The scientific demands for embryonic stem-cell research just took a disturbing turn in Britain. The UK has given its approval to license researchers to create “cybrids”, a mix of human genetics into animal egg cells in order to study stem cell development. Over at Heading Right, I look into the dichotomy of a Europe that has hysterically blocked genetic manipulations in grain production, but apparently has no such qualms about human embryos.
At some point, a line must be drawn on the manipulation of human beings for scientific progress that never seems to arrive. Those who advocate expanded hEsc research still have no progress to show for it, while adult and umbilical stem cells have generated many therapies. If hEsc has to go so low as to start blending humans into cybrids to pursue success, we should ensure that no government funds ever go towards that research in the US.
18 thoughts on “Frankenfood Bad, Frankenstein Good”
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That line will never be drawn.
A friend at work the other day was telling us about another friend who had severe heart disease. His heart was essentially dying. He went online and started doing research. He found a place in Thailand that was doing adult stem cell treatments for his disease. He went there, got the treatment, and his heart is substantially repaired.
We will never ban it internationally. There will always be a Thailand (which has gotten into the medical tourism industry recently) or other countries willing to do it.
Captain,
It seems we may be able to cure baldness with the steem cells (just on CNN)
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/05/17/baldness.study.reut/index.html
So what if we made a few unlucky Frankenstein hybrids, if the BALDNESS may be cured…
The secularists have some real cognitive dissonence going on. It seems that humans, being mere animals, are fair game for anything and there need be no moral qualms. However, nature (animals, plants, the “environment” and the whole ball of Gaia worship wax) is sacred and must not be messed with, except for humans.
And they say traditionalists are hypocritical.
The secularists have some real cognitive dissonence going on. It seems that humans, being mere animals, are fair game for anything and there need be no moral qualms. However, nature (animals, plants, the “environment” and the whole ball of Gaia worship wax) is sacred and must not be messed with, except for humans.
And they say traditionalists are hypocritical.
Ann,
You mention ADULT stem cells for the heart treatment. That’s an entirely different thing from embryonic stem cells.
If hEsc has to go so low as to start blending humans into cybrids to pursue success, we should ensure that no government funds ever go towards that research in the US.
If, for any reason, embryonic stem cells were injected into some person who was not already at death’s door, the only interesting question is whether they could win a malpractice suit in time to do any good. One embryonic stem cell surviving the body’s defenses is enough to kill anyone within a year. It is not equivalent to injecting the most aggressive form of cancer cells, it is worse. Read up on ectopic pregnancies if you want to understand a little of what can occur if an embryonic stem cell is anywhere outside the womb.
The only ethically acceptable treatment with embryonic stem cells is vitro fertilization. The goal in that case is not to treat disease but to help a woman who cannot become pregnant normally–perhaps as a result of an ectopic pregnancy–to have a child.
So why did researchers want the US government to fund research with embryonic stem cells? It should be obvious by now. Thousands of people every year are treated with adult stem cells for various illnesses, the most common adult stem cell treatments today are bone marrow transplants. When the use of placental multipotent peripheral blood stem cells, (PBSCs) was first proposed, it was necessary to insure that no embryonic stem cells were included. That, of course, required researchers to study embryonic stem cells so that they could tell the difference. (This page: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/units/stemcells/sctoday/ should get you started on looking for further details.)
The embryonic stem cell research authorized by President Bush using existing embryonic stem cell lines was sufficient for this purpose, and probably for any new applications of PBSCs. Researchers who feel otherwise can get research backing from other sources than the US government. But most such research proposals are more political posturing than science. (If some states want to fund embryonic stem cell research, why not phrase your grant proposal to them to include embryonic stem cells?)
So why all the hue and cry, other than BDS? When the Federal government was studying the issue, the lack of Federal funding for embryonic stem cell research was slowing the progress toward using placental PBSCs in bone marrow transplants. Of course, once the Bush administration authorized limited stem cell research, the political machines had already started trying to get the public involved. Once the decision was made, politicians didn’t even try to understand the issue. It limited research, and that was enough for them.
So where do things stand today? PBSCs from placentas are routinely used for bone marrow transplants, with no ethical concerns.* Some research continues on drawing the line between PBSCs (good) and embryonic stem cells (very bad, at least for actual treatment). Research is continuing on whether placental PBSCs are better for various treatments that the patients own adult stem cells, either as is, or regressed to to become multipotent.
