2 April 2008
It Was Inevitable
Posted by Roy Bischoff under: Judaeo-Christian Values Under Attack; What's News; World Affairs .
I remember my wife and I discussing the ethics of genetic manipulation years ago. Back then mixing human and animal cells in this way was something that scientists said would never be done. People will not be cloned. Animal-human hybrids will not be created. But with time that has changed to… Unless it is well regulated and of course only to benefit humankind, etc.
I think the less we meddle with things we don’t fully understand the consequences of, the better off we are. The story line of a popular movie is about how a researcher prepared a virus that cured cancer. Some period of time later the virus mutates wiping out over 90% of all people on the planet and of the remaining 10% only a small part are still fully human. As little as Doctors seem to understand about the human body, they have to know even less about the ramifications of what they are now doing. I think it would be a good idea to leave creation to God except as he has entrusted us with the ability to bring more of his spirit children into the world.
A slippery slope is hard to reverse.
British team makes mixed human animal embryos
Embryos containing both human and animal material have been created in Britain for the first time, a month before the House of Commons is to vote on new laws to regulate the controversial research.
A team at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne announced tonight that it had successfully generated “admixed embryos” by adding human DNA to empty cow eggs, in the first experiment of its kind in the UK.
The achievement will heighten debate over the ethics of human-animal embryos, as the Commons prepares to debate the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill next month.
While Parliament has been promised a free vote on clauses in the legislation that would permit admixed embryos, their creation is already allowed under existing legislation, subject to licence from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).
Admixed embryos are widely supported by the scientific community and patient groups, as they provide an opportunity to produce powerful stem cell models for investigating diseases such as Parkinson’s and diabetes, and for developing new drugs.Their creation, however, has been vociferously opposed by religious groups, particularly the Roman Catholic church. Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the head of the Catholic church in Scotland, described the work last month as “experiments of Frankenstein proportion”.
The admixed embryos created by the Newcastle group are of a kind known as cytoplasmic hybrids or “cybrids”, which are made by placing the nucleus from a human cell into an animal egg that has had its nucleus removed. The genetic material in the resulting embryos is 99.9 per cent human.
The BBC reported that the Newcastle cybrids lived for three days and that the largest grew to contain 32 cells. The ultimate aim is to grow these for six days and then to extract embryonic stem cells for use in research.
It is already illegal to culture human-animal embryos for more than 14 days or to implant them in the womb of a woman or animal and these prohibitions will remain in the new legislation.
By using cow eggs in their experiments scientists can avoid using human eggs, which are in very short supply. There are also ethical difficulties involved in collecting human eggs for research, as the donation process carries a small risk to women.
7 Comments so far...
Jesse Says:
2 April 2008 at 1:28 am.
Baby step by baby step science is going to lead us into trouble. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for responsible science, just not this kind of tampering. They won’t be able to help themselves. If they can do it, eventually they will. This is a horror story in the making, it will just take awhile.
Angela Rogin Says:
2 April 2008 at 10:26 am.
Roy, I totally agree with you on this. A lot of people really don’t understand how these things spiral out of control after people have gotten use to the idea for awhile. Playing God is a very dangerous thing. It makes me sick.
SGS Says:
2 April 2008 at 10:43 am.
I won’t worry about this research. If it is something God does not want us to do, then He won’t allow them to success. After all, we know the worthy of the young children in His sight. As such, we are seeing zero result with the embryonic stem cell researches. This is, there is no trail ongoing and no clinic activities. And every attempt with mice and such have failed. Whereas, we already are seeing 70 regular treatments and hundreds and hundreds of trails and clinic activities with adult stem cells. We also are seeing a growth in number of successful studies using umbilical stem cells. Then, there is the excitement of recent discovery that we could convert some of adult stem cells into cells very similar to embryonic stem cells, being able to grow into any tissue.
It is not to say that we should allow these scientists do whatever they want. I agree that we should ban it in our own nation. But, we know the wicked men and women will always be here with us. They will do a lot of things regardless of what we do. This is when God will prevent, or as it is said, cause them to stumble.
Jesse Says:
2 April 2008 at 10:58 am.
I wish I could agree with you SGS. I’ve read too much about this and it isn’t good. When technology like this comes out into the open that means it has been going on behind the scenes for years and there are a lot more advancements that we are told nothing about. Whistle blowers have talked about some very scary stuff happening and a lot of writers have been putting it into their fiction and some have said it is because of what they hear is going on behind the public’s back. I don’t think God prevents us from evil, look at the holocaust, look at abortion. He lets us dig a hole and bury ourselves in it.
Anon88 Says:
2 April 2008 at 1:13 pm.
Most of this kind of research is high classified and the public never hears about it. Things like this are designed to calm public fears and get them use to new ideas. If things don’t change then we will see some very horrific developments in a couple of decades. I hope SGS is right and the Lord steps in to stop what is happening.
Saddened Says:
2 April 2008 at 1:36 pm.
The Nazis were working on top secret genetics and their scientists came here and have been moving in this direction for a long time. I am convinced the reports are true that far more is going on than we are being told and it scares me. It is going to fill the cup of wickedness and help bring about serious consequences.
Nalvy Says:
2 April 2008 at 2:04 pm.
This makes me absolutley sick. I have always been a fan of science…well Biological sciences to be exact…Chemistry can go suck an egg for all I care but anyways the fact that people are out there messing around with the natural order of life has always felt like a personal blow.
I am all for learning about what already exists…species of lfora and fauna and such but to intentionally create a new form of something is ridiculous. God does a perfectly good job at creating life here on this earth.
What we need to do is find ways to coexist with it instead of trying to one up God!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.