Nanotechnology and Federal Funding

Bioethics.net has a great discourse on nanotech, funding, and the effects of funding.

The comments are great.

Mine may not be so great, but, here it is:

The fascination with, and alarm surrounding, nanotech reminds me of every environmental, medical, and socio-biological controversy I've read about for the last 40, uh, 30, years.

The kernal of truth is that we may be messin' with things we don't understand and won't be able to measure until it's too late.

When we add the "mad, bad, and dangerous to be around," scientist ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4596662.stm ) to the warrior stereotype, and Luddites will join with Progressives who will pick up a few Organic Gardeners along the way, in the effort to control results.

But, humans like to figure out patterns and we can't seem to leave well enough alone. Besides, it's fun.

We'll keep on taking the machine apart and rebuilding it, hoping we don't have any pieces left over when we put it back together and that we don't strip or lose any of the important parts while we're trying to figure out how things work and how to improve them.

"Witchhunt" for conservative bioethicists and biotechnologists?

I wouldn't be surprised.

Michael Fumento, the author of one of the huge books on my shelves, Bioevolution, lost his job writing a column for the Scripps Howard News Service, due to accusations that he is "bought."

It seems that 5 years ago, he accepted grant money in order to write that book. That was 3 to 4 years before he started to write the column in question.

And, of course, his accusers can't stick with science, ideas, or facts. The attacks are personal and petty politics of personality. (alphabetical aliteration accidental and acknowledged)

In light of the evident standard of journalistic and information technology integrity, I call for the full disclosure of all funding by any beneficiary of George Soros, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the many incarnations of the "right to die" movement. While we're at it, let's get every PETA member, advocate and activist to come clean.

Discrimination

The New York Times published an interview with Douglas Melton, the Harvard researcher who is creating stem cell lines that are outside the guidelines for eligibility for Federal funds. He's not sure how many cell lines there are that come under those guidelines, and he's really fuzzy about when life begins, but he wants our tax money to support his lab.

Melton opines about the difficulty of setting up parallel labs, one which is funded by Federal tax money, and one which is not. He ought to recognize that the process (which he compares to keeping two Kosher kitchens) is just more practice in discriminating and drawing artificial lines between two purposes.

My first response is, There's nothing unethical about what we're doing here. We think embryonic stem cells can be made to become pancreatic beta cells and that they will be able to help diabetics produce their own insulin. I've never once doubted the morality of this work.

This is all about differing religious beliefs. I don't believe I have the right to tell others when life begins. Science doesn't have the answer to that question; it's metaphysical.

Now it's true, we use fertilized human eggs to derive embryonic stem cells. And those fertilized eggs have the potential, under certain circumstances, to become a living person. There are many who believe that there's a moral imperative to use that potential to try to help living sick people.

Learn more about Dr. Melton at the Harvard website. He believes that since the embryos can be frozen, they are only "potential" life, and that since the embryos were "extra," and destined for "destruction" anyway,what he does is "pro-life." By destroying the embryos, he intends to do good.

The "fertilized eggs" are human embryos, and they are living. Embryos have been successfully implanted and the children born after years and years of being frozen.

In the case of the embryos that Melton destroyed, if they had not been purposefully and intentionally placed in harm's way by the artificial circumstances of their beginnings they could join their brothers and sisters in their mother's arms.

Up to date dueling ethicists on cloning, stem cells, and embryos

I wonder sometimes whether Peter Singer (the Australian who is tenured professor of ethics at Princeton) can really mean what he says about infants who aren't worth protecting since Mom can always have another baby and his latest sillyness about embryos from nuclear transfer (the rest of us call it cloning). This week, Singer says that if the embryos from nuclear transfer have the moral status of human embryos, we must believe that each of our cells (potential donors of DNA for cloning, after all) now has the same status as that of embryos.

In his opinion articles (such as this one), Singer sets up straw men and defines terms and situations. He then determines "if" (his statement and facts), "then" (he must be right).

But, thanks to Dr. Dianne N. Irving, I was alerted that Robert P. George and Patrick Lee have answered Singer at National Review Online.