Again, this is the reason for researching embryonic stem cells: to make sure that the adult cells are not regressed too far. Every time a researcher does manage to regress adult stem cells too far, it is hailed by the press as a possible replacement for embryonic stem cells. This, of course, is totally backwards. The reason for publishing such failures is to erect a warning against using that approach in treating actual patients.
*Not none, but you know what I mean. The mother needs to consent to this use of the placenta after normal births, and there are enough PBSCs from this source that placentas from abortions are not needed or wanted. (A healthy baby is the best warranty that the PBSCs are free of defects. 😉
@km,
Not all of us who are secular are OK with fetal stem-cell research. One doesn’t have to be religious or “traditional” to have a sense of right and wrong.
Considering the issues that always seem to follow when an animal disease mutates to become infectious for humans, you’d think people would want to avoid circumstances that would actually improve a disease’s chance to make that leap. The hEsc issue aside, this has ramifications for us all.
Given that there isn’t much of a concern over skin particles of a genetically altered human coming loose and pollinating another person, the difference in concern is pretty obvious.
Yes, it’s definately a good thing to see European and Asian scientists moving ahead on embryonic stem cell research while our scientists are prevented from doing so by the beliefs of a small sub set of the population. I hope when treatments are developed by the use of ESC those who opposed the research will decline the therapies. The use of cybrids to produce ESC for research eliminates the need to use human eggs, an expensive, difficult, and potentially explotive process. If a bovine egg devoid of its nucleus can be used instead it makes the research much, much easier. It is commonly stated that ESC are not being used to treat disease at this time while arguing that the research needed to develop therapies should not be done. How can the therapies be developed without doing the research? Adult stem cells are great theraputic tools and are used to treat disease, but they are stem cells isolated from blood, and their potency is much more limited than embryonic stem cells. Umbilical stem cells are considered adult stem cells, BTW. Their potency is no different than stem cells isolated from the blood of adults. The US used to be the world leader in biological research but we are falling behind the rest of the world in this area.
Yes, it’s definately a good thing to see European and Asian scientists moving ahead on embryonic stem cell research while our scientists are prevented from doing so by the beliefs of a small sub set of the population. I hope when treatments are developed by the use of ESC those who opposed the research will decline the therapies. The use of cybrids to produce ESC for research eliminates the need to use human eggs, an expensive, difficult, and potentially explotive process. If a bovine egg devoid of its nucleus can be used instead it makes the research much, much easier. It is commonly stated that ESC are not being used to treat disease at this time while arguing that the research needed to develop therapies should not be done. How can the therapies be developed without doing the research? Adult stem cells are great theraputic tools and are used to treat disease, but they are stem cells isolated from blood, and their potency is much more limited than embryonic stem cells. Umbilical stem cells are considered adult stem cells, BTW. Their potency is no different than stem cells isolated from the blood of adults. The US used to be the world leader in biological research but we are falling behind the rest of the world in this area.
Carol H says “It is commonly stated that ESC are not being used to treat disease at this time while arguing that the research needed to develop therapies should not be done.”
A fairly important point of clarification…
ESC research… is not illegal, to the best of my knowledge. It’s just not federally funded. There is no actual ban, only a ban on using federal funds to do it. There are such research projects going on.
On the other hand, there are federally funded adult stem cell research projects going on all the time.
But please, don’t let your BDS get in the way of actual facts.
This whole concept of hybrid animal/humans… concerns me for a list of reasons. Of course, so does continued intentional ignorance like the statement mentioned above.
YouGottaBeKidding:
My point is that what we might think of as a medical backwater, with a little investment, becomes a cutting edge country to do experimental procedures.
As long as there is money to be made, there will be a country which will allow any type of experimentation.
Pho, having any type of research prohibited from receiving federal funding places it at a disadvantage. The best labs are commonly funded primarily by federal dollars, the dollar amounts are higher, the oversite is better, and they are the most selective. A researcher who is receiving federal grants has been through a long and arduous screening process that ensures that he or she is the best and brightest. If that researcher is already receiving federal dollars for say, adult stem cell research, he or she would have to set up a completely separate lab in order to do private or state funded embryonic stem cell research. Tens of thousand of dollars of equipment would have to duplicate, new staff hired and trained, and new space found. Not many researchers are willing or able to accomplish that. How much easier just to accept a position in a lab in the UK or Australia.
