Stem Cells
Most countries, apparently, have banned stem cell research, and the UK is the last great outpost of it.
Apparently some scientists want to mix animal cells with human cells to create an embryo which consists of about 99% human cells and then let it develop for a few days to create some stem cells.
Look, I apologise for the vagueness of this report from your Science Correspondent. At the time I was listening to it on Radio Four I was trying to back into a narrow parking space in the hospital multi-storey car park and that's not really one of my skills. Well, not at all, actually. So I may have missed some of the finer detail.
Back to the stem cells. These could, after lots of research, perhaps be grown to form a part of any organ of the body, and would therefore be very useful in healing all sorts of injuries and illnesses. Christopher Reeve, who played Superman in the films, and who became a quadriplegic after a fall from a horse, was a great believer in stem cell research. His autobiography Still Me is very good indeed.
But my point is that lots of countries, such as the USA, object, and have banned it, or almost completely banned it. The idea of mixing human cells with animal cells, even for a few days, is horrific to them, because of ethical or religious considerations.
The trouble is, because the science is so complicated, it is easy to creat shock-horror headlines along the lines of Half Man Half Giraffe or whatever rubbishy interpretation bad journalists can put on it.
I think that, provided laws are in place concerning the number of days that such embryos can be kept, the research should continue - it could do a lot of good. I freely admit that I don't, of course, really understand any religious arguments. I don't believe that it's God that we're concerned about here, it's ourselves: we wonder what could happen if it all fell into the hands of "terrorists" . Though, of course, the word "terrorist" means many different things to different people, and is bandied about far too loosely.
The very idea of mixing human and animal cells for any purpose makes a lot of us feel uneasy - but that doesn't mean that it's necessarily a bad idea: that's just our gut reaction, before we've thought about it. The problem is, I think, that it's really difficult to get to know accurately what's going on, or to understand it if we did.
Apparently some scientists want to mix animal cells with human cells to create an embryo which consists of about 99% human cells and then let it develop for a few days to create some stem cells.
Look, I apologise for the vagueness of this report from your Science Correspondent. At the time I was listening to it on Radio Four I was trying to back into a narrow parking space in the hospital multi-storey car park and that's not really one of my skills. Well, not at all, actually. So I may have missed some of the finer detail.
Back to the stem cells. These could, after lots of research, perhaps be grown to form a part of any organ of the body, and would therefore be very useful in healing all sorts of injuries and illnesses. Christopher Reeve, who played Superman in the films, and who became a quadriplegic after a fall from a horse, was a great believer in stem cell research. His autobiography Still Me is very good indeed.
But my point is that lots of countries, such as the USA, object, and have banned it, or almost completely banned it. The idea of mixing human cells with animal cells, even for a few days, is horrific to them, because of ethical or religious considerations.
The trouble is, because the science is so complicated, it is easy to creat shock-horror headlines along the lines of Half Man Half Giraffe or whatever rubbishy interpretation bad journalists can put on it.
I think that, provided laws are in place concerning the number of days that such embryos can be kept, the research should continue - it could do a lot of good. I freely admit that I don't, of course, really understand any religious arguments. I don't believe that it's God that we're concerned about here, it's ourselves: we wonder what could happen if it all fell into the hands of "terrorists" . Though, of course, the word "terrorist" means many different things to different people, and is bandied about far too loosely.
The very idea of mixing human and animal cells for any purpose makes a lot of us feel uneasy - but that doesn't mean that it's necessarily a bad idea: that's just our gut reaction, before we've thought about it. The problem is, I think, that it's really difficult to get to know accurately what's going on, or to understand it if we did.
posted by Daphne at 9:53 pm
3 Comments:
woof woof
ha ha
grrrrrrrrrrrrr
eeew I don't know that ear ona mouse still gives me nightmares. The thing is I'm convinced labs are doing it, illegally and letting the embryos live as long as they can. eeeew
This is a very stupid debate.
The average chavette has about 20 abortions... most of those pretty late, when it's definitely a foetus rather than an embryo. That couldn't possibly help ill people, and it's (rightfully) legal.
Animals have consciousness, after a fashion; they certainly feel pain, but they're killed for food. An embryo just isn't capable of sufffering.
Honey - it's like so many things: once something is entirely legal (prostitution is an example - and that doesn't help ill people either: so this is obviously more important), it can be properly regulated, so that no conscious beings are exploited.
Squeamishness is often disguised as morality, and it's a crap excuse every time... I thought that religious nutters were its main audience, but the stem cell debate shows that Joe Public is still taken in.
Instead of putting myself in the shoes of an unconscious embryo, or oblivious mouse, I'm putting myself in the shoes of a terminally ill 40-year-old who wants a few more years with their kids, and is desperate for new treatment.
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