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Stem Cells Derived from Human Clones
catbutt writes "Wired News reports that South Korean scientists have made a dramatic breakthrough by deriving stem cells from cloned embryos of patients with spinal cord injuries. It shouldn't be long before we can expect have a set of replacement parts ready when our own wear out." From the article: "Researchers must test the cells in animals before they can try the therapy in humans. But embryonic stem-cell researchers were shocked and delighted by the advance, which many had referred to as a distant possibility until they saw this study by Woo Suk Hwang and his colleagues at Seoul National University, which appears in the May 20 issue of Science."
From TFA:
This is certainly good news, but human eggs are still needed, and from what I understand, harvesting them is still time-consuming, painful, and risky.
From Aurora Health Care:
Ouch.
A truly significant advance would be to use these stem cells to grow a human ovary in the lab, and harvest eggs from that. Such an advance would dramaatically decrease the need for additional female donors.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
It shouldn't be long before we can expect have a set of replacement parts ready when our own wear out.
Customer: I'd like a replacement arm, hand and penis, please.
Service Tech: Ah, you must be from Slashdot!
Trolling is a art,
S Korea has been added to the watch list of terrorist states....
I for one can't wait to get my OWN third arm and second head. Now that i know they won't be rejected by my immune system.
hmm... other possibilites are coming to mind... wonder how many happy girlfriends there will be once people start getting second.... nevermind.
Stupid people hurt my head.
I think there are many possible medical benefits (and misuses) to stem cell theraphy, but somebody is going to be upset.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
I mean, c'mon. Woo Suk Wang? Who would admit to that being their name voluntarily?!?
.sig: Now legally binding!
I remember the huge debates of the stem cell issues, how Bush was saying the existing stem cell lines would be enough.
Obviously, as it was pointed out multiple times, that just wasn't true. Of course, as was predicted, the places that do allow that sort of research will move in leaps and bounds ahead of the US in these fields.
Didn't think it would be quite that quick though..
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Sure, it'd be nice (in theory) to be able to clone a nice new kidney for someone whose kidneys were failing. But would the time necessary to carry out this process--from cloning the embryo to harvesting stem cells to growing the organ--negate the benefit for many people? For a kidney, a person can go on dialysis (not a piece of cake, but better than dying I suppose!), and we do have artificial hearts that can help some heart disease, but I'm sure there would be other cases where the patient might die before his or her "new organ" was ready. Is there a way to speed the process, I wonder, as well as make it more "efficient"?
Professor Woo Suk Hwang and his colleagues also successfully cloned human embryos last year.
There was coverage of this on NPR this morning as well.
It is a solemn thought: dead, the noblest man's meat is inferior to pork.
This is pretty amazing, but a lot of testing still has to be done on animals, and there are still a lot of questions to be asked with regards to this. With animal cloning, the animals did not live as long and had noted medical problems. I wonder if this type of cloning would be subject to similar issues, including autoimmune disorders and/or deterioration of the spinal cord.
Plus let's not forget the religious ramifications of such a discovery. You can bet there will be a lot of pushback on this.
Scientists clone human stem cells from patients
... regardless of sex or age," Hwang told reporters in a telephone briefing.
Fri May 20, 2005 2:54 AM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - South Korean scientists who cloned the first human embryo to use for research said on Thursday they have used the same technology to create batches of embryonic stem cells from nine patients.
Their study fulfills one of the basic promises of using cloning technology in stem cell research -- that a piece of skin could be taken from a patient and used to grow the stem cells.
Researchers believe the cells could one day be trained to provide tailored tissue and organ transplants to cure juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's disease and even to repair severed spinal cords. Unlike so-called adult stem cells, embryonic stem cells have the potential from the beginning to form any cell or tissue in the body.
Woo Suk Hwang and colleagues at Seoul National University report their process is much more efficient than they hoped, and yielded 11 stem cell batches, called lines, from six adults and three children with spinal cord injuries, juvenile diabetes and a rare immune disorder.
"This study shows that embryonic stem cells can be derived using nuclear transfer from patients with illness
"I am amazed at how much they have accomplished in just a year and the amount, the quality and the rigorousness of their evidence," Dr. Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh, a stem cell expert who reviewed the study, said in a telephone interview.
While the patients whose cells were copied do not stand at this time to benefit, the researchers hope to study the cells to understand their conditions better.
They also say their method may be less controversial than other work with embryonic stem cells because, by their definition, a human embryo was never actually created.
The report, published in the journal Science, is certain to add to the growing U.S. political controversy over the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.
Opponents say all such work is unethical and should be banned because human life begins at conception and should not be destroyed.
NO HUMAN EMBRYO
Hwang said his method differs from that first used to derive human embryonic stem cells in 1998 and he proposes using a new term for the cloned embryos -- a "nuclear transfer construct."
"I think this construct is not an embryo," he said. "There is no fertilization in our process. We use nuclear transfer technology. I can say this result is not an embryo but a nuclear transfer construct." The sheep Dolly, the first adult mammal cloned, was made using nuclear transfer, in which the nucleus is removed from an egg cell, replaced with the nucleus of the animal or person to be cloned, and then fused. The egg begins dividing as if it had been fertilized and sometimes becomes an embryo.
Cattle, pigs, sheep, cats and other animals have been cloned using this method.
Schatten said when scientists first got stem cells from human embryos in 1998, they broke open the little days-old ball of cells called a blastocyst.
In the current study, he said, they simply laid down the blastocyst in a lab dish filled with human "feeder cells."
David Magnus and Mildred Cho of the Stanford University Center for Biomedical Ethics in California agreed.
"There is no reason ever to believe one of these things could ever become a human being," said Magnus, who with Cho wrote a commentary on the work.
"Even for people that believe that potentiality is the key to personhood, these things, whatever they are, they are not people. Somatic cell nuclear transfer is an ethically better way of producing stem cells than using excess IVF (in vitro fertilization or test-tube baby) embryos."
Schatten said the method could also eventually do away with the need for some animal experiments, which some people also find objectionable and which others say is not always a good way to predict human medical treatments.
Opponents of stem cell research had not had an opportunity to review the paper and could not immediately comment.
How is a cloned embryo a human life?
Would anyone ever let one finish gestation, grow up, get a job and have kids of it's own?
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
(My subject is sarcastcic.)
This is a good example of how really vital research is happening in other parts of the world, and we're off on the sidelines. Our kids will be able to explain how evolution is wrong, and creatiomism explains everything. Their kids will be able to cure spinal cord injuries.
From what I understand, this is really huge because stem cells from other people tend to be rejected by the immune system.
So the bush administration compromise that allowed researchers to work with existing stem cell lines isn't really good enough. They can get stem cells, but they can't get the right stem cells that they'd need for a patient, which won't be rejected.
For that you need cloning.
Not full blown human being cloning, but the very beginings of life in a petri dish cloning. I think that the cut off date is something like 4 days after the clone is created.
I heard some scientists on a panel show talking about this a few months ago. Everyone thought it was what was necessary, but no one thought it would happen any time soon.
Our scientists have been fighting with ways to turn off the immune system response in patients when they get someone else's stem cells. Scientists in other parts of the world don't have to struggle with that problem.
Why would those parts wear out all at ... oh .
You obviously suffer from poor technique.
sigs, as if you care.
So what if a woman needs stem cells to repair her spine. She uses her own DNA and her own eggs to produce stem cells.
How can a woman "concieve" all alone?
If it is still life, then why can't gay women get married under the church?
"The shroud of the Dark Side has fallen. Begun, the Clone Wars has"
--- -a- "I'd love to change the world, but it'd be easier if the universe exposed its API."
