxia/recruiter.htm

ErikAugust• 6 years ago

One would have to believe that will come with frightening complications, side effects, and potential for all sorts of debilitation. Most people though, especially younger, do naively believe they are going to be the one egg in the dozen that doesn't break.

At the same time all these mods are likely going to be commercialized but out of reach for most classes, so the whole thing will become similar to the pitch that "money for college" was back in the day. I suppose the government would also restrict the sale of certain classes of mods making it potentially more lucrative to enlist.

nexuist• 6 years ago

One would have to believe that will come with frightening complications, side effects, and potential for all sorts of debilitation.

But enough about the military :)

teh_infallible2• 6 years ago

I find it ironic that genetic modifications like this, which are inherently risky, are described as some kind of privilege reserved for the wealthy.

If the upper classes want to risk their health by doing genetic experiments on themselves, I’m fine with that. It is a “privilege” I will happily forego.

sli• 6 years ago

In Ghost in the Shell (not sure if it was in one of the films, or in Stand Alone Complex or Arise, sorry), a similar thing comes up, and the Major is reminded that Public Security Section 9 owns her prosthetic body, not her.

rscho• 6 years ago

Another fun take on this:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36510196-old-man-s-war

trhway2• 6 years ago

Turn the liver into a factory for making a bioscavenger enzyme. Led by biochemist Nageswararao Chilukuri, they used a harmless virus called an adeno-associated virus to ferry DNA instructions into the liver cells of mice. The result was the mice’s liver cells cranking out a potent version of PON1.
Mice injected with the DNA-ferrying virus soon had high blood levels of the synthetic PON1 enzyme, which remained stable for the 5-month study. The rodents survived nine normally lethal injections of nerve agents over 6 weeks

now imagine that that virus and/or enzyme finds its way into cockroaches and the likes - the acquired resistance against the organophosphates (the nerve gases were a result of research into insecticides) would make them into super-cockroaches able to resist the humans' weapons of mass cockroach destruction, ie. insecticides.

m0llusk• 6 years ago

Interesting point, but it is perhaps worth mentioning that cockroaches through their resilience and fast reproduction are already strongly resistant to control using insecticides. This is why the only reliable means for controlling roaches are bait that gets shared before it kills.

roywiggins2• 6 years ago

Chemical weapons are already mostly useful against civilians, because soldiers carry gas masks and antidotes, which mitigate the effectiveness and makes it harder to kill them.

It's not that chemical weapons have no military use at all, but if you make soldiers immune then the only people killed in gas attacks will be civilians, and that's not so far off from the world as it is.

jammygit• 6 years ago

The biggest example of chemical weapon usage so far was wwi, and it was almost entirely used against soldiers. wwii saw them used them in concentration camps against captives, but not in a military capacity (apparently Italy used them against Ethiopia shortly before the war). Not even at Stalingrad.

It honestly amazes me that the “people” in charge of some of those countries had such restraint

Symmetry• 6 years ago

Well, the Japanese were happy to use chemical weapons against the Chinese but not against western powers for fear of retaliation in kind. The same reason they were never used in the European theater.

The situation was a bit different in WWI when only Germany really had the capability to make extensive use of them.

trhway2• 6 years ago

Not even at Stalingrad.

Germans had already had that experience https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_of_the_Dead_Men

"The gas, "caused the grass to turn black and leaves to turn yellow, and the dead birds, frogs and other animals and insects were lying everywhere. Terrain looked like Hell."[1] The Russians either had no gas masks, or had poorly made ones, and most soldiers used their undershirts as masks, with many soaking them in water or urine.[2] Sub-Lieutenant Vladimir Kotlinsky, the highest ranking Russian soldier to survive the initial attack, rallied the other surviving soldiers, and they elected to charge the advancing German lines.[2]

Over twelve battalions of the 11th Landwehr Division, making up more than 7000 men, advanced after the bombardment expecting little resistance. They were met at the first defense line by a counter-charge made up of the surviving soldiers of the 13th Company of the 226th Infantry Regiment. The Germans became panicked by the appearance of the Russians, who were coughing up blood and bits of their own lungs, as the hydrochloric acid formed by the mix of the chlorine gas and the moisture in their lungs had begun to dissolve their flesh. The Germans retreated, running so fast they ran into their own traps.[2]"

had such restraint

it isn't restraint. On a real battlefield, especially a modern one with all the tanks, APCs, etc. having NBC protection, chemical weapons have very low resulting efficiency coming at very high price. It is a very unreliable opportunity weapon with a complex logistics. It is much more useful as a threat than as an actual weapon.

Instead of soldiers, i think the work in the original article will in the coming future be used to "fortify" people working in harsh/toxic/dangerous conditions.

linuxftw• 6 years ago

Advanced chemical warfare agents are absorbed through the skin. You need more than a gas mask, and soldiers don't routinely carry any antidotes. There probably aren't antidotes for most chemical weapons.

Frankly, I'm surprised they're not used more often. I think we'll see a massive scale chemical attack this century. There's a lot of political instability fomenting across the planet.

Nasrudith• 6 years ago

Really even assuming an utter breakdown in norms for not using chemical weaponry they would lose that arms race as the adversary would only need one non-immune chemical weapons.

Of course the implications of the gene mods go far beyond that niche military application. Being able to reliably mod organs is obviously therapeutically helpful - say being able to reverse sickle cell anemia. Being able to "vaccinate" against toxins is likewise obviously helpful. Drugs that technically work on the pathogen but would be lethal to the patient could be used harmlessly if the patient was made resistant first.

dx87• 6 years ago

People in the military already get smallpox and anthrax vaccines before they deploy, so this seems like the next logical step, as long as there aren't any negative long-term effects.

CalRobert• 6 years ago

Genetic modification is already useful for protecting crops against glyphosate, allowing you to lay waste to the land without fear. Applying the same methodology to humans seems fraught with peril.

Genetic modification could protect soldiers from chemical weapons

Related Stories