| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Eva Harris Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Page 6 of 7
Let's talk a little about human rights. I think that many of the socialist countries and the Left think of human rights in terms of guaranteeing social rights, like the right to health, which is clearly your work in infectious disease. Another component of human rights is ensuring civil rights, political rights. This technology, the PCR, raises interesting questions about its use in forensic work, in situations of identifying people who have been, say, kidnapped by authoritarian regimes and lost their children and are trying to find them, or people who have actually been killed and their relatives would like to close the book on their lost beloved ones. Talk a little about the implications of the PCR technology for this kind of work. Will it work in these areas? Could the same lab be used to do this kind of DNA fingerprinting?
Yes. And let me just say one thing before that. There's a broader human rights aspect to this, which is transferring knowledge and empowering people, developing scientific capabilities so the local scientific communities can address relevant issues. Infectious diseases is a human rights issue because of economic and political factors that create infectious disease problems for the poor end of the spectrum. So there's a lot to just being able to deal with major infectious diseases locally, and to addressing economic and social issues. So dealing with infectious diseases is addressing human rights issues in a broad sense.
Now, in terms of actual identification of the disappeared, identity restoration, yes, it is the same technique. From very early on, people were always interested in forensic applications. But my caveat, and I say this both with DNA forensic work and also with HIV, is that it's so loaded. I mean, your results are so politically and individually, personally loaded that you have to be very, very careful. I've personally stayed away from that because, you know, it's one thing to say, "This water has cholera" -- or "it doesn't" -- and what if you realize you're wrong? Hopefully [that doesn't happen], and we put all our quality control into it so that people know when they're doing something right or wrong. But the point is, if you somehow made an error and you told someone, "You have HIV" -- or, "You don't" -- or, "This person is your daughter" -- or "isn't"; that's heavy-duty. You have to be incredibly careful about that kind of work.
With my book, for instance, people have always said, "Oh, we want to do PCR." It is very simple, but it's not a question of just sending out some reagents and someone's just going to do it. You have to understand the technique to do it correctly. And you have to understand how to avoid false positives and false negatives, and how to do internal quality control ... and so it's really a whole package. Now, somebody who's dedicated to this can learn how to do it, but they need to take it very seriously, and, essentially, be able to assure the right quality control. For instance, with forensics I would say, "I don't like kits, but in this condition, you're probably better off using a kit because that assures its own quality control." Or making a contact with the company and getting a licensing agreement with them, because somebody else is going to back you up on the determination.
When you say "kit," what exactly do you mean? Using a kit rather than building a whole lab?
A kit is, essentially, an expensive way of doing a test where it comes ready-made, and, for instance, you add 3 micrograms of this or you add A and B and you get blue, which means "yes."
I see, I see. So like a cookbook, almost?
Yes, but you don't know what went on. It's very anti-knowledge transfer because you're just doing something completely technically, without any concept of what's going on. And, of course, the company is trying to protect the knowledge because that's their intellectual property. And it's often, maybe, thirty to one hundred times more expensive than the actual price of the components. But what you're paying for is quality control and somebody, essentially, being responsible for the results, other than you.
If you're going to do it without the kits, then you have to make sure that you are able to stand by the quality of the work you do. And there's a lot of ways to do that and it's possible to do it. But it's just very, very important that people understand that if they're going to do something which has that kind of a weighty consideration, and everything riding on it, then they have to be damned sure that they're doing it correctly, and that they're understanding the whole picture and how to do this technology properly, and not just, "Oh, I can make this DNA amplify." So there's a big caveat. Although, when people have the appropriate expertise, it's absolutely possible to use exactly the same machines, the same technology, and apply it to identity restoration, paternity testing, all these different situations requiring establisment of human identity.
But you're suggesting that, coming out of this tradition and commitment of yours, respecting the dignity of the social and economic and political situation that you're working in when you do transfer, you're suggesting that there is a caveat, which is that when you move into this forensic area, there is a real red flag concerning all the levels of emotion, political and social conflict, that would be the consequences of not doing this right, or not understanding the flow or the context.
Yes. When we do any kind of transfer, we make sure the people are trained, in terms of the knowledge behind it and how to do quality control, and, essentially, how to do the technique correctly. No matter what. But it becomes even more important [with forensic issues], so we just want to make sure that people understand that it's not just, "Oh, no problem. One, two, three, and there you go." I mean, you can do one, two, three, and get a band. But if you're going to really institute this in any format, you have to make sure that you're doing it right. So, I just want people to understand that it's very important.
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