WWJD... For a Klondike bar?
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
And I want something purely technical but readable by the layman. Also, I'm looking for something with as little discussion of "ethics" as possible. I'm coming from a POV that would allow abortions until the fifty-seventh trimetster, so the ethics side of it bores me.
I don't have the link handy, but I did just read about viable eggs being coaxed from ovary stem cells. I don't recall the exact details, but I do recall being very excited, because, as you mentioned, it's a hassle to collect all those eggs. And with a plentiful supply of human eggs, the possibilties are huge.
So, this egg research specifically suggested that it was a technique expected to reduce the need for eggs from donors.
I don't have the link, but it could be at betterhumans. I'll go take a look.
Anyway, I just want to chime in on this story as a major armchair biotechnician and say that cloning is where all REAL stem cell therapy must start. This allows you to overcome so many obstacles it's not even funny. If the US doesn't allow this kind of therapy all I can say is, all the better for Korea.
cells in animals before they can try the therapy in humans.
I know it is a personal pet peeve of mine but it just makes my skin crawl when people separate humans and animals. Humans ARE animals!
On a slightly more ontopic note: This is the breaking point for future scientific study specifically biomedic/stemcell research in the United States. There are two bills in the house about to be voted on - The Cord Blood Stem Cell Act 2005 HR 596 and Stem Cell Research Act 2005 HR 810 in the house, which surprisingly has *bipartisan support* which even more surprisingly is more than likely to pass and most surprisingly (well...not so much for some of us) is very likely to be vetoed (first time ever for GWB) by the President. Unbelievable.
>It shouldn't be long before we can expect have a set of replacement parts ready when our own wear out.
Right about the time we have too-cheap-to-meter fusion power.
I keep thinking there's a Jengo Fett joke lurking in this subject, somewhere.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
When life begins isn't the question, since we routinely destroy life for far more trivial purposes than this. "What is a person?" is the real question, and the crux of the abortion and cloning debates.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
How is this any different than the food you eat? Why must you kill other life to survive? Because that's the way the system works. A human embryo isn't a conscious person, so it's hardly murder. Also, what makes "human" life more important than other forms of life? Your very existance kills more "life" than you can possibly imagine.
And the related science paper from last year.
You would know that the scientist uses UNFERTILIZED eggs and then removes the nucleus! The scientists then introduce the intended tissue type cell into the egg and shock it it, at which point the cells reproduce. This is akin to multiplying gut/skin/white cells in a cell culture laboratory - which NO religion/poltical groups have problems with.
Please read the article before comenting next time.
..........FULL STOP.
Wow, prepare to be modded flamebait, insightful, interesting and overrated!
Seriously, there's an ethical debate to be had here which is too important to reduce to religion v science flamewars. We need some intelligent argument as to what makes cloning right because it seems to me as a vaguely agnostic liberal, it's difficult if not impossible to draw the line beyond which we deserve to have our lives protected by the law. Is there anything beyond the purely utilitarian view that this research will save x lives but cost y lives and if x is less than y then it's moral? I'm sure there must be but I'm damned if I can see it.
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
Let's just hope this Suck Wang guy has better practices than Dr Toby Russel...
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
that is the most asinine argument I've seen on here in a long time, and that's saying something.
Evolve.
A person is an individual substance of a rational nature.
For those that are for abortion. Please explain to me how "place" changes the nature of a thing. That is, when inside the mother's womb, it is a blob. But when we move it two feet, it becomes a person.
We need some intelligent argument as to what makes cloning wrong.
If a gay woman wants to get married to a man they are permitted to.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
What would the porn films call it? Double-single penetration?
Anyone who creates thousands of clones of Scarlett Johansson is OK in my opinion. When can I buy one?
...and so began the birth of Frankenstein.
The argument is not at all off-base. The point was that different views on something do not affect reality. That may be debated, but why should someone who holds a view think reality is different b/c two people hold two different views?
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
why can't gay women get married under the church
Because Dubya has had cameras placed in all church basements for just this reason.
Only a Slashdotter would dream of using this technology to further masturbation instead of a way to have real sex.
Well, let's assume for a minute that killing human beings is wrong. How do you then differentiate between a human being and an infant? An infant and a 8 month foetus? An 8 month foetus and a 4 month foetus? A 4 month foetus and an embryo? At what point does it become Ok to destroy "it", whatever "it" is? Because if you're claiming that cloning is right then the responsibility for moral justification lies with you.
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
This is a very tricky question. For those who oppose using an embryo for stem cell research, this _may_ be considered acceptable. For those who oppose human cloning, this _may also_ be considered acceptable, as the cloned embryo is not allowed to mature. For those that oppose both, I think the answer will require much more thought.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
Sperm and egg cells are alive and can be kept viable indefinately. They are also half-human.
Kill one of each and you've committed murder. Allow one of each to die and it's manslaughter.
And if you sincerely believe that, and you've ever allowed your eggs or sperm to die instead of having them frozen, please turn yourself into to the nearest police station to face charges.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Mayhaps they shouldn't. But they probably should acknowledge the possibility that they could be wrong.
Killing embryos, foetus', infants and human beings has nothing to do with cloning.
Cloning can be performed using nuclear transfer. Which is moving the genetic material from one cell into an egg cell which has had it's genetic material removed.
"The Chinese," bellowed a drunken Australian, "Chinese bloody invented nerve-splicing. Give me the mainland for a nerve job any day. Fix you right, mate..."
"Now that," Case said to his glass, all his bitterness suddenly rising in him like bile, "that is so much bullshit."
The Japanese had already forgotten more neurosurgery than the Chinese had ever known. The black clinics of Chiba were the cutting edge, whole bodies of technique supplanted monthly, and still they couldn't repair the damage he'd suffered in that Memphis hotel.
--
make install -not war
Gay women can indeed get married in the church... to a man.
Oscast need never worry about being stabbed to death, as he possesses an almost supernatural ability to miss the point.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
The difference is that an embryo has no developed central nervous system or consciousness.
The sky is blue is a statment that can be backed up by fact. You can look at the light spectrum and indeed say that the sky is blue (just one of many ways). You can NOT do the same with an embryo in determining when it is a person and when it is not. (or even harder, attempting to prove when the soul enters the body at all. That one will require you to first prove the exsitence of a soul. Good luck with that. ;-))
So the cell divides and multiples, what makes that diffrent from any other animal cell or for that matter, plant cell, out there? Just because it is derived from a human does not automaticly mean it is a person and we should grant it human rights. If the cell was not in a petrie dish, it would DIE. It can not survive outside the (artifically constructed) womb ergo it is not a person.
What I see as interesting is the fact that Bush's adminstaration is worried that legeslation is about to pass that would raise the mandated limits on stem cell research. Now, looking at the US Congress, and I dunno about the House, but the Senate has a sizable amount of Mormon senators, who, although many classify them as neo cons, (and on many of the Duyba's issues the are right in line with the RNC) on the issue of stem cell's they are in the EXACT OPPOSITE opion of the presidents. This may be what the president is worried about. That because of these mormon senators, who don't hold the same view on stem cells as the rest of the RNC (and protestants for that matter) this bill could pass Congress.
I know there is a sizable amount of Mormon represenatives in the house, however, I don't know if it is enough to break the rest of the RNC.
There are, of course other republicans who are not Mormon who do not hold to the same ideal as the majority of the RNC, and these, coupled with the Mormon represenatives, along with the democrats, are most likly what Duyba fears will get the bill past Congress and to his desk.
We need some intelligent argument as to what makes cloning right...
