In the November 2012 elections, voters of Washington state had to decide on Initiative 522. I-522 would require food sold in the state to be labeled if any of its components were produced by genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Proponents made a necessary distinction between selectively bred plants and animals and those that are GMOs. Selective breeding has been standard practice in agriculture since man began herding animals and growing crops. GMO plants and animals are those that have a genetic makeup that would not occur naturally through normal breeding. For example, a plant that has had a gene inserted that gives it resistance to weed killer and a cow that has been cloned so it is immune to mad-cow disease are GMOs.
It was a contentious battle, with supporters of I-522 telling consumers that genetic engineering has unintended consequences and that ingesting GMO products may make us sick. Proponents insisted that we have a right to know what is in our food.
Ads against I-522 did not suggest food made from GMOs was perfectly safe or that the concerns of food purists were unfounded. The opposition focused on the wording of the initiative and on the impact labeling would have on the price of food.
I-522 was defeated with 45% of voters supporting the initiative and 55% opposed. A similar initiative in California, Proposition 37, also did not pass. In 2012, California voters were 49% in support of labeling food made from GMOs; 51% voted against Prop. 37.
Analyzing these votes, it is apparent that nearly half of the voting residents in California and Washington are concerned about eating GMOs and want to be informed about which foods contain GMO products. A poll conducted by ABC News found that 65% of Americans either believe GMOs are unsafe to eat or are unsure about their safety, and 93% of those polled believe that the government should require labeling.
At the same time, in another West Coast state, genetically modified human embryos are being made with little objection from the general public.
I have never worked in manufacturing but I can imagine inventory and quality control are important parts of the process. Keeping track of inventory and making sure the right parts get to where they are needed would be a priority. The barcode has surely revolutionized the manufacturing industry.
The barcode is certainly finding a home in the human manufacturing plant, also known as the IVF clinic. Scientists from Barcelona have announced in the journal, Human Reproduction, that they now can place a barcode tag directly on an embryo to make sure you end up with the right kid. Because mix-ups do happen.
Last week the House of the Oklahoma State legislature overwhelmingly passed the Protection of Human Life Act of 2013. This act prohibits the destruction of human embryos for research and prohibits research on cells that were obtained from the destruction of a human embryo.
HB2070 reads:
No person shall: 1. Knowingly conduct nontherapeutic research that destroys a human embryo or subjects a human embryo to substantial risk of injury or death; 2. Transfer a human embryo with the knowledge that the embryo will be subjected to nontherapeutic research; or 3. Use for research purposes cells or tissues that the person knows were obtained by performing activities in violation of this section.
My husband watches the new TV show "Intelligence" starring Josh Holloway (previously Sawyer from Lost) as Gabriel, a man with a rare genetic mutation (or some such) that allowed the U.S. government to put a chip in his brain. This chip gives Gabriel unlimited access to the Internet directly into his consciousness. As an agent for a super secret intelligence agency, that comes in super handy. Gabriel, the best of all guys, uses his enhancement only for good. He saves people and catches bad guys and he looks good doing it. Gabriel is the quintessential enhanced American hero reminiscent of Captain America, just without the tights and shield.
In a recent episode, Gabriel has to enter a middle eastern country to rescue two American journalists sentenced to death for being spies. A former U.S. president tags along to distract the middle eastern government with diplomacy while Gabriel breaks the journalists out of prison using his enhancement to hijack security cameras and pinpoint his targets' exact location.
After many twists and turns, the objective of their mission complete, the former U.S. president asks Gabriel why he would let the government put that chip in his head.
Gabriel answers, "Because I love my country."
And there it is. A good American would do anything for his country, including volunteering to be an experiment and allowing the government to violate his or her bodily integrity with a microchip in the brain.
And why not, when we ask those who serve our country to place their lives at risk? Why not ask them to alter their bodies, with possible permanent side effects, to make the job easier? Why not if it means an American victory?
Many Catholics do not see the harm in such enhancements for our soldiers and intelligence agents. In a discussion at a Catholic blog about genetically enhancing soldier's eyes to have night vision like a cat, one commenter saw no moral issue with such an intervention. Why would we not give our soldier's such an advantage?
But is that treating the soldier as a person or a means to an end? What about the possible side effects? The human brain is not wired to "see" in the dark permanently.
Why not instead equip our soldiers with the best in night vision goggles that they can take off at the end of the day and at the end of a career?
Do we really need to ask those that serve American interests to radically alter their bodies?
But I am afraid that with shows like "Intelligence", the seed had already been planted. I doubt any parent turned to their child after Gabriel announced that he loved his country and said, "This is a fun show and that was a nice sentiment, but in reality it would be immoral for a government to do that to one of its citizens."
Not everyone is buying what shows like Intelligence are selling. Here are somecomments from viewers on IMDB:
my next question however is: "when will they find the unusually large mass in his brain next to that constantly radiating chip?"
in the shadow of NSA scandals and the fear of the absolute transparent citizen, this series tries to numb your concerns by showing you how well meant and helpful the absolute access to every information in the world, to one guy can be even, in the hands of an unpredictable, mischievous sawyer guy, as long as he is American.
