Human Egg Donations to be Banned in S. Korea

Well, here's something good that came out of the Hwang cloning fraud. South Korea, apparently, is on the verge of outlawing egg donations for use in biomedical research. Good. No woman should risk her life so that cloning researchers can do their work. This is also the agenda of Hands Off Our Ovaries.

I would be happy if we just had a ban on buying and selling eggs here in the USA and as part of international protocols. Already the cloners are complaining that they don't have enough human eggs with which to clone embryos. Poor babies. But their "work" isn't as important as protecting the wellbeing and health of women. Preventing companies from taking advantage of poor women, exposing them to the potential of sterility, infection, and even death, is an endeavor that should cut cross the usual ideological rifts.

"Choice" Gone Mad: Amputee Wannabes

We are witnessing the beginning of the public normalization of the profound mental illness known as Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID)--also known as "amputee wannabe" because its sufferers become obsessed with losing one or more limbs. This column published in The Guardian is an example: Susan Smith (not her real name) writes about wanting to have both legs amputated because "the image I have of myself has always been one without legs."

To achieve these ends, Susan harmed herself so that one leg would have to be removed. And now, she plans to do it again: "Removing the next leg will not be any easier than the first; the pain will be horrendous. But I have no regrets about the path I have chosen. In fact, if I regret anything, it is that I didn't do this sooner. For the first time in my life, I can get on with being the real me."

And here's the normalizing part: "I think BIID will stay taboo until people get together and bring it out. A hundred years ago, it was taboo to be gay in many societies, and 50 years ago the idea of transsexuals was abhorrent to most. I have tried to make the condition more understood but it is difficult to get a case out in the open by yourself. My psychiatrist went to a meeting last year in Paris, and many doctors there told her that they had operated on people who needed an amputation under mysterious circumstances, and how happy the person was when they woke up. It led them to believe that perhaps BIID is more prevalent than people think."

Something has gone terribly wrong with us at a profound and fundamental level. And deeper minds than mine need to figure out precisely what it is. Because, in the name of "being myself" we are moving toward normalizing mutilating surgery. Indeed, I have already attended a transhumanist conference where two Ph.Ds advocated that doctors be allowed to remove healthy limbs. And it has been suggested as worth considering in a professional journal article, as I wrote here. (And here is an exchange between the authors of the article and me, after they took me to task for my comments in the earlier linked article.) What next? Help people who want to cut themselves slice themselves repeatedly? Or burn themselves, do it safely? Or what about kill themselves? Oh, that's right. It is already explicitly legal to help do that in Oregon, the Netherlands, Belgium,and Switzerland.

People like Susan is need to be protected from harming themselves. We used to have the basic humanity and decency to understand that. But we have become so in the thrall of radical individualism, I wonder whether we still do. "Choice" is becoming a voracious monster.


HT: Gregory Ford

Oldsters at Risk from Greedy Middle-Aged Children

This from the Telegraph: "Greedy middle-aged sons and daughters are the people most likely to rob their parents of money, valuables and even their homes, according to a report today. The findings, published by Action on Elder Abuse, are based on a study of calls to the charity's helpline last year.

They show that far from the family being a haven for the elderly, many pensioners are victims of their close relatives' avarice and psychological cruelty. They are regarded as easy targets if they have disabilities or suffer dementia."

And yet people still promote assisted suicide as beneficial for the elderly. Ri-i-ight.

David Prentice Rebuts Hit Piece in SCIENCE

Science did a very nasty and, in my view, politically motivated thing before the election: It printed a hit piece by William Neaves and others against David Prentice, essentially accusing him of lying to the public, without giving him a chance to respond. Finally, half a year later, they deigned to permit Prentice to respond. Here is his letter in its entirety:

Treating Diseases with Adult Stem Cells
Letters Science 19 January 2007: Vol. 315. no. 5810, p. 328

In their Letter "Adult stem cell treatments for diseases?" (28 July 2006, p. 439), S. Smith et al. claim that we misrepresent a list of adult stem cell treatments benefiting patients (1). But it is the Letter's authors who misrepresent our statements and the published literature, dismissing as irrelevant the many scientists and patients who have shown the benefits of adult stem cells.

We have stated that adult stem cell applications have "helped," "benefited," and "improved" patient conditions. Smith et al.'s Supporting Online Material (2) repeatedly notes patient improvement from these cells (3). We have never stated that these treatments are "generally available," "cures," or "fully tested in all required phases of clinical trials and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)." Some studies do not require prior FDA approval (4), and even the nine supposedly "fully approved" treatments acknowledged by Smith et al. would not be considered "cures" or "generally available" to the public at this stage of research.

The insistence that no benefit is real until after FDA approval is misplaced. Such approval is not a medical standard to evaluate patient benefit, but an agency determination that benefits outweigh risks in a broad class of patients. Physicians and patients use an evidentiary standard. Our list of 72 applications, compiled from peer-reviewed articles, documents observable and measurable benefit to patients, a necessary step toward formal FDA approval and what is expected of new, cutting-edge medical applications.

Smith et al. also mislead regarding citations for testicular cancer and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, referring to "[t]he reference Prentice cites," as though only one reference existed in each case, and not mentioning four other references that, according to their own SOM, show "improved long-term survival" of patients receiving adult stem cells. There are currently 1238 FDA-approved clinical trials related to adult stem cells,including at least 5 trials regarding testicular cancer and over 24 trials with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (5). They also disregard studies showing successful stimulation of endogenous cells for Parkinson's.

The ethical and political controversy surrounding embryonic stem cell research makes scientific claims especially prone to exaggeration or distortion. All such claims should receive careful scrutiny, as recently acknowledged by the editors of this journal after two articles claiming human "therapeutic cloning" success were revealed to be fraudulent. This scrutiny should be directed equally to all sides. We note that two of our critics, Neaves and Teitelbaum, are founding members of a political group whose Web site lists over 70 conditions that "could someday be treated or cured" using embryonic stem cells (6). High on this list is Alzheimer's disease, acknowledged by experts as a "very unlikely" candidate for stem cell treatments, with one NIH expert describing such a scenario as a "fairy tale" (7). The entire list, in fact, is based on no evidence of benefit in any human patient from embryonic stem cells and little evidence for its claims in animal models. No one should promote the falsehood that embryonic stem cell cures are imminent, for this cruelly deceives patients and the public (8).

David A. Prentice*

Pennyslvania Promotes Advance Directives

PA has a big push ongoing to promote advance health directives and, as part of that effort, has passed a law that creates a commission to determine who decides such matters for residents without their own directive. (I will keep a close eye on that.) Toward educating the public, the Pennsylvania Medical Society has created a Web page with some basic information.

I think advance directives are important, too. However, I suggest that people never sign a "living will" since that gives doctors the right to decide when it is effective and what it means. The decider should not also be the treater. When asked, I urge patients to sign a durable power of attorney for health care, which names someone else to stand in your shoes as the decision maker in the event of need.