There's also a fairly well written discussion about stem cells in the January 26th issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. There is free full text access to the article "Beyond Fraud - Stem Cell Research Continues" by Snyder and Loring.


(Edited to close a parenthesis. 2-2-06, BBN)

Nanoethics board to address our microscopic worries

When we think of the concerns about the effects of organic chemicals from containers in food, hormones and antibiotics in animal feed, and the problems of changing the diversity within a microenvironment, it should be reassuring that the there is a new board concerned with the ethics of nanotechnology (manipulations of materials and the creation of machines on an atomic scale, that can't be "seen" without an electron microscope).

I'm concerned that the board will be window dressing - that (okay, I can't resist: their effect will be too small to notice)we may never hear from them again, and definitely will never hear that the members were able to halt or impede work that appears dangerous.

Oh, Joy!

Thank you to our Marchers in Washington

Thank you all for standing up for the weak, helpless, and voiceless. March strong and, in your unity, show that our "choice" is love for our fellow human beings.

Hair follicles, ethical neural stem cells, and a couple of silly tangents

Encouraging news about nerve stem cells found in the hair follicles in this abstract.

I would like to say that this is one of the clearest, best written abstracts that I've seen. Usually, the statistics, jargon and incredibly convoluted writing makes abstracts difficult to read or less informative than I'd like. This abstract tells us what the scientists did, why they did it and clearly outlines the results.

There's a lot of the "yuk" factor in this report. We forget that the test animals go through this sort of procedure, just as we forget the actual source of our hamburgers. I'm sorry and grateful for all the animals who suffer for human benefit. I still won't kill humans who are unable to suffer to save the animals. But I'm grateful.

I'm reminded of a night when I ate at a Italian restaurant with a bunch of friends. A couple were vegetarians, which I thought ridiculous. Then I realized that I was slightly ill at the thought of those who were eating veal. (I ordered chicken.)

We all have our limits as to what sort of pain and suffering and harm to other beings that we can and will tolerate. I'm an organic gardener, except for wasp nests on doors and web worms in the trees. I will go out of my way to avoid using poisons for these and am very cautious with even the "organic" methods, such as Bacillus thurengis, a bacteria that attacks larval forms of insects.

However, we cannot tolerate crossing of the limit that is the intentional killing of humans at all stages of life unless those humans are a threat to the life of another human. Even in these cases, if a non-deadly remedy can be found, we are bound to refrain from killing.

And Some News on Embryonic Stem Cell Research News

As Mr. Murdock noted, the House passed a bill last May (and the Senate could pass any day) that supported increased Federal Spending on embryonic stem cell research, relaxing the restrictions which require scientists to obtain funds from non-Federal sources if they want to kill more human embryos in stem cell research.

Just a few comments on current news on cloned and other embryonic stem cell research:

Wi-Cell is a pseudo-independent group that is associated with the University of Wisconsin. In order to destroy new embryos to create stem cell lines, scientists set up laboratories next door - or in another building - to the Federally funded labs. No money or equipment may be shared, but the same researchers often work in both labs. Of course, there's the added benefit that the lead researchers can also set up corporations and file for patents in their own names, in the hopes of earning money from their research.

(Interesting: the Scientific Director of Wi-Cell, James Thomson, DVM, PhD, is a veterinarian, not a human medical doctor.)

Wi-Cell announced on January 1st that they have a new technique for supporting and feeding cell lines that can be used in the development of stem cell lines without foreign animal proteins. In order to prove the usefulness and benefits of the new growth medium and process, two new embryonic stem cell lines were produced from 2 newly-killed human embryos. These were "donated" embryos, "left over" from in vitro fertilization.

(This technique for supporting cell lines could be useful for research into ethical adult and umbilical cord stem cell lines and other types of cell lines used in research, too, but the reports never mention this.)

In other words, these two young human lives were the no-longer needed or wanted brothers or sisters of children who are already in their mother's arms.

(Actually, I would imagine that more than 2 embryos were "disaggregated" - the production of embryonic stem cell lines is not efficient enough to get lines of stem cells from each embryo used.)