What makes eating beans right? Maybe we should have a discussion about what reasons people might consider cloning to be unethical or immoral. Someone somewhere will probably consider any given act you can think of to be "wrong" for some reason. The question really boils down to two things:
In the first case if a person decides cloning is "wrong" well they can just not pay someone to clone them and not worry about it. Since ethical and moral decisions are personal, this can be a personal decision and there is no reason for any legal intervention.
In the second case, there must be a demonstrable detriment to society, in which case cloning should be restricted or banned by law. This is a harder to criteria to satisfy, but then again it is banning people from making their own moral choices, so it had better be a pretty well established and overriding concern.
Or more importantly, WWJDD?
...Dick Cheney and other senior White House officials with serious medical conditions were noted to have chartered Air Force One to S. Korea yesterday. Mr. Cheney, with a suitcase full of bills and his 'senate gold' health care plan, said that he was taking the trip to S. Korea to investigate the ethics of stem cell research...
If natural selection really works(and I think it does) then people with moral misgivings about this technology will refuse to accept medical help from stem cells and will have a higher mortality rate than godless heathens. Maybe they'll interpret their decline as the arrival armageddon. It could also mean a true separation of church and state.
Of course this all assumes that people will actually refuse treatment because of their religious/moral beliefs which I highly doubt, even diehard churchgoers don't believe that the sun revolves around the earth anymore.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
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When they get quickclones perfected and the Neural transfer software debugged, then I'll be interested.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
We need this research to be done, and the high cost and long period of turn before returns will be seen make it more unlikely to happen in the private sector.
Also I believe this type of research should be done openly and for the benifit of mankind. I'm sure if a pharmaceutical giant funds it then it'd be pretty well encumbered by patents.
WHY NOT dump embryo research and head towards alternatives?
Because it is a promising and helpful line of research. I mean if you want to stop other people from researching something, I think the onus is on you to provide a scientific and proven reason why they should do it. Otherwise it is just your unscientific opinion against theirs and there is no reason to give your opinion about what someone else is doing more weight than their own.
Right. And there's only one logical legal conclusion to this issue based on the principle you have just stated. If we acknowledge that either side could be wrong, then we have just acknowledged that an embryo could be a person.
And what should the law do to protect a living being that could be a person?
Hint: what should you do when shooting into the woods if there could be a person there?
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
How about if she's got an MPS/ML disorder (I know you don't know what that is - probably less than 10,000 patients in the developed world) or any other rare disorder for which there is no cure, and non-embryonic stem cells just aren't sufficiently pluripotent to do the job?
Google cached version
Here's the BBC with their coverage of the same story.
So, I can go down to Chiba city and buy a new liver? Shillin' these 3 meg ram sticks is rough business. Know a guy named Armitage?
meh
If you could get the stem cells you wanted without killing the embryo, whould that be all right?
A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
Straw man argument.
When a woman gives birth, it is not merely moving the baby from one place to another. The foetus goes from being demonstrably dependant upon another organism (the mother) for survival, to being able to survive independantly (i.e.: it is now a baby). There is a difference. This difference does not necessarily mean it it ethically acceptable to terminate the foetus, but to say that giving birth is just a "change of place" is silly.
The real debate is about at what point during the developmental cycle of a human being does it suddenly gain the status and rights of a normal human. Some say conception, others say birth, others pick some time in between. The fact is there is no obvious "sudden point" at which things change and the foetus is suddenly human. That's why the debate is so sticky. People want clear-cut answers and rigid ethics, but life is not like that.
How is a cloned embryo a human life?
Would anyone ever let one finish gestation, grow up, get a job and have kids of it's own?
Just a matter of time before somebody does.
And if you have a problem with it, you will be called a bigot because you value people grown "the old fashioned way" more than lab-grown people.
As I understand it, and IANAB (I am not a biologist), implanting donor cells into an oocyte results in an embryo identical to one occurring naturally so you still need to make a differentiation. Implanted into a donor mother these embryos would develop into human beings. Would you argue that only a 'naturally grown' human deserves the respect of the law?
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
The only restriction is that taxpayer funds cannot be used to support it.
Just wanted to add the clarification that it's not even all taxes, just federal - California is suppotring research via state taxes.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't belive this kind of research would be legal at all, because it involves cloning a human embryo.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
They don't have to clone a whole person to harvest the organs. They will be able to grow just the needed organ.
Technoli
I'm still waiting for the science behind cloning to be completed so that I can have my clone come to the office and earn money for me while I stay at home and play CoD:UO all day.
How is it that such an ordinarily enlightened group of people that gather here, can become JUST LIKE the fundamentalists they hate when presented with a hot-button issue.
Why can't we evaluate the moral and ethical implications of this? Why is anyone who attempts to do so instantly labeled a "luddite" or someone who tries to fight progress. Surely we are not so quickly reduced to ad-hominem attacks. Surely there are reasoned explanations?
In short, what is wrong with looking before we leap? I think we all agree that a lot of disturbing science fiction revolves around scientists who should have stepped back and wondered: "Should I really be doing this?"
I'm sick of hearing that the US has a 'ban' on stem cell research. There is no ban! The bill signed into law placed a limit on funding of stem cell research. Scientists are perfectly free to pursue research all they want, so long as they pay for it with non governmental money. Stop claming that the goverment has made it illegal to engage in stem cell research. It's just not the case.
My blog
so what's the difference between getting some kid's organs and killing an embryo to harvest them?
Do you mean the organs of a child who has died in an accident? Nothing wrong there - you'd expect most parents to be proud that their kid's brief life might at least have continued to flourish in some indirect way.
Or do you mean, killing kids to get their organs? I'll be looking forward to your pointing that one out in the news when the time comes.
But killing an embryo? OK, so you've got a handful of cells dividing, at least for a little while, anyway, in a petri dish. No mom, no pregnancy, and no way they would ever amount to anything - let alone a person - without continual intervention from science, which is still beyond us anyway. So, that group of cells, completely unviable as they sit there, and without any means by which to be differentiated from a similarly complex group of paramecium (which is to say, there is no there there yet, no framework on which to hang the concept of person-hood - merely the eventual potential, which could also be said of the reproductive organs of a man and a women eyeing each other over a beer), what's wrong with using them to save lives? To shoot for getting the paralyzed to walk again? For that kid nearly does die in an accident to breath again off a respirator?
just to improve the quality of an old one - that possibly won't last much longer?
So, the son of a friend just had his spine severed in a road accident. He's done from the waist down, now. He's 22. Might as well write him off, huh? After all, he's so old, he's pretty much close to dead. Those dozen cells in the petri dish, though - set them next to his hospital bed, and they'll thrive! Why, they'll be a smiling, bubbly little baby in just a matter of months! No? No.
Whether you eat plants or meat or both, you kill billions of cells every day to improve the quality of your life. You eat them to survive, remember? There's as much of a human being in a dozen cells as there is in a stalk of asparagus. But if I could produce eggs (that would otherwise go to waste) that could be used to help restore my friend's son's mobility to him, I'd do it in a heartbeat. And, any dozen cells that divide along the way won't have it in them, under the circumstances (lacking, as they do, any sort of nervous system as a platform to have anything), to really weigh in on it. That's not an "all-new human life," it's a dozen cells. But a 22-year-old able to walk again: that would be an all-new human life. When we've made it that far, bio-tech-wise, and your child is lying there with a broken back, pretty much guaranteed never to have children as a result, would you begrudge her the same? Or, does God prefer a dozen unviable cells in a dish over paralyzed people or new mothers with degenerative neural diseases that will rob their children of a normal life? Getting that mom healthy is for her young children, though you're not set up to see that larger picture, it seems.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
If you put it that way, you make it seem that government funding is crucial to success. This is also Simply Wrong.