I have one an advance directive prepared by a lawyer--always a good idea--that is consistent with the provisions of the Protective Medical Decisions Document (PMDD), a state specific advance directive prepared by the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide.

Why Transhumanism Would Result in Stultifying Sameness

Dove

This ad has been around awhile, but I think it punctures the transhumanists' naive presumption that the post human future would be wildly individualistic and iconoclastic. I believe the opposite would be true. Just as today we are herded by social pressures and corporate advertisements into a conformist mindset--what my friend Ralph Nader calls "thinking corporate"--so too would we be pushed toward a stultifying sameness if transhumanists "seized control of human evolution." Only rather than being literally skin deep, as is true today with cosmetics and fashion, the sheep-like sameness would be implanted deep within our biological beings. Baaaa.

HT: Mark Pickup

Hawaii Assisted Suicide Bill: A Wide Latitude and No Choice for Doctors

We so often hear that physician-assited suicide is about "choice." The patient's to die, and the doctors to either facilitate suicide or not. But the new Hawaii bill to legalize assisted suicide requires doctors to participate--either by prescribing poison or cooperating with an "alternate physician" who does the deed. And note, the alternate physician need not even examine the patient, but rather, is a mere order taker who may not even have to meet the patient face to face. From the bill:

"If at any time an attending physician declines or is unable to fulfill any of the responsibilities detailed in subsection (a), particularly paragraph (12) regarding dispensing medication to a patient, the attending physician shall relinquish the responsibilities to an alternate physician who is willing and able to fulfill the responsibilities detailed in subsection (a). The alternate physician shall confirm with the attending physician or the consulting physician that the diagnosis has not changed and that the patient is capable, is acting voluntarily, has made an informed decision, and remains a qualified patient under this chapter. The alternate physician may not dispense medication to the patient under subsection (a)(12) until at least fifteen days after the alternate physician's initial consultation with the patient."

Forcing doctors to cooperate in assisted suicides, even those they don't wish to commit, is in keeping with the agenda of normalizing killing into a mere medical treatment.

And get this language from the "who" may ask for assisted suicide provision: "An adult who is capable, is a resident of Hawaii, and has been determined by the attending physician or alternate physician and consulting physician to be suffering from a terminal disease, and who has voluntarily expressed that person's wish to die, may make a written request for medication for the purpose of ending that person's life in a humane and dignified manner in accordance with this chapter."

Also note that the patient only need be "capable" of communicating his desire to have suicide, which is a different standard than being competent. Capable is defined in the bill thusly : "Capable" means that, in the opinion of a court or in the opinion of the patient's attending physician or consulting physician, psychiatrist, or psychologist, a patient has the ability to make and communicate health care decisions to health care providers, including communication through persons familiar with the patient's manner of communicating if those persons are available."

Typical "choice" gibberish from the death on demand crowd.

"Peering Into The Darkness" Podcast Interview

I was interviewed on Saturday in a talk radio format, but it is a podcast called Peering Into the Darkness, with Derek and Sharon Gilbert. The topic was transhumanism and related issues. What astounds me is that communication technology is moving so fast that it is hard to keep up. While not quite up to radio technical qualities yet, this medium is changing how we communicate at lightning speed. Everything is becoming decentralized, both for good and ill.

In any event, the conversation was wide-ranging, and at times got me in over my pay grade. But I had a very good time and thank Derek and Sharon for their hospitality. If you have a spare hour and are interested in the more esoteric issues surrounding transhumanism as religion, check it out.

12 Year-Old Given Transsexual Sex Change Therapy

This is wrong. A boy decides he is a girl--a boy--and psychiatrists and doctors agree to get on with the hormones before he has even had a chance to experience puberty and perhaps come to different conclusions. The worry was that experiencing puberty would itself be traumatic for a boy who believed he is really a girl. (Surgery has to wait until 18, thank goodness.) And here's the kicker: Shades of Ashley's case: "Doctors admit that the treatment involves a risk, however, and that its effects on children as young as Kim are not fully understood." In other words, once again a child is being used in human experimentation.

Frankly, I think we are mucking up our children in so many ways, exposing them to concepts before they are really ready to understand and deal with them, treating them as if they are just diminutive adults instead of children, that we will never understand the lives we have harmed and the pain we have caused.

Yea, Yea. I know. I'm a dinosaur.

Visit Nigel Cameron's Blog "Choosing Tomorrow"

I have noticed that many of the most commented upon posts here at Secondhand Smoke have to do with transhumanism, futuristic technologies, and whether we will remain fully human in the coming biotech age.

Well, for those interested in such things, my friend Nigel Cameron has a blog up and running in which he ponders and discusses issues such as nano technology, artificial intelligence, and the like, and expounds on what it's all about, Alfie. It's called "Choosing Tomorrow," because, I suppose, that's precisely what we are doing. Check him out here.

"Anarchy in Cyberspace"

Now, here's a story of how and why transhumanism isn't going to cure what ails the human condition: Second Life, which I had not even heard of until a correspondent wrote asking to interview me about it a short time ago, allows players to lead virtual lives. Say, you are a lawyer and always wanted to have a more adrenaline filled job. You could become a cop or a soldier. Or, you're a plumber and wanted a job where your hands don't get dirty. You could become a stock broker. As I understand it, the people playing the game have virtual lives, go through different experiences, date, marry (?), that is, have whole new second lives.

Well, trouble has come to paradise. From the story: "FRENCH elections are typically volatile affairs. But when Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front party (FN) set up a virtual campaign headquarters on Second Life, the internet site where over 2.9 million registered users live a double life, it caused a cyber-riot.

"The arrival of the xenophobic party in the 'geographical' area of Second Life known as Porcupine sparked protests by outraged virtual characters known as avatars. They protested, waving placards and banners decorated with an unflattering portrait of Mr Le Pen sporting a Hitler moustache.

"But the protests soon degenerated into riots, during which anti-Nazi protesters from a group named Second Life Left Unity engaged in running gun-battles with FN supporters and hurled exploding pigs--fortunately only of the virtual variety--at their political opponents."

There is a lesson here, it seems to me. People are people, wherever we find them--even in virtual reality which, of course, isn't real at all. The same will be true in Transhumanist Land. That is why it seems wiser to me to embrace our full humanity and work in the real world to overcome our baser sides than to pine for a utopian post-human future that would probably remain all too human. Our problem as a species isn't that we don't live long enough, it is that we don't love fully enough.

Strengthening our more noble natures doesn't require futuristic technology, drastic disfiguring surgeries, or electrode implants: It merely requires true introspection--the doing of which we are the only species capable--unplugging from music, videos and other entertainment to just think, ponder, contemplate, pray if that is one's wont, and, I think, finding the joy in serving others (including animals, if that is our desire).

And with that bit of "wisdom," I end my sermon and return to areas more within my pay grade.

Post Script: I am sure we can expect "Second Life: The Movie: any day now.