Review of Ethical Stem Cell Achievements

National Review On-Line has a great column by an author that is new to me, but who is evidently right on top of the cloning/embryonic stem cell/adult stem cell issue.

Deroy Murdock's "Let's Be Adult About This" covers the surprising number of reports of successes in treating patients with Spinal Cord Injury, diabetes, heart disease, and even blindness. Kudos to Mr. Murdock! I highly recommend reading his article.

For some, it's all about the suicide "choice"

After the articles that seemed to focus on end of life care, rather than "Physician Assisted Suicide," there were a few, including this one, that were focused on the "option" to commit suicide.

Most of the relatively healthy people who say that they are in favor of legalized prescribing of lethal doses of what could otherwise be used as medicine are concerned about controlling how and when they die. They seem more afraid of losing control than of pain or even being a burden.

Unfortunately, I haven't seen any in-depth studies of the opinions and thoughts of those who have taken advantage of Oregon's legalized suicide. I can't recall a report on the actual course of the acts of suicide.

Are there failures other than Mr Pruitt, whom we heard about a couple of years ago? How often do doctors interfer? How often does the patient actually self-administrate the suicide agent? How often does someone else give them the pills?

Debate on death is a "distraction"?

The debate is only a distraction if it keeps you from doing what you want - and intend - to do in the first place.

I read the Chicago Tribune article on the aftermath of the Supreme Court's decision on Oregon's law allowing those that are licensed by the State to practice medicine to prescribe substances for the intention of causing death.

Notice: I do not consider anyone who intends to cause death either a "physician" or a "doctor" or the substances that are used to cause death "medicine."

Unfortunately, the real "distraction" in the article is the dismissal of the subject of "Physician Assisted Suicide" and the Oregon law as a minor concern.

It is absolutely vital that true physicians be allowed and - even more - taught and encouraged to treat and relieve suffering, pain and distress. Modern medicine does allow for the relief of most of these, and the drugs in dispute can be used for the good intention of satisfying the (now old fashioned and "distracting") First Principle of Medicine: "Heal when possible, but first, do no harm."

"Only" 200 or so Oregonians have committed suicide under the law. "Only" 10 percent or so of those in the Netherlands die at the hands of their physicians. "Only" the very sick, old, young, and vulnerable.

What kind of world do we want to live in?

A most appropriate question on this day, when the Supreme Court ruled that Oregon's laws allowing physicians to write prescriptions intended to cause the death of patients.

This time, the question is asked by Kathryn Hinsch,the founder of the Womens Bioethics Project, in her "guest column" in the Seattle Post Intelligencer. The subject of the column is the fraud of Korean veterinarian, Hwang Suk Wu, who falsely claimed to have cloned human embryos in order to harvest stem cells. She notes the temptation to "play G_d" with biotechnology and concludes that the decisions are "too important to leave to the bioethicists, the scientists or the politicians."


It may seem that each day brings a new crisis for those of us who view human life as something to be valued and protected, whether the human is very young and may not even be born yet, whether conceived naturally or by the use of complicated technology and in a lab, or very sick or very old, and dependent on even more medicine and technology.

There's only one subject, not many. Cloning, harvesting of embryos for their stem cells, abortion, euthanasia and so-called "physician-assisted suicide" are all basically the same thing: the division of humans into those who will be protected by society and those who will not. Once we agree that our fundamental principle is that human life is to be protected from deliberate killing by others and that humans should not be used for the benefit of others without consent and benefit to the one being used, we can see that all the crises are actually only one crisis.

I agree with Ms. Hinsch that it is time for each of us to have a voice.

It is time to call, write or email your Federal and State legislators, demanding protection of human life, at all stages of life.

Edited January 27, 2010

Korea's (embryonic) stem cell stamp

Thanks to blog.bioethics.net, I found this stamp that was issued by the Korean government to commemorate the scientific fraud of the (very new) century. I don't know how long the Korean Post office will continue the page that contains the picture and story of the stamp, so you probably ought to look at it today.

Cloning fraud disaggregated

I'm all for stem cell research, I just wouldn't kill anyone for it or exploit and coerce young women for it. It appears that Hwang Woo Suk did both in addition to wasting human oocytes and embryos and lying about most of what he reported.

