THE HUMAN MICROBIOME: Ethics
Ethics
What you need to know about the field
Ethical/Legal Issues for Researching the Microbiome
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Participating in the research: Not all of the aspects of the human microbiome are understood or discovered yet, meaning that when a person wants to participate in research (providing samples etc.), not all of the risks and benefits can be explained. This is an ethical issue because the safety can not be ensured for the person.
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Privacy: New technology makes it easy to identify a person and their research results based on their genomic information, making privacy an issue. Organizations like the Human Microbiome Project have the issue of deciding whether to adopt data sharing policies that allow public access or not.
When researching the microbiome, there are some controversial ethical and legal issues. This includes: [30]
Ethical/Social Issues for Applying Research to Biotech
Manipulating the microbiome includes changing the genes of certain microbes, what bacteria a person is exposed to, and moving the microbes around. Some of the ethical and social issues are as follows: [31]
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Protecting Offspring: In some jurisdictions, it has become unethical to manipulate the microbiome to the point where the changes affect the person's children when born. This can be justified because it is unethical to some people to make decisions on the baby's behalf.
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Manipulating an Infant/Child's Microbiome: An adult's microbiome is thought to be fairly stable (it does not have a tendancy to change drastically. Because of this, there are questions raised when discussing the intended manipulation of a child's genes. It could become permantent and not change when they become adults. It also becomes a conversation about 'designer babies' because it is the same principle.
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Changing the Face of Medicine: As reseach continues and the microbiome is being applied to medicine, the perception of how we view bacteria and medicine changes. This can be good or bad. On one side, we are advancing medicine technology for the greater. On the other hand, we are becoming closer to the social issue of creating designer babies and gene manipulation.
