I have been focusing recently on S 1810, the Kennedy/Brownback Bill, could result in fewer eugenic abortions, or babies refused life-sustaining treatment–with more to come. The related issue of newborn genetic screening was taken up recently by the President’s Council on Bioethics, and my very good friend William Hurlbut had a lot to say about the matter. (He has a developmentally disabled child (not genetically caused), and so has the “moral authority” some say is required to have an opinion on difficult ethical issues.) Here is an excerpt from the meeting’s transcript, with my emphasis at what I consider some of his most important thoughts:

Medicine moved from being a relatively ineffective profession at the end of the nineteenth century to starting to have some really effective interventions. And this led us from the realm of care and comfort to the realm of treatments. And then, logically, treatment became early diagnosis and preventive treatment. And preventive treatment then became prevention of any symptoms with whatever interventions you could do, which is all very, very good and I think is a realm of medicine that still needs to be expanded.

But there is this strange shift in this process that moves from a focus on compassion and a focus on the deep human realities of what’s happening to a much more mechanistic and social perspective on the phenomenon such that you relatively quickly in your inner mind, your general personal psychology and social attitude, move from prevention to a–I don’t know quite what the right word is, but it’s a preemptive disposition.

And I’m personally concerned about this because it’ll take us time, and as a human civilization we’ll mature into this new knowledge. But one thing we need to bear in mind in this process–and we could bring this out in a report, I believe–is the depth of the human meaning of all of this, the importance of sustaining the fundamental core of what medicine and, of course, all of individual and social life is. It’s a human, personal process and a collective process that we are not products, and our children should never become products.

We are processes and journeys, and these journeys are inevitably going to involve a dimension of suffering and, as we pointed out in our other reports, frailty and ultimately finitude. And this kind of knowledge that we’re entering into could change not just the general character of our culture but our internal experiences of what life is. I’ve had some experience personally with raising a handicapped child, and whereas I never would have chosen–never in a thousand years would I have chosen and could I have avoided it I would have in the positive sense of avoiding by doing something positive to make my child not handicapped.

But nonetheless, I have to say that having gone through this personally, it became clear to me very quickly it was an invitation to go deeper into the heart of life. There are positive dimensions to the humanness, the deepening and enriching of human purpose, the self-giving and the generosity that is involved and the rich human relations that come from imperfect people interacting with each other. We have to be very careful we don’t move from compassion to a cold preemption in all this.

Cold preemption is just what eugenic abortion advocates are after. And Bill is right: If we keep on this path, if we say that only the optimal humans are really welcome in this world, then we will profoundly and adversely undermine the best of human society.

Here’s just another indication of the potential power of ethically derived stem cells to alleviate human suffering. In rat studies, the stem cells improved the creation of adult stem cells and improved inflammation in aged animals. From the study:

The results demonstrate that a single intravenous injection of UCBMC in aged rats can significantly improve the microenvironment of the aged hippocampus and rejuvenate the aged neural stem/progenitor cells. Our results raise the possibility of a peripherally administered cell therapy as an effective approach to improve the microenvironment of the aged brain.

This obviously opens up hope for treatment of serious neural conditions associated with aging. But don’t tell the ALF. Rats were euthanized and their tissues studied in these experiments. The scientists had better be careful that the liberationists don’t nonviolently burn down their lab.

Jack Kevorkian is running for Congress. From the story:

Assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian is planning to run for Congress in Michigan. Kevorkian is on parole since being released from prison last year.He tells The Oakland Press newspaper that he plans to run without party affiliation for the congressional sea now held by Republican Joe Knollenberg.

I made up the Human Vivisection Party to highlight an important point about Kevorkian that the media simply refuse to report or explore: Kevorkian’s goal was never to alleviate suffering but engage in human vivisection of those he was euthanizing, as this excerpt from page 214 of Kevorkian’s 1991 book Prescription Medicide makes clear:

I feel it is only decent and fair to explain my ultimate aim…It is not simply to help suffering or doomed persons kill themselves–that is merely the first step, an early distasteful professional obligation (now called medicine) that nobody in his or her right mind could savor. [Of course, Kevorkian isn't in his right mind.]I explained that what I find most satisfying is the prospect of making possible the performance of invaluable experiments or other beneficial medical acts under conditions that this first unpleasant step can help establish.

Kevorkian is a megalomaniac who became addicted to the spotlight. Happily for him, the media are his pushers who provide him with attention but not scrutiny.

In a report presented to the press, Friends of the Earth Europe (FoEE) said it had identified “at least” 104 food or food-related products on sale in the EU that contained manufactured nanomaterials or were produced using nanotechnology and for which there was insufficient scrutiny under health and safety laws. (AFP)

Deaf campaigners say that this is eugenics. Wrong. The aim is to prevent eugenics, a warped eugenics that deliberately selects deafness. The law forbids parents with a political or cultural agenda from screening the embryos and then perversely ensuring that their child cannot hear. I am afraid that making such a choice is child abuse. (Times Online)

For the first time in the Middle East, an Iranian scientist has produced natural skin from fibroblast cells, critical in wound healing. (Press TV)

His is the only one of the candidate proposals that has a chance of getting medical costs under control. An argument for some free-market sanity. (CNNMoney)

Medical device companies that are among the biggest financial donors to Melbourne’s top hospitals are being investigated by US authorities over payments to doctors in return for the exclusive use of their products. (The Age)

A tiny chemical “brain” which could one day act as a remote control for swarms of nano-machines has been invented.

The molecular device - just two billionths of a metre across - was able to control eight of the microscopic machines simultaneously in a test. (BBC)