Not all fraud requires outright lies. Sometimes, the deception is achieved by not telling the whole truth or redefining the terms.

For example, "disaggregate" is the term coined by advocates and practitioners of the harvesting of human embryos for embryonic stem cells who wished to avoid the use of the terms "destroy, "dissect," "kill," and "sacrifice." You know, pretty much the same ones who tried to change "clone and kill" to "somatic cell nuclear transfer," then simply "nuclear transfer," and, finally, "production of patient-specific stem cells" in order to confuse the general public about the nature of their activities. These are the same people who would have us forget that not all "stem cells" are the same: some are produced without destroying a young human life or manipulation of the bodies of women, as though all were commodities or natural resources for mining and harvesting.

If you would like to read the actual Seoul National University investigating panel report on the fraud of the Korean Veterinarian, Hwang Woo Suk, the New York Times has published an English version. (Free registration is required.)
It seems appropriate to me that a doctor of veterinary medicine was only successful in his efforts to clone a dog, rather than humans.
However, it wasn't for lack of trying. The vet's lab received 2061 human oocytes from 129 human women. Some of those oocytes were used in attempts to produce cloned human embryos. Those that were produced were short lived, either because of their frailty and inherent defects or because of the planned attempts to harvest stem cells by "disaggregation." The laboratory records are unclear about the fate of all but about 273 of those "eggs."
Some of those oocytes were from the young Ph.D. candidates who worked for Hwang. Hwang denied knowledge of those donations, but the SNU report notes that the former "cloning king" accompanied his student to the hospital when her eggs were harvested.

Mad, bad, and dangerous to know

I may have to change the name of the blog! Or the name of the LifeEthics.org website, altogether.


Thanks to a poster on blog.bioethics.net, I read this description of the perception of scientists at the BBC Science website.

Edit - Jan 31, 2006 -- the link had aquired some noise in the form of a (close parenthesis) try this link http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4596662.stm

(redundancy is my friend)


Can you think of a more concise phrase to encompass "bioethics," that field of study which was invented by governments to discriminate between which humans can be killed and which should be protected?

Having a "Dallas" moment (Bobby never died and humans weren't cloned)

Most of you are probably too young to remember the actual television series, "Dallas," with JR, Bobby and all the Ewings. At the beginning of one season, we learned that everything we had seen and heard on the prime time soap opera in the last year was a dream. Pam Ewing woke to discover that Bobby wasn't dead - he was in the shower.

The last two years of cloning, hype and hyperbole about cloned human embryos which yielded human stem cell lines with exponential improvement in efficiency never happened. Hwang Woo Suk used about 3000 human oocytes crassly and unethically obtained and never produced even a single human stem cell line.

However, Hwang, the Korean veterinarian, did clone a puppy.

My Letter in Scientific American

Scientific American published a biased little op-ed in their October 2005 "SA Perspectives" titled "Fill This Prescription" concerning pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions that they consider harmful, saying,

It is tempting to wonder how far the principle of denying medicines for ethical reasons could stretch. Could one who disapproves of homosexuality refuse antiretrovirals to an HIV-positive gay man? If suffering is good for the soul, can one refuse to give out pain medication? But the pharmacists are not really fighting for a broad entitlement to morally judge which prescriptions to fill. And it is unnecessary to play "Where will this stop?" on an issue that already threatens women's vital reproductive rights.

The editors evidently believed that "blocking pregnancy" when there is a human embryo in existence prevents abortion and that pharmacists should learn and practice the art of suppressing their consciences. They also seemed unaware that - or not at all interested in - there is a very good chance that Preven and Plan B, the "morning after pills" in question may prove to be ethical for those who believe that it is permissable to prevent conception but not ethical to end the life of one conceived.

But, they can't be all bad, because they published my letter to them in the February 2006 issue.

