CHINESE geneticists overwhelmingly support the use of eugenics to improve the health of their nation. A survey of 255 geneticists throughout China has shown that most of them favour genetic testing for purposes that their Western colleagues would strongly disapprove of.
Routine genetic testing of job applicants by employers, a practice widely denounced as unethical in the West, was supported by 86 per cent of those polled. The same proportion believed that governments should require premarital tests to detect carriers of hereditary diseases. And 91 per cent believed that couples who carry the same disease-causing genetic mutation should not be allowed to have children.
The survey, conducted by Xin Mao of the West China University of Medical Sciences in Chengdu, also found widespread support for genetic testing of children to see if they are susceptible to diseases later in life such as alcoholism, with 69 per cent in favour. Mao reports his results in The American Journal of Human Genetics (vol 63, p 688).
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Mao conducted his survey in 1993, a year before China introduced its controversial Maternal and Infant Health Care Law. This makes premarital checkups compulsory, and allows doctors to order termination of fetuses with 鈥渁 defect of a serious nature鈥� such as an incapacitating physical disease. The law will also cover mental illnesses such as schizophrenia if suitable genetic tests become available.
Mao, now based at the Institute of Cancer Research in Sutton, Surrey, defends the attitudes of his compatriots. 鈥淭he Chinese culture is quite different, and things are focused on the good of society, not the good of the individual,鈥� says Mao. 鈥淚t would shock people in the West, but my survey reflects cultural common sense.鈥�
The Chinese government has a policy of penalising parents who have two or more children. 鈥淚f people can only choose one child, they want to choose the best one,鈥� says Mao. 鈥淭he core issue is to clean up the gene pool,鈥� he says, and to 鈥渞educe the number of deleterious genes鈥�. Mao admits that this discriminates against the 50 million Chinese who are disabled.
Dorothy Wertz, a professor of ethics and law at the Shriver Center in Waltham, Massachusetts, says that the results reflect China鈥檚 preoccupation with improving population quality while reducing its growth. 鈥淭hey鈥檝e tied population restriction with eugenics,鈥� she says.
Wertz is collating data on attitudes among geneticists from 37 countries. Her findings from countries such as Britain and the US reveal a sharp contrast with Mao鈥檚 survey (see Figure). But she believes both Eastern and Western cultures come from the same starting point: the desire to rear a healthy baby. 鈥淲hat鈥檚 different in China is the greater acceptance of government involvement in this matter, and their uniformly pessimistic attitude about disability,鈥� says Wertz.