To make the show 'better', every plot serves as a bit of pro-NSA propaganda that doesn't even bother trying to justify itself: they have the right to spy on everyone on a hunch, borders and international relations don't matter at all - as a super secret government spy agency they can do as they please all over the world. It goes without saying that being good guys, they don't need to bother with details or justification.
This gives me hope that some Americans are thinking critically about radical enhancements and the physical and moral implications of the "super soldier."
I fear though that not enough of us are dissecting such mainstream depictions of transhumanism, especially when they are placed in such a patriotic package.
On February 25th and 26th, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will be having a meeting to discuss allowing the technique that creates embryos with three genetic parents to proceed to clinical trials. The "three-parent" embryo technique is also called mitochondrial replacement, maternal spindle transfer, or oocyte modification.
In an effort to "treat" mitochondrial disease, this technique would intentionally modify IVF embryos to have the genetic material from three persons. This modification is also one that will extend beyond the children produced and will be passed onto future generations. (For more information about "three-parent" embryos read my article at the National Catholic Register.)
Over 40 countries have banned such inheritable genetic modifications. Regrettably, the United States has no such laws and it is up the FDA to regulate the practice. They are currently taking written opinions on the subject, but only until this Tuesday, February 18th. The FDA needs to hear from the public on this issue.
This is a pivotal point in human history. Will we allow the intentional genetic modification of our children and grandchildren? I do not believe I am exaggerating when I say the future of our species depends on how we answer that question.
Please tell the FDA what you think. The contact information given on the advisory panel web page is Gail Dapolito, Fax 301-827-0294, e-mail: gail.dapolito[at]fda.hhs.gov or Rosanna Harvey, Fax 301-827-0294, e-mail: rosanna.harve[at]fda.hhs.gov
Here is the letter I wrote to the committee. Please feel free to use any or all of it.
FDA Cellular, Tissue and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee:
As a concerned citizen of the United States, I urge you to reject attempts to allow oocyte modification, also called mitochondrial replacement or maternal spindle transfer, to advance to clinical trials.
I understand the desire for parents to have genetically-related children, but at some point we must be responsible and limit parental desires, favoring instead the health and well-being of the next generation. Mitochondrial replacement is the intentional modification of children to have the genetic material from three persons. It would also create a germ-line modification; one that would be passed on to future generations.
Many other technically-advanced countries have banned germ-line modifications for good reason. The line that prevents the experimentation on the next generation, and every generation after, without their consent should never be crossed. There are likely many medical advances we could have if we treated human subjects unethically. I believe mitochondrial replacement falls into that category.
Any girl that is conceived with this technique could not help but pass this modification onto her offspring. If there are any deleterious effects, which have been noted in animal studies, she would be placed in the very same position as her mother, struggling with a desire to have genetically-related children, but wary of passing on her modification. The difference is that she would know she was the product of germ-line experimentation sanctioned by the FDA.
Time has proven that the slippery slope in reproductive medicine is very real. IVF, a technique originally designed to help infertile couples conceive, has expanded to a billion dollar industry catering to the desires of the fertile as well, with a menu of choices including sex selection. If you allow mitochondrial replacement to proceed to the clinic, it will only be a matter of time before modifications to nuclear DNA will be attempted. With the lack of federal laws regulating the fertility industry, in a few decades, a similar menu of genetic modifications, no doubt, will be available to prospective parents.
Please keep the focus of mitochondrial disease research on treating patients and not on germ-line genetic engineering. As Americans become more wary of genetically modified organisms in their food supply, understanding that such modifications have unintended and possibly unhealthy side effects, it would be unthinkable to move forward with the genetic modification of our children and grandchildren.
Alternatively, the Center for Genetics and Society has a letter you can sign. They suggest embryo screening as a "safer" alternative which pro-lifers cannot agree with, but overall the content of the letter is excellent. The Center for Genetics and Society is aprogressive organization. It is important that the FDA hear from all points on the political spectrum. This is one issue that both the left and right can agree on.
After the ground-breaking news last week that Japanese scientists were able reprogram adult cells to embryonic-like cells in mice by simply bathing them in weak acid, the next step was to try this with human cells. The technique is called "stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency", or STAP.
With lightening speed, Dr. Charles Vacanti and his team at Harvard Medical School has announced that they have created STAP human cells. New Scientist has the story:
Talk about speedy work. Hot on the heels of the news that simply dipping adult mouse cells in acid could turn them into cells with the potential to turn into any cell in the body, it appears that the same thing may have been done using human cells.
The picture above, given to New Scientist by Charles Vacanti at Harvard Medical School, is said to be images of the first human "STAP cell" experiments.... Now, Vacanti and his colleagues say they have taken human fibroblast cells and tested several environmental stressors on them in an attempt to recreate human STAP cells. He won't reveal what type of stressors were applied but he says the resulting cells appears similar in form to the mouse STAP cells. His team is in the process of testing to see just how stem-cell-like these cells are.
The Independent also reports that more tests are needed to see if these stem cells are for real:
"The process was very similar to the one we used on mouse cells, but we used human dermal fibroblasts that we purchased commercially," Dr Vacanti said. "I can confirm that stem cells were made when we treated these human cells. They do the same thing [as the mouse cells]. "They revert back to stem cells, and we believe the stem cells are not a contamination in the sample that we were inadvertently sent by the company, but that they are being made, although we still have to do the final tests to prove this," he added.