Letters to the editor are not scientific documents and are limited in the amount of information that can be included, with restrictions on the number of words used and they are to the general readership of the publication, if not (as this really was) an attempt to change or effect the editor's viewpoints. So,for those of us who are pro-life and sticklers for absolute accuracy in terms we use, I'd like to explain a few things:
My letter is not as precise as I would like: I use the terms "morning after pill" to mean the protocols that the editorial mentioned although I know that not all "morning after pills" are the same. I also understand that there are some who object to all artificial contraception. And the use of the word "enforce" may very well mean more than I intended, especially to all the lawyers and law enforcement officers out there.

Nevertheless, here's my letter:

“Fill This Prescription” [SA Perspectives]
contains factual errors and false assumptions.
You state that when a woman has a prescription filled by a pharmacist, her “health is at the mercy of her pharmacist’s
conscience.” As a physician and a patient, I do not want pharmacists to suppress their consciences. Pharmacists protect patients and aid physicians. We depend on them not only to dispense medication correctly but also to judge interactions with patients’ other medical regimens and conditions. They act on knowledge that the physician or patient may not have about the risks from a given medication. They also determine a prescription’s legitimacy and enforce it.
The latest medical data indicate that morning-after pills block ovulation when they work. There is no evidence that they stop the implantation of an embryo.

Some other points: in nature, human pregnancy begins in the fallopian tube at fertilization; birth control that prevents conception is not synonymous with abortifacients; and the difference between dispensing abortifacients or antivirals is that the former is intended to end the life of a human being, whereas the latter is intended to save it.
Beverly B. Nuckols
Founder, LifeEthics.org
New Braunfels, Tex.

Pro-life need not apply

Speaking of ethics in reporting about scientific research, there hasn't been much coverage of the study out of New Zealand that concludes that abortion hurts women and the difficulty the authors had in finding a publisher, as noted by Stuff.co.nz , an - ? or should I say "the"? -on-line New Zealand news source:

There is great irony in the finding by a New Zealand medical research team that women who have an abortion are at increased risk of mental illness.

An estimated 98 per cent of the approximately 18,000 women who undergo an abortion each year do so on the dubious pretext that to have a baby would be harmful to their mental health. Now this authoritative study suggests that the real risk to their mental health may lie in having the abortion. If the subject weren't so serious, it would be almost comical.

But don't expect much public debate over this embarrassing finding. Politicians and the health sector will want to bury the report as quickly and quietly as possible. They have been doing their best to ignore the abortion issue for 30 years because they don't like to be reminded of the dishonesty and hypocrisy inherent in New Zealand's abortion policy.

An interesting footnote to the release of the study is that several medical journals refused to publish it, even though it breaks important new ground. Professor David Fergusson, who headed the study (and incidentally describes himself as pro-choice), suspects this was because the subject was too controversial. So much for freedom of speech and commitment to greater understanding of important health issues – to say nothing of better-informed patients.

If no one notices, maybe it didn't happen. A Google news search results in only 43 articles, and all but 26 are duplicates.

Scientific Journal Rivalry?

The scientific journal, Nature, devotes quite a bit of its space in the January 12, 2006 issue to two editorials and one review article concerning ethics, peer review, and the spectacular failure of both in the publication of the "results" of the Korean veterinarian, Hwang Wu Suk, in the cloning of human embryos for the harvest of "patient specific" embryonic stem cells. Unfortunately, except for the table of contents, the on-line edition is subscription-only - but try to find a "dead tree" copy, if you can.


Here's the pertinent information on the report from the Seoul National University report that all of Hwang's reports in Science were completely false:

Further investigation revealed that mitochondrial DNA from the cell line matched one of the egg donors, but the DNA inside the cells' nuclei varied at several locations. The committee concluded that the line was derived by parthenogenesis — where the single set of chromosomes in an egg develop as if it were fertilized. The images and data in the paper that showed perfect matches were fabricated.

The committee also found that Hwang worked with a staggering number of eggs — 2,061 from 129 women — despite claiming to have used only 242 eggs for the 2004 study and 185 for the 2005 study.

The findings are a huge setback for therapeutic cloning — the idea that cloned embryos could be used as a source of patient-matched stem cells to replace damaged tissues in a range of diseases. Even using numbers of human eggs of which other researchers can only dream, Hwang's team was unable to derive such stem cells, and the field is now left with no evidence that it is possible in humans at all (see Nature, 438, 1056–1059; 2005).

