Advocates for an “anything goes” scientific sector often claim that attempts to place reasonable ethical parameters around biotechnology–say by outlawing all human cloning as has been urged by the UN General Assembly–is a war on science or the imposition of religion. That argument is, and always was, baloney. For example, there are limits on what we can do to animals in research. But those are not based on scientific principles, but rather, on moral precepts. Ditto the limitations on human subjects research. The only reason these two examples aren’t similarly attacked is because generally, the Science Establishment agrees with them.

Michael Gerson had a very good piece about this in the Washington Post this week. From his column:

There are few things in American politics more irrationally ideological, more fanatically faith-based, than the accusation that Republicans are conducting a “war on science.”

According to Hillary Clinton, the Bush administration has declared “open season on open inquiry.” “When I am president,” she promises, “scientific integrity will not be the exception; it will be the rule.”

The exceptions, in this case, are pretty exceptional: Elias Zerhouni, who has reformed the National Institutes of Health with widely praised efficiency; Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who helped set in motion large-scale AIDS treatment in Africa; Francis Collins of the National Human Genome Research Institute, who led the effort to map the human genome. The “war on science” recently has allowed some extraordinary achievements.

For the most part, these accusations are a political ploy — actually an attempt to shut down political debate. Any practical concern about the content of government sex-education curricula is labeled “anti-science.” Any ethical question about the destruction of human embryos to harvest their cells is dismissed as “theological” and thus illegitimate.

Gerson points out that what some call a war on science from the Right, is really a war on human equality from the Left:

In “Science and the Left,” his insightful article in the latest issue of the New Atlantis, Yuval Levin argues that a belief in the power of science is central to the development of liberalism–based on the assertion that objective facts and rational planning can replace tradition and religious authority in the organization of society. Levin summarizes the liberal promise this way: “The past was rooted in error and prejudice while the future would have at its disposal a new oracle of genuine truth.”

But the oracle of science is silent on certain essential topics. “Science, simply put,” says Levin, “cannot account for human equality, and does not offer reasons to believe we are all equal. Science measures our material and animal qualities, and it finds them to be patently unequal.”

Without a firm, morally grounded belief in equality, liberalism has been led down some dark paths. The old, progressive eugenics of the late 19th and early 20th centuries involved widespread sterilization of the mentally disabled as a form of social hygiene. “Drastic and Spartan methods may be forced upon society,” argued Margaret Sanger in 1922, “if it continues complacently to encourage the chance and chaotic breeding that has resulted from our stupidly cruel sentimentalism.”

The consequence as the column notes–and we have pointed out here at SHS repeatedly–leads to the destruction of human exceptionalism (my term) and the methodical advance of the culture of death.

Questions about cloning have been raised by governments. They are Big Questions. Like: Does Man Have The Right To Make Life In His Own Image? Looking at our planet with its population of some 5 billion-plus one would have thought that man - with more than a little help from woman - had been lickety-split busily making life in his -and her - image for several million years, and incidentally having a whale of a time in the process too, thank you. But fun though it may have been, the old-fashioned way of making life was a messy, hit-and-miss affair. (Khaleej Times Online)

Until about a decade ago, there was only one way to make an embryo—the old-fashioned technique of combining an egg with a sperm. Then came Dolly the cloned sheep in 1996. Scottish scientists created her by injecting the nucleus of a breast cell from one sheep into the enucleated egg of another sheep. Dolly was essentially genetically identical to the donor of the breast cell nucleus. (Reason Magazine)

The IHEU Appignani Center for Bioethics at the United Nations

IHEU-Appignani Center for Bioethics and Bioethics International, both headquartered in New York City, cordially invite you to attend a one-day conference on Friday, May 23rd 2008, from 9:30 AM to 6:45 PM. Location: 777 UN Plaza (corner of 44th Street and 1st Avenue), 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10017.
Following the conference there will be a Cocktail Reception from 7 PM to 9:30 PM featuring an Argentinean Tango performance by Laura Real at a location still to be announced.