Unless of course you'd like to argue that all companies from Pfizer to Microsoft rose to their prominence on the coat-tails of federal grants.
Federal funding is a great thing to have, especially when you're NOT in the business environment, and DO NOT have to deliver results with immediate profit potential.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
so what's the difference between getting some kid's organs and killing an embryo to harvest them? Also, doesn't it sound a little ackward to dispose an all-new human life just to improve the quality of an old one - that possibly won't last much longer? A very sick person will last a lot longer then an embryo in a petri dish.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
But anyway, it's a weird thought, having a clone of yourself in case you need organs harvested. I think I'd rather they just grow the one organ for me, wouldn't you? The article doesn't seem to provide any clues as to which of these he is working towards. Either that, or I'm too tired to read it carefully. :)
Just for the record, I think you should gloss over NIH, NIMH, and NSF, to see how much scientific research is funded by the gov't.
Research universities are funded by the gov't. Labs are built with government money. Supplies are shipped courtesy of Uncle Sam.
"Private Funding" is BS in academia.
On that note, "there was no federal funding before Bush chose to allow this limited funding" is also crap. The issue became large during his term in office; it's an issue of research and medicine, it should have nothing to do with the President's Approval. Pointing to the fact that it happened during his term in office is a bogus coincidence. It would be like saying President Lincoln was a homophobe because he never addressed issues of Gay Marriage, or that Washington was totally insensitive to AIDS issues. Bush gave meager funding to something that should be totally outside of his authority.
We have panels of scientists that can decide whether or not to approve Grants for medicinal and scientific research, we don't need totally unscientific neoconservatives doing it for us, thank you very much.
That might explain the difference in tone between the two pieces. The Betterhumans article sounds very promsing while the Beeb's is very toned down and doubtful.
But before you go and say, well duh maybe a website called Betterhumans is obviously going to put a positive spin on things, here's two more links on the Tennessee research that sound similarly enthusiastic.
One from Wired
And one from Medical News Today
First: At what point does a jumble of cells become life?
At this point, the defiinition in the U.S. legal system is at 27 weeks. When all the major organs have formed, and life and growth are possible outside the womb.
Second: Does stopping a potential life mean the same thing as killing?
You have to watch that one, because contreceptives are suddenly a no-no. As is taking a vow of celebacy.
Third: How is growing a cloned fetus of yourself any different than growing a culture of any other cells?
If there was an easy answer, we would have found it.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I tend to agree with you with regards to your first point. Certainly in terms of abortion for example. I'm prepared to submit to the moral framework of others on this because while I'm personally uneasy about it, I wouldn't presume that my viewpoint is any more valid than another. Even though on other matters it sometimes is... ;o)
Your second point is the one that I'm more concerned with. Quantifying societal harm is almost impossible because everyone has different value judgements they apply but does this then mean that all ethics are relative?
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
Hint: what should you do when shooting into the woods if there could be a person there?
tell them to watch out?
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
It's called time.
See, when I mix some cake mix with eggs, oil, and water, I get a thing called "cake batter". I put the cake batter in a pan. I put the pan in the oven.
Now the question is, when does it become a cake? Is it a cake as soon as it enters the oven? Having been in there for 1 nano second and yet to have a chance to rise, I have a tough time calling it a cake. To me, it is still cake batter.
With time, it rises, it turns from a thick liquid-like substance into a moist, fluffy solid. It's slowly becoming a cake. But when is it a cake? Is it a cake only when it out of the oven? Or is it a cake a nanosecond before I do? I would say yes.
Where, then, is the tipping point? I don't know. Do you? I would posit that the best we can get is "pretty close" to knowing when it changes from batter into cake. Just like when a Christian believes that life begins at conception, and a pro-choice believes that it doesn't begin at birth, they're two positions that are taken for the simple reason that they wish to have solid footing beneath them as they argue back and forth (I use the term argue loosely, as they don't really do a whole lot of that, so much as they yell at each other and get angry and don't bother listening). It's not right (imo), but that is the way it is.
Also, I don't know that I can call a newborn baby a person either. There, too, exists a gradient. When does an infant become a person? I'm not sure. I haven't studied cognitive development. I believe that, until a baby has human-specific cognitive abilities, they aren't a person. They're an animal. When that is, I don't know. Again, that's just my opinion. Unlike some people, however, I'm willing to talk AND to listen.
Sure life starts at conception. All the cells in a person's body are alive, including egg and sperm cells. That doesn't make the fertilized egg cell a person. Whether something can be labeled a 'person' or not has more to do with its mental abilities, if it has any. Whether they have, or have the capacity for, intelligence, self-awareness, and abstract thought.
We destroy 'life' all the time. Everything we eat was alive at one point, regardless of whether you are a vegitarian or not. The fact that something has DNA similar to ours does not make it 'sacred'.
To anticipate the obvious troll response, someone who is asleep or in a coma, might not be self-aware, but they have the capacity for it. And no, Terri Schiavo was not in a coma. Huge peices of her brain had been liquified. She no longer had the capacity for self-awareness.
Yes, by the way. If we ever create a computer that has these qualities, then I would consider it a person.
Technoli
When a woman gives birth, it is not merely moving the baby from one place to another. The fetus goes from being demonstrably dependant upon another organism (the mother) for survival, to being able to survive independently (i.e.: it is now a baby). How exactly is it "demonstrably" dependant on another organism? Premature babies do have some trouble, but most of them do survive. If you were to cut an 8-month old baby out of a woman's womb, it most likely wouldn't have too many problems. There have actually been cases where babies have been stolen from pregnant women and the babies lived(!!!!!) In fact, the exact opposite is demonstrateable. The earlier along in the pregnancy, the less likely this becomes. In theory a baby is "a live" after just 4 months, although survival at this stage is pretty unlikely.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
How is it that such an ordinarily enlightened group of people that gather here, can become JUST LIKE the fundamentalists they hate when presented with a hot-button issue.
Why can't we evaluate the moral and ethical implications of this? Why is anyone who attempts to do so instantly labeled a "luddite" or someone who tries to fight progress. Surely we are not so quickly reduced to ad-hominem attacks. Surely there are reasoned explanations?
In short, what is wrong with looking before we leap? I think we all agree that a lot of disturbing science fiction revolves around scientists who should have stepped back and wondered: "Should I really be doing this?"
People who have the $$$$ will get stem cells created for them and kept on the shelf in labs. After all, that's what's great about stem cells - they'll reproduce indefinitely, until you put them in an environment where they get the right cues to specialize.
If stem cells turn out to be the universal replacement part bank, their creation and maintenance will probably start out as an expensive boutique service, mushroom into big business, and end up as a government-subsidised service in developed countries. Imagine egg donation being promoted as a public service, like blood donation is today.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
There was some news recently about some reseach that managed to grow oocytes (eggcells) from a small section of ovarian tissue. Because you can increase the hormone concentrations much higher in vitro (no egg donor suffering from a total hormonal imbalance and risking breast cancer) they were able to grow hundreds of oocytes from it. While the tissue still needs to be cut from a donor, in theory this could be combined with this research to generate even easier stem cells.
here is a link to the article
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Yeah someday I will learn never to pres submit without a preview...
anyways here is the link:
Oogenesis in cultures derived from adult human ovaries
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Whoa, how was the poster implying that behavior? Maybe she has sex with her husband, and gets pregnant, but doesn't know it, and is on some diet or something that lacks a nutrient that is vital to the fetus's development. Or goes out to play tennis and her partner accidentally hits her in the lower abdomen on a back swing, causing damage. Or there is something about her body that just isn't going to let anything develop - overactive immune system or something. There are a number of ways to accidentally miscarry that don't require promiscuity or drug/alcohol abuse. I think that was more the point.