And the Federal Money Keeps Pouring In for ESCR

I just checked at the NIH Web site to see the latest NIH funding levels for ESCR. Wow. Between fiscal 2003-2007, the Feds will have shelled out approximately $161 million for human embryonic stem cell research. Add in $492 million for ESCR in animals, and the total over five years comes to a whopping $653 million!

Peter Singer Supports "Ashley's Treatment"

Of course he does, and of course, he is allowed to do so in the New York Times. You see, although he doesn't say it in this article explicitly, to Peter Singer, Ashley is not a person. That means that if it serves her parents' "interests," they had every right to give her "Ashley's Treatment." But unstated in Singer's article, is that it would also support their killing her and allowing her to be used in medical experiments--so long as these actions did not cause her to suffer.

Singer claims that arguments supporting her "dignity" are misguided. He knows, of course, that the term is used to denote intrinsic moral worth. We can't have that. So, he misconstrues the term into something different, the concept of acting or appearing dignified: "But we should reject the premise [innate dignity] of this debate. As a parent and grandparent, I find 3-month-old babies adorable, but not dignified. Nor do I believe that getting bigger and older, while remaining at the same mental level, would do anything to change that."

Notice also that Singer calls Ashley a "what" and not a "who": After the riff denying even the concept of Ashley having intrinsic dignity because she is human, he writes: "She is precious not so much for what she is, but because her parents and siblings love her and care about her." He could say the same thing about a favorite house plant.

Peter Singer's denial of the importance of being human opens the door to terrible oppression and killing against the weak and vulnerable. We hearken to his sterile utilitarianism at the distinct peril of the most weak and vulnerable among us.

Why is THIS Called "Controversial?"

The Times of London is reporting,"Sir Richard Branson will launch his most controversial business to date as he moves into stem-cell storage and the biotech sector." Huh? The stem cells in question come from umbilical cord blood. How in the world could that be considered "controversial?" Perhaps in the UK such private storage facilities are frowned upon: I don't know. But storing UCB stem cells is utterly uncontentious. Indeed, last year here in the USA, Congress unanimously passed and the President signed into law, a bill creating regional UCB stem cell banks.

Jack Kevorkian: Circumcision Consultant

With the murderer Jack Kevorkian soon to be released from prison on parole, he has to think about earning a living. According to this story, he has decided to go into business as what he calls a circumcision consultant. From the story: "Kevorkian was asked if his circumcision consulting might only be a subterfuge to hide his actual goal of helping people kill themselves. 'Nonsense,' he answered. 'Nothing could be further from the truth. I am really looking forward to a brilliant new career in foreskin termination.'" Let's just hope doesn't video tape himself at work like he did his last job.

Yes, of course, it's a spoof.

PETA's Big Lie About "Gay Sheep"

A few weeks ago I reported about the anger expressed by some gay activists about animal research reportedly aimed at making gay sheep straight. I blogged the story, not in order to deal with gay/straight issues, but to point out its relevance to the hubristic human enhancement agenda.

I soon received information that the story was badly misconstrued due to PETA machinations, which were also posted in the comments section of the original post. I didn't post directly about these rumblings because, 1) the original story was in the Sunday Times of London, which had not retracted, and 2) because my point had nothing to do with gay/straight issues--which we do not discuss here--but the dangers associated with the new eugenics.

But now, the New York Times has published a story demonstrating that the original report was indeed seriously misconstrued due to PETA fabrications. The point was not to learn how turn gay sheep straight and then apply the technology in humans, but to learn why gay sheep are gay. This involved killing the animals to study their brains, which for PETA, should be absolutely forbidden for any purpose.

This raises an important point: PETA is not a credible organization. Its activists are expert propagandists. If the whole truth will serve its purposes, it will be told. If half truths and half lies serve better, it will take that route. And it is expert at lying by omission, as in a story I covered about PETA's campaign to destroy the Australian wool industry.

Germany Jails Purveyor of Suicide Pills

Germany has jailed a man who sold suicide pills over the internet. Good. Next stop: Phillip Nitschke. I would also like to see more enforcement against the suicide assisters among American euthanasia groups.

Embryonic Stem Cell Research: The Check is Not in the Mail

When Proposition 71 was being pushed on the voters, campaign propaganda assured Californians that the money would pour in to state coffers if they only gave scientists the constitutional right to do human cloning and embryonic stem cell research. The same tactic was deployed in Missouri in Amendment 2. Now, we find in California, that such promises were, shall we say, exaggerated. Even if it all works--a big if--the check will not be in the mail.

"The state could get between $537 million and $1.1 billion in royalty returns from it's $3 billion stem cell investment," the story states. Except, this wholly understates the loss. When interest is included on the loans our broke state will be taking out to give Big Biotech and its business partners in universities bounteous amounts of corporate welfare, the amount owed by taxpayers will be a whopping $6-7 billion. So, even if the CURES! CURES! CURES! come through, California loses at least %5 billion.

It's funny isn't it, how these studies and reports never come out before elections where they might have some real meaning. Now, with the horse out of the barn, it is just so much hot air.

Podcast: "The Trouble With Transhumanism"

In the current edition of Brave New Bioethics, I discuss the new religion of transhumanism, which fervently believes in a post human eschatology of human immortality and redesign.

A Mother's Stem Cells May Help Treat Her Child's Diabetes

It just keeps coming: The Telegraph is reporting that a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that "stem cells are passed from mothers to unborn children with type 1 diabetes and may help repair the damage caused by immune attacks on insulin-producing cells thought responsible for the development of the disease." This could mean that a mother's adult stem cells may be able to be harvested and used to treat her diabetic child.

There is so much happening on the non embryonic stem cell front that it boggles the mind.

More on the Bestiality Movie and "Sub Human Animals"

Apparently, there has been an attack on anti-bestiality laws, with the claim being made that such statutes are unconstitutional. (Why am I not surprised?) I haven't read it, but my friend Seth Cooper, a brilliant lawyer who once worked for the Discovery Institute, has. He weighs in at the American Thinker.

One argument against bestiality laws is that they are prohibited by the reasoning behind Lawrence v Texas (the Supreme Court case that prohibits laws banning homosexual sex), which found that such laws are constitutionally unacceptable "morals legislation." Cooper disagrees with this analysis: "Arguably, certain language in the majority and concurring opinions in Lawrence v. Texas casting doubt upon laws based purely upon traditional notions of sexual morality--if taken in its most literal and absolute sense--may thereby cast some doubt upon an important basis for anti-bestiality laws. But it's not unusual for jurists to resort to overgeneralizations and hyperbole in order to bolster their rulings in cases deciding highly specific matters...Only a seismic shift or complete collapse of traditional state police powers could exonerate bestiality."

That sounds right to me. I have never read Lawrence, but at least to some degree it seems to me to be a culmination of decades worth of political/legal advocacy by a constituency that has significant political power in this culture. I doubt that "Zoos" will ever achieve that level of acceptance.