As scientists are unravelling the mystery of genes and pitching it as a ‘cure all’ medicine of the future, Nancy Singh traces the baby steps taken in the world of gene therapy. (Express Pharma)

There exists much ethical controversy brought about by advances in biology and medicine and the relationship to religion. In a new essay in The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Laurie Zoloth takes an approach to medical ethics that draws upon Jewish texts, traditions, and philosophy to show how acting to change the world is indicative of this faith tradition. (Medical News Today)

The story of the first supposedly genetically altered human embryo is making headlines around the world. From the story:

The study appears to be the first report of genetically modifying a human embryo. It was presented last fall at a meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, but didn’t draw widespread public attention then. The result was reported over the weekend by The Sunday Times of London, which said British authorities highlighted the work in a recent report.

Rosenwaks and colleagues did the work with an embryo that had extra chromosomes, making it nonviable. Following a standard procedure used in animals, they inserted a gene that acts as a marker that can be easily followed over time. The embryo cells took up the gene, he said.

The goal was to see if a gene introduced into an abnormal embryo could be traced in stem cells that are harvested from the embryo, he said. Such work could help shed light on why abnormal embryos fail to develop, he said. No stem cells were recovered from the human embryo, said Rosenwaks, noting that abnormal embryos frequently don’t develop well enough to produce them.

In my view, this isn’t quite as big a deal as reporters are making out. First, the embryo was never viable in the first place because it was genetically defective. Nor was it created for the purpose of destroying it–which is the agenda of cloning research, the essential technology for learning how to genetically engineer the human race. Moreover, animal work has already demonstrated that mammalian life can be genetically altered.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t like it. I oppose treating human life, even if it is ultimately nonviable, as a mere instrumentality. But it doesn’t really move the ball toward human genetic enhancement forward. To do that, as I noted, will require massive quantities of cloned embryos to learn how the genes express, why, and their mutual interrelationships–a monumental task given the sheer complexity of human development.

But this quote from a defender is, overall, hokum:

But an author of the study says the work was focused on stem cells. He notes that the researchers used an abnormal embryo that could never have developed into a baby anyway. “None of us wants to make designer babies,” said Dr. Zev Rosenwaks, director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

He should speak for himself. There are plenty of people biting at the bit to genetically engineer embryos, and a cadre of bioethicists and lawyers already laying down the intellectual foundation to create a constitutional right to do it. If human cloning can ever be done reliably–a big if–an increasing number of advocates and media will urge the right to genetically engineer, first for health and later for enhancement, based on a supposed absolute right to procreate and to create the baby you want. That is the trajectory they are on, and all you have to do is read the books and bioethics articles already in print to verify it.

But that’s okay. Nobody died and made them monarchs. There are plenty of us with the energetic intent to short circuit their plans.

In a poll for the Guardian, MPs voted 63 to 26 in favour of hybrid embryos; 56 to 21 for “saviour” siblings; and 56 to 26 to remove the “need for a father” in IVF treatment.

The poll questioned 53 Labour MPs, 37 Conservatives, 17 Liberal Democrats and two from other political parties. (Daily Mail)

Scientists have created what is believed to be the first genetically modified (GM) human embryo.

A team from Cornell University in New York produced the GM embryo to study how early cells and diseases develop. It was destroyed after five days. (Times Online)

An International Symposium on “Bioethics of Science and Technologies: Problems and Decisions” will be held in Kyiv, Ukraine from 9-10 October 2008. This Symposium is organized by the National Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education named after P.L. Shupyk (NMAPE), the Ukrainian Association on Bioethics, the National Scientific Center for Medical and Biotechnical Research of National Academy of Science of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Association on Psychiatry, and the All-Ukrainian Council for patients’ rights and security.

Deadline for abstracts submission is 1 June, 2008.
Deadline for registration is 1 September, 2008.

For more information, please contact:

Svitlana Pustovit
Tel: (38044)205-49-87, 433-06-28
Email: kvll@voliacable.com

Leonid Mazur
Tel: (38044)205-49-87
Email: k-gum2@nmapo.edu.ua

When the creators of Proposition 71 spent tens of millions buying a constitutional amendment in California to permit human cloning research, they promised CURES! CURES! CURES! And what are people spending hundreds of millions of dollars of borrowed money on? EXPENSIVE FANCY BUILDINGS! EXPENSIVE FANCY BUILDINGS EXPENSIVE FANCY BUILDINGS! From the story in today’s San Francisco Chronicle:

The governing board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine is expected to give final approval today to a package of grants that will prompt a construction boom at academic campuses throughout the state.