Clearly this breakthrough has yet to be proven or published in a peer-review journal, but that does not mean that we should not be concerned.
Unlike induced pluripotent stem cell technology (iPSCs) that uses a different method to reprogram adult cells, STAP, in mice, looks like it produces totipotent cells, not just pluripotent cells.
What is the difference? Pluripotent cells cannot become placenta and so could not implant and grow a new organism if placed in a uterus. Totipotent cells can become placenta and so are able to implant and grow into a fetus.
The only other place we find totipotent cells is directly after fertilization. In other words totipotent cells, are very early embryos. New Scientist, in an earlier story, explains why this is such a big deal:
"The team haven't just made pluripotent cells like embryonic stem cells," says José Silva from the University of Cambridge, "they appear to have made totipotent cells." This means the cells have been rewound to a state with even more flexibility than pluripotent cells, which means they should be easier to manipulate. The only cells known to be totipotent – able to form an embryo and a placenta – in the body are those that have only undergone the first couple of cell divisions immediately after fertilisation. "They are like precursors to embryonic stem cells," says Silva. "The word totipotent brings up all kinds of issues," says Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology in Marlborough, Massachusetts. "If these cells are truly totipotent, and they are reproducible in humans then they can implant in a uterus and have the potential to be turned into a human being. At that point you're entering into a right-to-life quagmire"
So if STAP produces totipotent cells in humans like it seems to do in mice, then STAP would be a way to clone human beings. And, these would be true clones, not like the ones produced so far with somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) which have DNA from the egg used in the cloning process.
Vacanti admits the possibility of using STAP for cloning to The Independent:
Asked whether it would be possible in theory to follow on from the mouse research to show that skin cells could be turned into viable human embryos – effectively a clone of the donor of the skin samples – Dr Vacanti said: "This is an offshoot, an unintended consequence, so the answer is 'yes' …. This would be the natural conclusion, but I won't be the one that does it."
I have no doubt that someone will dare to go where Dr. Vacanti says he won't; especially since the United States has no federal laws against human cloning for research or for reproduction.
Whether or not STAP produces stem cells in human cells still has to be proven and whether those stem cells are pluripotent or totipotent remains to be seen.
What is clear is that, if all it takes to clone a human being is taking a skin cell and placing it in an acid bath, then the world as we know it is about to change drastically.
It may be the only time, but I agree with Robert Lanza:
"The reprogramming step seems to be quite simple, it could be very inexpensive technology for reproductive medicine," agrees Lanza. "But it has more potential for abuse than iPS cells. It'll be interesting how this all plays out, but if it's possible to do this in humans, it changes everything."
Today more and more people are whole-heartedly embracing eugenics. They probably don't know it as eugenics, but every time a human life in the womb or in the lab is cut short because his or her genetics is not up to snuff, that is undoubtedly eugenics.
Many associate the eugenics of old with a lack of compassion and with government coercion. Today's eugenics, in contrast, is perceived as an exercise of free choice and a compassionate endeavor. In modern sensibilities, tossing out embryos or aborting fetuses with genetic disorders, even disorders that will not surface until adulthood (with time for a cure to be found), is the right, moral and smart thing to do.
And yet, modern eugenics is as devoid of compassion and as coercive as the early 20th century variety.
Scientists in Japan have developed a way to cheaply and easily take adult cells from mice and reprogram them back to a pluripotent or embryonic-like state. They demonstrated that these cells were capable of becoming all the cells in a full grown mouse.
They call the technique “stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency” or STAP. Unlike, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) that use viruses to reprogram a very small percentage of adult cells back to pluripotency, STAP uses stressors like acid baths or physical pressure to quickly reprogram a much larger portion of cells.
IVF advocates desperately want us to believe that biology is irrelevant when it comes to "family," but the testimonies of countless donor conceived children, prove otherwise. In episode 7 of BioTalk, Chelsea and I discuss the ironic legacy of third party reproduction: that couples are so desperate for a child to love and yet concern for what’s good and right for the child itself is actually put last.
This personal narrative by Ali Margo at ELLE about her experience with the fertility industry will break your heart. She chronicles her two rounds of IVF that end with a call from the clinic telling her that all 20 of her embryos are dead. Read between the lines and you will find greed, exploitation and snake-oil. Margo paints a very unflattering picture of a billion dollar industry that she points out has a 70% failure rate. Here are some excerpts from "$47,000 Dollars Later, I Have No Baby: The IVF Scam":
“You think your uterus is why you’re here, but that’s not why you’re here,” the fertility doctor said, sitting behind his desk in a crisp white lab coat, his name embroidered in bright blue thread. His smile was broad and slightly distorted. He reminded me of a car salesman.
Doc proceeded to prattle on while the clock—both proverbial and literal—was ticking. We’d paid $235 for the half-hour consult. What was that, like eight bucks a minute? I just wanted to shake him and go, “Dude, can I have a baby after 40 or not?”
Our doctor reassured us I still had a shot at IVF, even at 43, thanks to a new development in genetic testing known as Comprehensive Chromosome Screening (CCS). It would cost us an extra $5,500, but when you’re throwing down 30K for a designer baby, what’s an extra five thousand?
