A few days ago I posted an entry here at SHS about a heart transplant recipient who fell in love with his donor’s wife and ultimately committed suicide in the same manner as the donor. I also quoted the story claiming that there were some 70 cases of transplant recipients who had apparently exhibited personality traits of their donors post surgery.

Here’s a similar but far more specific story, from a book published in 1997 by a woman named Claire Sylvia. Sylvia received the heart of an 18- 7ear-old man, and the following was excerpted in the Daily Mail:

Because I was the first person in the state to have such an operation, there was a lot of publicity, and two reporters came to the hospital to interview me. One asked: “Now that you’ve had this miracle, what do you want more than anything else?” “Actually,” I replied, “I’m dying for a beer right now.” I was mortified that I had given such a flippant answer, and also surprised. I didn’t even like beer. But the craving I felt was specifically for the taste of beer. For some bizarre reason, I was convinced that nothing else in the world could quench my thirst.

That evening, an odd notion occurred to me: maybe the donor of my new organs, this young man from Maine, had been a beer drinker. Was it possible that my new heart had reached me with its own set of tastes and preferences? It was a fascinating idea. During those early days, I had no idea that I would look back on this curious comment as the first of many mysteries after the transplant.

Or that, in the months ahead, I would sometimes wonder who was choreographing changes in my preferences and personality. Was it me, or was it my heart?…

A month later, I left the hospital and moved into a medical halfway house a few miles away. Now that I could eat like a normal person, I found, bizarrely, I’d developed a sudden fondness for certain foods I hadn’t liked before: Snickers bars, green peppers, Kentucky Fried Chicken takeaway. As time went on, a strange question crept into my mind. Although I hadn’t thought much about my donor, I was acutely aware that I was living with a man’s heart–and I wondered whether it was conceivable that this male heart might affect me sexually. Until the transplant, I had spent most of my adult life either in a relationship with a man or hoping to be in one. But after the operation, while I still felt attracted to men, I didn’t feel that same need to have a boyfriend. I was freer and more independent than before–as if I had taken on a more masculine outlook.

Hype or proof of the deeper mysteries of life? You be the judge, but I vote hype.

For the last ten years, “the scientists,” in order to win the political debates over ESCR and SCNT, often wildly hyped the potential for CURES! CURES! CURES! In the process, they convinced Californians–now facing a $16 billion budget deficit and tens of billions in bond debt–to borrow $300 million every year to pay for human cloning and ESC research. States vied with each other in an Oklahoma land race type scramble to throw money at Big Biotech. The focus of the media became obsessed with overturning President Bush’s ESCR funding policy, to the point that it committed serial journalistic malpractice with biased reporting and a news blockade on non embryonic stem cell successes.

Well, those CURES! have not even appeared as distant silhouettes on the horizon yet, and finally, a few in the media are beginning to notice. From a story in The Scotsman:

STEM cell research, we have long been told, should pave the way for revolutionary new treatments to help millions of patients around the world. Yet despite the years of study and debate about the potential, therapies have been slow to materialise.

Even the head of the UK National Stem Cell Network has now conceded that stem cell research may never deliver new treatments. Given the ethical controversy about the research–particularly the use of animal-human hybrid embryos–some have questioned whether it is worth pursuing the research any further without proof that it will actually benefit human health…
Lord Patel of Dunkeld, chairman of the UK National Stem Cell Network and chancellor of Dundee University, said the current signs were that research involving stem cells would lead to therapies for patients. But he said there was also a chance such treatments could prove too risky for human use.

Speaking to The Scotsman, Lord Patel said it could be five to ten years before stem cell treatments were widely available, with trials starting shortly in the UK and US. “But we have to be cautious,” he said. “It may not deliver therapy for anything. We may find that stem therapy is quite a risky business.

“We had a lot of hype about gene therapy, and while we still use it in some cases it did not deliver the great promise we thought it would because of the side-effects. But the promise just now is great and we must continue with the stem cell science.”

Whether actual human trials with ESCs will happen remains to be seen–Geron has been claiming trials will come next year for at least the last four. But this much is clear: By hyping the potential, the politicized science sector mislead people to win a political debate, and in the process reduced science to just another special interest spinning and obfuscating to get a greater share of gruel in the public trough.

An engineered material that can be injected into damaged spinal cords could help prevent scars and encourage damaged nerve fibers to grow. The liquid material, developed by Northwestern University materials science professor Samuel Stupp, contains molecules that self-assemble into nanofibers, which act as a scaffold on which nerve fibers grow. (Technology Review)

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) Bill, currently making its way through the UK’s Parliament, marks the first major re-think of the original Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, passed in 1990. In the almost 20 years since the Act was passed, new medical developments and techniques have emerged which raise their own ethical issues; the time was right for review, not least to ensure that in certain areas the law was entirely clear. (BioNews)

Despite 34,000 complaints of violations in the last five years, the federal act has resulted in only a few prosecutions, and no civil fines have been levied. (Los Angeles Times)

The work, published in the April 10 issue of Cell Stem Cell, also noted that cancer stem cells are closer to embryonic stem cells (which can develop into all tissue types) than adult stem cells (which are more limited in what types of tissue they can become). This discovery could shed light on how tumors originate. (HealthDay)

The transplants conducted Saturday were made possible when a so-called altruistic donor, who was willing to donate to anyone, was found to be a match for one of six transplant candidates. Five of the candidates had a willing donor whose kidney was incompatible with their particular friend or relative, but a match for another of the six. (AP)

The FDA seems to be most concerned about the cells’ potential to cause tumours or to differentiate in dangerous ways, and whether the animal safety tests that have been carried out so far provide enough evidence to justify testing ES cells in people, according to FDA briefing documents seen by Nature. Another issue concerns how patients should be monitored for signs of problems. Members of the advisory committee have been asked not to speak to the press before the meeting. (Nature)

The challengers argue that the hybrids are not permitted under current law because, when current law was drafted, it was for human embryos, not hybrids. They will have to show that this interpretation was not the meaning intended by the Act, or that the HFEA acted irrationally in choosing this meaning in these circumstances. (Telegraph)