Scientists Move Closer to Human Therapeutic Cloning 136
"Human therapeutic cloning has moved a step closer after U.S. researchers said they had successfully created embryonic stem cells from monkey embryos. Scientists told a stem cell research conference in Cairns this week that they had successfully created two batches of embryonic stem cells from cloned rhesus monkey embryos."
Just Wait till It Becomes Profitable (Score:5, Interesting)
It's all going to start when someone figures out how to clone men but with giant penises, for easy transplant. Why compete over cars, houses, plots of land and computer upgrades when you can just go buy the real deal? In America, EVERY MAN will be a porn star. There will be billions of dollars made there.
From there, we'll get on to using human skin and hair for clothing, and human bones as a proxy for ivory. At first, it will be a status symbol. You really could have a lampshade made out of human skin, or even a football for junior or a jacket for the mrs. But soon, with enough venture capital, human clones will be mass produced and harvested like so many sheep, and even more billions will be made.
Eventually, there will be, within the USA alone, a 200 billion dollar a year industry dedicated to the production, harvest, and manufacturing goods based on harvested clones. At that point, just as you once saw liberals hail the progress of animal antibiotics and industrial farming and then turn to an imaginary better day of all natural organic everything, you'll see liberals lamenting the devaluation of the human body, whereas, conservatives will merely say they are free and supporting consumer demand. Then liberals will eventually say the masses are stupid for supporting a human cloning industry and demand federal action to slow it down or stop it, write thousands of books decrying it, and support an endlessly array of Democratic candidates that promise to reform it but never really do. In the meantime, conservatives will argue the cloning is natural, its our right to do so, and its part of God's plan anyway, and to support their position, they will dredge up every last salamder that can regrow its own tail, every asexually produced thing in nature, and every supporting phrase in the bible. Oh yes, Jesus was very much in favor of harvesting clones, if you know which 4 passages to read.
Bush's Braincells (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, he'll get any he wants, from some other country if that's necessary.
Therapeutic.. (Score:2, Interesting)
I have the feeling though, that there will be no meaningful broad discussion about cloning, eugenics etc. until we see the first liver or kidney farms on TV (or Youtube) at which point it might already be too late.
Re:Therapeutic? I want a lover! (Score:1, Interesting)
$$$$tem $ell$ (Score:3, Interesting)
But seriously, most people are superficial, and once stem cells show the ability outperform Botox, plastic surgery, RetinA, monoxidil, Oil of Olay, l'Oreal cosmetics, Ben Gay, etc, then you won't be able to beat the customers off with a stick. (Or even with a big penis to slap them with)
Women are more insecure about their looks than men. They will kill to get that youthful teenage wrinkle-free skin. They will go to back-alley abortion clinics to harvest embryonic cells from themselves. Adult women will fight to look like teenagers, and teenagers will fight to look like pre-teens.
Guys will go for athletic enhancements. Cartilage repairs for the rich jocks and their cutting-edge sports doctors. Stem cell injections for the joints, the muscles, the tendons.
The elderly baby-boom generation will flock to whatever keeps them alive. Cardiac stem cells, brain stem cells, liver stem cells, you name it and they'll be ordering it.
Whatever people can't get here due to regulation, they'll just go abroad, where the medical services are cheaper anyway.
Let's face it, this is the next big industry to be in. How can an ordinary guy like me get some crash training on this? Is there an MCSE for Molecular Biology?
I see this as an area of decreasing concern (Score:2, Interesting)
I have also found it interesting that embryonic stem cells, apparently, can be taken from umbilical cords and placental cells. Why is this ignored in research (or is it a case of a percentage of researchers focusing on it but media coverage not being made)?
Using monkey stem cells, if the potential problems can be resolved relating to genome differences, seems like a good approach.
For those few (one or two if I'm lucky) who are interested in my reasoning:
It's my opinion that treating potential human lives as a commodity leads the human race to a morally incorrect conclusion: sentient life is only as important as it's medical value to any other sentient life who stand to benefit from said medical value.
I do not see the use of monkey embryos as a moral affront when used appropriately because monkeys are not sentient. While I believe all life should be revered to a greater or lesser degree I see this reverence being measured by the potential of the individual. Sentient beings have an infinitely greater potential than non-sentient beings.
My basis for this conclusion/opinion is the universally accepted moral code against the taking of human life. Well universally accepted in non-self destructive cultures.
Lets not base this belief on religious text or arguments as I do not believe such sources lend themselves well to scientific analysis (although they may have their place as historically being the method of enforcement of moral standards in cultures). From a purely evolutionary perspective I think history provides us decent proof that lack of reverence for the rights, specifically the right of life of human/sentient beings is not a constructive cultural tendency.
