CAPITALISM'S ACHILLES HEEL Dirty Money and How to

266 CAPITALISM’S ACHILLES HEEL
anemia, anencephaly, Down syndrome, Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy,
polycystic kidney disease, and many more. Genetic tests also
can be conducted post-implantation.
Richer countries currently examine most newborns for genetic
disorders that are likely to require immediate treatment. Thereafter,
infants, children, and adults can all be genetically tested to predict a
disposition for a particular disease, to confirm a diagnosis, to make a
prognosis of how a patient is likely to respond to a treatment regimen,
and to detect a disease indicator in a “carrier” before that person
has a child. This is not some future fantasy; this is available now,
if you can afford it.
The poor cannot afford it. The World Health Organization takes
a lofty position on the issue: “Genetic services should be available to
all without regard to ability to pay and should be provided first to
those whose needs are the greatest.” 1 Well, you can forget that; genetic
services will be provided to those who can pay the bills.
Long ago we became comfortable with the fact that most rich
countries have healthier populations and longer life expectancies
than most poor countries. But heritability differs from health by an
order of magnitude. The prospect that rich people will be able to afford
the best genes that money can buy and poor people will be left
to carry the continuing burden of genetic disorder is deeply disturbing.
An income underclass that becomes a genetic underclass rips the
fabric of global society.
A tangential issue far removed from capitalism? On the contrary,
genetics could pose a key test: Can the capitalist system contribute to
equal genetic opportunity for all, regardless of what happens thereafter?
In the short run gene testing, intervention, and correction are
likely to be available only to the rich. Optimistically, these procedures
may become available in the long run, like inoculations, to the
poor across the globe. The transition period when genetic disparity is
likely to be linked to income disparity is extremely troubling.
4. Severe inequality and poverty have a tendency to coalesce in a sense
of humiliation and alienation. Since 9/11 there is a growing perception
that such detachment lies close to the heart of a propensity for
terrorism. Poverty is linked to crime, and crime is linked to terror-