STAFF EDITORIAL: The high cost of innovation

The death of Jesse Gelsinger serves as a sobering reminder of the courage inherent in the decision to receive experimental treatment. All of that would make the September 17 death of Jesse Gelsinger, who was undergoing experimental treatment at Penn, a sobering tragedy. But it is the fact that Gelsinger was undergoing experimental gene therapy that has aroused particular concern -- and attracted nationwide coverage. Despite hundreds of trials, only a few potentially useful gene therapy treatments have been developed to date. But it is the therapy's potential that has the attention of scientists. By allowing for the replacement of human genetic material, gene therapy for the first time opens up the possibility of curing chronic hereditary diseases -- diseases previously thought incurable. As with all new treatments, the prospect of treating the previously untreatable is accompanied by the risk of unknown consequences. We can ask whether the potential benefit is great enough; we can ask whether the experimental subjects know what they are getting into; we can ask whether the trials are being conducted in the most effective, safest way possible. But at some point -- if we are to extend the boundaries of medicine -- we must reach beyond the known. That Jesse paid a tragic price doesn't make his choice any less right. Because every so often, someone like Jesse reaches into unknown territory and we discover as a result that we can now give one more person -- or one million -- the gift of life.