Precision medicine and transhumanism: A bioethical perspective.

Abstract

Purpose/Background. To present the concatenation of medical digitalization that unravels from the goal of therapeutic improvement through precision medicine and moves on to enhancement medicine beyond the normal function and form of the human body in order to reach the final purpose of creating transhuman beings.
Methodology/Approach. To select papers that discuss research and eventual practical applications of precision medicine and encourage the possible development of transhumanism through the progression of biomedical enhancement procedures.
Results/Findings. Both precision medicine and transhumanism have nourished public expectations for more effective therapies, and the possibilities of functional enhancement in the areas of cognition and ethics. Research has poured huge resources in anticipation of products allowing for lucrative marketing.
Discussion/Conclusions/Contributions. Bioethics appears divided between its energetic support for the benefits of biomedical research, and reservations about risky application of fast moving biotechnoscience research supported by profit expectations rather than fomenting the common weal. Conservative opposition rests on the “wisdom of repugnance” based on emotional rather than rational argumentation, making for untidy and unproductive deliberation.
Given the incertitude, excessive expectations and vested interests that play a large part in biomedical digitalization, bioethics has been unable to generate a robust debate on these matters. Some inevitable consequences need to be addressed: Unequal access and the negative effects of biotechnological expansion, have a destabilizing impact on adaptation between humans, nonhuman living beings and global environment. It is urgent to call attention about the huge amounts of resources poured into sophisticated biomedical research to the detriment of the ensuing social and ethical problems.