Many environmental types truly believe that the planet would be a better place without humans and they want us gone.  Some range from just asking that we voluntarily do not have children, some want to implement a one-child policy like China, and some hope for an outbreak of a virus like Ebola to get rid of what they see as a plague on the Earth.

James Lee, killed holding the Discovery Channel hostage, was a true believer in the misanthropic radical environmentalist agenda.   He demands of the Discovery channel reveal a hatred for his fellow man, namely children, disguised by a concern for the environment.   From MSNBC.com:

[Lee] is reputed to be behind the website, SaveThePlanetProtest.com, essentially a one-page screed against Discovery, urging the company to expose civilization "for the filth it is" and to puts its focus on "how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution...."

The SaveThePlanetProtest website list of "demands" is prefaced by this statement: "The Discovery Channel MUST broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet and to do the following IMMEDIATELY."

Among the chilling demands: "All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions.

"In those programs' places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former pro-birth programs must now push in the direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it."

I think "parasitic human infants" says it all.

Lee was certainly a crazy man to take innocent hostages, but I do not think his sentiment is all that unique.  I believe a milder form of his misanthropy exists among more mainstream environmentalists. 

Recall a study published recently that found that those identifying themselves as "green" were more likely to more likely to steal and less likely to be kind.  The authors of the study were surprised.  I was not.  It makes sense that people who embrace the "green" movement also believe that humans are a blight on the planet.  If in their minds we are THE problem,  it makes sense that such people would engage in misanthropic behavior.  They are good to the planet and so do not have to be good to their fellow man who is screwing it up.

In other words its the "Green" Golden Rule: Do unto to your neighbor what you believe they are doing to the planet.

This misanthropy hiding behind environmentalism is as disturbing as it is unnecessary.  We can take care of the planet without calling for the end of the human race.  We can look at protecting the environment as a way to better creation AND humanity at the same time.  Pope Benedict IX said in his message for the World Day of Peace:

Respect for creation is of immense consequence, not least because “creation is the beginning and the foundation of all God’s works”, and its preservation has now become essential for the pacific coexistence of mankind. Man’s inhumanity to man has given rise to numerous threats to peace and to authentic and integral human development – wars, international and regional conflicts, acts of terrorism, and violations of human rights. Yet no less troubling are the threats arising from the neglect – if not downright misuse – of the earth and the natural goods that God has given us. For this reason, it is imperative that mankind renew and strengthen “that covenant between human beings and the environment, which should mirror the creative love of God, from whom we come and towards whom we are journeying...”

A greater sense of intergenerational solidarity is urgently needed. Future generations cannot be saddled with the cost of our use of common environmental resources. “We have inherited from past generations, and we have benefited from the work of our contemporaries; for this reason we have obligations towards all, and we cannot refuse to interest ourselves in those who will come after us, to enlarge the human family. Universal solidarity represents a benefit as well as a duty. This is a responsibility that present generations have towards those of the future, a responsibility that also concerns individual States and the international community”. Natural resources should be used in such a way that immediate benefits do not have a negative impact on living creatures, human and not, present and future; that the protection of private property does not conflict with the universal destination of goods; that human activity does not compromise the fruitfulness of the earth, for the benefit of people now and in the future.  [my emphasis]

There is no federal ban on research on human embryos.  It is legal to conduct therapeutic cloning in most states.  Companies and universities are free to create and destroy human embryos all day long.  I wish that was not the case, but it is.

If you believe the hype that embryonic stem research is going to save lives and want to support embryo-destructive research, then reach for your checkbook and write a check.  You are free to do so.   I am sure lots of universities and private companies working with embryonic stem cells would be prefer to receive your donation than have to apply to the federal government for funds.  Your donation may even be tax deductible.

I have been told that I need to respect the opinion that human embryos are just a mere clump of cells and full of promise for cures.  Well, respect is a two way street.  If you want embryonic stem cell research, then you pay for it. 

Don't make me, and millions of people like me who find research that relies on the destruction of human embryos morally reprehensible, support it with our tax dollars.   When you do, you are forcing your belief that a human embryo has no value on me.