More than three-quarters of a billion dollars in laboratory construction will get under way as early as next month, seeded by $271 million in facilities grants made possible by the passage of Proposition 71.

And not a workable building designed by “The General,” that prefab contractor, either. We are talking high end, expensive architect, all the add-ons, type buildings. Example:

At UCSF, planners had to figure out a way to shoehorn a stem cell research center into the space-constrained confines of their hilltop Parnassus Heights campus. So they tapped one of the world’s top design firms, Rafael Viñoly Architects, which delivered a striking plan.

The Institute for Regeneration Medicine will be housed in a silver, terraced structure that snakes uphill along the winding curves of Medical Center Way - tucked behind the 16-story towers housing the campus’ major research labs.

I would have hoped that at a time when California is literally drowning in a $20 billion in deficit, that some restraint would be shown. But who was I kidding? This is the kind of moral corruption, pigs-feeding-at-the-trough kind of excess that undermines the people’s confidence in government and our ruling institutions.

Somebody ought to sue: Hint. Hint.

Oh, and lest I forget, somehow the story doesn’t mention either embryonic stem cells or human cloning. Catch this definition of stem cells from the story:

Stem cells are specialized, primal cells that circulate in the bloodstream or lodge within organs and have the potential to transform into virtually any cell in the human body. Scientists hope to build lines of stem cells that can be coaxed into replacing tissues that have been damaged by trauma or disease, or worn out by old age.

Kind of sounds like a poor description of adult stem cells doesn’t it? But adult stem cells are barely to be funded by Proposition 71 money.

I feel like screaming.

The British doctor who pioneered test-tube babies has forecast that within decades stem-cell technology will make it possible to grow replacements for virtually any part of the human body. (Times Online)

The story of the man who re-grew a finger using “pixie-dust” has captured the imagination of many this week.

But a number of scientists have cast cold-water over the claims - and said it may have been a “natural” miracle. (BBC)

An experimental and potentially powerful way to fight disease, called RNA interference (RNAi), could now be closer to reality, as researchers at MIT and Alnylam, a biotech company based in Cambridge, MA, have addressed a key obstacle to effectively delivering the treatment to targeted cells. The researchers report a method for quickly synthesizing more than a thousand different lipid-like molecules and screening them for their ability to deliver short RNA molecules to cells. They’ve shown that some of these delivery agents are 10 times as effective at delivering RNA than previous methods were. (Technology Review)

A LEADING scientist has warned a new species of “humanzee,” created from breeding apes with humans, could become a reality unless the government acts to stop scientists experimenting. (The Scotsman)

Scientists for the first time have used gene therapy to dramatically improve sight in people with a rare form of blindness, a development experts called a major advance for the experimental technique. (AP)

The debate illustrates how new medical technologies often proliferate before society has resolved the issues they raise, such as what to do when a patient has had enough. Similar clashes have arisen over pacemakers and implanted defibrillators, and experts say such predicaments will multiply as researchers rush to develop a host of other replacement organs. (Washington Post)

Surprisingly large numbers of people appear to be using brain-enhancing drugs to work harder, longer and better. They’re popping pills normally prescribed for narcolepsy or attention-deficit disorder to improve their performance at work and school. (Wired)

What is a human life worth?

For centuries, that question has been asked in the context of the cost of keeping people alive. In recent years, however, it has expanded to include the value of creating people in other than the natural manner–the “businesses” of sperm donation, artificial insemination, in-vitro fertilization, and cloning.

Now the issue has broadened yet again. What about the “business”–now a $3 billion per year trade–of women selling their eggs? (Heartland Institute)

If you had died 50 years ago, your body would have stood a pretty good chance of serving science. In the 1960s, autopsy rates at US hospitals exceeded 50 percent. Pathologists weren’t necessarily looking for what killed people — they were taking advantage of the fact that a body was available and ready for inspection. There was still much to learn about normal human biology, the thinking went, so every corpse was an educational opportunity.

These days, autopsy rates have fallen below 10 percent, a decline that’s symptomatic of a larger deficiency. Medicine has become all about finding a problem — a tumor, a heart attack, a failing kidney — and deploying advanced treatment technologies. In the process, we seem to have given up on measuring and tracking what constitutes normal. That’s an alarming — and potentially dangerous — trend. (Wired)