“That’s a small price to pay for a human life,” my Dad had said.
More than empty promises, what really drove us to keep spending was hope. Hope is like a drug that poisons the rational mind with fantasy about the future. So what if your roots are gray and you love Botox and you’re a beat away from menopause? Just let science take over where nature left off. All you have to do is put your body, your heart, and your wallet on the line....
At what point, I wondered, are doctors simply exploiting our deepest, primal longings? Is that what medicine should be?
Five days after my second and last egg retrieval, we received a call from the embryologist. All 20 of our embryos had died. That was the last time I heard from anyone at the clinic. There was no call from my doctor, or my nurses, no explanations or reassurances, no one to check in and find out how I was doing. It seemed as if I was nothing more than a bad statistic, an expelled patient who had put a ding in their precious success rates. [emphasis mine]
20 embryos dead! Price for human life! Indeed, is this what medicine should be?
In the end, Margo says she is not considering adoption because IVF has taken away all of her money and her hope. Prayers are needed for her family, including her lost little ones.
Bravo to Margo for telling the truth about her experience and not sugar-coating it. She is the first writer I have read that has called IVF a scam. Hopefully, she will not be the last.
Everyone knows that sex-selection is rampant in the places like China and India where ultrasound and legalized abortion mean that roughly 160 million women are "missing." What many people do not know, or refuse to acknowledge, is that the practice of aborting girls just because they are girls is growing in the West as well.
A study done by Douglas Almond and Lena Edlund, of UC Berkeley that looked at U.S. 2000 Census data. They found that among U.S.-born children of Chinese, Korean, and Asian Indian parents there is a male bias especially in third children. They report, "If there was no previous son, sons outnumbered daughters by 50%." And they concluded, "We interpret the found deviation in favor of sons to be evidence of sex selection, most likely at the prenatal stage."
A study of 2 abortion clinics in the San Francisco Bay area that service a high South Asian immigrant population found shocking evidence of sex selection. Forbesreported that not only did 89% of pregnant women who were carrying girls abort their child during the study period, but there was evidence of coercion, sometimes violent, by husbands and in-laws to do so.
This is would be expected in the United States where sex selection is completely legal in most states. But in the UK, sex selective abortion is illegal. Surely, the law is enough of a deterrent.
It does not seem so. The Independent looked at the UK's recent census data and found that in certain immigrant groups, girls have gone "missing."
After my many years of writing about stem cell research, I am still shocked when the media get the facts horribly wrong. I guess that comes from the assumption that to report the news, one must actually understand the subject matter.
After last month's confusion over whether research that produced mini-kidneys in the lab used induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) or embryonic stem cells, this Associated Press report caught my eye. It is about an Oregon doctor that has had his license suspended over stem cell treatments he was performing. Read this:
In 1998, researchers discovered how to derive stem cells from human embryos, and in 2006, they determined how to induce some specialized adult cells to take on the genetic characteristics of stem cells. These are called induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSC.
iPSC have long been used to treat cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma — it’s what doctors are using when they do bone marrow transplants. The cells are being studied for everything from heart disease to diabetes, but it’s too soon to know if these approaches are safe or effective.
This reporter is clearly confused. Regular adult stem cells, which have been used to treat leukemia and lymphoma for decades, are found naturally in bone marrow and other tissues. In contrast, iPSCs are adult cells, like skin cells, that have been reprogrammed back to an embryonic-like state. So while adult stem cells are naturally found in many parts of the body, iPSCs are embryonic-like stem cells that are created in the lab. iPSC technology is relatively new and is not being used to treat patients. As far as I know, there is only one clinical trial going in the world right now using iPSCs in humans.
Because iPSCs are pluripotent, or able to become most or all of the 200 cells types in the body, they carry the same safety risks as embryonic stem cells. Regular adult stem cells, like those that come from bone marrow, do not carry the those risks because they are not quite as plastic as embryonic stem cells and that is why adult stem cells have already been used for decades to treat patients for a multitude of conditions.
So iPSCs are not what "doctors are using when they do bone marrow transplants."
Honestly, I do not know how the public is expected to be able to navigate the issues surrounding stem cell research if basic news reports can get the facts so muddled. Once again the media, whether intentionally or not, misleads the reader. Just more reason for us to be skeptical of what we read in mainstream news outlets and look deeper for different sources of information.
Ever since the dawn of embryonic stem cell research, the media has rarely gotten the facts straight. Either the reporter is unaware of the scientific and moral differences between adult and embryonic stem cells or he has an agenda to push. Some news outlets were so bold as to call embryonic stem cells "early" stem cells to make sure their readers were kept in the dark about where exactly "early" stem cells originate.
A recent breakthrough in stem cell science was reported as starting with skin cells when it looks to have actually used human embryonic stem cells.
A couple of weeks ago it was widely reported that scientists in Australia were able to grow a mini-kidney from stem cells. Many news outlets stated that the researchers began with skin cells. Reports hinted that the researchers used induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology to reprogram the skin cell to an embryonic-like state and then coaxed those iPSCs into self-organizing kidney cells. Here is an excerpt from The Telegraph:
The breakthrough, published in the journal Nature Cell Biology, followed years of research and involved the transformation of human skin cells into an organoid – a functioning "mini-kidney" with a width of only a few millimetres.