Bush was attempting to fund the research without being in violation of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, signed into law by President Clinton, which states that federal dollars cannot go to the destruction of human embryos.  The Dickey-Wicker Amendment, as I have stated before, is a very important piece of legislation that stands in the way of American tax dollars being used for the creation and destruction of human embryos solely for research purposes.  The Dickey-Wicker Amendment states:

SEC. 509. (a) None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for--

        (1) the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes; or
        (2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater than that allowed for research on fetuses in utero under 45 CFR 46.208(a)(2) and Section 498(b) of the Public Health Service Act [1](42 U.S.C. 289g(b)) (Title 42, Section 289g(b), United States Code).

    (b) For purposes of this section, the term "human embryo or embryos" includes any organism, not protected as a human subject under 45 CFR 46 (the Human Subject Protection regulations) . . . that is derived by fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means from one or more human gametes (sperm or egg) or human diploid cells (cells that have two sets of chromosomes, such as somatic cells).

In 2009 the Obama administration, by Executive Order, removed the funding restrictions on embryonic stem cell research put in place by President Bush.  Our tax dollars cannot go to the actual destruction of human embryos, but Obama's policy creates an incentive for said destruction by paying for research on newly created ESC lines....from freshly destroyed embryos.

Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, today wrote a temporary injunction against Obama's funding rules saying that they are in violation of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment.  From the New York Times:

The judge ruled that the Obama administration’s policy was illegal because the administration’s distinction between work that leads to the destruction of embryos — which cannot be financed by the federal government under the current policy — and the financing of work using stem cells created through embryonic destruction was meaningless. In his ruling, he referred to embryonic stem cell research as E.S.C.

“If one step or ‘piece of research’ of an E.S.C. research project results in the destruction of an embryo, the entire project is precluded from receiving federal funding,” wrote Judge Lamberth, who was appointed to the federal bench in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan.

In other words, the neat lines that the government had drawn between the process of embryonic destruction and the results of that destruction are not valid, the judge ruled....

The Obama administration said that its rules abided by the Dickey-Wicker Amendment because the federal money would be used only once the embryonic stem cells were created but would not finance the process by which embryos were destroyed. The judge disagreed, writing that embryonic stem cell research “necessarily depends upon the destruction of a human embryo.” 

Judge Lamberth is correct, funding an embryonic stem cell line that is created by necessarily destroying a human embryo is by default funding the destruction of that embryo.

Where this puts the state of the funding of embryonic stem cell research is anyone's guess.  What I am sure of is a new assault on the Dickey-Wicker Amendment by lawmakers like Diane DeGette (D-Co), who, without any real evidence, is a true believer in embryonic stem cell research.  

Tomorrow there will be new calls to repeal Dickey-Wicker.  But without the Dickey-Wicker Amendment our tax dollars would surely go to cloning and destroying human embryos for research.  It is the last defense against a taxed funded Brave New World.

Keep your eye (and your prayers) on this one!  I'll make sure to let you know when it is time to contact your representative and urge them to uphold the Dickey-Wicker Amendment

How many times I have the read the line in the media that "embryonic stem cells hold more promise than adult stem cells" and have asked myself, "How can they know that?"  Just because embryonic stem cells become every cell in the body inside a growing embryo, does not mean they can and will become every cell type in a lab.  And even if scientists had already made all 200 cell types in the lab from embryonic stem cells (which they haven't), ESCs still have never been used to treat a single patient.  Looking at the overwhelming clinical facts, it is adult stem cells that have more promise.

But that doesn't stop our elected representatives from trying to permanently ram the funding embryonic stem cell research down our throats by introducing legislation.  Rep Diana DeGette is the worst offender.  She and others have introduced HR 4808 which would turn the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research into law so that no future President can defund it.

Rep. DeGette is a true believer in ESC research, but once again, I have no idea why.  I am not sure she does either.  In the American Thinker today, Gene Tarne and David Prentice point out this very fact:

At that same hearing, Rep. Diana DeGette commented that "I know that these wonderful patients who are here today who have been cured by adult stem cells, mostly for blood-related diseases, would never say that somebody with diabetes or somebody with Parkinson's or somebody with nerve damage or somebody with macular degeneration -- all diseases for which embryonic stem cell research has shown promise and adult stem cells have shown no clinical promise -- no one would say those people should not be cured..."

She was zero for four. Rep. DeGette seemed embarrassingly unaware of the year-old JAMA study showing adult stem cells' efficacy for juvenile diabetes patients -- and Rep. DeGette is co-chair of the Congressional Diabetes Caucus. 

