Patents Filed on Human Cloning

A reader wrote: I found this article at bioresearch online. (free regixtration required) "Two companies, one American and one Australian, have applied to the European Patent Office for a patent on a cloning process that fuses human and pig cells, according to a report filed by Reuters. Their aim is to advance therapeutic cloning, a process whereby cells would be removed from a patient and grown in culture to create a source of stem cells. Such cells could then develop into tissues or organs for transplantation. In addition to providing organs for the thousands of patients waiting for a donor organ, this approach would also obviate the need for immunosuppressents, which transplant patients take to prevent rejection of the transplanted organ.""

Clone some good moderators

[Anonymous Coward]

But from what?

Pig-Men!

[The Anti-Christ]

But is it kosher?

Pig-human combos?

[Vuarnet]

Hmm... visions of Duke Nukem 3D come to mind. Pig policemen. Or literal road hog drivers.

But let's hope they're women-lovers: we have enough chauvinistic pigs as it is.

like hydrogen bombs can't be used for evil either?

[RainMan496]

I still don't like how the government doesn't like cloning becuase the "moral majority" (which is neither moral, nor the majority) says it is unethical. We researched the atom bomb, a device capable of killing millions of people in a fraction of a second. Cloning could just as easily wipe us out as that can, but people are smarter than that. It's sick some people can't even trust themselves to have the power to stop so many things wrong with the world (hunger, lack of organs for transplant) because they are afraid they will abuse it.

Cloning Human Cells != Human Cloning

[none2222]

The article is about a process in which human cells are cloned to create a source of stem cells, which in turn may be used to research the cloning of human tissues and organs. The patent has little to do with "human cloning" as most people think of it.

Ice cream clones? Different flavors?

[human bean]

Piggy-Wiggy Whip?

Beagle Swirl?

Equine Chunk?

Nah. This was lame...

well...

[KillerBob]

"We were so caught up in whether or not we could that nobody stopped to ask if we should."

BTW, as it has been said, cloning human cells isn't the same as cloning humans.

Interesting consequences

[tesserae]

From the article:

The U.S. government is forbidden by law to fund scientists who engage in cloning, therapeutic or otherwise, but privately funded scientists are legally able to do so.

So the majority of those who need organ transplants -- which are generally supplemented at least in part by government funds (Medicare) -- couldn't benefit from this new technology. OTOH, the individuals who could afford the process themselves would be free to use it.

I seem to recall something about "We, the People..."

---

Victims of War and Torture and Fire

[resistant]

I'd really like to see widespread deployment of organ cloning, which would make much more routine the entire field and therefore lead rapidly (the pace of everything related to information analysis is fast these days) to more complex organ cloning such as of whole arms and legs, which would be a great mercy to millions of victims of "ad-hoc torture" (land-mine victims, victims of war of all kinds, such as the thousands of sad African victims of purposeful, deliberate amputation), as well as victims of purposefully and deliberately destructive torture of all kinds. No, I have no links to post. I'd had enough of even looking at this crap for a while.

A particularly great development would be effective and permanent replacement skin, for those victims of that frightening torturer called fire.

This is one of those rare cases in which I find myself simply unwilling to criticize the runaway patenting of cloning of human characteristics. I'm going to watch these people carefully to see if they try to selfishly prevent other people from going forward with mercy work (using patented technology), or use their patents to make this work go forward, particularly in poorer countries.

I'd post general links, but they depress the hell out of me every time I look at them. It's better to get very rich (got plans), then use the money to massively fund effective humanitarian enterprises that bluntly tell the corrupt bribe-takers to eat shit and die. Geez ....

Really?

[neoevans]

This is great, just think...(fuzzy dreamsequence)

People with no money or special health benefits can still sit and rot waiting for that desperately needed transplant they require because they drink too damn much or smoke their fucking faces off, while those higher up in the economic food-chain will be able to not only make their outward appearance youthful and porcelain like, but their insides as well!

Now people can even break the big 150 when it comes to age! Now the population-age structure of the world will fall completely out of whack, the rich can live forever and still look and feel forty, everyone can drink and smoke their literal asses off, and the worlds overall population...all-time high!

Think of what this will do for the food supply! So while privately funded surgeons are making the human race's 'elite' immortal, the working class family that can't afford a fucking car let alone a boob job, gets to watch the rich soak up all of this new found youth, and wonders why the price of food has become impossible to afford.

Lets get our priorities straight here people.

Clone me a new liver, my good man.

[shuffler]

This just goes to validate the notion that self destructive habits cause merely temporary discomfort. Bring on the booze, I'll clone a new liver when this one fails. Bring on the smokes, I can clone some new lungs. I think I'll eat some McLard tonight, I can clone a new heart when that one fails. Bring on the new age of gluttony! Disposable organs for all!

pig-man lives

[debruce]

Also reported in the UK Sunday Times [sunday-times.co.uk].

I believe this was previously reported on Seinfeld - 'The Bris'

KRAMER: Hey, I'm telling you, the pig-man is alive. The government has been experimenting with pig-men since the 50's.

GEORGE: I wish there were pig-men. You get a few of those pig-men walking around, suddenly I'm looking a lot better. That way if someone wanted to fix me up they could say, 'Hey, at least he's no pig-man.'

KRAMER: Believe me, somewhere in this hospital the anguished oink of pig-man cries out for help.