A mini-kidney has been grown in an Australian laboratory from what were originally skin cells, boosting hopes for the future treatment of kidney disease.
The study adds support to a science-fiction-like goal of taking skin cells from a patient, using them to grow a kidney and then implanting it into the same patient, circumventing problems with transplant rejection....
The team manipulated skin cells that had been effectively turned into embryonic stem cells so that they began to "self-organise", arranging themselves into complex structures.
It was the mention of "embryonic" stem cells in that last line that had me scratching my head. If this was an induced pluripotent stem cell advance, why weren't the stem cells described as "embryonic-like" instead?
I then found this transcript from an ABC News report that says these kidneys were grown from embryonic stem cells not skin cells:
SAMANTHAH DONOVAN: The research team was led by Professor Melissa Little from the University of Queensland and also involved scientists from the Murdoch Children's Research Institute and Monash University. Professor Little's UQ colleague, Brandon Wainwright, says the team has managed to turn an embryonic stem cell into a functioning component of the kidney. BRANDON WAINWRIGHT: Melissa for many years has been following the natural genetic signals that occur early in embryonic development that lead to the formation of the kidney. So they took a human embryonic stem cell and put it in a dish and then tried to teach it - based on their knowledge of many years of discovery - that they tried to teach it to become a kidney. And it seems like they succeeded.
In this study, we have successfully directed the differentiation of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) through posterior primitive streak and IM under fully chemically defined monolayer culture conditions using growth factors used during normal embryogenesis.
So it seems some news outlets mislead us. I doubt this was a deliberate attempt to confuse the public. This may be a genuine case of confusion about the differences between ESCs and iPSCs on the part of the media.
Nonetheless, it is becoming more and more difficult to piece together what research is ethical and which is not just from mainstream media reports.
We pro-lifers are going to have to get biotech savvy and search out original sources to be sure.
This e-mail from a reader broke my heart. It is a cry for help from a young IVF-conceived woman who mourns the loss of her siblings that didn't make it. It is also a look at the darker-side of IVF that no one wants to talk about: the massive loss of life inherent in the IVF process. She writes:
I was wondering if you knew of any websites or resources that support people struggling after being conceived using IVF. I've been searching and searching online, and I've been unable to find a single source of advice.
I was one of three embryos created in the process, but I was the only one who survived. I mourn my siblings every single day. I can't talk about them with my parents, because bringing the subject up inevitably causes fights, and they don't feel the way I in the do. They don't regret what they did, they don't see anything wrong with IVF, and they don't count my siblings as members of the family. They never bring them up in conversation, and when I talk about them, they'll concede that they are my siblings, but it's only to make me feel better. I don't think they really believe it. If they did, they'd regret what they did. When people asked how many children they had, they'd say three. They'd talk about them as members of the family, and say how much they wished they could be there at Christmas and birthdays. My mum would light candles for them at church and have Masses said for them. But it's just me. I'm the only one who seems to care about them.
It hurts me every time I see in the news something about IVF, because the media treats it as if it's okay. There's never any mention that people die during the process. I don't even know if there's anyone else out there who feels the same way I do. If there is, I've never met them. Sometimes, I feel like a freak. The only person I've found who understands me at all is my local priest, who I've spoken to about everything, but I can't be bothering him all the time! It'd be nice to have someone else who understood.
The support groups I know of are for those conceived with donor gametes. I do not know of any support groups for those conceived with IVF without donor sperm or egg.
Does anyone know of a group that could help this young woman? Her pain is very real, but I am sure when she talks about it, she is dismissed and told that she should just be grateful for her life. She needs others who can understand what she is feeling.
Most of society is under the impression that human augmentation is something that our grandchildren will have to deal with. Stuff for T.V. and big screens. I have been screaming from the rooftops that this is something we need to discuss now because it is happening now.
Case in point, this crowd-funded project that is looking into augmenting human vision so that we can see in the near infrared range. Infrared light is light that has a longer wavelength than red light and so is not in the range that we call "visible light." Their goal is to use dietary restrictions and supplements to increase porphyropsin in the human eye. It is porphyropsin that would allow the eye to see wavelengths longer than the visual range. The website asks "Can we biologically extend the range of human vision into the near infrared?" and explains how they plan to proceed:
We have developed a protocol to augment human sight to see into the near infrared range through human formation of porphyropsin, the protein complex which grants infrared vision to freshwater fish.
Retinal, or Vitamin A (A1), which is found bound to opsin proteins is a keystone of the visual pathway. The cone cells are granted sharp color vision by the complex photopsin. The rod cells which provide us with night vision and recognition of movement do so utilizing rhodopsin. Both of the complexes consist of a type of protein bound to retinal. Porphyropsin differs from this in that it doesn't use retinal, but rather a derivation called 3,4-dehydroretinol, or Vitamin A2 (A2).
The human body is fully capable of metabolizing and using A2; unfortunately the proteins which allow for transport through cell membranes have nearly 4 times the affinity for A1 compared to A2. We theorize that this can be overcome through a stringent Vitamin A1 restricted diet, supplemented with Vitamin A2.