This study shows that embryonic stem cells can be derived using nuclear transfer from patients with illness
Now the nuclear boogeyman is involved.
"Open the pod by doors, Hal" > "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" sudo "Open the pod bay doors, Hal" > alright
well at the moment, bear in mind that a big chunk of the active U.S. military is elsewhere right now...
perhaps we might do better assigning our patriotism to the *Planet* we all *share*?
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
Actually life began ~4B yrs ago and has continued ever since. The rearrangment of DNA that happens at "conception" is merely a bud to a new branch on the ever expanding tree that is life.
:q! Oh crap, not again...
How is this any different than the kind of genetic manipulation that is being performed on non-human species every single day? You still haven't come up with a single arguement as to why cloning is wrong. Cloning != killing embryos. Cloning is totally separate from harvesting the stem cells. Also, those cells will still become parts a human being, the human being that donated their genetic material to form those cells in the first place. It's no different than taking a skin graft. Finally, the law already argues that embryos are not people.
Wow. I'm saving that. That was extremely well-written, almost poetic.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
While the cake is baking, it is partially a cake, and partially batter. If you were to remove the cake in the middle of baking and remove all the batter, but leave that which has baked, what would you have? Half of a cake. At what point does this cake become deserving of the rights granted to all cakes, such as the right to be covered in a delicious sugar frosting? I would say: at the point which it becomes mostly baked, to the point where you could take it out of the oven and it wouldn't collapse or ooze all over the place when you cut it.
Seriously - you want to investigate some scary stuff, do some googling on "Dominionists", as well as Dominionism. For extra "giggles", throw in names of prominent government officials (don't worry about the party affiliation - I would be more surprised if there weren't any liberals pushing for a theocracy than I would be if there were!) as search terms, and see what you see. Certainly, most of your hits will likely come from republican affiliates, but be vigilant and look for others.
The more I see of this, the more I wonder where we are going as a country. This is scary shit - it is the Dominionist agenda to use the voting apathy of average American citizen against them and place in power theocratic elements throughout our governmental organizations (local, state and federal), with the express purpose to undermine our government and the Constitution with the outcome of setting up a theocratic state in its place.
I am sorry, but this smacks of treason, against the our country and our citizens. Unfortunately, most don't know, many wouldn't care if they knew, and those that would care may be too few in number to do anything about it at this late date in our history. These people have been working at this for (ultimately) close to 100 years, but only recently, within the last 15 or so years, have they made a steady and progressive push to put this in place quickly and decisively.
If they are successful, and liberals and moderates among us do nothing, I see the future for the world a very bleak place. America will likely become a starving hell-hole, if we are lucky. If we are unlucky, we will likely get World War III, and the Dominionist's version of Armagedden - there will likely be no coming back from that...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
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in many cultures, it is traditional to perform a "rite of passage" before being considered a member of society.
i guess the 14.25 (.25 may have something to do with seasons) years are a prerequisite where Quiet_Desperation comes from...
if your parents don't kill you before the age, you're considered alright.
and if you're going to nitpick, at least spell trimester correctly.
---- I was woken up this morning by a face full of fur. Damn cat thought my head made a good pillow.
Personally, I would have to agree with you, and I'm ever so happy you decided to continue with my analogy. Woo!
because I read:
by Woo Suk Hwang
As "by Who Suk Hwang".
...Presidential candidate Jeffrey Knight (Peter Graves).
(CLONUS)
As usual, fact follows fiction.
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
well, not really.
for spinal cord injury (brown-sequard syndrome (hemisection) or whatsoever), I don't think embryonic stem cells are going to do any good in this field unless we have a very careful computer controlled 'neuron repair' or 'neuron association' process which automagically associate neurons with what they should associate.
Right, neurons do have their plasticity in brain and even if connection goes wrong it can still work. But then do anybody here know what regenerates fastest when stem cells are put into spinal cord hemisections? C-fibres! those unmyelinated fibres which confers PAIN and temperature sense in the spinothalamic tract.
depends on how you think human experiements has been done in china but most of the result is basically they get something back, like 3 moving muscle in arm (that's not a hell lot, come on) and they also get some really painful life and become dependent on analgesics. Depends on how you think they may or may not be a good thing.
ketamine-bp
I for one don't welcome Baron Karza as my new armor-wearing overlord. Commander Rann? Captain Universe? Bug? are you out there?
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/st ory/0,9865,1486811,00.html
And an artificial womb. It's only a matter of time before all that will be required is a sample of genetic material, skin scraping etc.
Deleted
You're right. I suppose what I meant was that before birth the fetus is demonstrably *depending* on another organism. This dependance can be altered, via birth or medical procedure.
What you said is exactly what I'm talking about, however. There is no clear point at which a baby goes from being "not human" to "human." Defining it as conception or birth or whatever is arbitrary... and ultimately is missing the point.
Bush's response
0 .html
Bush Blasts Human Clone Research
Associated Press
Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,67586,0
08:40 AM May. 20, 2005 PT
The White House on Friday condemned research in South Korea for producing human embryros through cloning and said President Bush would veto any legislation that loosens federal restrictions in the United States on embryonic stem cell research.
White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy said the work in South Korea amounted to human cloning for the sole purpose of scientific research. "The president is opposed to that," Duffy said. "That represents exactly what we're opposed to."
Separately, he said the president would veto legislation to permit spending government money for stem cell research that would destroy human embryos. A measure by Reps. Mike Castle (R-Delaware) and Diana DeGette (D-Colorado) would lift Bush's 2001 ban on the use of federal dollars for research using any new embryonic stem cell lines.
Bush, in his fifth year in office, has not yet exercised his first veto. The White House also promised a veto this week of a highway bill if it exceeded the administration's spending limits.
Bush began the day at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast where he was cheered for urging people to "pray that America uses the gift of freedom to build a culture of life."
The remark was a public reaffirmation of his position on sensitive issues such as abortion and stem cell research.
Bush recalled the legacy of the late Pope John Paul II and said, "The best way to honor this great champion of human freedom is to continue to build a culture of life where the strong protect the weak."
Bush won 52 percent of the Roman Catholic vote in last year's election and got the support of 56 percent of white Catholics, defeating the first Catholic presidential candidate from a major party since John F. Kennedy. In 2000, Bush narrowly lost the Catholic vote.
End of story
http://stemcells.nih.gov/index.asp It has a very good executive summary on stem cells and some good references. A good introductory text book on developmental biology will also be helpful for understanding the basics. I don't know of one offhand since it's been a while but you should be able to google and find what introductory courses use these days.
Quantifying societal harm is almost impossible because everyone has different value judgements they apply but does this then mean that all ethics are relative?
Ethics are defined rules of conduct. Morals are beliefs about what is right and what is wrong. Ethical behavior is behavior that adheres to your own ethical code, which is often modeled on your moral beliefs. Laws are ethical codes (yours or someone else's) that are theoretically enforced by police agents.
Basically, societal harm must be something that an overriding majority of the people feel is damaging enough that restricting free choice for all is necessary. Murder is a good example, because it is pretty universally believed that killing another human being, without mitigating circumstances is "wrong." Ethically that might be "killing is wrong," "killing sentient beings is wrong," "killing humans is wrong," or "killing humans without provocation is wrong." I suppose the sticking point is how much of society must agree that something is harmful to society. There is also the danger of a majority declaring something harmful to society, that does not actually effect society, or only effects the individual who is making that choice. It is human nature to try to impose your will upon others and it is ethics, not morals that usually stands in the way. Basic rhetorical method includes finding common ground, then building upon it to discover the root of a difference and trying to resolve that difference. If only that the aforementioned principal was applied to law making.
