To my colleagues and superiors,

With a heavy heart, I tender my resignation from the European Union Biogenetics Administration, effective December 20, 2090. It’s been my great pleasure to serve with this team of intelligent, passionate, and highly qualified bioethicists and policy makers for the past eleven years, but recent events have left me with a sense of frustration.

I have spent my life working to ensure the safety, efficacy, and accessibility of biochemical and biogenetic compounds for human consumption. The decades of unregulated development left deep scars on societies around the world, marks that we bear today, and yet they have faded sufficiently that oversight and regulation lack the enforcement that makes such policies effective.

The recent exposure of problematic designs issued to consumers by funders such as Kwan-Shin, Synaxel, and Gynitek have left me disappointed and disgruntled. These businesses have short-cut the testing process, flouted the spirit of bioethical regulations, and knowingly put people in harm’s way for no reason other than profit motive. They rushed out custom pill designs to those most vulnerable because they had the lowest cost margins. This in spite of the returns they gain from mass-market generics.

My team discovered clear evidence of negligence leading to bodily harm, and yet this governing body (and others) are unable to take action against these funders because the legislative and executive branches are too corrupt or cowardly to move against them. A regulatory body is useless without sharp teeth to enforce its dictates. We can issue recommendations until satellites fall from the sky, but to what end? I cannot stand by and watch as we repeat the mistakes of our parents and grandparents.

I am under no illusion that one woman’s indignant resignation will change the world, but I have fought my entire life for these ends, and I can only hope that my reputation is sufficient to stir others to action in my stead.

Respectfully,

Josephine Lee

The passage “discovered clear evidence of negligence” was highlighted. The next page contained a report titled, “A Review of Simulation Data from Custom Pill Design and Testing.” Nithya read the introductory paragraph.

The exhaustive testing required by International Code 562.1, for intracellular nanomachine and drug delivery systems, commonly knows as micropills, is not being applied to the newer classes of these that involve algorithmic and gene-based customization for individuals and small groups. At the time the original statutes were written, such personalized capability did not exist or was not practical to implement. This review will show evidence from funded projects that cost-cutting measures led to insufficient testing. Although this body has not been able to follow up with every consumer of custom pills, a significant number have filed Requests for Investigation due to health problems that correlate with outcomes shown by the limited testing done during pill development.