Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Medical Research
I just finished reading a book by Michael J. Fox entitled Always Looking Up. I like Michael J. Fox. It saddens me that he discovered that if he wanted to get active politically to help the cause of research into cures for Parkinson's Disease, he would be campaigning for Democrats exclusively. He asserts that there is no connection between abortion and the research he wants: the study of embryonic stem cells from in vitro fertilization. Thousands of these cells are destroyed each year. Rather than discard them, Fox wants scientists to be able to study them to see if they can be used to cure Parkinsons, Alzeimers, and other diseases. Can anyone tell me why we should not go forward with that research?
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3 comments:
the embryonic stem cell argument hinges on the problem if one can destroy embryos to use for a "better good".
This is similar to the argument to use the organs of those being executed anyway.
But ethically, by doing so, you become cooperative with the killing, and since there is a good "side effect" to the killing, it makes such murders easier for people to chose to do (this is not far off: China executes people for minor crimes and sells their organs).
However, from a medical point of view, the "old leftover" embryos are less "viable": they don't work as well.
For embryonic stem cells you need "new" embryos to work. That means paying a woman to ovulate to get her eggs, then fertilizing them to make an embryo. Such things are already done in places like India, although mainly to supply eggs for people wanting children.
Exploiting the poor like this is a no no in most ethical systems.
three: The embryonic stem cells don't match the patient: The DNA is different. that's why they always link embryonic stem cells with cloning:
They will work better if you replace the nucleus with the patient's DNA. There is actually a way to make stem cells from eggs this way (look up parthenogenic stem cells) without killing an embryo, since there is no proof that such fertilized eggs would ever be able to become a human being.
But even here, the Mitochondrial RNA doesn't match.
Finally, the many breakthroughs with adult stem cells make the need for killing embryos to get stem cells essentially unnecessary.
Some scientists still want to get them to "experiment on" but most companies have switch to this easier to get and cheaper to get type of stem cell...
boinky,
I am so thankful you are a reader of my blog! Thank you so much for taking the time to explain this so comprehensively!
Yep slippery slope
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