Review and Comment on the News
November 21, 2005
The Washington Post’s Rick Weiss covers some of the broader implications of the recent scandal over human egg donation in stem cell research. “The evolving situation in South Korea has renewed a long-unresolved debate in this country over the ethics of egg donation for cloning and stem cell research.” Weiss accepts uncritically the idea that embryonic stem cell research and cloning are necessary, while acknowledging that science has far outpaced ethics.
Egg donation, which is generally safe but occasionally leads to serious and even life-threatening complications, has been a wedge issue in the stem cell debates, linking feminists and other liberal thinkers to conservatives who favor tighter limits on stem cell research.
With a wide range of stem cell bills primed for congressional action as early as January, the South Korean meltdown could bolster those seeking stronger limits.
“We’re in danger of making women into guinea pigs for this research even before there are any treatments to be tested,” said Marcy Darnovsky, associate director of the Center for Genetics and Society in Oakland, Calif., a pro-choice public policy group that favors stronger oversight of egg donation and other biomedical technologies. “We really need clear rules that someone is enforcing.”
Continuing the theme of science outpacing ethics, Sunday’s New York Times carried an article on prenatal testing for disabilities. “Advocates for people with disabilities are troubled by how much faster the science of prenatal testing is advancing than the public discussion of how it ought to be used.”
Some bioethicists envision a dystopia where parents who choose to forgo genetic testing are shunned, or their children are denied insurance. Parents and people with disabilities fear they may simply be more lonely. And less money may be devoted to cures and education.
. . .
“Where do you draw the line?” said Mark A. Rothstein, director of the Bioethics Institute at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. “On the one hand we have to view this as a positive in terms of preventing disability and illness. But at what point are we engaging in eugenics and not accepting the normal diversity within a population?”
Abortion, Mr. Rothstein and others fear, could become a kind of “poor man’s gene therapy,” if cost-conscious health insurance companies see it as less expensive than treating a disabled child. Others argue that prenatal testing will be limited to those who can afford it, leaving the poor to grapple with genetic disability and disease.
The Associated Press reports that the Past Yields Few Clues for Predicting Flu.
History is supposed to teach lessons. But past flu pandemics, it turns out, don’t teach much about whether today’s bird flu will become a human mega-killer or just make some scientists and officials look like Chicken Little.
Sounds a lot like the case Michael Fumento made last week.
Finally, this item from the BBC is one that I find particularly interesting: Roller-coasters ‘can stop hearts’. What can I say? I’m not a fan of roller coasters. Now I have science on my side :-)
