A
Basel-based pressure group has called for the suspension of funding for a
national research study, which aims to examine unborn babies and
children.
Criticism of the project has also come from a member of a Swiss
government ethics advisory committee.
However, the National Science Foundation has defended its decision to
support the project, saying it is too early to judge the research
methods.
Citing legal and ethical grounds, the Basel Campaign Against
Gene Technology has harshly criticised the groundbreaking study.
Basel
university professor and team leader of the study, Jürgen Margraf, has strongly
rejected the claims of the Basel group.
"We're not a gene technology
project, this is a project about human development, personality and mental
health. One component of the project is genetic, looking at how genetics
interact with the environment."
The project, Swiss Etiological Study of
Adjustment and Mental Health, is to recruit and examine a population sample of
3,000 children from early pregnancy to 20 years of age, along with their parents
and grandparents.
The aim of the multi-disciplinary study is to
understand "the pre-disease pathways leading to the development of mental
disorders and maladjustment". The government approved funding last March.
Genetic
make-up
Pascale
Steck, director of the Basel campaign, says research into the genetic make-up of
the children will form a central part of the study.
This is the first
time Swiss children have been included in such a project with a genetic
element," Steck told swissinfo. "Children cannot give permission for their DNA
to be examined, recorded and researched."
Margraf told swissinfo that the
issue of permssion was no different in this case to any research involving
children.
"One has to acknowledge that parents normally make decisions
for their children that can be far-reaching. This study will comply with the
ethical standards that apply to any type of research involving
children."
In the study, research groups from the various psychological,
social, biological and health disciplines will work together on the large,
representative population sample.
Steck also raised the issue of data
protection. "We don’t know who will have access to these data in the future and
that is worrying. It is very important for this kind of data to be well
protected."
Reservations have also come from Carola Meier-Seethaler, a
member of the Swiss National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics.
Sceptical
"What I
have read about the project makes me sceptical. I find it dangerous to take a
three-month-old foetus as a test person until it is 20 years old," she
commented.
Meier-Seethaler was also concerned that young children were
not in a position to consent to being test people.
A spokesman for the
Swiss National Science Foundation, which has allocated SFr10.2 million ($8.1
million) to the project over the next four years, told swissinfo that the
criticism was premature.
"It is too early to speak about the ethical side
of the project because we have not yet reached the stage of examining and
approving the individual research components.
Ethical
"All
the ethical questions will be examined in detail before the project begins. We
are obliged to do that and we will do that."
The study was one of six
scientific projects selected by an international panel of experts and approved
for Federal funding in March.
The aim of the project is to understand how
mental health develops and how the mind adjusts to the social, psychological and
biological environments in which the participants live.
Beginning with
pregnancy and including the entire "risk period" for the development of most
mental disorders, the sample of 3,000 will be tracked and analysed in different
ways.
The project, which is being coordinated from Basel University,
hopes to identify optimal intervention points for public policy, healthcare and
personal well-being.
swissinfo, Clare
O’Dea