I've wander a bit from my main point here. Basically, once facts are agreed upon, it is not all that hard to get people to agree to common ethics. Facts can be scientifically determined with some level of certainty. The problems facing most public debates today is that each side is more interested in swaying the public and winning than in finding the facts and presenting them simply. Thus each individual must expend extra effort to look at not only two opposing views, but also all the assumptions upon which those views are founded and minority viewpoints. Many people do not have the time or energy required to properly research an issue. It is imperative that these people do not just make a guess, side with the current majority, or take a public figure's word for it. Find out the facts, or refrain from making assertions.
Of course I'm answering a question with another question: What is conciousness? Nobody has a decent answer. We can measure its effects, but not the phenominon itself. Conciousness is one of life's many mysteries.
Although IMHO, there is a reasonable defining point for the beginning of human life, conception.
Well what part of conception? Some (in fact in a good many sexual encounters) eggs are fertilized, but never attach properly to the Uterine wall. Are those lost lives, or just a fact of life?
Conception, again, requires drawing a line in the sand that is strictly a human construction. If we involve the planting of the zygote onto the uterine wall as a part of conception, then most activities that take place in a petri dish are OK. The cells would not develop past a certain stage because they would run out of fuel.
However, when making a complete clone another person enters into the equation.
I have to agree with you. It is wreckless to create a whole other person just to hack it apart to supply peices for another. For the parts to be of any usable size, the clone would have to develop pretty far. We really ought to study how to start the process and run it in such a way that only an organ develops.
I personally would choose to call in quits before breeding a new one of me for spare parts.
Here's an ethical dilema for you, though. If you could grow another body for yourself, would it be ethical to imprint your thoughts, feelings, and memories on him or her? Think about it, it is another person, who is every bit as capable as you to grow in its own way.
Now there, the selfish part of me views downloading myself to a new "body" to be giving the new me a head start on learning. I can see how it could be viewed differently.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Life starts at conception.
FALSE!
Twins can start from the same cell. So when did their life start?
Both sperm and eggs are alive but that does not make them human anymore than a single a human.
And what should the law do to protect a living being that could be a person?
Nothing. They have insufficient information to act.
OPS: Both sperm and eggs are alive but that does not make them human anymore than a single cell is a human.
Therefore they have insufficient information to legally decide to allow the embryo to be deprived of life.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
"Every sperm is sacred,
Every sperm is good,
And when a sperm is wasted,
Then God gets quite irate!"
http://augustwestproducts.i8.com
It's flame bait because you don't know if it's more or less promising research. If researchers want to try something then clearly they have a reason for doing so. So if thousands of well-educated people in their field say this shows promise and someone outside their field says no it's pointless then either they're clueless or they're trying to start a flame war.
A simple Google search will provide you with all the evidence you need to justify it. My point is, why not go after the more promising research and be completely clear of any moral issues in ANYONES opinion?
Both lines of research are promising and if you had bothered to read the damn article you'd know that this research is from one of the few labs that actually has shown working repair to spinal column, right now, with results to back it up. This is working, and mature undifferentiated stem cell research currently is not for a number of reasons. I personally think we should explore as many lines of research as possible to try to heal damaged spinal cords, but maybe that is just because I know people who have been trapped in wheelchairs for the last 30 years. As a second point, no research is ever completely in the clear of any moral issues. Various religions object to using cow fetal fluid for growing cultures and others object to any medical procedures at all. What you really are saying is, why can't you stop doing this line of research that my particular religion objects to. To which I again reply, aside from your religious beliefs, why the hell should we, especially if this research has the potential to heal the sick? There was a lot of very uninformed debate about this, and legislation and funding for stem cell research in the U.S. lately. The conservative right basically said, we're restricting a lot of funding, but that's OK, because it will not stop the most "promising" research. Well, fast forward just a year and you see all the progress has been made in other countries, usually with a fraction of the research funding, while the U.S. scientific community tries to establish private funding and struggles to overcome technical problems imposed the restrictions of that legislation.
How stupid can you be to pass that up!?
This particular researcher and line of research has actually repaired spinal columns in rats, and is confident that it will work for people in within a reasonable period of time. How stupid do you have to be to stop researching this!?!
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Here's a little lesson for you guys:
1. You claim God is all-powerful. Then he doesn't need your help, does he?
2. You claim God is unknowable. If you then claim that you know what God would want, or that something is God's will, you are a fucking moron.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Social harm = harms society.
Killing your self is social harm because your reducing society's productive workforce. On the other hand sleeping on your right vs. left side at night is not social harm because it does not affect society. What does and does no harm society it's not an ethics issue and it's not relative.
Things are only relative when you talk about your rights to harm society by say staying up late watching TV. Your going to be less productive at work so do you have that right?
I'm totally for the killing of embryos.
If killing embryos results in fewer of these human larvae growing up become more obese morally outraged hypocritical consumer mindless sheep, it can only be a good thing. Especially since the next generation will just go on to pop out more of these vile spawn and on and on until we start eating each other or something like a cage full of rats.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Therefore they have insufficient information to legally decide to allow the embryo to be deprived of life.
The default action when provided insufficient information is to do nothing.
If you buy a lottery ticket you might have won but you don't quit your job until you find out you did win.
I might land unharmed if I decide to jump out the 5th story window at my office complex vs. taking the elevator but I don't know so I don't do it.
God might decide to send you to hell for chewing gum on a Sunday so let's outlaw gum on Sundays.
PC's are not in the bible so computers must be evil.
IF YOU DON'T KNOW THAT EMBRYO'S ARE PEOPLE THEN SAY SO AND LEAVE EVERYONE ELSE ALONE.
I never said only government funds science --- I said that corporations are usually too risk-averse to do anything 'big'. Which is true. Drug companies spend a lot of money on drug research. How much of that research is fundemental? How much of that research is likely to change the world, in the way the government's research into nuclear technology in the middle of this century changed the world? Usually, that research is very concrete and specific, and tailored to developing drugs that offer a good return on investment.
Now, corporations do conduct some fundemental research. But look at where the money comes from for those projects. You can trace a lot of it back to the government, to entities like DARPA, the DoD, the NRL, NASA, the DoE, the NSF, etc.
This is really not an argument worth having. Its fairly well accepted by economists that the free market naturally underspends on fundemental research and development. Look at Hong Kong. Why did it get so rich in such a short amount of time? Largely because the government spent a lot of money getting corporations to do fundemental R&D.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Scientists working with adult stem cells have already done this work with humans while as you quoted, embryonic research is still working with rats.
Please show me a reference to one repaired spinal column in humans using mature undifferentiated stem cells. My understanding is that some nerve damage has been repaired in humans using embryonic stem cells, but no spinal column repairs. Also, please use specific terms "adult stem cells" is not a term I've seen you define and not one used in any scientific journals I've read.
People in the US have not been doing significant embryonic stem cell research for a while. People are still doing novel research with them outside the US.
We tossed a few billion at adult stem cells and we got some interesting results. We have fewer results from embryonic stem cells because we have done less research from them not because they're less promising. It's that simple.
There is no value in abandoning promising lines of research ever. We don't know what we will find out so we should use all tools available. When scientists decide there no longer useful then we can abandon them but it's been a political decision and it's harming America by causing scientists to abandon the US to follow promising lines of research.
PS: People did research the vacuum tube after we had transistors. We stopped because transistors where clearly better after a while not because it was obvious that transistors where better after the first transistors showed up.
The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.
