stem cell research

[Deckard]

gambit, I meant to get round to tackling your points,

Originally Posted by gambit

1) With the talk about stem cells not having a choice in the matter for research, I'm reminded of the people the Nazis experimented on in the concentration camps. They did not have a choice in the matter, yet physicians today still wrestle with using the data gathered from the Nazi experimentations.

The way I think I'd view a situation like that, once data has been gathered, once knowledge has been acquired, and providing that knowledge isn't being put to a questionable use (which is a separate matter), then there's nothing to be gained from 'un-knowing' it, or rather not using it, other than in a symbolic way, to spare the feelings of those currently alive for whom it matters. As Cacophony said, the knowledge gained from suffering shouldn't itself necessarily be tainted.

Originally Posted by gambit

2) This is a passage from the book The President of Good & Evil by noted philosopher, Peter Singer. In his book he mostly argues President Bush and his policies from a philosophical stand point, and one of the issues he touches is stem cell research. This paragraph is a factual one, not an argument one way or the other, about miscarriages--mostly ones that women never know about. I follow it with a question he poses for discussion.

Thoughts?

I wasn't aware of this. No, I don't personally see that as any kind of holocaust, nor feel a need to view it though the lens of some'one' being killed.

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Originally Posted by Deckard

I wasn't aware of this. No, I don't personally see that as any kind of holocaust, nor feel a need to view it though the lens of some'one' being killed.

I think you've just been added to a terrorist list.

[cacophony]

i'm going to admit something here that's going to sound mean. when i visit this forum to see what's been posted and i see a thread like this lists jOHN rODRIGUEZ as the last poster, i'm reluctant to click because i know it won't be anything worth reading.

it's just an incredibly huge amount of posting to say absolutely nothing of value.

[gambit]

Originally Posted by Deckard

The way I think I'd view a situation like that, once data has been gathered, once knowledge has been acquired, and providing that knowledge isn't being put to a questionable use (which is a separate matter), then there's nothing to be gained from 'un-knowing' it, or rather not using it, other than in a symbolic way, to spare the feelings of those currently alive for whom it matters. As Cacophony said, the knowledge gained from suffering shouldn't itself necessarily be tainted.

I agree with what you and cacophony said. This thought came from cacophony calling it "a sort of cannablism" and from someone (I'm not sure who) mentioning the embryos don't have a choice in the matter. And the way my weird brain works, it reminded me of the Nazi experiments.

I wasn't aware of this. No, I don't personally see that as any kind of holocaust, nor feel a need to view it though the lens of some'one' being killed.

This factoid was aimed at the anti-stem cell crowd, especially those who are staunchly anti-abortion. If you care so much about the deaths of all embryos, well, so many die a year already. Unfortunately, no one with that position responded. Oh well.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by cacophony

i'm going to admit something here that's going to sound mean. when i visit this forum to see what's been posted and i see a thread like this lists jOHN rODRIGUEZ as the last poster, i'm reluctant to click because i know it won't be anything worth reading.

it's just an incredibly huge amount of posting to say absolutely nothing of value.

That's why he's the only person on my ignore list.

And regarding the quote Gambit provided about embryos dying from natural causes, and asking "should we feel that this loss of embryos is a terrible thing, a kind of ongoing holocaust? If each human embryo is "something precious to be protected," then surely this is how we should feel", is Peter Singer really serious? The holocaust was hardly the result of naturally occurring events. There's a huge huge HUGE difference between the brutal and intentional rounding up, torturing, and murdering of millions of lucid, feeling human beings, compared to the natural process of an embryo failing to implant in a woman's uterus. I don't mean to direct any of that at you Gambit, but I hope the rest of Singer's book is better thought out than this question implies, otherwise it sounds like a complete waste of paper.

[gambit]

Alright, my friend has replied back to me. He worked in a stem cell lab for a month, so he knows a thing or two about the subject. I think he has made some particularly interesting points. For reference, "ESC" is embryonic stem cell, and I assume the little "h" in front stands for human.

Currently, hESC research in the US is limited to the eight cell lines that were derived prior to Bush putting ban on deriving new lines. So the research being done currently doesn't require the killing of embryos or anything like that... ESCs lines are "immortal" in the sense that they can grow and divide indefinitely. However, the US ban on deriving new lines is bad for a number of reasons.

One is that all of the existing hESC lines have been exposed to various animal products like bovine serum and are therefore unsuitable for human therapy. Another is that certain disease models require a different genetic background. For example, a lab outside the US has studied neuron outgrowth in a hESC line derived from a Down's Syndrome embryo. Another reason is that other countries don't have the Bush ban... so while they study genetic diseases and derive hESCs without animal products, the US lags behind.

There are a couple of different ways to get new stem cell lines. The main way is to fertilize an egg and let the embryo develop until it is 32 cells big (the blastula stage). At that point there is a little cluster of pluripotent cells (the inner cell mass), which you can harvest and cultivate in petri dishes as ESCs. This DOES "kill" that embryo, which is where most people get upset.

