Friday 4th November

We are all genetic timebombs, each and every one of us. We carry inside us a genetic code, a complex self-replicating instruction manual for creating life and continuing, refining and defining the species; a ribbon of molecules which when kick-started can create a perfect human being.  Or in some cases an imperfect one.  This is why we are all, each and every one of us genetic timebombs.  More and more illnesses are being traced back to genetic pre-dispositions, timebombs carried by our mothers or fathers and donated unknowingly by their own mothers and fathers in turn.  And here is the rub….

As science is uncovering more and more of these time-bombs and as we seem to be hurtling into a world of private health insurance, whether a full-blown system like America or a top-up variety like France; it won’t be long before we will all be subjected to genetic monitoring to determine not only which seeds of which illnesses we may be carrying (which we may not be so grateful to discover) but also how much it may cost to treat us and how high our premiums will be.

And….as we live in a world where almost every baby is saved, and nobody is suggesting that we do not try to save them all, more and more babies who might have died at birth or soon after, possibly because of slightly defective genes or poor immune systems, will survive and carry even more genetic time-bombs into the future.  I am not in any way suggesting ‘eugenics’, or the weeding-out of defective genes, although this is already happening with women being advised to abort when certain defects in the embryo are found – but it won’t be long before someone starts doing it.  A Brave New World is just around the corner.