Parkinson's? In 2004, both Dr. Michel Levesque and Dennis Turner, a Parkinson's patient Levesque treated with Turner's own adult stem cells, testified regarding the positive results of the treatment. Leveque subsequently published his findings in the peer-reviewed Bentham Open Stem Cell Journal.

Nerve damage? Published studies using adult stem cells to treat spinal cord injuries include a 2006 report by Portugal's Dr. Carlos Lima in collaboration with Dr. Jean Peduzzi-Nelson of Wayne State University. They published a second report in 2009 using adult stem cells to treat more spinal cord injured patients.

Macular degeneration? Far from showing "no clinical promise," University of Louisville researchers have announced plans for a human trial of adult stem cells for macular degeneration. Rep. DeGette also seemed completely oblivious to the fact that the patient who testified was treated with his own adult stem cells for heart damage, not a "blood-related disease."

In their must-read-the-whole-thing piece, Tarne and Prentice point out other lawmakers who really do not know which end is up when it comes to stem cell science and yet still feel compelled to tell us what we need to fund.  My favorite is this gem from Tom Harkin:

In 2007, Sen. Tom Harkin  waved away evidence for adult stem cells, saying, "Scientists have known about adult stem cells for forty years, and they still haven't provided the answer for juvenile diabetes." He said this on the very day that the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published clinical trial results using adult stem cells in a treatment that reversed juvenile diabetes in patients.

Oh the irony.  But this is par for the course in Washington these days.  If you say it enough times somehow it just has to be true.  But what DeGette and Harkin and others like them do not realize is that while they argue that those against embryo destructive research are politically and not scientifically motivated, it is really they who are ignoring the science and pushing a political agenda.

Sometimes I marvel at the lengths humans go to delude ourselves.  For years I have pointed out one very unusual phenomenon regarding cloning.  All over the world, consuming products from cloned animals or their offspring is bad, while creating human clones for stem cells to inject into human patients is good.  Cloned animals and cloned humans are both made with the process somatic cell nuclear transfer or SCNT.  Both are genetically modified organisms, but eating cloned animal products is considered "yucky" while the idea of injecting cloned human cells directly into our bodies is "laudable."  I just do not get it.

Now I am not advocating eating cloned animal products, just pointing out the strange love-hate relationship we have with cloning.  But, as I have said before, if it came down to drinking milk from a cloned cow or injecting myself with cells from a dead cloned embryo, I say, "Please pass the Oreos."

Britain is particularly puzzling.  This New York Times article points out the Brits uneasiness with cloned animals or their offspring getting into the food supply, meanwhile they are funding the creation of cloned human-animal hybrids with the intent to create stem cells. From the NYT:

ALBRIGHTON, England — Many Europeans recoil at the very idea of cloning animals. But a handful of breeders in Switzerland, Britain and possibly other countries have imported semen and embryos from cloned animals or their progeny from the United States, seeking to create more consistently plump and productive livestock.

And although no vendor has publicly acknowledged it, meat or dairy products originating from such techniques are believed to be already on supermarket shelves.

The amounts are no doubt small, and the sale appears to be legal. But the development is noteworthy on a continent that has long objected to genetically modified crops and where many people look at animal cloning as potentially dangerous and cruel — even immoral.

So animal cloning is considered immoral if it is for food supply, but making cloned animal-human hybrids for stem cell research is not.  From The Guardian in 2008:

First British human-animal hybrid embryos created by scientists

· Breakthrough could pave way for stem cell supply
· Move will aid research into untreatable conditions

Britian's first human-animal hybrid embryos have been created, forming a crucial first step, scientists believe, towards a supply of stem cells that could be used to investigate debilitating and so far untreatable conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's and motor neurone disease.

Lyle Armstrong, who led the work, gained permission in January from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to create the embryos, known as "cytoplasmic hybrids".

His team at Newcastle University produced the embryos by inserting human DNA from a skin cell into a hollowed-out cow egg. An electric shock then induced the hybrid embryo to grow. The embryo, 99.9% human and 0.1% other animal, grew for three days, until it had 32 cells.

Eventually, scientists hope to grow such embryos for six days, and then extract stem cells from them. The researchers insisted the embryos would never be implanted into a woman and that the only reason they used cow eggs was due to the scarcity of human eggs.

And while stem cells from human-cow hybrid embryos will probably never be injected into a human patient, I am wondering where is the outcry? 

There is none and there will not be. Why? Because in our upside down society, cloning for food is bad but cloning to live forever is good. 

