One of the issues conference participants tackled was the use of Human Growth Hormone - a hormone found naturally in the human body which induces growth during childhood and adolescence.
Consumers, the FDA and bioethicists have discussed the ethics and the controversies surrounding this elixir.
At a Conference panel entitled Genetic Enhancements, Prof. of Medicine Mary Lee Vance discussed the HGH issue, pointing out the currently approved uses of the hormone.
Patients with growth deficiencies, Turner syndrome, chronic renal insufficiency and advanced AIDS are the only approved cases for administration of the chemical, Vance said.
Is it socially beneficial for doctors to give the human growth hormone to children with short parents, Vance asked at the conference, when recipients of the hormone can gain a maximum of two inches?
Here, the debate over cultural values presents a question: why is shortness of stature a negative quality in our society?
I'm about 5'4", maybe average for an Asian guy, but short by Western standards. Would it have been right for my parents to give their potentially short child this chemical to ensure a taller child?
HGH is also very expensive.
"Depending on the dosage and the situation, the treatment runs from between $7,000 to $14,000" annually, Vance said.
Prior to the 1980s, human growth hormone was priceless because of its very limited availability. It was extracted from the pituitary glands of cadavers and then given only to patients in dire medical need.
Only recently, with the proliferation of genetic engineering, has HGH become immersed in ethical debate. E. coli bacteria is genetically engineered to mass produce the hormone, thus increasing its available supply along with the controversy surrounding it.
According to FDA spokesperson Laura Bradbard, in October 1985 the first approval of human growth hormone was granted for the treatment of short stature due to growth hormone deficiency.
Symptoms such as leukemia in pediatric patients, headaches, the flu and gastrointeritis are known side effects of HGH, Bradbard said.
"They need to be used under the care of a physician," she said.
So is it appropriate for people to use this elixir to get some extra inches if they are not in extreme need?
According to Vance, the answer is simple.
"No," she said in an interview with The Cavalier Daily.
One of the reasons she described it as "being wrong beyond the ethics question" is that increased use would affect the cost of the hormone.
For people with a true medical need as defined by the FDA'a current protocols, the treatment is already expensive. By finagling the costs and convincing insurance companies to pay for the treatments for people who don't need it, the entire population ends up paying higher prices for the drug.
But there is another argument.
Ethically, people need to accept each other's particular differences as they are. If a pill were created tomorrow that could make you look like the ideal person - in this culture: skinny, tall, with a dark complexion, then would it be alright for everyone to take it?
All of the world would look the same, with any respect for differences discarded.
The providence of genetic engineering is miraculous and serves to give mankind a tool to fight against disease and deficiencies. But when it is abused, as in the case of HGH, the miracle becomes a tool of cultural assimilation.
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