Robert Winston is explaining a procedure that could halve the incidence of a genetically inherited degenerative disease: "A simple injection into the testicles would remove the threat within one generation." There is a murmur from the audience, one of concern rather than boredom. Winston peers out over his spectacles.
"Is everything all right?"
The moustache quivers expectantly and a woman calls back, "He's passed out!" Without a pause, the good doctor abandons the stage and surges through the rows of Hay visitors towards the stricken man. Space is cleared for the expert to do his work and within moments a relieved voice calls out: "He's fine!" Winston returns to the stage, only pausing to stamp his foot and complain of cramp.
The formerly unconscious man wasn't the only audience member who, possibly, owed his life to Winston. I do, too. Without his help, my mother may have never become pregnant. Needless to state, it wasn't a teenage job as a milkman but as a (temporary) member of the gynaecology department at St Mary's hospital just around the time he was starting to make a name for himself with his pioneering work in IVF treatment.
He talks proudly of having been part of the first team to screen embryos for genetic disorders, and to have helped bring about what the press dubbed "designer babies". The "babies" were 17 last month and Winston insists there is nothing designer about them; they are all as random individuals as anyone else. It was simply ensured before hand that they would not have a short and cruel life due to a severe genetic defect.
Talking about this is not simple immodesty, but in order to make clear he is not a man afraid of advancing techniques before he gets to the main topic. Winston's talk and his book A Child Against All Odds, is about making clear that he is not a Dr Frankenstein trying to bring about a better version of the human race. Instead, he is a doctor attempting to minimise the chances of a child suffering from a severe disease that could be prevented with a simple procedure. His reasoning behind this is not that he does not believe in playing God, but that he knows he cannot.
This is Dr Winston's big bate with his colleague Richard Dawkins. He's not too bothered about whether there's a big God out there or not, he just doesn't like the argument that if there's not, then scientists can fill the gap; the hubristic idea that the experts of this world know exactly what they are doing with genes. In defence of this position, he points to various research carried out by people such as David Barker, looking at generations of males and how incidents such as a plentiful harvest when boys were eight or nine can impact on the life expectancy of their grandchildren.
If such subtle changes to an ancestor can have such a radical impact, how are we to know the full power of gene manipulation on our descendants? It's an important point powerfully made by a man not afraid but not in the thrall of modern science.
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