--Chinese Proverb
I bought this house and you know I'm boss
Ain't no h'aint gonna run me off
"Fundemental" is a word that does not need a definition to anybody familiar with science. "Fundemental research" refers to research that deals with abstract problems with huge, long-term payoffs, as opposed to research that deals with concrete problems with limited, short-term payoffs.
Hell, most people in drug research will tell you that corporate drug research is not fundemental. Heck, fundemental research isn't even profitable. You think the cure for cancer is going to come out of a corporation? Don't bet on it --- it would cost them an enormous amount of money, and there would be no way they could profit from it. Not enough people have cancer to let them charge a low price for the resulting drug, and there is no way they'd get away with charging the $100,000 per dose they'd need to break even...
You think drug research has given us a longer lifespan? You think most people need drugs at some point in their life? Hah! You know what has given us a longer lifespan? Government agricultural and health planning, government supported healthcare, government-dictated sanitation regulations, government sponsored disease control, etc.
Its just a product of the numbers. Not many people have AIDS or cancer. Lots of people drink water. For every person that lives 10 years longer because of some new AIDS drug, there are a thousand kids that don't die at age 10 because of vaccination programs. Which one do you think has a bigger impact on the average life expectancy?
Also, don't conflate 'drug research' with 'medical research'. Medical research has given us enormous advancements, but medical research is also funded in large part either directly by the government (eg: NIH grants), or indirectly by the government (eg: hospitals, who get a lot of money from medicare).
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I might push it to 75th (18 years old).
maybe I'm just being silly, but I'm imaging mass produced "universal soldiers", growing adult humans and using them for spare parts harvesting, clones for slave labor, rich corporate leaders cloning themselves,.....all that crap sci-fi horror movie stuff. No, our governments are way too advanced and good and moral for that to ever happen....
If he thinks these 1-cell embryos are people, then I would like to see him attend a funeral for a 1st trimester miscarriage.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
If you were right the USSR would have beaten us in the arms race. The USSR took your position that the research should be done by the government. They didn't beat us because our private companies (like lockheed) outperformed their lame attempts at development and production. The only reason they managed to produce anything at all is because they turned millions of people in their country into slaves who stopped producing wheat and starved death producing weapons.
Government money does fund guns and planes, but thats hardly "fundamental research". The government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers -- no one is better at that than the market.
And for every government funded research success that you mention, billions of dollars were wasted supporting untold numbers of spectacularly failed projects. See NASA and the nationalized space industry. Woopee, we got velcro. Thats worth the trillions of dollars we have spent on gold toilet seats and taking dogs into space. Thats a great investment. Markets would not have wasted that volume of money.
You're really misintrepreting your above links, most of which are from decidely non-scientific sources, anyway. The first link lists dozens of diseases that are treatable with "adult stem cells". What you probably don't understand is that every one of those diseases is a disorder of the blood, and the treatment is bone marrow transplant. Which, yes, is essenially the transfer of "adult stem cells". But those stem cells are only capable of producing blood cells, and moreover we still don't know what they actually are! We deduce that hematopeotic stem cells get transfered during a bone marrow transplant, but no one has yet been able to identify an actual stem cell.
Bone marrow transplant is a wonderful triumph of clinical research, and an example of how we can use a technology to save and improve lives even if we don't actually understand it. But it is probably not extendible to any other tissue or organ, and it's actually more difficult to get a handle on the basic biology at work than it is to understand ES cell development. Moreover, even this poster-child of "adult stem cell" therapy could benefit hugely from therapeutic cloning and ES cell research, since only the use of therapeutic cloning could give these patients a life without either obliteration of their own bone marrow or daily anti-rejection drugs and without the danger of graft-vs-host disease. Future generations will look back at most of our medical practices as barbaric, but surely near the top of the list will be our use of non-genetically matched tissue transplants, with such a high risk of devastating complications, and requiring the obliteration by irradiation or suppression by toxic drugs of the patient's own immune system.
i think you misunderstood the parent. its not that you would get to pay less taxes. its that you could choose where to put your tax money.
there will be a tragedy of the commons regardless because taxes fund a public good.
It creeps me out to think that so many people are behind that guy. Honestly, it gives me the chills.
I "pray" for a day when ignorance is no longer bliss.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
This is certainly good news, but human eggs are still needed, and from what I understand, harvesting them is still time-consuming, painful, and risky.
Damn! I'd be willing to donate sperm. That isn't painful, time consuming, or risky!
A community-oriented lyrics site
The scientist, in his act of forming the embryo with no intention of fostering its development has taken responsibility for the viability of the life. His very action is the killing of the embryo.
No, the scientist is creating a small group of cells, using material from the person that he intends to help, and with no intention or expectation that those small cells will or could form a viable embryo. You can call it an embryo if you want, but it only has life in the sense that any small group of cells has life. There is no nervous system, there is no means by which those cells can respirate, and certainly no means by which they can be invested with any of the qualities we assign to a more fully formed organism (let alone a person). The scientist isn't suddenly confronted with a "life", he's just looking at the cells he put together specifically to accomplish the theraputic task that is his goal. You make it sound like he's looking at a fetus, which, of course, we're not talking about. When he uses those cells to theraputic effect in his patient, he is, of course, sending some of them off to live and reproduce as part of the therapy. Those that he doesn't need aren't preserved any more than you preserve all of the cells that make up your arm when you scratch an itch (the act of which "kills" hundreds or thousands of your cells).
Okay so life as you understand it is defined by the number of cells that make up any being.
You won't be any more credible or pursuasive by putting words in someone else's mouth. I didn't say that, and you know it. This issue is about whether or not a dozen or two cells provide an adequate source of stem cells. One thing we don't have to worry about is whether or not those same dozen or two cells are a person, because they simply are not. If all goes well in a scenario supportive of gestation, those cells can wind up, millions of divisions later, being the start of a fetus. Until then, you've got undifferentiated cells (which is why they have so much theraputic promise) and no structure that could conceivably be referred to as a fetus, let alone a "baby" or "unborn person."
So according to your logic gorrilas are more alive than humans are
No, that's according to your twisted rhetorical version of what I'm saying. Just because it would serve your point of view to somehow "catch" me saying that, I didn't say that, nor can you infer that (with any intellectual honesty) from what I said. Gorilla embryos, at the dozen-or-two-cells level, are virtually indistinguishable from ours. But in any way that matters, so are chickens and toads. The meaningful differences between us and gorillas (which are slim indeed, as an expressed percentage of their DNA) don't really manifest themselves until farther along in development. That species evolved along a different path, and found (until pretty recently) a succesful niche that didn't require quite the IQ or communications skills that man did. They stayed in the jungle, while we spread out into the steppes and savannah, where better upright mobility and keener group predation made for better survival. Either way, both the gorilla and the human are fantastically complex by the time gestation is complete - but then, so is a mouse, just not as much so, on the neurological front.
Your understanding of the ethical implications of embryonic research is hinged on number of cells and viability. So according to your theory, my friend who was born very prematurely was technically not alive while being cared for in an incubator.
Again, you're pretending, because you think it helps your case, that I've said something that I did not. Because you find it important to see a "person" in a dozen cells, you can't imagine (even if it's shown to you, which surely it has been, if you've managed to get through junior high school) any middle ground between the first few divisions of the cells of an embryo, and the extremely complex structures of a several month old fetus. It's not like the
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
No freaking lie ... Where did the Jesus Christ come from then?
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
You view a group of cells that all humans once were as disposable but view the same group of cells that has been given the time and nuture to replicate and develop facets that you are able to identify(i.e. lungs, nerves, etc)as life
But that's the whole point: those cells are not put into a situation where that could or would take place. There's no person waiting to be born before the doctor seeks to use a process like this, and there's no person waiting to born after, either. Incidentally, I think part of the problem here is that you use the word "life" when you mean "human life." Those are not same thing. Bacteria are alive. Cellary is alive. Every time you swat a mosquito, you're ending life.