A few years ago I went shopping for a brand new house.  Every model home I visited, regardless of the builder, had a gigantic master suite with a spa-like enormous bathroom where every morning you could cartwheel your way to the shower and back flip to the toilet.  Down the hall, placed almost like an afterthought, were 3 or 4 tiny little bedrooms whose total square feet might add up to the space provided in the palatial master suite.

After the 5th house or so, I realized this was an indicator that society's values had shifted.  Builders were building what the buyer wanted, which was clearly parental desire and comfort at the child's expense.  I also knew it wasn't a good sign.

These days it is all about what parents want, not about what is best for the children.  There is nowhere where this attitude is more apparent than in the assisted reproduction industry.  We all heard of the Octomom, but it goes so much deeper than that.  In vitro fertilization, better known as IVF, is not just about infertility anymore, it is about human manufacturing to specifications.

Recently, two stories have been in the news that illustrate my point.  Gillian and Paul St. Lawrence, both fertile and in their 30's, have used IVF to create 5 embryos.  They have frozen their 5 offspring until it is more convenient for them to raise children.  From the Washington Post:

Our five frozen embryos, which we call our baby blastocysts, will remain in storage until we are ready to use them. Since study after study has indicated that the age of the uterus at the time the embryo is implanted is almost irrelevant to the success rate of achieving a healthy baby, we can wait 10 or 15 years: The chief consideration may well be how old I want to be when I'm raising a teenager.

Upon hearing this, my mother-in-law was quick to ask: "You don't have to wait until you are 40 to use the embryos, right?" No, we do not. We can choose to use them any time. And, of course, my husband and I are still free to have babies the old-fashioned way. We still have all the options we had prior to this project -- but now we have some insurance against future infertility.

Five human lives have been created and put in "storage" until they are ready to "use" as the St. Lawrence's "project" to provide themselves "insurance."  (Her words not mine.)  There was a time we used "gift" and "blessing" when referring to children but in this Brave New World, "project" and "insurance" are more appropriate.  IVF is now being used for human manufacturing to specifications.  In this case, ordered with delayed delivery.

What is particularly chilling (no pun intended) is Gillian's description of how she weighed the pros and cons of freezing her offspring as if she was deciding whether the lasagna she made the night before would freeze well enough to still taste good in a few months.

The second story is about an Australian couple who are complaining that they have to travel all the way to Thailand to use IVF to have a daughter.  They have 3 healthy boys already (I assume made the old fashioned way) and want to use IVF and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to insure they have a girl.  The problem is Australia does not allow IVF and PGD for sex selection.  From the Herald Sun:

A MELBOURNE mum is so desperate to have a daughter she is traveling to Thailand so she can choose the sex of her next baby, frustrated at Australian medical authorities as they drag their feet over the issue.

Already blessed with three boys - aged 5, 4 and 1 - the 36-year-old and her husband say they have been forced to sidestep Australian laws because they cannot wait for federal medical authorities to decide if they will overturn their ban on the practice.

"At this point I would do anything to have a daughter," she said.

"It is an ethical thing we have weighed up. It hasn't been a decision taken lightly but it is one we feel we have reached and we are happy with.

"I wouldn't trade my sons for a million daughters - this is not about my sons. It is about me and my husband wanting a daughter.

At least she is honest.  This is not about loving and caring for a girl, it is about her and her husband "wanting a daughter."  There is a difference.  If loving and caring for a girl was the goal, then adoption would certainly fit the bill.  But when it is about insuring you get a genetically related female, then human manufacturing to specifications is the answer.

This woman insists it is not about her sons, but the reality of IVF and PGD is that she will create embryonic sons that she will in fact "trade" to get the embryonic daughter.  She will create male offspring in the process, the clinic will just throw them out in favor of the females.

The Catholic Church had always been against IVF, even in cases of infertility.  Once you create life outside the body, it naturally turns into the manufacturing of humans.  We are meant to be begotten not made.  And certainly not made to specifications.  I think these two cases illustrate the wisdom of the Church.

In the end, I never bought a new house.  I stayed in my solidly-built 1940s bungalow where the bedrooms are nearly all the same size and there is no master bath.  Now that I think about it, they didn't have IVF in the 1940s...

I expect the secular media to get it wrong.  I expect them to relabel embryonic stem cells "early" stem cells to draw attention away from the fact that they come from embryos.  I expect the secular media to insist that the product of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is not a cloned human embryo, just some ball of cells that can be harvested for any reason.  I do not expect such slight of hand from a publication calling themselves Catholic.

