UK Moves To Allow Human Hybrid Experiments

penguin_dance writes "The UK is apparently rethinking its ban on human hybrid experiments. If approved by regulators, '[t]he move opens the door to experiments involving every known kind of human-animal hybrid. These could include both "cytoplasmic" embryos, which are 99.9% human, and "true hybrids" carrying both human and animal genes.' Previous calls for an outright ban on all human-animal embryos outraged scientists, according to the article, who believe that 'work on human-animal hybrid embryos will greatly speed up progress in stem cell research.' The report claims there will be a provision for regulation of the research to incorporate any 'unforeseen developments.' Let the Island of Dr. Moreau comparisons begin!"

Comments

Better late than never

[jeremyp]

I think kdawson needs to find a better news source. The BBC reported this story more than a month ago.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6978384.stm

Re:Better late than never

[Sockatume]

It's worse than that, TFA in the original post is about them considering a route to authorising animal-human hybrids. We passed that stage a long time ago. "Olds for nerds"?

Yirmiyahu 31:26

[Apple Acolyte]

"Behold days are coming, says the Lord, and I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with seed of man and seed of beasts."

Re:It will happen

[lukas84]

South Park had this as a reference to Alien 4. I don't know what the poster meant, but i would guess that he meant Alien 4 too.

It's the part were you see the Ripley/Alien crossovers that went wrong - most of them are in glasses/formaldehyd, but one is still (mostly) alive and says "Kill me". Then, everything gets torched with a flamethrower.

Re:Hybrids

[dwye]

> Stem cell research should be legal

It is legal in the USA.

> and funded by the government

Adult and Umbilical Cord stem cell research can be, as well as Embryonic stem cell research on the approved cell lines.

> because it has the potential to cure MANY diseases.

Embryonic stem cells have only been demonstrated to have the potential to cause MANY cancers.

Adult and umbilical stem cells have produced numerous therapies being applied today.

Thus, all the noise is made about embyonic stem cell research (because it turns abortion into an actual GOOD thing, as opposed to unfortunate but legal, which is the best that most people view it).

> I don't mind abortion within the first trimester.

Some, OTOH, are blithely unconcerned.

Re:Hybrids

[lgw]

In the U.S. stem cell research and cloning are perfectly legal. The ban is on federal funding because it is morally questionable. And the ban on funding is only on embryonic stem cells, and not because the research itself is (rationally) seen as morally questionable, but because to make a medical product using embryonic stem cells, one would have to deliberately create a human embryo for purposes of harvesting, which should give one pause.