So this study is simply using diet to try and augment human sight. Sounds harmless enough, but there may be a good reason that our cells have four times the affinity for vitamin A over vitamin A2.
Also, these researchers are clear that this is only one step. They want to go further:
We are also hoping to use this study as a proof of concept to continue working on a more long term modification to human vision that doesn't rely on dietary restrictions / supplementation.
Long-term modification that is not diet based. I wonder what they have in mind?
The important thing here is to understand that human augmentation for the otherwise healthy is already being attempted. This project was fully funded meaning that the public is interested in enhancements. This is not something we can all ignore and pretend is not happening. Today it is simple dietary changes. Tomorrow it will be something much more invasive.
I have always said that if you want accurate information about stem cell research and its possibilities, you should be reading the business section. Anything else is probably misleading, hyped or even flat out lies. In other words, follow the money. The money will tell you what is truly promising research.
The money is painting a very clear picture of what pro-lifers knew all along: adult stem cells are worth investing in. Embryonic? Well, they haven't lived up to the incessant hype surrounding their potential.
In just a few years, budgets that used to go almost entirely to embryonic stem cell projects are being quietly allocated to adult stem cell research.
King's College in London is proud that they have provided 16 new embryonic stem cell lines to the United States' National Institutes of Health (NIH) registry of stem cell lines eligible for federal funding. On the King's College website they explain that they have created these stem cell lines with a variety of genetic disease for US researchers to work on:
Scientists from King’s College London have announced that 16 human embryonic stem (hES) cell lines have been approved by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and placed on their Stem Cell Registry, making them freely available for federally-funded research in the USA. The stem cell lines, which carry genes for a variety of hereditary disorders such as Huntington’s disease, spinal muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis, are considered to be ideal research tools for designing models to understand disease progression, and ultimately in helping scientists develop new treatments for patients.
King’s is now one of the five biggest providers of disease-specific human embryonic stem cells lines on the NIH Registry, and the largest from the UK. The development is a significant milestone for King’s and keeps the university at the forefront of global research into regenerative medicine.
Where are they getting these "disease-specific" embryonic stem cell lines? By looking for IVF embryos with genetic disease and ripping them open for their stem cells. At least they clearly admit it:
Embryonic stem cell lines are grown from frozen embryos donated by patients undergoing preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) in conjunction with IVF treatment. Unlike ‘adult’ stem cells, embryonic stem cells can differentiate into any type of cell within the body and are considered to be more useful for stem cell-based therapies. Disease-specific stem cell lines are created from embryos found to be affected with genetic disorders and therefore not suitable for implantation, but offer huge potential for research into disease development.
The article says these embryos are "not suitable for implantation." That means that because of their genetics, these embryos are deemed are not suitable to live. (Does that mean every human being with genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis are not suitable to live. Are they also better utilized for research?)
Does anyone see how horribly Orwellian this practice is? There is a seek-and-destroy mission for embryos with genetic disease. They are condemned in pursuit of cures for others with their same genetic condition. They are being destroyed for research that is intended to help them; that is if they were considered "suitable to live." And our tax dollars can go to fund research using cells from these lives sacrificed on the altar of medicine.
All of this is unnecessary, of course, because disease-specific pluripotent stem cell lines can be created with induced plutipotent stem cell technology. Instead of searching for and destroying embryos with genetic disease, researchers can create pluripotent stem cells by reprogramming cells from a patient with a genetic disorder. iPSC technology allows for the creation of stem cell lines for disease research without destroying the very lives the research is supposed to help.
It seems that integration of technology into our otherwise healthy bodies may be on the horizon. Motorola has applied for a patent for a throat tattoo that can act as a microphone for many devices. PC Mag has the story:
Motorola has applied for a patent for an electronic skin tattoo that acts as a mobile communication device.
This isn't your usual parlor inking, though. The tattoo, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office application, can include an embedded microphone, a near field communication (NFC) transceiver, and a power supply.
As the wearer speaks, the throat-printed tattoo streams the audio to a controller, which then transfers it to the accompanying mobile communication device — a.k.a. your smartphone, gaming device, tablet, or, say, Google Glass.
Other stories indicate that Motorola, owned by Google, mentioned a lie detecting capability:
The patent states that this temporary tattoo could “include a galvanic skin response detector.” If the user is “speaking falsehoods,” the tattoo can detect skin response caused by nervousness.
PC Mag says this is "permanent" while others say it is a "temporary" tattoo. This seems like a big detail. If it is a permanent microphone tattooed on your neck, then that is clearly transhumanism. If it is temporary then I would say it is just technology that can be removed at the user's discretion.
Motorola does not seem to want to talk about it, declining to make a statement about their application.
The piano player at my parish died last week. Her name was Maralyn. We barely knew each other. I didn't even know her last name. But I will miss Maralyn every Sunday, probably until the day I die.
Chelsea puts together another awesome episode of BioTalk:
In recent years, modern academics have managed to recast “eugenics” as a positive term, distinguishing their vision from past government-mandated eugenics policies. The emphasis now is on “selective reproduction” and the parents’ “choice” to decide what kind of child they want to have. The result has been a search and destroy mission to wipe people with Down syndrome off of the planet through eugenic abortion. And it has taken so much love and joy out of the world.