On another note: For years I have been steamed about the use of the term "nonhuman animal," because it seems intended to focus on humans as animals toward the end of knocking us off our pedestal of exceptionalism. Cooper has the proper remedy. He calls our furry friends, "sub human animals." Very good. Notice given: I intend to steal the term and use it whenever confronted with the "nonhuman animal" assertion.

Cooper also throws in some good human exceptionalism advocacy. Way to go, Seth!

Umbilical Cord Blood Make Pancreas Cells

So, the deconstruction of ES cells as the "only hope" for "cures" continues apace. Now, South Korean researchers have been able to grow pancreatic beta cells from stem cells taken from the umbilical cord blood. And, the cells made from umbilical cord blood stem cells secrete insulin.

The technology looks promising: In true biotech form, the researchers wrote a peer reviewed journal article and filed for patents.

Quick: Somebody tell Mary Tyler Moore.

George Will on Desire to Wipe People With Down Syndrome Off the Face of the Earth

A little while back, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists urged that every pregnant woman be tested to see if her fetus has Down syndrome. I did not comment on it at the time, having written quite a bit recently about the ongoing anti-Down pogrom. But George Will now has. And he has a personal stake in the issue, which we must all remember, is, according to many pundits, the essential factor that gives one moral authority to opine.

Will's son Jon has Down, and he begins with a piquant question: "What did Jon Will and the more than 350,000 American citizens like him do to tick off the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists?" He later answers his rhetorical query: The policy seems intended to "have the effect of increasing abortions in the service of an especially repulsive manifestation of today's entitlement mentality—every parent's 'right' to a perfect baby." I would say that is just the surface issue. Beneath it, lurks the emergence of a new eugenics that judges the moral worth of people based on their lives' perceived quality.

And it won't end there, of course. Will points out that "as more is learned about genetic components of other abnormalities, search-and-destroy missions will multiply."

Read Will's entire column. He humanizes Jon, which is precisely what is needed in this time when the intrinsic value of human life is under accelerating assault.

People Want to Live

This study is unsurprising to me: A survey of colo-rectal cancer patients finds that they are more willing to take chemotherapy, even with a small potential for extending life at the cost of significant adverse side effects, than doctors thought would be the case. But when it is your life, you want to keep up the fight. People want to live and they are often willing to put up with the debilitations of chemo to gain a few extra weeks or months.

Unfortunately, this desire to "keep fighting" often keeps patients from accepting hospice care until it is too late to receive most of the benefits, which is a shame given the potential for great help that hospice--properly applied-offers. When I interviewed the late Dame Cecily Saunders, the founder of the modern hospice movement, she criticized this aspect of the US hospice system. She claimed that it creates the appearance of a "one-way street," sort of an "abandon hope all ye who enter here." As a consequence, she told me that (at the time of our interview, circa 2000), the USA had a 15% hospice usage rate versus the UK's 65%.

I agree and it's a shame. When my father was dying of colon cancer we had hospice and it was of tremendous help both to my dad and the entire family.

ZOO: It Isn't About the One in San Diego

Perhaps it is wrong for me to comment about a movie I have no intention of seeing: But if this review of the new semi-documentary Zoo is accurate, it apparently has a sympathetic take on "the last taboo," meaning bestiality. ("Zoos" in this context don't refer to animal viewing facilities, but are apparently the chosen moniker of people who like to have sex with animals. It is a take off on "zoophilia." Who knew?)

This film, at least as reviewed and described by the director Robinson Devor, seems steeped in what I call "terminal nonjudgmentalism," by which I mean that we are losing sight of the important moral truth that some acts are intrinsically wrong--and it is killing our culture. Bestiality is one of these. It is wrong for many reasons, the most important of which goes beyond sex as animal abuse or, as some have put it, the lack of animal consent. Bestiality is an assault on human dignity itself. As I wrote in this piece about the controversy surrounding legislation in Washington State (since passed) to make bestiality illegal--which occurred after a man was killed from being sexually penetrated by a horse--the impetus for Zoo:

"The great philosophical question of the 21st Century is going to be whether we will knock humans off the pedestal of moral exceptionalism and instead define ourselves as just another animal in the forest. The stakes of the coming debate couldn't be more important: It is our exalted moral status that both bestows special rights upon us and imposes unique and solemn moral responsibilities--including the human duty not to abuse animals. Nothing would more graphically demonstrate our unexceptionalism than countenancing human/animal sex."

(Yes, I know that Peter Singer disagrees, claiming in a book review that "we are animals, indeed more specifically, we are great apes. This does not make sex across the species barrier normal, or natural, whatever those much-misused words may mean, but it does imply that it ceases to be an offence to our status and dignity as human beings.")

I am not saying that we shouldn't strive to understand what drives people into such a depraved state that they couple with animals. But this should not be to wink at the practice or normalize it as just another choice. Rather, it should be for the purpose of helping mental health professionals treat and restore "Zoos" to a proper sense of self-dignity and mental health. But this seems beyond Devor, a self-described "artist" who said, "I consider nothing human alien to me."

Devor also said that he had "aestheticized the sleaze right out of it." Sorry. Can't be done. What Devor really tried to do was cover up the moral stink, adding his energies and talent to the ongoing project to bring about the descent of man.

Fumento Takes Down the NYT

I have been traveling and neglecting my duties at Secondhand Smoke. Whilst gone, readers alerted me to the pathetic excuse given by the New York Times for not reporting the amniotic fluid stem cell breakthrough. Its reporter, Nicolas Wade, claimed he didn't report it because the study was merely a "minor" matter. Yet, less important ESCR stories have been prominently reported in the Gray Lady. Moreover the story was front page news in the Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and other MSM outlets. Hmmm. Could it be--bias?

Not to worry. I may have been asleep at the switch but Michael Fumento was on the case. He also chides Newsweek for reporting that human trials with placental stem cells will not happen for years, when apparently, at least one is already under way. Way to go, Michael!

PETA Nudity

PETA, two of whose employees are now on trial for felony cruelty to animals, may be trying to divert attention from its own animal killing through the medium of a pretty woman stripping to reveal full frontal nudity. Kind of gives a whole new meaning to "in your face." The song afterwards sings of hating the whole human race.

Yup. That's PETA: As attention addicted, misanthropic, and fanatical as ever.

The UN Protects People with Disabilities

"Can anything good come out of the United Nations," I ask in the lede of my piece in the current Weekly Standard discussing that new UN treaty, which if followed--always a big if in these kind of things--would substantially protect the rights of people with disabilities. The article is currently only available to subscribers, but here are a few key paragraphs:

"The convention is a welcome reaffirmation of the principles that are 'proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations which recognize the inherent dignity and worth and equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.' In a world growing increasingly utilitarian, an international declaration unequivocally affirming that human life has intrinsic moral worth regardless of capacities and attributes is most welcome."

