Radiolab Episode Colors

In the Radiolab episode “Colors,” Adam Cole hosts Jay Neitz, a neurologist and color vision researcher at the University of Washington, to discuss colorblindness in primates and humans. Neitz hypothesizes that the test they used to cure colorblindness in squirrel monkeys could also cure the same disorder in humans. Colorblindness is a genetic disorder that causes the cones in the eye to perceive colors differently. In the back of the eye lies the retina that holds three photoreceptor cells called cones. Each cone is sensitive to either red, green, or blue and when functional, allows the brain to process the different wavelengths of color. Humans and some primates have two genes on the X Chromosome that encodes visual pigments, one holds green

pigment and the other holds red (A Cure for …). When the cones are damaged, missing, or nonfunctional, their corresponding colors are unable to be processed by the eye, resulting in a misperception of that color, or colorblindness.
To cure it, Neitz injected Adeno Associated Virus (AAV) with a needle into the retina of squirrel monkeys whom lacked the ability to differentiate between red and green because they only have blue and green cones (Colors 21:40-22:05). A virus is a powerful method of forcing DNA into a cell. Finding genes is simple, but contrastingly, replacing those genes inside cone cells with the correct genes is difficult (A Cure for …). Before breakfast, the monkeys take a color vision test involving a computer screen containing gray blobs and an occasional red blob. Locating the red blob allows the monkeys to receive grape-juice. Unfortunately, the morning after the injection of the red cone into the retina, the squirrel monkeys remained colorblind (Colors 22:30-23:49). It took twenty weeks for the monkeys to successfully locate the red blob. Jay Neitz mentions that after the test succeeded, some felt like the lives of the monkeys improved: he questions whether or not the monkeys’ lives improved (Colors 23:50-24:09). Whether or not the test would succeed among humans, is it ethical? If you can inject humans with the AAV in the same way as the squirrel monkeys to cure colorblindness among the red and green pigments, would it be ethical?
Consequentially, having knowledge of whether or not the AAV injection is ethical would allow researchers to determine the quantity of testing and research that should continue.

Whether or not the test would succeed among humans is unknown because the test has not been conducted on any human. Legally, states biomedical engineering student at the University of Rhode Island Mary Ellen Sweeney, “in order for human testing to commence, this gene therapy and specific process must be passed, (reviewed and approved), by the NIH, ORDA/RAC, and the FDA” (Sweeney 1). However, if the AAV test is deemed ethical or not, then there does or does not exist a cure that replaces functional genes inside cone cells that eliminates colorblindness. Although, there are consequences of this treatment being ethical and that includes a bias towards test subjects who failed to see color after the injection. In addition, there would be a bias towards those who opt out of receiving the treatment. These negatives biases divide those who perceive colors correctly and those who misinterpret colors, emphasizing an anomalous error in humans with colorblindness. If the test was deemed unethical, the consequences would include a continuation of scientific research to determine a

cure.
What are the

To attain knowledge, the first step is to establish the proposition and identify the subject. To reiterate, the proposition present is the ethics of injecting AAV to replace the genes in the photoreceptors to correct the manner in which the retina receives color. Identifying the subject allows the proposition to be analyzed. As noted by Jennifer Nagel, professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, “[k]nowledge demands some kind of access to a fact on the part of some living subject … Unlike water or gold, knowledge always belongs to someone” (Nagel 2). That is, having knowledge of whether or not the proposition is ethical will only be possible if some entity is present to store and accept it. Before the statement can be defined as knowledge there needs to be a media that can access it.
The next step would be to define all possible outcomes on the scale of ethics. To determine how ethical the procedure is, the subjects must have a communal agreement on the definition of ethical and unethical. That is, to begin the epistemological questioning of ethics, all