The committee did find that Hwang succeeded in cloning human embryos to the blastocyst stage, from which stem cells can be derived. But the success rate was just 10%, and they were "in poor condition". The only other group to have some success, Alison Murdoch's team at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, has cloned just a single blastocyst (M. Stojkovic et al. Reprod. BioMed. Online 11, 226–231; 2005).

No, Mr. Singer, you don't get to kill

Peter Singer and Marc Hauser make the case for abortion, clone and kill, and euthanasia, buried in an op-ed to convince us that no one needs religion to be moral in an article published in the Jerusalem Post, called "Godless morality." (Singer and Hauser act as if none of us have heard of "Natural Law," which is just as plausible - or more so - as their explanation. Why even they admit that we're built that way. The authors have more faith in evolution resulting in moral behavior than in the concept that a G_d, Who loves justice and mercy, would create creatures who hold love for one another as their highest value.)

The authors make their case by asking us to choose between "permissable," "obligatory" and "forbidden" in three hypothetical "situations:"

1. A runaway boxcar is about to run over five people walking on the tracks. A railroad worker is standing next to a switch that can turn the boxcar onto a side track, killing one person, but allowing the five to survive. Flipping the switch is ________.

2. You pass by a small child drowning in a shallow pond, and you are the only one around. If you pick up the child, she will survive and your pants will be ruined. Picking up the child is _______.

3. Five people have just been rushed into a hospital in critical condition, each requiring an organ to survive. There is not enough time to request organs from outside the hospital, but there is a healthy person in the hospital's waiting room. If the surgeon takes this person's organs, he will die, but the five in critical care will survive. Taking the healthy person's organs is _______.

Neither 1 nor 3 are "permissable."

No one may legitimately act to cause the death of any one else unless the one being killed is the actual threat to the life of another. The actions in 1 and 3 are wrong, even if the intention is good.

However, both scenarios are examples of exactly why "bioethics" was created in the '70's: so those in power (by fact of majority, judicial representation or by convincing the actual majority to be still and quiet because "that's not fair!" or "my story is sadder, more deserving, more heartwrenching than yours - besides, I cry louder and more convincingly than you can!") may decide who will be killed and who will not.

We might forgive (and make seem "permissable") the switch operator in number 1 because of the emergent nature of the act - because people are not perfect and omniscient, people make mistakes in the heat of the moment. We react out of compassion for the 5 that outweighs our concern for one.

The argument could even be made that not deciding might seem a decision.

But, these are immature and emotional rationalizations, not ethics: no matter how well intentioned, no matter how good the balance of the consequences might seem, it is always wrong to act to cause the death of a human being who is not a danger to life of other human beings.

(Besides - The lone man could be me or you or the one man on earth who could cure all forms of cancer, while the 5 could be Hitler and his cabinet - Or Peter Singer and his co-authors.)

The utilitarian would like us to think of people as interchangeable parts with planned obsolescence - we should feel the same way about the strangers on the other side of the world as we do about our own families, right? Isn't that the meaning of "equality?"

But they turn their final answer to the lowest common denominator:
Health care for everyone from the first dollar, but each person can only have the same amount total. (Tylenol for free, but no dialysis after 55 years old)
Public education, but a minimal standard so no one's left out (and no one is rewarded for excellence or punished for lack of ability or effort).
Public transportation, but only the elite can ride in SUV's without being derided for being selfish.

Since people are interchangeable, and we can always make new ones, why waste "limited resources" on someone who costs us too much, or who can't (yet or anymore) interact with us?

I did NOT make that mistake!

The research showing statistically significant increased risk in young women actually came from Christchurch, New Zealand. But - the article I first read and reported on came from the Syndney Herald.

I know better to mix Aussies and Kiwis!

There's a transcript of an interview with the main researcher, David Fergusson, and an Australian radio personality during which the professor discloses that he had difficulty getting his results published and that he believes that researchers are frightened off of studies on abortion and its effects on women because " if you do research in this area, one side or the other is going to turn upon you, because your results don't support them."

