On 3/23/2007 Sen. Barack Obama without much fanfare introduced Senate bill S.976 with a stated purpose “to secure the promise of personalized medicine for all Americans by expanding and accelerating genomics research and initiatives to improve the accuracy of disease diagnosis, increase the safety of drugs, and identify novel treatments”.“Genomics and Personalized Medicine Act of 2007” among its key provisions will:
· establish the Genomics and Personalized Medicine Interagency Working Group (IWG) to facilitate collaboration, coordination, and integration of activities among federal agencies relating to genomic research and initiatives;
· establish a national biobanking distributed database for the collection and integration of genomic data and associated environmental and clinical health information;
· establish a grant program for academic medical centers and other entities to develop or expand biobanking initiatives;
· improve genetics and genomics training for diagnosis, treatment, and counseling of adults and children for both rare and common disorders;
Eugenics is a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention. Throughout history, eugenics has been regarded by its various advocates as a social responsibility, an altruistic stance of a society meant to create healthier and more intelligent people, to save resources, and to lessen human suffering.
Earlier proposed means of achieving these goals focused on selective breeding, while modern ones focus on prenatal testing and screening, genetic counseling, birth control, in vitro fertilization, and genetic engineering.
Enter “humanitarian eugenics” that strives ""to leave a genuine legacy of love to future generations: good health, high intelligence, and noble character. It advocates measures to improve the innate quality of humankind which are entirely voluntary".
Opponents argue that eugenics is immoral. Historically, a minority of eugenics advocates have used it as justification for state-sponsored discrimination; forced sterilization of persons deemed genetically defective, and the killing of institutionalized populations. Eugenics was also used to rationalize certain aspects of the Holocaust.
Sen. Obama’s introduction of the Bill, coupled with availability of over the counter genetic testing in fact, advocates and promotes eugenics by creating a national genetic bank leading to definitive identification of “less-than-perfect” (LTP) Americans possibly in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Since there are no clear laws or guidelines as to the ownership, storage, analysis, release, exchange and application of such information, Sen. Obama’s Bill simply invites abuses by individuals, companies and the State.
Outfits such as Future Generation and Eugenics Watch claim that :“Selection must not be left to chance for chance is cruel, capricious and, all too often, expensive but must instead be led by the kindly elite - Harvard professors, British aristocrats, Serbian psychiatrists, Aryans and so on. But death control, which has been the main method used by natural selection or chance, for termination of useless populations, must be replaced by birth control which is cheaper, and, as Charles Darwin pointed out in The Descent of Man, more effective”.
Sen. Obama obviously agrees, but prefers new massive Government bureaucracies described in his eugenics-enabling Bill to control the “selection” process and to legitimize "humane"or “positive” Governmental discrimination and eugenics.
We are making a difference (MAD), you decide!
Dr.D.