Since the treaty protects the right to life of disabled people, I note, "This could be very good news for Dutch infants born with serious health problems or disabilities, as the Dutch parliament is well on the path to formally legalizing eugenic infanticide. If the Low Countries ratify the treaty, as expected, Dutch diplomatic representatives should be asked to justify their "compassionate" policy of allowing the killing of disabled babies in the face of this new international convention requiring the lives of disabled people be protected."

For reasons discussed in the article, US won't be participating in the treaty itself, although we lauded its passage. Still, we helped negotiate it and I point out that some of the most important protections--particularly one preventing discriminatory withholding of food and fluids based on disability--were negotiated by conservative Non Government Organizations (NGOs), of which there are too few now standing up for the intrinsic value of human life in the international sphere dud to disdain for internationalism. I conclude:

"But such standoffishness is woefully shortsighted. Like it or not, many of the most important social and legal policies of the twenty-first century are going to be materially influenced by international protocols such as this one. These agreements are molded substantially behind the scenes by NGOs--most of which are currently leftist in their political outlooks and relativistic in their social orientation. This makes for a stacked deck. If conservatives hope to influence the moral values of the future, they are going to have to hold their collective noses and get into the game."

"A Middle Ground for Stem Cells"

My friend Yuval Levin has a piece today in, of all places, the New York Times about President Bush's ESC funding policy and its moral import. Here are a few key quotes:

"At its heart, then, when the biology and politics have been stipulated away, the stem cell debate is not about when human life begins but about whether every human life is equal. The circumstances of the embryo outside the body of a mother put that question in perhaps the most exaggerated form imaginable, but they do not change the question.

"America's birth charter, the Declaration of Independence, asserts a positive answer to the question, and in lieu of an argument offers another assertion: that our equality is self-evident. But it is not. Indeed, the evidence of nature sometimes makes it very hard to believe that all human beings are equal. It takes a profound moral case to defend the proposition that the youngest and the oldest, the weakest and the strongest, all of us, simply by virtue of our common humanity, are in some basic and inalienable way equals.

Our faith in that essential liberal proposition is under attack by our own humanitarian impulses in the stem cell debate, and it will be under further attack as biotechnology progresses. But the stem cell debate, our first real test, should also be the easiest. We do not, at least in this instance, face a choice between science and the liberal society. We face the challenge of championing both."

Way to go, Yuval!

Beware of Adult Stem Cell Quackery

This story demonstrates the dangers that are out there in stem cell land for the unwary. A Las Vegas doctor has been treating people with serious illnesses, such as MS, with stem cells from placenta and other non embrynic sources. These have great potential for future therapies. But, such treatments mostly remain at the experimental level, and in any event, should only done under proper research protocols and in accordance with ethical medical practices. I mean, the doctor in question is an opthamologist! He has no business treating people with serious neurological conditions regardless of the efficacy of the chosen medium.

Advanced Cell Technology Gets Itself into the News. Again

ACT, which claimed falsely to have created ES cell lines without actually destroying embryos, has gotten itself in the news again: This time to tout receipt of a $204,000 NIH grant to conduct embryonic stem cell research. As usual, the company's spin machine is whirling like a centrifuge. "Advanced Cell's CEO, William Caldwell, called the grant 'momentous' because of what it says about the changing political climate and the federal government's move toward greater support for research into embryonic stem cell science."

Puhleese. First, to get the grant ACT has to be using Bush-approved cell lines. Second, in 2005, the NIH put out $50 million for human ESCR. Momentous? Only in that ACT got another article to put in its scrap book of memories to show potential investors.

Nebraska Bill to Outlaw All Human Cloning

Legislation has been introduced in Nebraska to outlaw all human cloning. And guess what? Unlike the deceptive Amendment 2, the legislation defines human cloning in a scientifically accurate manner. Maybe the reporters and editorialists of the Kansas City Star will read the legislation and learn that cloning is not, as the Amendment 2 propagandists asserted, the act of implantation. Nah. They might have to report it.

Animal Rights Unabombers

I have been warning that animal liberationist fanatics would kill somebody someday. It almost happened, in England. Two letter bombs sent to science firms. One injury. Animal protesters linked. If every animal rights leader and grass roots activist doesn't publicly protest this escalation in violence, it will speak volumes about the movement as a whole.

Mainstream Bioethicists Bit Off More Than They Can Chew Attacking Ramesh Ponurru

The mainstream bioethicists are mightily ticked because National Review's Ramesh Ponurru (and others) resist their perceived wisdom on ESCR funding and ethics. But in attacking Ponurru, they bit off more than they can chew. In his usual methodical manner, the NR writer demonstrates that he isn't the one spouting dubious facts.

Fighting Futile Care Theory in Texas in the Memory of Andrea Clarke

I received an e-mail from Lenore Dixon, Andrea Clark's sister. Readers of Secondhand Smoke will recall that Clark was the woman who was the subject of a fight over the attempt to terminate wanted life-sustaining treatment. Her family was treated disgracefully. Now, they are working to fight the futility law in Texas with an organization called Texas Patient Rights. Here is part of what she wrote: "I believe your readers were very helpful in allowing Andrea to continue life support until she died in her own time. Now my family and I are committed to changing the Texas law that allowed St. Luke's to play God with our sister's life. We've since learned of many other cases where hospitals played God. We want to change this law. The legislature is now in session and we need as many people as possible to take action in this effort."

Here is the Web site. Go, Lenore!

Experimenting on Ashley

As promised, I have now read "Attenuating Growth in Children with Profound Developmental Disability" in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine (2006;160:1013-1017), written by the doctors who kept Ashley a "pillow angel." (HT Susan Nunes)

It is very disturbing. First: They don't even mention the mastectomy in the article, or the appendectomy. Only the hysterectomy. I find this troubling and telling.

Second: Attenuating the growth of a child to keep her from reaching normal size has apparently never been done before. It strikes me that this means Ashley was the subject of a human experiment, that might not have been illegal based on the intricacies of human research law, but sure seems unethical.

I have written a more extended column about this for NRO. When it is out, I shall post it.

Animal Liberation "Helter Skelter"

Animal liberation radicals, calling themselves WAR (Win Animal Rights), have declared "war" against Wall Street because the New York Stock Exchange listed Huntingdon Life Sciences on the Big Board. Radical liberationists have vowed to put HLS out of business because it conducts animal testing, and they The term "helter skelter" is an ominous turn. While it was in one of the Beatles more extreme songs, it was also embraced by Charles Manson as the term for the race war he wanted to start. It reeks of anarchy, violence, and chaos.

So, let the "tertiary targeting" begin. But hey, it's for "the animals," right?

Arizona to Have Assisted Suicide Bill

This was expected: Arizona legislators will introduce an assisted suicide legalization bill. Typically, the media report states that the opponents will be Christians and Catholics. That's just the tip of the ice berg with disability rights and civil rights organizations also opposing, along with medical professional organizations.