And some of the most gullible (who believed in human clones, for pity's sake!) won't believe until their own sources vet the information. Granted, the actual number of abortions is low - only 15% of those who remained in the study from birth to 25 years old even sought abortion - the result was a little over 90 abortions.

Of course, the abortion advocate quoted in the Herald speculates that some women might not have "mentioned" their abortions, and so they threw the numbers off.

But, thanks to the posts on blog.bioethics.net, here's the address for the actual article in pdf. Will get back to y'all after I've read it.

Of course, the abortion advocate quoted in the Herald speculates that some women might not have "mentioned" their abortions, and so they threw the numbers off.

Soon, we'll hear about the flaws in Professor Fergusson's past - he won't get the praise and approval that the Korean Veterinarian who claimed to clone and kill humas got.

TV's "ER" on Abortion 1-5-06

From Australia this week, we learn that women and girls who have an abortion are more at risk of depression, anxiety and substance abuse.

Last night, two characters in the NBC television medical drama/soap opera, "ER," were confronted with unexpected pregnancies, in the episode titled, "If Not Now." One "chose" abortion, another did not.

The medical facts in "ER" are usually fairly accurate, although the characters and situations are extreme and set up for all the drama and sensationalism that the writers can milk from the stories. I can only recall a single healthy childbirth - that of Susan, one of the original Emergency Department residents who later became an attending physician (she's no longer with the show - life was too good, I guess). Even this marriage and pregnancy began with a fling between strangers who later fell in love and decided to begin a family.

The most recent story concerned "Abby," a 37 year old unmarried woman doctor who is a recovering alcoholic and who has a a family history of bipolar disease, and a 15 year old girl from a religious family who presents to the ER after being the victim of date rape.

First, I wonder whether the writers have ever actually talked to a pro-life, religious person or whether they just read a few pamplets or visited a website for reference. Most of the dialogue between the girl, her parents and the doctors was totally unrealistic and stereotyped. The actual views expressed ("It's against G_d." "A new life has begun." "The baby shouldn't be punished." "It's G_d's will.") were accurate, but they seemed to come from wind-up robots rather than real people in a real situation.

A second point is that this was one of the worst examples of "informed consent" that I have ever seen. The doctor - "Luka Kovac," an attending physician who is also the father of Abby's child and has other problems in his past- proceeded with placement of laminaria in order to "give G_d the chance to change his mind," and induce what he called a miscarriage. In effect, the doctor not only deceived the parents of the girl and acted in direct opposition to their wishes (which, evidently is legal in Illinois), but he lied to the girl. This girl believes that abortion is "against G_d," had not dealt at all with her rape, has a history of risky behavior, and had only found out about her pregnancy that day. She is in danger of severe psychological and behavioral consequences, and the abortion and deception of her parents can only increase her guilt and the isolation from those who could and should be the safest, best and appropriate counselors, support and shelter for her.

Third, what was the hurry???

There was an interesting moment when the woman resident, "Neela," who was involved in the case asked permission from Luka to present the case to another attending, "who is not Catholic." Luca reacted with a controlled anger, stating that he is first a doctor who cares for patients without any bias. However, unknown to the resident, he has already been shown as biased toward the position that, although he would prefer that Abby "keep it," whether or not she aborts their child is her "choice."

What an awful world where women and girls are placed in the position of "choosing," all alone and in themselves, whether to continue a pregnancy or to have someone kill their child! Whether for their own good at the time or in the future, for the "good" of the child who is at risk of disease or the result of rape after the mother passes out from drinking, or because the mother is young. I recall the horror and empathy people had for another fictitious character in "Sophie's Choice."

"Feminists for Life" is an organization that stresses that most abortions harm at least two people: the child whose life is ended and his mother. Take a look at their website for the "herstory" of abortion.

Cord blood banking does not deprive the donor

I've become aware that some well-meaning people are opposed to cord blood banking.

I've never collected blood for banking, but I've sent placentas off to research (when I was in training) and a couple off for pathology examination. Most just go in the trash.