I'm not going to attempt to detail these tendencies but according to what I've read, effectively, cultures tend to become increasingly flippant regarding life prior to that cultures disintegration.
In fact this can be expanded to include other rights as well. It is my understanding that one of the chief reasons there was not more invention & technological advancement during the golden age of philosophy was the cultural tendency to rely on slaves to perform tasks that required physical labor.
Because of this cultural weakness those who developed hypotheses failed to carry out experiments because hands on physical labor was required, which, culturally, was a slaves job.
So my point is:
Cloning/growing new cells to replace defective, damaged, or missing cells is an excellent end goal. Flippant use of human embryos for this purpose is, in my opinion, a degenerative attitude. Targeted use of human embryos under predefined moral rules for this purpose is acceptable and generation of stem cells from other sources is greatly desirable.
Research seems to be moving away from flippant use and more toward targeted use under predefined moral rules and toward generation of stem cells from other sources.
Therefore I am becoming decreasingly less concerned about stem cell research as an issue.
Which would you prefer? (Score:2, Interesting)
OR
Some on rejecting the right to create life for the entire purpose of destroying it, and some doctors doing it anyways?
Either way, creating life for the sake of destroying it is not moral, in my opinion. I'm not religious in any case, as I'm not a "believer", but as a father of two boys, and a person with respect to choice as well as life, I couldn't give something like this the go-ahead.
A woman getting pregnant and choosing to not keep the baby is one thing. Being a man I won't ever know what this choice is like, as my body cannot sustain another life inside it.
Doctors cooking up embryos in a lab, just so they can turn around and destroy them, is something on an entirely different path completely.
Re:No WONDER they were having trouble! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Keep in mind (Score:2, Interesting)
They have used 'emptied' egg cells and injected 'adult' nuclei. The young, messed-up embryos that resulted were dissected (split clump of cells into individual cells) and they were able to recover viable 'embryonic' stem cell lines which have totipotency and near immortality, in terms of continued cell division.
The importance of this is important because (a) it is the first primate example and (b) it is from an adult nucleus. In the former, primate adult-derived ES lines means one step closer to humans than sheep, dogs, cows, rabbits, rats, mice, hamsters, cats, horses, etc. that have been done and proven. This is the first primate, which is significant because most therapies that work brilliant in mice/rats/dogs fail when they move to humans/primates, so this is great news that these Aussies have a method. [failures probably because we can't do full experiments in humans like in lab animals - i.e. 1,000s of animals, 10s of dosage levels, etc. and we only really hear about the 'last' experiment that worked, not the 1,000s of animals that were sacrificed to get dosage right and dissected to see what happened.]
In the latter, the nucleus was from an adult, like you or me, which means any tissue grown from these lines and re-implanted would have much, much reduced immune-rejection risk - not zero since some embryonic proteins are immune-reactive. Also, for the religiously 'concerned', no actual viable embryos were destroyed in the process, just one oocyte (egg) and the early stage artificial "embryo" was about 99.99% unlikely to develop much beyond a few days.
The downside is that this indeed one step closer to human cloning. There is not much getting around that. If you are rich and obsessed enough, you can make 1000s of these embryos from your own adult cells and implant all of them in prepped wombs (millions of poor women in china/india/bangladesh) and maybe 1 will come to term and voilah, you are cloned. Thankfully, this is highly unlikely, but still will definitely happen one day.
Meanwhile for the rest of us, especially for those with chronic diseases that could one day be treated by 'replacing' defective tissues, this is great news.
The one question everyone should be asking is why is Bush really vetoing stem cell research legislation and why are Congressmen "REALLY" unable to vote for it and override the veto.
Answer: Pharma companies are terrified of stem cell therapies and are lobbying hard (campaign contributions to desperate Republicans afraid of 08 elections) to stop this legislation and, luckily for the legislators, they get to use the false shield of 'moral' issue. Pharma companies make their money on chronic, perenial treatment of systems - they NEVER actually attempt to cure a disease (with the exception of cancer and infectious diseases) as this would mean no more revenue from drug sales. This is obvious by visiting PHRMA.org (pharma/chemical drug industry lobbying group) and noting no mention, anywhere of this legislation or stem cells at all. In contrast, BIO.org (biotech/protein-based therapies industry lobbying group) constantly talks about stem cells - although they are silent about legislation since many of the $members rely on treating chronic diseases using protein-based therapies.
Sadly, the media isn't covering my last point, they never seem to 'follow the money' in reporting on why legislators often vote against all logic (give incinerator-destined embryos to researchers) and claim 'morals'. Funniest, pure hypocracy (sp intentional) thing ever was GWB yesterday during veto, "I made it clear to Congress and to the American people