"Feed me!" Part 3

The quest for the blank check to conduct human embryonic stem cell research continues apace, as states trip over each other to throw money at Big Biotech and its business partners in universities. Now, it's New York, where the new governor wants the state's taxpayers to shoulder a $2 billion debt (excluding interest), to spent over ten years, to compete with California and other states throwing more money at researchers than they can even spend.

Embryos as Inventory

The inestimable Will Saletan explores "the embryo factory" in Slate and, as is his wont, hits the nail on the head. He is writing about the Abraham Center of Life, which I commented about here at Secondhand Smoke last year. He writes that Jennalee Ryan, the entrepreneurial owner of the Abraham Center "represents the next wave of industrial rationality. She's bringing the innovations of Costco and Burger King to the business of human flesh." Indeed.

Ryan suggests that her service of making embryos to order is better than embryo adoption, as offered by the Snowflakes organization, for example, since the would-be parents aren't screened for suitability--and all for just $2500 for the embryo plus the price of being implanted and prenatal care. Regardless of what one thinks about Snowflakes, that service isn't about making embryos to fill a market niche. Rather, it is about saving an already existing frozen embryo from destruction, and loving and welcoming it regardless of his or her looks and expected capacities.

In contrast, Ryan and her clients are in it for themselves: "Buying embryos gives you all the advantages of buying eggs and sperm. You can screen donors—in this case, the embryo's parents--for physical and mental health, education, and looks. Since Ryan is shouldering the risk, she screens donors up front. Her embryos' moms are college-educated. The dads have advanced degrees. All the donors are white, since the clients are white. Ryan is no bigot, but business is business. 'There is simply a demand for white babies,' she shrugs. In fact, three-quarters of the DNA in her first two batches comes from blue-eyed blonds. This isn't eugenics; it's narcissism. 'What I was really looking for was blond hair, blue eyes, so the child would look similar to me,' one of Ryan's clients told ABC News."

It is also furthering the agenda of treating our children as custom made products to fulfill our personal desires. And it won't stop with buying embryos to order, but extend to offering surrogacy services--as Ryan already does. It's about the bottom line, both financial and eugenic: "To Ryan, embryos are inventory. 'I saw a demand for something and created the product,' she told to the San Antonio Current. The doctor who mixed Ryan's first batch of embryos was aghast to discover their fate, but Ryan insists, 'If they are my embryos, legally, what I do with those embryos is really none of her business.' What if clients aren't satisfied with the embryos? 'If they don't think it's right for them, they don't have to take them,' she shrugs. With surrogacy, that policy could be extended for weeks. Tested, personalized, affordable, disposable. You've come a long way, baby."

How Do We Judge Medical Harm?

Doctors are planning to perform the first uterus transplant in a woman desiring the surgery so she can have a baby, not to save her life. This strikes me as moving onto dangerous ground where doctors reduce themselves from professionals into technicians.

Medical professionals have responsibilities, for example and perhaps most famously, to do no harm. They have patients, to whom they owe fiduciary duties if solemn trust. Yet, this transplant could cause death, serious side effects, the and if there is a pregnancy and the organ fails, the death of mother and fetus.

Technicians, on the other hand, have lower standards--primarily those dictated by the marketplace--and they have customers. "Choice" and fulfilling desires become the ruling paradigm.

And this is where I see medicine devolving from the professional who refuses to harm patients, to the technician who supplies market demand and justifies every procedure by the excuse, "It's what he or she wants."

It ain't good.

Bone Marrow Stem Cell Science Continues to Advance

Have you noticed how bitter some advocates for ESCR seem to be about the ongoing and ubiquitous advances in adult stem cell research? Well, here's another story to raise their dander: Catherine Verfaillie, who first demonstrated that a certain type of bone marrow stem cell is multi-potent and perhaps even, pluripotent--and was roundly criticized for it--continues to demonstrate that her science is good. This time in pigs.

She will of course continue to state that ESCR should be done, too. And of course, no one is trying to stop it from being done. The issues are the extent and rules of federal funding and whether to permit human cloning. Besides, any scientist who casts doubt on the ethics of ESCR/Cloning faces being branded "anti-science" and treated accordingly by colleagues. You might lose your lab and be forced to teach "punishment" freshman classes--as happened to Dr. David Prentice at Indiana State University--or conveniently be denied tenure, as happened at MIT to Dr. James Sherley.

Terms Every "Intellectual" Should Know

George Dvorsky, the radical transhumanist--well, now there's a redundant phrase--has come up with a long list of terms of which "intellectuals" should be aware. These include:

"Cosmological Eschatology (aka physical eschatology): CE is the study of how the Universe develops, ages, and ultimately comes to an end. While hardly a new concept, what is new is the suggestion that advanced intelligence may play a role in the universe's life cycle. Given the radical potential for postbiological superintelligence, a number of thinkers have suggested that universe engineering is a likely activity for advanced civilizations. This has given rise to a number of theories, including the developmental singularity hypothesis and the selfish biocosm hypothesis." Like I have often said, transhumanism is religion.

"Extended Identity: Human activity is increasingly migrating to the digital realm. The rise in popularity of MMORPGs such as Second Life and World of Warcraft show that the self can, to a non-trivial degree, be transfered to an alternative medium. With the maturation of these technologies will come distributed personhood and new legal protections to guarantee safe and ubiquitous online activity." Or, to put it another way: "My Mother the Computer."

"Information Theoretic Death: New technologies will soon demand that we redefine what we mean by death. It is becoming increasingly unsatisfactory to declare death when the heart stops. As long as the information within the brain can be preserved and restored, a person should not be considered irrevocably dead. Given the potential for molecular nanotechnology and other future biotechnological advances, it is reasonable to suggest that most cognitive impairment will someday be repairable. Consequently, we will need to reconsider the status of persons frozen in cyronic stasis or hooked up to life support systems." Then, Dvorsky should oppose dehydrating those with profound cognitive disabilities, since he believes cures will be coming. But somehow, I'll bet he wasn't on the Schindlers' side in the Terri Schiavo fight.

"Memetic Engineering: This is the radical and controversial idea that the propagation and quality of information should be monitored and managed. Memetic engineering is a term coined by Richard Dawkins, and has been elaborated upon by such thinkers as James Gardner, Robert Wright, Daniel Dennett (who calls for increased cultural health) and William Sims Bainbridge (to enhance group and societal outcomes). For example, advocates of ME would argue that some religious memes are viral and and need to curbed. I have also argued along these lines. On a related note, a burgeoning movement is afoot to help people overcome their biases." Get those re-education camps ready! So much for the myth that transhumanists and radical secularists really believe in freedom and liberty of conscience.

Well, now we know how Dvorsky spends his nights. Check it out. It's pretty interesting. Far out, man.

