342 RüdigerKunow
andlifechoicesofAmericans.Undertheprogrammatictitle"TheFuture
IsNow,"BethFletcheretal.describethe"issuesinvolvedindeveloping
carrier screening programs in the United States" (33). Interestingly, the
issues faced read like a course program in U.S.-American
multiculturalism. The authors (most of them medical geneticists) report
how different ethno-cultural and religious groups across the country
react to screening programs, with special emphasis on Ashkenazi Jews,
AfricanAmericansandLatino/as.Intheirperspective,screeningisnota
"neutral" medico-genetic procedure; rather, "cultural issues need to be
taken into account" so that the people to be tested can make informed
choices (35) without feeling that they have unduly been put on the
spotlight as carriers of potential genetic risks. This brings up an
important point to be made here one more time, namely that genetic
testing or reproductive cloning are never "mere science" but have
enteredthedomainofsocialandculturalpolitics.
Fromaculturalcriticalpointofview,itshouldbenotedthatgenetic
and other biotech projects are often represented in the public sphere as
posing only questions of (technological) feasibility: are they (already)
possible, how can people have access to them, and how are they done?
Such technicist views—reflected in the popularity of the term "re-
engineering" for such operations—are in no way restricted to expert
conversations but have become part of the daily fare of popular media.
Here,theyproduceeffectswhichareuncannilysimilartothe"epidemic
entertainments" discussed above in the context of infectious diseases
where real or imagined epidemics were used to promote consumer
products (Tomes, "Epidemic Entertainments" 625). Media popularity of
this kind is, of course, particularly pronouncedin the self-help sector,
wherealsothemarketfactorofthesenewtechnologieswouldindeedbe
hard to miss. In a recent piece for theVillage Voice, ZoëSchlanger
reports on New York City's first do-it-yourself genetic laboratory:
"They'd all come to learn how to use CRISPR [a form of genome
editing], molecular 'tools' derived from the chemistry of microbes that
have taken the bioengineering world from messing with yeast DNA to
editing human embryos in four years flat" ("In Brooklyn, Even Genetic
Engineering Has Gone DIY" n. pag.). All it takes is buying some stuff
here and other stuff there. Without putting too much weight on such
possibly obscure instances, they are nonetheless evidence of how much
genetics, as the new hegemonic semiotics of life, also allows for an