There is the same leftist political science today that there was back in tyhe 1930’s. Then we had Eugenics and Lysenkoism. both were absolute crocks and totally non-scientific but were pushed as a means to poliitcal power. The Eugenisists argued that it would be good to remove the “untermenschen” , the imbeciles, the inferior races like Blacks and Jews. The Lysenkoists argued that the the only reason that liquidating the Peasants in the Soviet union failed was because the world wasn’t weren’t properly exploiting the Soviet method of creating better plants and animals.
Today we have Global Warming scam, and the the excrable Embryonic Stem Cell crapola.
While adult stem cell research is making great progress. It is curing Leukemia creating new non -rejecting heart valves, and conquering Type I diabetes, embryonic stem cell research has been throughly discredited as a comple fabrication and Hoax perpetrated by Dr Suk of Korea. nonetheless the leftiwing politicians of the abortion business remnant of the 1930″s Eugencics a Movement, that Hitler so favored are demanded Rersearch monies since no one in hsi right mind is or would spend a dime of priovate research money on sucha thoroughly discredited baloney.
Recent research of the past three to five years, show that the peak of the global warming seems to have coincided with the current cyclical Solar maximum in 1998 and has cooled along with the Sun since then. CO2 is an effect of warming as the oceans hold less dissolved CO2 gas when warmer and not a Cause. So cause and effect can’t apply in the phony world of Science as the Greenie leftists espouse it.
I’m absolutely against government funding of ESC research, but not against privately funded research.
I also say, bring on the GMF! The more people who have food, the better!
Pho, having any type of research prohibited from receiving federal funding places it at a disadvantage. The best labs are commonly funded primarily by federal dollars, the dollar amounts are higher, the oversite is better, and they are the most selective. A researcher who is receiving federal grants has been through a long and arduous screening process that ensures that he or she is the best and brightest. If that researcher is already receiving federal dollars for say, adult stem cell research, he or she would have to set up a completely separate lab in order to do private or state funded embryonic stem cell research. Tens of thousand of dollars of equipment would have to duplicate, new staff hired and trained, and new space found. Not many researchers are willing or able to accomplish that. How much easier just to accept a position in a lab in the UK or Australia.
Posted by: carol H at May 17, 2007 2:58 PM
This is nonsense twice over. If you read my earlier post, you would know that no one other than a total quack would even think of injecting fetal stem cells into a patient. In animals, most US labs would currently reject a proposal to further study fetal stem cells. They wouldn’t prevent the research because animal rights activists might object, the research labs themselves object. Even if the injection is into a muscle, and the tumor at the injection site is removed within a few weeks of the original injection, the animal will almost certainly die either from endocrine imbalances or various cancers.
Look at it this way, there are carcinogens banned from use in the United States which are not nearly as likely as fetal stem cells to cause cancer. Many are banned from foodstuffs even though there is no evidence they have ever caused cancer. 🙁 With fetal stem cells, statistical analysis is not needed. They not only cause cancer, one fetal stem cell in the wrong place can cause hundreds of different types of cancer in a single person or animal.
As for the second way that Carol’s post is way off base, a researcher getting a grant from someone other than the Federal government to do fetal stem cell research doesn’t need a new and separate lab. In fact, if a researcher wanted to mix funding sources for a project involving fetal stem cells, the only concern of (US) government auditors would be that the US government grant not be used to acquire human fetal stem cell lines not in existence when President Bush made his decision. Other than that researchers can do whatever they like with the authorized human stem cell lines and animal fetal stem cells.
In practice researchers who have no need for a wide variety of fetal stem cell lines would probably go ahead and use the authorized lines to simplify accounting. If there was any money to be made, or Nobel prizes to be won using human stem cells, this might be an irritation. In practice the only reason for looking at human stem cells is to insure that whatever you are doing with ‘adult’ stem cells does not cause them to revert to totipotency. As indicated above, you don’t want that to happen, even if the research is using animals not humans.
Comparing production and distribution of GM crops and produce on an industrial scale to limited and licensed reasearch into genetic disease and treatments using extracted human DNA? They seem like completely different propositions to me.