tinyurl.com/89o3f -> scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/02/president_panders_to_antimanim.php
jpg I didn't listen to the State of the Union Address last night, preferring to maintain my equanimity by attending a talk on quantum physics, but I knew I could trust my readers to email me with choice weird science bits. email about this statement from Bush: Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research, human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling or patenting human embryos.
Creating chimeras is legitimate and useful scientific research; Of course, it isn't with the intent of creating monstrous half-animal/half-human slaves or something evil like that, and scientists are well aware (or should be well aware) of the ethical concerns, and it's the topic of ongoing debate. Let's consider one recent example of such an experiment. Down syndrome is a very common genetic disorder caused by the presence of an extra chromosome 21. That kind of genetic insult causes a constellation of problems: mild to moderate mental retardation, heart defects, and weakened immune systems, and various superficial abnormalities. It's also a viable defect, and produces walking, talking, interacting human beings who are loved by their friends and families, who would really like to be able to do something about those lifespan-reducing health problems.
animal model of Down syndrome, so that, for example, we could figure out exactly what gene overdose is causing the immune system problems or the heart defects, and develop better treatments for them. So what scientists have been doing is inserting human genes into mice, to produce similar genetic overdoses in their development.
reported before, there have been partial insertions, but now a team of researchers has inserted a complete human chromosome 21 into mouse embryonic stem cells, and from those generated a line of aneuploid mice that have many of the symptoms of Down syndrome, including the heart defects. They also have problems in spatial learning and memory that have been traced back to defects in long-term potentiation in the central nervous system. These mice are a tool to help us understand a debilitating human problem. He's trusting that everyone will think he is banning monstrous crimes against nature, but what he's really doing is targeting the weak and the ill, blocking useful avenues of research that are specifically designed to help us understand human afflictions. O'Doherty A, Ruf S, Mulligan C, Hildreth V, Errington ML, Cooke S, Sesay A, Modino S, Vanes L, Hernandez D, Linehan JM, Sharpe PT, Brandner S, Bliss TV, Henderson DJ, Nizetic D, Tybulewicz VL, Fisher EM. You must fight back against the one who did this to you!
February 1, 2006 10:40 AM Just a side note: Down's Syndrome usually results in mild to moderate retardation, but severe and profound retardation can result as well. You just don't tend to see these people because they often end up spending their entire lives in a home. I only mention this because it shouldn't be thought that all parents of Down's children are lucky enough to have walking, talking, interacting children. Which only heightens the callousness of Bush's remarks, of course.
February 1, 2006 11:02 AM We need a progressive president, not a regressive one, like Bush. It wouldn't surprise me, if he supported burning scientists at the stake.
He is against diabetics, burn victims, people with faulty organs, AIDS victims, cancer vicims as well as people with genetic disorders. And he is against all those people, not because he knows anything about science, but because of a snip in his holy book and 1950's style comics. And if the harm to actual people isn't enough, he is also destroying the future strength of the US economy, of which Biotech is one of the few shining hopes.
February 1, 2006 11:18 AM Just to be a little fair to GWB, I can guess that what he means are attempts at human-ape crosses like those rumoured to have taken place in the Soviet Union, of course, what he *said* was something different.
February 1, 2006 11:43 AM Unless the scientific community polices itself better you will get more of this. Instead of saying people have legitimate ethical concerns that should be addressed rationally, they get dismissed as religious ignoramuses. We condescendingly say "Human embryos would never be abused in the name of scientific research." Francis Collins' comments in his 2003 Keynote before the ASA: Let me finish with a quick glimpse of where we are going in the future as we contemplate our own instruction book and dream of what we might be able to do with that to alleviate suffering and to better the lot of humankind. There are a number of ethical issues that are raised by this. Some observers are getting pretty worked up about genetics and the dangers of it, but are worrying about the wrong things. As scientists we have a great obligation to explain ourselves, what our science is about, and what it can and cannot do. The time for a geneticist or in fact any scientist to go into the lab and close the door and let somebody else worry about the consequences of scientific advancement has passed. You can make the argument in a much more winsome manner that actually might change people's minds. Something like this: "Because evolution is true we can use animal models to treat and cure human disease without destroying or hurting human life. For example, we can use mouse models to understand the nature of Down's Syndrome." It is not the chimera that causes the ethical concerns but rather it is the destruction of human life. You address that concern and the proposals like what was discussed last night will slowly disappear.
February 1, 2006 12:25 PM Steve - that is a really interesting point about the rate of spontaneous abortions. Actually it gives me an idea of a great way to highlight the fact that fertilised embryos are only potential human life, not actual human life - force the fringe lunatics (eg, the modern GOP) to say whether or not women who suffer spontaneous abortions should be charged with involuntary manslaughter.
February 1, 2006 12:26 PM Steve, that's precisely the kind of tone that should be avoided. So what if I or others come to an ethical conclusion based upon theological considerations? Do you know my life so well that you know that my wife had two miscarriages that we know of and a stillbirth? If development is the basis for something being potential rather than actual life then a child is potential life because she is not at her full height. Both sides of this debate try to make science the arbiter here where it cannot be that. You have to bring in things from outside science in order to determine whether an embryo is human life or not. Realizing there is a diversity of opinion here and a diversity of how we come to our opinions, respectful, civil discourse does not demean or demonize the other side. If we spent more time listening and less time yelling at each other we would find out we have far more common ground than we realize. As it stands right now we have State of Dis-Union speeches where people stand in applause only on one side of the aisle or the other.
February 1, 2006 12:35 PM "As it stands right now we have State of Dis-Union speeches where people stand in applause only on one side of the aisle or the other. Yes, and the blame for this can be laid squarely at the feet of scientists, bloggers, and concerned onlookers. It has nothing to do with the wholesale embrace of demagoguery and dishonesty by right wing pundits, politicians, and writers. If we'd all just been nicer Rush's show would have never got off the ground, Ann Coulter wouldn't have sold a couple million books, and Rick Santorum never would have been elected.
February 1, 2006 12:46 PM I couldn't bear to listen to MonkeyMan's screeching last night, but I will say that chimeras were the first thing I though of when I heard that part of the speech on the news this morning. My girlfriend back in grad school created a mouse model of sickle-cell anemia, so I have a passing familiarity with the subject. Is giving a mouse the sickle-cell gene "creating a human/...
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