I put "kill" in quotes, because I think life of an embryo is more complex than a simple on/off state. If people think that human life begins at conception (and in some strictly biological sense, it does), then harvesting stem cells from an embryo may be murder (then again, maybe not... the ESCs being grown in labs are quite alive, biologically). But I feel that the definition of life is more complex than biological functioning. Consider that a brain-dead person on life support is "alive" in the sense that their cells are respirating, and we might feel attached to the body because it resembles a human. But in the sense of human life that has rights and legal protections... I don't see a human there. Without brain activity, it's just biological matter, albeit perhaps uncomfortably similar to a living person. Similarly, a blastula has no neurological activity, so from that standpoint, human ESCs are harvested before an embryo becomes alive in a meaningful way.

I think there's a popular misconception that hESCs are harvested from third-trimester babies or something, but they're not. At the blastula stage, a human embryo is all but indistinguishable from a starfish embryo. However, even IF one strongly feels that killing blastulas is murder, they need to realize that there are thousands of blastulas just going to waste at in-vitro fertility clinics already. IVF clinics don't fertilize just one egg... they take several, and the leftovers are usually frozen for a few years and then discarded. Those embryos are fated to die anyway, so why not do some research good with them? The amount of waste here is really unfortunate.

There's a second way of harvesting hESCs from blastulas, in theory. I don't think it has been done in practice, though this may be because of the moratorium on deriving new lines in the US. Basically instead of pulling all of the inner cells out of the blastula, you pull out just one. Amazingly, the embryo can recover from the loss of a cell or two just fine (fertility clinics do this to determine whether an in vitro fertilized embryo has genetic disorders: pull one cell and analyze its DNA). This technique is much more difficult, partly because individual ESCs don't like to grow when they're isolated and need to exist in colonies. People on this campus and elsewhere are working on developing means to grow ESCs individually though, so that's just a technological hurdle. That technique would allow the embryo to continue developing, although it seems beside the point... odds are it's going to be discarded anyway.

There are a couple of other ways to derive stem cells, although they aren't really tried-and-true. One is called reprogramming, where you take a differentiated adult cell and manipulate it into becoming ESC-like. This has kinda, sorta been done, although the final product is not a true ESC.

There's also another technique called Altered Nuclear Transfer, which I hesitate to even mention because it's so nonsensical to me. Basically the idea is that destroying blastulas is murder because that blastula would have "naturally" grown up to become a baby (which is fallacious, actually... a blastula needs to implant in a womb in order to grow beyond a couple of days old, so a blastula in an IVF clinic will "naturally" expire). But anyway, following that logic, a group of researchers decided to engineer a genetic time-bomb which causes the embryo to "naturally" expire regardless of its setting (nevermind that "natural" now means "following the artificial programming we have given it"). So it's OK to kill an ANT embryo, because it possesses no potential for becoming a baby. Whatever. Bonus points too for circular logic: engineering a genetic time-bomb into a human would be monstrous, but these embryos have no potential for becoming human, so it's OK; they have no potential for becoming human because... they've had a time-bomb engineered into them!

Those are the main ways of acquiring new hESC lines that I know of. Finally, there's some speculation that there are undifferentiated fetal cells floating around in the womb, and these could possibly be cultivated as hESCs once we figure out how. If you've heard of people wanting to freeze their child's umbilical cord blood for potential future use, that's why... there are supposedly ESC-like cells in there. I really haven't kept up on the state of that research though.

[gambit]

Originally Posted by Sean

I don't mean to direct any of that at you Gambit, but I hope the rest of Singer's book is better thought out than this question implies, otherwise it sounds like a complete waste of paper.

No, it's all right. Singer was just trying to prove a point. If you think that all embryos are sacred, well then, I got some news for you. Trust me, he's more sane and rational than that, and I admittedly stopped at a certain point that might've made him look otherwise.

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by gambit

This factoid was aimed at the anti-stem cell crowd, especially those who are staunchly anti-abortion. If you care so much about the deaths of all embryos, well, so many die a year already. Unfortunately, no one with that position responded. Oh well.

i think those with that position would respond similarly to how i responded. there's a fundamental difference between death by nature and death by intent.

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by gambit

Consider that a brain-dead person on life support is "alive" in the sense that their cells are respirating, and we might feel attached to the body because it resembles a human. But in the sense of human life that has rights and legal protections... I don't see a human there. Without brain activity, it's just biological matter, albeit perhaps uncomfortably similar to a living person. Similarly, a blastula has no neurological activity, so from that standpoint, human ESCs are harvested before an embryo becomes alive in a meaningful way.

see, this is why i wanted to start this thread. i stated my position earlier but this argument gives me something to think about. i need to chew on this for a bit because it's an excellent point.

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Originally Posted by cacophony

i'm going to admit something here that's going to sound mean. when i visit this forum to see what's been posted and i see a thread like this lists jOHN rODRIGUEZ as the last poster, i'm reluctant to click because i know it won't be anything worth reading.

it's just an incredibly huge amount of posting to say absolutely nothing of value.

And I'm heartbroken.