Bill Tammeus, at the National Catholic Reporter says It's easy to be mislead on stem cell research.  He is right, but he is the one doing the misleading.  He insists that the product of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) also known as cloning is NOT a cloned human embryo, just a "small cluster of stem cells."  The American Medical Association disagrees:

"Alternatively, stem cells have also been obtained from embryos generated from unfertilized eggs using a technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). Initially, SCNT technology was designed to produce embryos from which immunologically compatible stem cells could be derived for use in treating human diseases (therapeutic cloning). However, recent advances in the technology have prompted concerns about embryos formed by SCNT being misused for generating human clones (reproductive cloning)."

See many are concerned that SCNT will lead to reproductive cloning because it does in fact create a human embryo.  If SCNT, the same technique that created Dolly, makes cloned sheep embryos, then it sure as sh** makes human embryos when used with human eggs and human somatic cells.  (Sorry I am really angry!)

The National Academy of Sciences also refers to the product of SCNT as a blastocyst, which is an early embryo, that could grow into a fetus if placed in a uterus:

“The method used to initiate the reproductive cloning procedure is called nuclear transplantation, or somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). It involves replacing the chromosomes of a human egg with the nucleus of a body (somatic) cell from a developed human. In reproductive cloning, the egg is then stimulated to undergo the first few divisions to become an aggregate of 64 to 200 cells called a blastocyst. The blastocyst is a preimplantation embryo that contains some cells with the potential to give rise to a fetus and other cells that help to make the placenta. If the blastocyst is placed in a uterus, it can implant and form a fetus. If the blastocyst is instead maintained in the laboratory, cells can be extracted from it and grown on their own.”

Tammeus writes:

I also know it's easy to be misled on stem cell research if you don't name and understand things properly.

Apparently he knows better than the American Medical Association and the National Academy of Sciences.  Mr. Tammeus, maybe it is you that needs some enlightening so you can learn how to "name and understand things properly."

Hat Tip: Catholic Key

The following passage from Never Let Me Go explains how society came to accept the creation and harvesting of clones.  It is my favorite passage from the novel because it illustrates just how slippery the slope is. Just how easy it is to label a human life as "not human" to satisfy a perceived need.  Here a woman explains to a clone how it was she came to be and why her lot in life is what it is:

After the great war, in the early fifties, when the great breakthroughs in science followed one after the other so rapidly, there wasn't time to take stock, to ask sensible questions.  Suddenly there were all these new possibilities laid before us, all these ways to cure so many previously incurable conditions.  This is what the world noticed the most, wanted the most.  And for a long time, people preferred to believe these organs appeared from nowhere, or at most that they grew in a kind of vacuum. 

But by the time people came to consider...whether you should have been brought into existence at all, well by then it was too late.  There was no way to reverse the process.  How can you ask a world that has come to regard cancer as curable, how can you ask such a world to put away that cure, to go back to the dark days? 

There was no going back.  However uncomfortable people were about your existence, their overwhelming concern was that their own children, their spouses, their parents, their friends, did not die from cancer, motor neurone disease, heart disease.  So for a long time you were kept in the shadows, and people did their best not to think about you.  And if they did, they tried to convince themselves you weren't really like us.  That you weren't really human, so it didn't matter. [my emphasis]

Never Let Me Go is now a movie.  Here is the trailer.  I really hope they left the above passage intact because it is a truth that everyone needs to hear.

I have been meaning to blog about The Catholic Laboratory for awhile.  The Catholic Laboratory is a site focused on what "the Church has done and continues to do for science."  There are great podcasts, resources and all kinds of neat information about Catholics in science. 

Yesterday, The Catholic Laboratory pointed out that the new electric car the Chevrolet Volt was named after Catholic scientist Alessandro Volta and the Vauxhall Ampera, is named after André-Marie Ampère.

Check em out and follow them on Twitter!

I know a lot about the genetics of cystic fibrosis also known as CF.  I have tested thousands of people for mutations in the CFTR gene that cause this debilitating lung disease.  The majority of people that I have tested were pregnant women.   I know some of those babies that were found to have CF (upon further testing) probably did not make it out of the womb.  Like with Down Syndrome, there is a systematic assault on fetuses with CF.  I have heard first hand accounts of women who were pressured to abort their CF baby and made to feel like they were terrible mothers if they didn't.  This is truly a shame because, as I also know first hand, there are people walking around who genetically have CF, but are healthy.  Some have CF and do not even know it.  Even if they are not healthy, CF children are still wonderful human beings that should be celebrated.