China: The Consequence of Sex Selection

Thanks to China's one child policy, mixed with what I consider to be a eugenics mindset that sees boys as more valuable than girls--certainly based in part on cultural issues and the perceived need of parents to be cared for in old age--there will soon be 30 million more men of marriageable age than women. From the story in the Chicago Sun Times: "Sex-selective abortion is prohibited, but the government says the practice remains widespread, especially in rural areas. The report said China's sex ratio for newborns in 2005 was 118 boys to 100 girls, a big jump from 110 to 100 in 2000. In some regions, such as the southern provinces of Guangdong and Hainan, the ratio has ballooned to 130 boys to 100 girls."

Sex selection is big in India, too. Moreover, if transhumanists and other assorted Brave New Worlders get their way and parents begin to pick and choose the attributes they want in their children--from sex, to capacities, to even disability--such imbalances could someday become the norm.

An Interesting Question of Federalism and Politics

You will probably have to be a lawyer to enjoy this post: The American political system is fascinating. Our founders established checks and balances and divided sovereignties to prevent any single governmental body or institution from gaining too much power. As a consequence, we experience many political and legal flash points and power struggles, including often, between states and the federal government.

I bring this up because there is a legal case in California that strikes me as raising many of the same issues of federalism involved in the assisted suicide case, Gonzales v. Oregon and the medical marijuana cases. This time the surface issue is abortion. Apparently the Feds enacted a provision in a 2004 spending bill that, according to a story in the San Francisco Chronicle,"denies a wide range of federal funding to states that discriminate against any health provider, health maintenance organization or insurer that does not offer abortions or abortion referrals." In other words, if doctor refuses to perform abortions and a state punishes the physician, the state can lose federal funding.

California has a law requiring all doctors "to perform abortions in an emergency in which childbirth would threaten the woman's life or health." If he or she refuses, presumably there could be state sanction--which would, in turn, risk the receipt of federal funds. So, the state sued, claiming among other arguments, that the federal law interferes with the state's right to enforce its own statutes.

This was the same argument made by Oregon when it challenged an interpretation by Attorney General John Ashcroft that prescribing narcotics for use in suicide was an improper use of federally controlled substances. The Supreme Court struck the federal policy down as having been attempted in an improper manner. But it also ruled that if Congress passed such a law, it would be constitutional. The medical marijuana cases also ruled that the Feds have the right to enforce Congressionally enacted law, regardless of state statutes to the contrary.

In the abortion case, Congress did pass such a law. So, will the courts rule consistently with Gonzales and its medical marijuana rulings? I doubt it. There is a factual distinction in that women have a constitutional right to abortion, which is not true of assisted suicide or consuming marijuana for medicinal purposes. But it seems to me that the case does not really concern the right to abortion per se, but rather, the Feds' right to enforce its own policy on a contentious issue when it conflicts with state law. In other words, it is one of our flash point power struggles.

I will be curious to see whether the ruling in this case is consistent with the MM cases and Gonzales. I am betting not. Legal rulings involving power struggles arising from cultural flash points tend, in my view, to generate result oriented decisions based in politics as much as in law. The politics of this case, particularly in the Ninth Circuit, favor California. Unless the court punts, I am betting on a ruling requiring enforcement of the federal law consistent with California's statute. If so, it could lead to the Supreme Court.

Euthanasia: In for an Inch, in for a Mile

Euthanasia activists in Belgium want to expand the law to permit the euthanizing of children and the mentally incompetent. Is anyone surprised?

Animal Charities Better Funded than Charities to Help Disabled People

This is rather shocking, but somehow, not surprising: According to an advocacy campaign to increase donations being mounted in Scotland by Enable Scotland, which helps developmentally and other disabled people live independent lives, animal charities help receive higher public support than those whose missions are to help disabled people. Note the advertisement of the picture of the disabled person over the caption: "If I ate out of a dog bowl would you like me more?"

That's hitting a bit below the belt. Helping animals is important and it is of concern when charities begin competing with each other. But, I have to admit, if this is true it may say something about the current state of society.

I wonder if the same disparity exists here in the USA and in other countries?

Lower Standard of Care for Physician-Assisted Suicide

This is so typical of the euthanasia movement: On one hand, they want doctors allowed to render what is essentially a non medical act--intentionally facilitating suicide--thereby slapping a patina of professional respectability upon the act. Then, on the other hand, after legitimizing assisted suicide as a medical treatment, they lower the standard of care required of the participating doctor, beneath that required in other doctor/patient interactions.

This is the relevant text from H 44, the new Vermont assisted suicide legalization bill--which is nearly identical to Oregon's law:

"§ 5293. IMMUNITIES

(a) No person shall be subject to civil or criminal liability or professional disciplinary action for participating in good faith compliance in accordance with this chapter. This includes being present when a qualified patient takes the prescribed medication to hasten his or her death in accordance with this chapter.
...
(c) No request by a patient for or provision by an attending physician of medication in good faith compliance with the provisions of this chapter shall constitute neglect for any purpose of law."

Thus, H 44 dramatically lowers the standard of care required of physicians to meet their professional responsibility.

To avoid liability for negligence, a physician's rendered services must usually meet the "standard of care," which is generally defined as taking actions or measures that a reasonable healthcare professional in the community would take in the same or similar circumstances. Thus it isn't what the doctor intends that matters (good faith). It is what he or she does or does not do (negligence or meeting the standard of care) that determines whether the services were provided in a proper professional manner.

Thus, if H 44 becomes the law in Vermont, a surgeon who acts negligently in good faith to save a patient's life, can still be sued for damages. But the same doctor who negligently assisted the suicide of the same patient in good faith, could not be similarly sued, thereby establishing a lower standard of care for assisting suicides than for treating patients.

Since a treating doctor seeks to save life, while the assisting suicide doctor intends to cause death, one would think the professional burdens would be the other way around.

Krauthammer Understands the Stakes in Embryonic Stem Cell Debate

Charles Krauthammer is not pro life. He is not, as far as I know, religious. He is an MD and a psychiatrist, who became one of America's most erudite pundits after becoming paraplegic in a swimming accident years ago. This, according to the media, should give him as much moral authority as Michael J. Fox, Mary Tyler Moore, and the late Christopher Reeve. Plus, he is smarter than those three put together.

Here is part of what Krauthammer wrote in this fine column about the political attempt to overturn President Bush's stem cell funding policy: "You don't need religion to tremble at the thought of unrestricted embryo research. You simply have to have a healthy respect for the human capacity for doing evil in pursuit of the good. Once we have taken the position of many stem cell advocates that embryos are discardable tissue with no more intrinsic value than a hangnail or an appendix, then all barriers are down. What is to prevent us from producing not just tissues and organs, but human-like organisms for preservation as a source of future body parts on demand?"

Why, nothing at all. The power of human logic virtually compels us to go there.

After extolling the finding of potentially pluripotent stem cells in amniotic fluid, Krauthammer concludes: "It will have turned out that Bush's unpopular policy held the line, however arbitrary and temporary, against the wanton trampling of the human embryo just long enough for a morally neutral alternative to emerge. And it did force the country to at least ponder the moral cost of turning one potential human being into replacement parts for another. Who will be holding the line next time, when another Faustus promises medical nirvana if he is permitted to transgress just one moral boundary?"

