The Mass Production of Living Tissue 157
An anonymous reader sends in this moderately disturbing quote from Gizmodo:
"I'm touching a wet slab of protein, what feels like a paper-thin slice of bologna. It's supple, slimy, but unlike meat, if you were to slice it down the center today, tomorrow the wound would heal. It's factory-grown living tissue. The company behind the living, petri-dish-grown substance known as Apligraf hates my new name for it: meat band-aid. 'It's living,' Dr. Damien Bates, Chief Medical Officer at Organogenesis, corrects me. 'Meat isn't living.' But no one argues with me that this substance is really just a band-aid. A living, $1500 band-aid, I should say. Apligraf is a matrix of cow collagen, human fibroblasts and keratinocyte stem cells (from discarded circumcisions), that, when applied to chronic wounds (particularly nasty problems like diabetic sores), can seed healing and regeneration. But Organogenesis is not interested in creating boutique organs for proof of concept scientific advancement. They're a business in the business of mass tissue manufacturing — and the first of its kind."
Hopefully portends more (Score:5, Insightful)
This sounds like incredibly great news for burn victims, given development.
Modern Science at its best... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yes but... (Score:4, Insightful)
In vitro meat will be the confounding of dogmatic, righteous vegans everywhere.
For the more reasonable vegans it'll be that long-lost opportunity to finally eat some goddamned bacon again. Mm... I love the piggies.
Re:If ever I heard an argument (Score:3, Insightful)
I never understood why people are so against circumcision.
I don't think many people are against circumcision per se -- if you want one, have one. What people are against is forcibly circumcising people who did not agree to be circumsized.
Re:Yes but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I knew this post would elicit a comment like this, so much obliged. (First, a minor quibble - I think you mean "vegetarians", rather than "vegans." The latter not only don't eat meat, but any animal byproduct, eg. dairy.)
As you implicitly acknowledge, there are a lot of different types of vegetarians and vegans, who have chosen to omit certain things from their diet for various reasons. A vegetarian who is one for health reasons won't be terribly interested in eating meat, regardless of it's origins.
There are other arguments for vegetarianism, of course. Sustainability is one (although this would imply more that we should eat far less meat, from animals raised in ways that are environmentally friendly and don't negatively impact our ability to produce other foods.) The level of cruelty involved in factory farming, which is required to sustain our voracious appetite for meat is another, but this has the same caveats. I've known organic farmers that take better care of their animals than some do their children.
The one that seems to cause meat eaters the biggest problem is ethics. Is it defensible that we take life away from other sentient creatures for our own pleasure simply because our sentience is more highly evolved? I became a vegetarian for health reasons, but after dissociating myself from a meat diet and no longer needing to justify it, this question become easier to contemplate. I cannot in good conscience cause pain and take away the life from another living creature when I don't need to for my own survival. I consider us fortunate that we have this option, that we do not need to cause harm to continue to exist.
(Douglas Hofstadter expounds on this quite eloquently:
)
For myself, I am looking forward to the day when we find vat grown meat at our grocers, and fervently hope that one day this will supplant "naturally grown" meat. I believe that most vegetarians would agree, and not have a particular problem with people consuming non-sentient cell tissue.
As an aside, I was recently at a friend's place, and we were making caesar salad, hers with bacon, mine without. In the interest of science, I tasted a piece. It was the single most revolting flavour I've ever tasted, something like carrion. You do lose your taste for meat over time, and there are many vegetarians that really don't miss the nasty things you meat eaters put into your bodies ;)
Re:Yes but... (Score:3, Insightful)
A correction to your quibble, pardon me:
A vegetarian who is one for health reasons won't be terribly interested in eating meat, regardless of it's origins.
That's one impetus for vegetarianism, as you say. So I don't mean this kind of vegetarian. And the foundation of veganism is not anti-meat, it's anti-animal suffering, so I do mean vegan. ("[T]he word 'veganism' denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude -- as far as is possible and practical -- all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals...") And this is also why I say it'll be the confounding of dogmatic vegans. Because dogma dictates prohibition of meat and animal products, whereas the deeper and truer philosophy regards animal suffering.
And I'm on board with the ethical stance of minimizing suffering for anything that can feel. Which is why I say that I "love" everyone. In the context of this conversation, though, it's appropriate to include a double meaning of "love" for piggies. Mm.
Regarding Hofstadter's quote, it might be considered simplistic. It's not mere sentience we should be valuing, but sentience that's well. Positive experience. A sentience that is suffering greatly and will always suffer greatly? I would annihilate it because I care.
Re:The story behind Apligraf (Score:1, Insightful)
You don't see the reason that profiting off of genital mutilation is disturbing? Jesus fucking christ.