I saw two such people on America's Got Talent.  Christina and Ali were told they would not be able to sing.  I am so glad they proved the doctors wrong:

I have always argued that the time to discuss cutting edge technologies that will shape humanity is BEFORE they are achieved not after.  As a society we need to decide NOW what kinds of limits we want to put on genetics, cloning and genetic engineering.  The minute the headline reads, "Cloned human baby born" it is too late.  But this requires diligence and a proactive approach to understanding what biotechnology is capable of.  Most people just do not want to deal with it.

The Center for Genetics and Society, in collaboration with Mothers for a Human Future among others, has launched a website called Bioconversations that gets everyday people thinking about issues in genetics and reproductive technologies.  While I do not agree with everything that the Center for Genetics and Society promotes (and wish they would do more than just ask open ended questions), I applaud their efforts to begin conversations that not many are willing to have.  Their home page speaks to what I try to do with this blog:

We urge you to consider the questions presented in each video in this series, use the resources at www.BioConversations.org to learn more, talk with your family, friends, and neighbors, keep learning and talking, and get involved as you see fit—as soon as you can. Time is of the essence. The technology is being developed very rapidly. We all have to work hard to ensure that Americans from all walks of life have a say in what should—and should not—be done—before it’s too late.

Why do you need to be a part of this conversation? Lightning-fast developments in genetic, reproductive, biomedical, and other technologies are driving us into new, uncharted, and potentially dangerous territory. The momentum of technological development and market dynamics is considerable. In addition, a small but vocal group of people who call themselves “transhumanists” is strongly promoting a future in which human beings are technologically re-engineered.

The transhumanist campaign underscores the pressing need for all citizens to get up to speed—and quickly—on a wide range of technologies with profound implications for us as human beings. It also points to an urgent need for diverse voices and diverse points of view to join in the public conversation about the use of these technologies.

BioConversations is designed to bring more people into this crucial conversation. We urge you to use the resources on this site and spark a conversation about these new groundbreaking technologies by sharing these resources with your family, friends, and neighbors—-and keep the conversation going.

Here is the first installment of 5 videos they have created to get us thinking about the future of our species:

The Daily Mail reports that male infertility is on the rise and some are calling it a crisis:

One in five men could suffer from fertility problems. And scientists have warned that it's just going to get worse...

There's a crisis brewing, but it has nothing to do with the economic deficit or the current political uncertainty. Scientists are warning that rising levels of male infertility have become so perilous that it is a serious 'public health issue'. And some go even further.

Professor Niels Skakkebaek, of the University of Copenhagen, describes the issue 'as important as global warming'. Last week, one science writer even suggested, in starkly terrifying terms, that if scientists from Mars were to study the male reproductive system, they would possibly conclude that man was destined for rapid extinction.

And if it continues, this trend could indicate men are on a path to becoming completely infertile within a few generations.

From USA Today

Women have been taking synthetic estrogen as chemical birth control (better known as The Pill) for decades and then excreting it in their urine.  These synthetic hormones are not being removed from the water supply and the levels are not even being monitored.  Scientists are discovering that synthetic hormones are affecting the fertility of fish.  From the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

Birth control may be harming state's salmon
Synthetic estrogen in water seems to affect reproduction

Birth-control pills can curb the reproduction of more than just the women taking them. Western Washington scientists have found that synthetic estrogen -- a common ingredient in oral contraceptives -- can drastically reduce the fertility of male rainbow trout.

The man-made compounds are showing up in waterways around the nation -- pumped into rivers, lakes and Puget Sound with water from sewage-treatment plants.

And they're being found at levels that can harm fish, possibly even this region's struggling salmon populations....

The findings are likely to fuel concerns about the environmental effects of chemicals that aren't being filtered out by sewage plants, including pharmaceuticals and pesticides that can mimic hormones.

In frogs, river otters and fish, scientists are "finding the presence of female hormones making the male species less male," said Doug Myers, wetlands and habitat specialist for the Puget Sound Action Team, the government agency coordinating restoration of the Sound.

There are no standards for how much synthetic estrogen and other hormones can be released in sewage and wastewater, and treatment plants generally do not monitor for it.