Clearly you view complexity and size as an indicator of life
Certainly you cannot achieve the level of cognitive complexity that we associate with humanity without involving a certain amount of brain tissue, arranged in a certain way. So "size" in that sense is meaningful. Size, as it relates to a microscopic collection of a dozen cells, is also meaningful because you can't look at it and find a very small, curled up baby hiding in there. It doesn't exist yet, at that stage.
My gorilla example showed how your life status indication method is flawed by applying it to another scenario
Sorry, don't see it that way. A gorilla, while very advanced as mammals go, doesn't have the mental horsepower of homo sapiens. Neither does a blue whale. You're confusing the difference between 20 cells and a more developed fetus (where there is a size difference, but that's mostly incidental to the complexity issue) with the difference in size between me and a mountain gorilla. That's a red herring. A 10 pound baby is a less than a 20th of my size, but almost entirely as complex, mentally. The adult gorilla, at that point, is probably smarter than the baby, but the baby will completely eclipse it because it's got the DNS to do so.
Your position is that "life" starts at conception is tangental to what that form of life is. Whether or not a fertilized egg does or does not have the potential to become a healthy human baby doesn't mean that, half a dozen cell divisions later, you're looking at a person. There is no structure present that allows you to apply that label.
Boiling this discussion down to the crux of the matter (that you consider that fertilized egg to be a person) is not a waste of time: it exposes the nature of the debate.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Next time you label something as troll, please notice that i'm just stating my point of view. Where does human life begin? Many people believe it's at the moment of conception, so I don't understand how stating this point of view could be labelled as "troll".
Unless of course, I'm stating a point of view that goes against the majority. In that case you're fully welcome to mod me as troll.
Hmph.
I thought about modding you down as being incorrect, but then thought better and decided to reply where I can note the problem with your statement.
"fundamentalist Christians" - As far as I understand it, they do not claim God is unknowable. In fact, they do not believe anything close to that. The belief is that God revealed his Will in the Bible. Unknowable, perhaps in a sense, but your statement as it stands is a misrepresentation. Look at it as if you had kids. They cannot claim to understand why you set things up the way you did, but they do know what your wishes are in terms of their behavior, etc.
As for the first point, God requires nobody's assistance in this world. That part of your statement is not debatable as it stands. However, again, you has misrepresented their beliefs. I can respect that you are an atheist, but please be honest with the other side before setting up a straw man you know you can knock down. Christians, all of them, do what God wishes out of love, the same way that you would do the laundry for your wife (this is Slashdot, so that's far from a foregone conclusion). Sure, she is most likely capable of handling it herself, and every other task. You do it because you love her, and desire to continue in a relationship with her.
The bottom line is that God is both the things you claim, but not in the way that you did it. Be realistic. The other side is far from unintelligent.
Que tout ce qui est vrai.
"So what's the difference between getting some kid's organs and killing an embryo to harvest them?"
Because getting some kids organs will lead to complications for the rest their lives.
"Also, doesn't it sound a little ackward to dispose an all-new human life just to improve the quality of an old one."
I don't know. Should we lock up all the women who have miscarriages for murder? Should we haul away all those who work in the fertility treatment industry for killing thousands everyday?
Oh wait...that's different?
~X~
~X~
Why don't you just legalise murder regardless of age? Last I checked, discrimination based on age is illegal, so you need to legalise it for all ages or none.
God have mercy on your soul...
Luke-Jr
and this is exactly why "fertility treatments" are wrong.
Luke-Jr
I don't see him saying otherwise, either.
Perhaps he really does have proper morals and *does* oppose such treatments.
Why not? She certainly made an attempt to get pregnant (sexually uniting with (hopefully) her husband). Testing for success is available over-the-counter, too.
Can any doctor *ever* be completely sure of such a death? Miracles happen every day (conception is one of them)-- the answer is no, nobody can ever be sure. Thus, killing the one child would still be wrong.
Better to support honourable research such as this suggestion than to support research which involves murdering innocent humans.
And that's the sad state society is in today.
Luke-Jr
Until you end up with prostate cancer.
Doing anything solely for pleasure is wrong.
Luke-Jr
In the end, science will never conflict with the true religion (I'll leave it up to the reader to guess what it is; a hint: if organisation is good, wouldn't God's Church be organised?)
What can be done with the stem cells from murdered children that cannot also be done using the cells from unfertilised eggs (as in the article) or from adult stem cells? I don't think you'll find anything...
Luke-Jr
First: Life begins when the sperm unites with the egg and God supplies the soul.
Second: It does not, but... *attempting* to create a life (sexually uniting with a spouse) while *actively* trying to prevent it is wrong-- contraceptives *are* a no-no.
Luke-Jr
Cloning of the type practiced by the South Koreans does involve the destruction of an embryo. It is identical to that which was used to clone Dolly the Sheep and involves: This is a quote from a stem cell researcher at the National Institute for Medical Research in London. Do you still want to say that cloning != killing embryos?
Yes, it is true to say that the cells will still become part of a human being but it is different from taking a skin graft. A skin graft is not, will not and will not ever, under any circumstances become a human being. An embryo, if implanted into a host, will. I've yet to see a walking skin graft. The point about the law arguing that embryos are not people is moot as well. It reminds me of The Simpsons, "Once something is legal it's no longer immoral" and I'm not sure I'd want to base my moral philosophy on this.
I'm sorry if I'm a little bit squeamish about the use of technology that involves the destruction of what may conceivably be considered be a human being but there you go.
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
Wow... talk about bad moderators... This is a troll *how*? I was merely pointing out the difference.
Luke-Jr
but i don't REALLY want to nitpick, i only KINDA want to... oh, nevermind. gotcha chief. *SALUTES*
---- I was woken up this morning by a face full of fur. Damn cat thought my head made a good pillow.
You know, explaining the nature of your made-up invisible friend in the sky isn't likely to convince me of anything. :)
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
If we knew that with absolute certainty, we could have a better moral standing to draw the limit for abortions. Unfortunately that's not possible.
For all we know God knows in advance which egg cells will result in full-term babies, and puts the soul in them before the mother is even born, leaving the remaining eggs without souls. Or maybe it's the eggs that will eventually be fertilized. Or maybe you get your soul at birth or some fixed time prior to birth. Or maybe you get them at 12:01 AM local time on the 20th day after conception. We don't and can't know, any such hypothesis is untestable.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
... needs to be taken with a grain of salt large enough to choke a whale.
Within the last year, there was a press conference in South Korea involving a 37 year old woman who walked again after being paralyzed from the waist down since the age of 16. They claimed that they had implanted umbilical cord stem cells in her spine 3 weeks earlier.
Go ask any physical therapist whether it's possible to support your own weight after 3 weeks of PT after 21 years of atrophy. They'll laugh you out of the building.
Your accusation of God's non-existence is without any evidence or logic. Nothing can never be disproven... Besides, God *has* been proven countless times over (no, I'm not going to Google for you).
Luke-Jr
Doing this requires preserving every zygote, on the off chance that God ensouls either eggs or sperm before conception.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Humans are humans because they have "souls" or some moral equivalent.
A pure clone has no sperm, so if souls are in the sperm then God better have a backup plan.
My hunch is that a soul, or its moral equivalent, becomes part of a person sometime during pregnancy. I've got no clue in what part - conception, the instant before birth, or some other part, only that it's some part. I am open to the possibility that it happens before or possibly even after, but that's not where I'm placing my bets.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.