In the latest episode of BioTalk, Rebecca Taylor and Chelsea Zimmerman “raise awareness” about the good news about Down syndrome. Not only is life with Ds not as bleak as most parents are told when their child is prenatally diagnosed, but scientists are making significant advancements in the treatment some of the more serious side-effects of the disorder.
Google has launched a new company called Calico (California Life Company) whose focus is to "solve death." CNN reports:
Last month Google announced a new medical company called Calico, whose explicit aim is to take on aging itself. But what will Google's approach be? And what other research into prolonging life already exists?...
Calico -- or the California Life Company -- has been set up to research subjects related to aging and its associated diseases. Announcing Calico at a media briefing, Google said that the new and independent company will largely focus on age-attendant conditions such as Alzheimer's, cancer and heart disease.
Larry Page, Google's ever youthful CEO said: "Illness and aging affect all our families. With some longer term, moonshot thinking around healthcare and biotechnology, I believe we can improve millions of lives."
But the question is, what will Calico actually do?
The article, titled "How Google's Calico aims to fight aging and 'solve death'," speculates about everything from cryogenics to cloning to nanotechnology as Calico's focus.
Calico may be looking at diseases like Alzheimer's, heart disease and cancer initially, but I speculate that part of Calico's approach will be working on an interface between man and machine. This is a Google company after all.
To stop the latest of the Brave New World movements, we need a cacophony of resistance. Luckily, it is not just pro-lifers that are sounding the alarm about three-parent IVF, also called mitochondrial replacement (MR).
People from all sides are voicing their concerns about the ethics and safety of this technique where a donor egg's nucleus is removed and replaced with the nucleus of a woman with mitochondrial disease. That genetically-engineered egg is then fertilized with sperm creating an embryo that has genetic material from three persons, the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from the donor, and nuclear DNA contributed by the parents.
And while it sounds like a nice thing to be able to help women who have mitochondrial disease to have healthy children (a woman with a mutation in her mtDNA cannot help but pass on that mutation because we inherit our mitochondria from our mother), there is a laundry list of ethical issues that finally seem to be gaining traction.
Jessica Cussins, an IVF-conceived adult, pretty much hits them all in her piece at the Huffington Post.
There is the fact that there is a shocking lack of animal studies which means that no one really knows that this is safe, and yet many are willing to move forward with this blatant experimentation on the next generation.
There is also the fact that this is a germ-line genetic modification which means it will be passed on to further generations. I will add that the only way to prevent that would be to toss out all the female embryos and transfer only males since they could not pass on their mitochondria. This has been suggested already.
Finally, Cussins points out something I have yet to cover: the fact that mitochondrial replacement has more in common with SCNT, better known as cloning, than it does IVF. In both cloning and MR, the nucleus of a donor egg is removed and replaced with another. In cloning, the egg is made to think it has been fertilized. In MR, the egg is fertilized.
We know that SCNT in animals has had some serious problems. Cloning trials in agricultural animals in New Zealand were halted because an unacceptable number of the cloned animals and their gestating mothers had to be euthanized.
Cussins writes:
So, I just can't agree with the recent article in The Scientist, which compared the unease around mitochondrial replacement techniques to the initial unease surrounding traditional IVF. I'm glad that people were concerned about the welfare of us IVF kids, but mitochondrial replacement (which is much closer technically to reproductive cloning than it is to traditional IVF) is exponentially more problematic.
On a certain level, she is right. This is not just another reproductive technology. We are on a threshold. Will we move forward in genetically-engineering our children, forever changing the course of humanity? Cussins points out the importance:
There are larger social and ethical considerations that mitochondrial replacement also forces us to confront. Most importantly, this technology raises one of the thorniest questions humanity will ever face: are we willing to genetically modify future generations of humans?
The technique under consideration isn't like gene therapy, which modifies a specific location in the genetic makeup of one person who consents to the treatment. What is at stake here is much broader: the modification of the germline, the inheritable genetic code that connects humanity from one generation to the next. Members of the Council of Europe recently declared that such technologies are "incompatible with human dignity." And, as Bill McKibben puts it in his book Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age, "The stakes in this argument are absurdly high, nothing less than the meaning of being human."
Cussins last thoughts hint at the same suggestion that I have made. Instead of engineering people to not have mitochondrial disease, how about we focus on cures and treatments for mitochondrial disease, not just for future generations, but for people who are living with it right now:
I hope that this discussion will also raise awareness and improve access to healthcare for the people who are already alive and struggling with mitochondrial diseases today.
Of course we Catholics reject IVF in all its forms and we understand that the three-parent IVF is just a logical progression of making life outside the body. But, we have allies in this fight against the creation of genetically-engineered children in those who may disagree with our views on reproductive technologies. I am certain it will take all our voices together to halt this bullet train.
This is so horrific and evil that it almost defies reason. Officials have rescued a girl from Somalia that was brought to the UK to harvest her organs. They are sure that this is not an isolated incidence. The Telegraph has the story:
The unnamed girl was brought to the UK from Somalia with the intention of removing her organs and selling them on to those desperate for a transplant.
Child protection charities warned that the case was unlikely to be an isolated incident as traffickers were likely to have smuggled a group of children into the country.
The case emerged in a government report which showed that the number of human trafficking victims in the UK has risen by more than 50 per cent last year and reached record levels.
