Currently, there is almost no public engagement on sport and gene doping. The technique could involve introducing DNA to the athlete’s body to bring about a physiological response, such as the stimulation of growth in tissue cells, to generate more muscle. Alternatively, athletes’ endurance could be strengthened by using the same method to promote their production of oxygen-carrying cells which are essential to elite performance.

There are, however, official moves against gene doping.
I want to ask what would be wrong with genetically modified athletes in sport. It may be that, if we want to protect the health of athletes, regulation may be more effective than prohibition.

In 2003, the World Anti-Doping Agency prohibited this form of performance enhancement, but there is yet no test for detecting the method. I argue that sport might be better off if they were unable to test for gene doping, since it would force a shake-up of the entire anti-doping project, where fundamental values of sport could be questioned.

Conflicting positions

In May 2005, UK Sport launched a new anti-doping campaign, ‘100%ME’, aimed at empowering athletes to take a stand about the value of doping-free sport. In the same week, the first Edinburgh Festival of Sport Science took place, where a range of performance technologies was presented and discussed. The UK Sport campaign comes at a time of crisis in elite sport, where the use of performance enhancements seems set to grow exponentially.

In 2002, the US President’s Council on Bioethics met to discuss this very matter and the USA is now beginning work to draft legislation on genetic enhancement. Its concerns and conclusions were not the same as those of the anti-doping world. It asked questions about the legitimacy of a sporting organisation to limit the choices people might make to enhance themselves. As well, it argued that sport thrives on performance enhancement and gene modification could be seen as an extension of this philosophy. Sport, it said, needs television audiences and sponsorship, so must provide extraordinary, superhuman spectacles. Enhancement is necessary.

New problems

The prospect of gene doping gives rise to some novel problems for the world of sport. What if I am the child of a genetically modified athlete? Would I be allowed to compete?

Based on the current approach to ‘gene doping’, it is difficult to tell. Yet one could understand my feelings of injustice, if I were disqualified. After all, I would not have done anything wrong.

Even if I were to gene dope myself, should this really be seen as such a problem? Given the ways in which people now sculpt their bodies for cosmetic reasons, is it acceptable to ban somebody from attempting a similar sculpting through genetic modification? Gene transfer might even allow such sculpting to take place in a safer form.

It might be argued that permitting gene doping would set a bad example for children, which is often an argument used in relation to drug use in sport. Yet, it is only if we treat genetic modification as socially deviant, that its use by athletes would be construed as a negative influence on children.

Promoting debate

As a world, we struggle to agree on policies related to genetic technology, human cloning, stem cells, and the like. The challenge for sport is that it cannot function without a universal policy. Agreement on the rules makes competition possible. The sporting context offers a case where the entire world has a common stake in what is decided and where policies must be legally binding. This is why debate about what those rules should be is critical.

Because of these unique circumstances, we might find that sport can be a mechanism for promoting a global debate on the legitimate uses of gene transfer technology and the ends of technological development in general.

Without agreement, we may see the end of sport, as we currently know it. In such a world, athletes following different rules could be just too genetically different for competition to be fair.