We do collect a teaspoon or less of the cord blood from each child born in a hospital or birthing center with a lab. The blood is checked for "blood count" to evaluate for congenital anemia, blood type, and (if I recall correctly) for a couple of diseases.

The procedure does not take anything from the baby, as the cord is clamped and cut by the time of harvest. The baby is no longer connected, at all.

But, there's not that much time or volume of blood involved. Practical, common sense, proof comes from all the babies born from Cesarean sections: the baby is actually always above the cord after being delivered, and the cord is immediately clamped and the placenta delivered by the doctor. If there are bad effects from the child being deprived of maximum blood from the placenta and cord after birth, we would see the pattern in these children.

By the way, my grand daughter just celebrated her 4th anniversary of her cord blood stem cell bone marrow transplant. She's just fine - bright and the sweetest personality I've ever met. (She and I agree that she's "superduper"!) We don't know what the future will hold for a girl who now has male bone marrow and all the stem cells that will come from it. But we do know that she wouldn't be here with her own bone marrow, and that she had a much higher chance of graft versus host disease from an adult donor's tissue.

Essay on stem cells and cloning from the UK

Excellent piece - it's almost poetry - from the Telegraph on the history and current state of stem cell research. I hope you will read the whole piece which discusses stem cells in light of their potential for good and bad regeneration - or healing and cancer.

The stem-cell breakthrough happened long ago. Hercules was obliged as one of his Labours to kill the Hydra, which was hard because the beast grew two heads whenever one was cut off. She gave her name to a tiny freshwater polyp - and stem cell research began. In 1744 the Geneva biologist Abraham Trembley cut a Hydra into two. To his surprise the body grew a head, and the head sprouted a body - and he persuaded some of his subjects to grow seven heads. The animal did the same of its own accord, for it copied itself by budding. Trembley's friend, Charles Bonnet, went further. In a remarkable prediction he suggested that such creatures contained "sleeping embryos" that woke up when a part of the body was removed, to replace it. Those somnolent structures are now called stem cells.

and

Exactly a century ago, Hydra opened a new chapter in biology. A mashed extract of head applied to a different individual caused new heads to appear. Soluble chemicals, it seemed, control development. Repair, too, turns on messages diffusing from a source to a target cell and to the DNA itself.

Science fiction and science fact

The clone king, Korean veterinarian Wu Suk Hwang, must be suffering from some very bad karma. The story of his human cloned embryos and stem cells is beginning to remind me of the Raelians' saga.

The egg-count is going up - currently around 2000 for the first report in 2004's Science report on a single cell-line.

As reported by blog.bioethics.net from a story in the Korean Herald,one of the research assistants/Ph.D slaves candidates, Park , is now saying that she was forced or threatened into undergoing the oocyte donation procedure. Which causes more calls for more regulations and oversite at the bioethics.net site.

There were regulations concerning oocyte donation and the world was watching. There was even an American scientist, Gerald Schatten, who at least helped translate the reports, if he was not the actual author, using data supplied by Hwang, et. al.

If you'll recall, Dr. Schatten had problems with his sources, once before. Some would speculate that men and women who manipulate human life while convincing themselves that some lives are worth less or worthless may not have any concern for rules and regulations. Unless they are caught, are getting paid for regulating, or have a political statement to make.

Money and research should be focused on discovering the ways that our post-embryonic bodies repair themselves and in (ethical) non-embryo-destructive stem cells and stem cell recruiting factors. Cloned cells are, by their nature (or non-natural production), abnormal from the beginning. On the contrary, adult stem cells are more likely to be "patient-specific." The goal should be to learn to stimulate a patient's own stem cells at the site.

Tradition has called for the use of animal models in research to prove and improve techniques. In the last 20 years, some human lives were reduced to the moral status of lab rats or guinea pigs. This time, adult women with hopes of helping the sick and dying (and achieving their doctorates) were exploited.

If there are new regulations, the place to start is with increased responsibility for the use of human tissues, including gametes that not only can be used to create nascent human beings for destruction, but which rely on the manipulation of and harvest from the bodies of human women.