This is exactly what I mean when I say that we abandon the embryo at our own peril. Once we accept the exploitation of one of our species for parts, then we all start to look like harvestable biological material that could be used better somewhere else.
Is it just a coincidence that as the West creates and destroys embryos on a massive scale, exploitation of those in the third world for their body parts by rich Westerners is on the rise? I doubt it.
This is the world we live in. Without a fundamental shift back to the understanding that human life is sacred no matter the stage of development, skin color, or socioeconomic status, this is going to continue and likely get worse.
Maybe it is time to consider Scott Carney's proposal to get rid of anonymity in the flesh trade. Carney is an investigative journalist who has covered the red market, the market in human parts, all over the world. His book, The Red Market: On the Trail of the World's Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers, and Child Traffickers, covers everything from blood transfusions, to kidney transplants, to egg donation, to surrogacy. The book sadly exposes the exploitation of the poor and weak that is rampant.
Carney asserts that it is the anonymity of organ transplants, blood transfusion and even egg donations that allows body brokers to exploit the poor and allows the recipients of ill-gotten parts to turn a blind-eye. Would you be so quick to accept that kidney if you knew it came from a girl from Somalia? Would a doctor transplant such an organ?
Obviously, anonymity is in place to protect both donor and recipient. But that is in a wholesome system were parts are obtained ethically. Anonymity in a world such as ours, where the West seems to have an insatiable appetite for parts, just protects the black marketeers and keeps their victims out of sight. No one is responsible because no one knows anything.
It is time to bring sunlight to the dark shadows of a growing organ market. Maybe getting rid of the anonymity that clouds the trade in body parts is a step in the right direction.
This clip reminds me of Wesley's quote on Starbucks cup The Way I See It #127 (which sits on my desk holding a variety of writing implements):
The morality of the 21st century will depend on how we respond to this simple but profound question: Does every human life have equal moral value simply and merely because it is human? Answer yes, and we have a chance of achieving universal human rights. Answer no, and it means that we are merely another animal in the forest.
This year scientists announced a major breakthrough and a possible gene therapy for Down Syndrome. In cells taken from a person with Downs, they were able to silence the extra 21st chromosome. This may mean a targeted therapy to help fix the health and cognitive problems caused by have that extra bit of genetic material.
Reactions were mixed. Some thought that people with Down Syndrome are perfect as God made them and we should do nothing to change them. I understand this reaction very well. We live in a society that kills 90% of people with Down Syndrome before they make it out of the womb. It is entirely natural to want to protect those with Downs because they are wonderfully lovely people that, frankly, the world needs more of, not less.
I saw this breakthrough a bit differently. I found the news exciting and full of hope. I too believe that God made those with Down Syndrome as perfect people, but they are not defined by their chromosomes. They do have an extra that causes all kinds of problems from cognitive difficulty, to heart defects, to cancer. I feel it is important to treat these issues. We would not hesitate to treat cystic fibrosis or Huntington's disease or even autism if there was gene therapy available.
That being said, I find it hard to comment on these very important discussion because I do not have a special needs child. I look to other parents of special needs kids to help guide me. This piece, Down Syndrome Research, Hope for My Daughter, by Leticia Velasquez at Amy Julie Becker's Thin Places blog is so fantastic I had to share it with you. Leticia is the author of the blog Cause of Our Joy, co-founder of KIDS (Keep Infants with Down Syndrome), and the editor ofA Special Mother is Born. She also has a daughter, Christina, with Down Syndrome who has regressed over the years. Christina no longer speaks. Leticia hopes this breakthrough will help bring her daughter back:
My daughter is trapped by Down syndrome’s confused messaging in her brain. Do I love her as she is, even if she never speaks again? Of course I do! Do I want her to speak with all my heart so that she can find more happiness in the world, in friendships, reading, and fulfilling work?
Of course I do.
So, excuse me if my heart skips a beat when I hear about medical breakthroughs which might bring back my daughter, my true daughter to me. She is not the sum total of her chromosomes. Christina is far more than that, but she is deeply affected as we all are by her genetics. They do not affect her soul, but who else but those of us who love her will see the beauty in that soul if she can never speak again?
Beautiful. I share Leticia's hope that someday all people with Down Syndrome can live the fullest lives possible. I think gene therapy may be a step in that direction.
My husband watches the new TV show "Intelligence" starring Josh Holloway (previously Sawyer from Lost) as Gabriel, a man with a rare genetic mutation (or some such) that allowed the U.S. government to put a chip in his brain. This chip gives Gabriel unlimited access to the Internet directly into his consciousness. As an agent for a super secret intelligence agency, that comes in super handy. Gabriel, the best of all guys, uses his enhancement only for good. He saves people and catches bad guys and he looks good doing it. Gabriel is the quintessential enhanced American hero reminiscent of Captain America, just without the tights and shield.
Most of society is under the impression that human augmentation is something that our grandchildren will have to deal with. Stuff for T.V. and big screens. I have been screaming from the rooftops that this is something we need to discuss now because it is happening now.
It seems that integration of technology into our otherwise healthy bodies may be on the horizon. Motorola has applied for a patent for a throat tattoo that can act as a microphone for many devices. PC Mag has the story:
