January 7, 2007
A piece in the Sunday Times, claims that Geron Corporation will be starting human trials using ES cells to treat spinal cord injury in 2008: The Geron Corporation, based in America, is seeking approval for the first clinical trial using … Read More
January 7, 2007
Amniotic fluid continues to show great potential for stem cell research. So do every other by product of live births–placenta, umbilical cord blood, amniotic membrane, even cord tissue. As my good friend Richard Doerflinger put it, “Each new birth not … Read More
January 7, 2007
A reader sends this story along: Johns Hopkins has completed a 5-way kidney swap, in which five people gave their organs to unrelated people. But it wasn’t pure altruism. It was a barter deal. In return for giving a kidney … Read More
January 6, 2007
Nikki Bacharach, the daughter of Burt Bacharach and Angie Dickenson, has committed suicide. She had a form of autism, that apparently had left her very depressed. The statement from the family was that she “peacefully committed suicide to escape the … Read More
January 5, 2007
The Telegraph has the story of a single mother of a 14-year-old with cerebral palsy who wants her daughter to have a hysterectomy. She is fully supportive of Ashley’s parents, who appear to have set off the debate that they … Read More
January 5, 2007
Okay: Now I am getting a touch of the willies about this situation. Here is the Web site of Ashley’s parents. (HT:Bernhardt Varenius) Ashley’s breasts buds were removed to prevent future discomfort. Her appendix was removed as a prophylactic against … Read More
January 5, 2007
No, this can’t be true. Don’t they know that a frozen embryo isn’t really human? The story should say, “Birth Imminent for Bunch of Cells Saved From Katrina.”
January 5, 2007
The media have been increasingly interested in the story of Ashley, the disabled girl given hormones and surgeries to keep her from maturing. This includes overseas and in Canada and so I was asked by the Discovery Institute to do … Read More
January 5, 2007
The eugenics string got kicked off the regular Corner dialogue, but I bring it to you here, if you are interested. Stuttaford calls Leon Kass a “crank” because he (Kass) claims that one of the things in life that focuses … Read More
January 5, 2007
I don’t usually agree with Art Caplan, and he doesn’t usually agree with me. But he has it right in this piece that imposing a hysterectomy, mastectomy, and hormonal treatments on a disabled girl to make sure she remained small–while … Read More
January 5, 2007
Michigan has the most enlightened biotech regulatory policy in the country. First, it outlaws all human cloning. Second, it welcomes biotech companies that do ethical research and has a thriving biotech sector. Finally, today, the governor signed into law a … Read More
January 5, 2007
UK scientists, who want to make human/animal hybrid cloned embryos for use in stem cell research, are warning that unless they are permitted to proceed as they desire, hundreds of thousands of patients may die. Enough already. We’ve heard it … Read More
January 4, 2007
Stem Cell Hype vs Hope We are often told that those with illnesses and disabilities–especially celebrities such as Michael J. Fox and Mary Tyler Moore–should be listened to since they have absolute moral authority due to their conditions. Well, James … Read More
January 4, 2007
The Cornerites continue to discuss eugenics. Derbyshire agrees with Stuttaford’s comment that increasing the human capacity to love would be a terrible idea. “Capacity to Love.” He quotes a poem, that seems to say (I am not sure) that love … Read More
January 4, 2007
I have had several requests from readers to comment on the story of the cognitively disabled girl named Ashley, whose parents subjected her to hormone treatments and invasive surgeries (hysterectomy, mastectomy) to keep her “small.” The point of these “treatments” … Read More
January 4, 2007
I have done a little more reading from the Edge, the self-described meeting place of the “most interesting minds” in the world. As some of you will recall from an earlier posting, the Edge is asking the brilliantly interesting among … Read More
January 4, 2007
Taken from the extracted wisdom teeth of young adults. And the beat goes on.
January 3, 2007
So, the discussion about eugenics, which we got into here yesterday, has continued at The Corner today, and I got into the mix. For those interested, and to avoid a lot of scrolling, here is how it generally went: Derbyshire: … Read More
January 3, 2007
The media and politicians continue to pretend that ESCR will generally be restricted to frozen leftover embryos that are “going to be discarded anyway.” As I have been arguing for several years, this “limited” permissibility is, at most, just a … Read More
January 3, 2007
The CBC asked me make some predictions for 2007 in the fields of bioethics and biotechnology. Here it is for those who may be interested.
January 3, 2007
Dolly was born ten years ago (last July). Many think she was the first cloned mammal. Not true. She was the first mammal cloned with an adult cell. But that is neither here nor there. The point is that Dolly’s … Read More
January 2, 2007
John Derbyshire’s style of arguing is often to breezily skip past concrete issues rather than actually grappling with them intellectually. He does it again in the ongoing discussion at The Corner over eugenics, where he dismisses worries that eugenics thinking … Read More
January 2, 2007
Over at The Corner, there is some back and forth going on about the James Watson Esquire interview that I posted earlier today. John Derbyshire sniffs that the worry about eugenics is overblown, so long as it isn’t state imposed: … Read More
January 2, 2007
I have noticed a weird trend: When somebody has been a great scientist, for some reason we assume their ideas on morality should be given as much respect as their scientific acumen. But science and morality lie in two different … Read More
January 1, 2007
Transhumanism is, in my view, a branch of scientism, that is, a quasi religion that seeks to use science in ways for which the great method is not meant. Here’s a little proof. A transhumanist named Giulio Prisco is optimistic … Read More