If synthetic estrogen can affect the "maleness" of fish, it such a stretch to think that the rise in male infertility might be caused by the Pill?  That synthetic estrogen in our water supply is making human males less male?  That a pill that takes a normal female cycle and turns it upside down would also affect male fertility in unexpected ways? Why is that NOT one of the many possible reasons cited by this article?

I wonder how infertile men everywhere would feel if they found out that it was synthetic estrogen in their water supply that might be the cause of their problems.  I wonder if that is why scientists and others are dumbfounded by the utter silence on this issue.  Could it be that the Pill is, like abortion, a sacred cow that no matter the devastation it wreaks, we would not dare speak a word against it? 

After all, the USA Today's celebration of The Pill's 50th birthday says that it is about equality.  Could it be that women who choose to be temporarily infertile maybe causing males to be infertile as well?  (That's equality for ya.)

Some people think a rise of male infertility is just fine.  We need less people on this planet anyway right?  Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.  I have said many times that fiction often contains truth.  What seems impossible in a book or movie often comes to pass and often sooner than we would think. 

I am reminded of Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake. This book if full of gems, but the "BlyssPluss Pill" really hits the nail on the head.  What is BlyssPluss?  It is a pill designed by Crake, the species-splicing genius, to do three things at once.  First, it would "protect the user against all known sexually transmitted diseases."  Second, it would provide "an unlimited supply of libido and sexual prowess" while "eliminating feelings of low self-worth."  Third, it would "prolong youth."

But that is not all.  From a conversation between Jimmy, the hero, and Crake:

    These three capabilities would be the selling points, said Crake; but there would be a fourth, which would not be advertised.  The BlyssPluss Pill would also act as a sure-fire one-time-does-it-all-birth-control pill, for male and female alike, thus automatically lowering the population level...

    "So basically you're going to sterilize people without them knowing it under the guise of giving them the ultra in orgies?"

    "That's a crude way of putting it, " said Crake.

There is just one catch.  Without giving too much away, it is the BlyssPluss Pill, and components therein, that eradicates the human race.  This guy thinks that scientists from Mars would conclude that is exactly where the human race is headed.

Insightful and prophetic?  I think so.

Scientists have discovered that the DNA of babies conceived through IVF differs from that of other children, putting them at greater risk of diseases such as diabetes and obesity later in life....

The changes are not in the genes themselves but in the mechanism that switches them on and off, the study of which is known as epigenetics.

“These epigenetic differences have the potential to affect embryonic development and foetal growth, as well as influencing long-term patterns of gene expression associated with increased risk of many human diseases,” said Professor Carmen Sapienza, a geneticist at Temple University in Philadelphia, who jointly led the research....

In their findings, published in the Human Molecular Genetics journal, Sapienza and his colleagues took blood samples from the placenta and umbilical cords of 10 IVF children and 13 children who were naturally conceived.

They studied the DNA of cells taken from the blood to see if there were differences in the level of methylation. This is the process by which molecules known as methyl groups are attached to genes to shut them down when they are not needed.

The results showed that the level of methylation in the cells taken from IVF babies was significantly lower — implying that some genes were becoming active at the wrong times.

“We have shown that in vitro conception is associated with differences in gene methylation and that some of these differences may affect gene expression,” said Sapienza.

Evidence shows that IVF causes epigenetic changes.  Most people assume that these changes are not inherited.  Watching Ghost in Your Genes, a NOVA special on epigenetics, I realized that these epigenetic changes caused by IVF maybe inherited by subsequent generations. 

Of course, we will not know for sure until IVF children age and have their own children, but evidence suggests that epigenetic changes are not wiped out in offspring but are inherited from one generation to the next.  Mouse studies have shown that epigenetic changes in mice are inherited by the following generation.  In the following video, Wolf Reik describes epigenetic changes in IVF embryos and his discovery that the epigenetic changes of his mice were inherited:

Further on in Ghost in Your Genes, scientists discuss how famine in grandparents affected the life span of grandchildren in a remote area of northern Sweden and how a single exposure of a pregnant rat to a toxin caused epigenetic changes that were seen 4 generations later.

The upshot? Conceiving your children in a dish may not just affect them, but your grandchildren and possibly your great-grandchildren as well.

For more information on epigenetics watch the entire Ghost in Your Genes special.  Part 1, Part 2, Part 4 and Part 5.