Good question. On the other hand, there is cause for optimism. The latest poll shows that support for expanded funding is hardly overwhelming, 56-41%. And remember, that is with tens of millions in Big Biotech propaganda and a totally in the tank MSM pushing the agenda. A few more big adult stem cell breakthroughs and the home team will be back in the game.

Ashley's Case: Getting Very Hot

The disability rights community is making things hot for the doctors who took out Ashley's uterus, cut off her breast buds, and subjected her to two years of hormone injections to keep her small. Complaints are being filed, calls for investigations being made. From the AP story:

"Activists are demanding an investigation into treatment performed on a severely brain-damaged girl whose growth was deliberately stunted to make it easier for her parents to care for her at home.

"Critics want an official condemnation from the American Medical Association, which owns a medical journal that first published the Washington state case. They also want state and federal officials to investigate whether doctors violated the girl's rights. 'It is unethical and unacceptable to perform intrusive and invasive medical procedures on a person or child with a disability simply to make the person easier to care for,' said Steven Taylor, director of Syracuse University's Center on Human Policy. Taylor said that the treatment was essentially a medical experiment and that a hospital institutional review board should have been consulted beforehand."

Doctors who performed the medical interventions, naturally, disagree: "The girl's doctors at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle described the case in October's Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. Dr. Richard Molteni, the hospital's medical director, said there was no need to consult an institutional review board because Ashley's case was not an experiment. He said the hospital firmly believes it acted in her best interest. The decision to proceed was 'thoroughly reviewed by a wide range of medical and surgical specialists, including neurologists, development specialists and ethicists,' Molteni said."

Independent investigations are being called for. That seems appropriate, it seems to me. With the parents urging others to pursue "Ashley's Treatment" and the doctors unrepentant, a thorough look into the case and the ethical appropriateness of such "care" is entirely the appropriate way to go.

Post Script: The case has apparently been written up in a medical journal by the doctors involved. As soon as I can obtain a copy, I will comment upon it here at Secondhand Smoke.

House Nearly 40 Votes Short of Veto Override On Stem Cell Funding Bill

As expected, the House of Representatives passed the bill to overturn President Bush's embryonic stem cell funding bill. But the last election only amounted to a gain of 15 additional votes in support of the bill, from the previous high of 238 to a current total of 253. It takes 290 votes to overturn. So, at least for now, the President's expected veto is likely to hold.

Senator Bob Casey to Vote Against Overturning Bush Policy

According to this story, Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) will vote against the bill to overturn President Bush's policy that restricts federal funding of ESCR to cell lines created before 8/9/01. (Typically, the story gets it wrong by claiming that the bill would "pave the way for federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research," strongly implying that there currently is none. But as readers of Secondhand Smoke know, in 2005, the NIH gave researchers $50 million for human ESCR.)

If Casey sticks to his guns--and you know that the pressure will be intense to break this campaign promise--the Senate will probably not be able to override President Bush's expected veto. Bottom line: It looks like the status quo will hold--for now.

Robert Schindler is Improving

Here is some very good news: Robert Schindler, the father of Terri Schiavo, is improving. Bobby Schindler told me via e-mail: "My father is in his first week of rehabilitation to help return the strength he lost on his right side. I am happy to say that in the short time he has been getting therapy (two days) he is already walking (with a little help) and is also regaining some of his strength in his right arm. My family is taking it one day at a time knowing that he has a lot of work in front of him, but are optimistic he will continue to respond to the therapy.

"The letters and prayers that my father has and continues to receive have kept him in very good spirits. My family is very fortunate to have so many people that genuinely care about my fathers well being."

If anyone wishes to write Robert and wish him well, here is the address:

Robert Schindler, c/o
The Terri Schiavo Foundation
5562 Central Ave. # 2
St. Petersburg. FL
33707

Should Smokers be Denied Surgery?

What an irony: On one hand, society is getting pretty libertarian. We are not to judge or shun each other for personal behavior. On the other hand, this injunction does not apply to smokers, who can be castigated from here to Timbuktu. Add in the growing utilitarian emphasis being promoted by bioethicists and others within the medical intelligentsia, and viola, we have a new form of medical discrimination unfolding before our very eyes:

In the UK, in the British Medical Journal no less, a medical professor urges that smokers be denied some surgeries: "Increased use of hospital beds and associated costs mean less opportunity to treat other patients. Based on these data, five non-smokers could be operated on for the cost and bed use of four smokers and the non-smokers' surgical outcomes would be better. A well informed smoker, unwilling or unable to quit, might assume an increased risk for himself, but the decision is not his alone when it can indirectly affect others. Then, the community must involve itself."

I am willing to bet that this professor would never say that promiscuous people who engage in risky behaviors be denied surgeries or other forms of medical care, even though they may contract diseases that affect outcomes and take up beds. (For example, just today it was announced that a virulent, drug resistant staph infection can be spread by sexual congress--surely a matter of distinct concern at a time when many hospitals have problems with staph infections spreading among patients.) He probably would move quickly, however, to promote similar discrimination against the obese.

Once we countenance explicit health care rationing--which is what this proposal advocates--those discriminated against will be patients in unpopular categories with little political power. Those with political power, real or perceived, will never be the ones whose health is deemed to matter less.

This is precisely the point madey by the author of a reply article, also in the BMJ. "Discriminating against smokers has become an acceptable norm. Indeed, at least one group of authors who believe smokers should be refused surgery blithely admits that it is 'overtly discriminatory.' The suggestion that we should deprive smokers of surgery indicates that the medical and public health communities have created an underclass of people against whom discrimination is not only tolerated but encouraged."

"Zombie" Cloned Animals

This story out of the UK is of concern. Cloned animals are having, shall we say, troubles. No surprise there. Consequently, cloners are keeping some of them penned in and causing stress, leading to aggression, particlularly among cloned pigs. Their reported solution? Get rid of the stress and aggression gene! From the Daily Mail story:"GM scientists are actively investigating ways to remove the stress and aggression gene from animals, effectively turning them into complacent zombies. The professor said it might become technically possible to produce "animal vegetables"--beasts which are 'highly prolific and oblivious to their physical and mental status'."

Remember, if it can be done to animals today, it may be done to humans tomorrow. So, I have a better idea. Actually, two: Why not just keep the animals in better quarters? Better yet, maybe we should just stop cloning altogether and call it a day. Our hubris is exceeding our wisdom.

Radio Free Ashley

There has been tremendous interest in the media about Ashley and the decision by her parents to keep her small. Here is a radio interview I did today on The Eagle, KSSZ from Columbia, MO. The host is Derek Gilbert.

Mark Pickup Has a Blog: Human Life Matters

My wonderful and dear friend, Mark Pickup, has started a blog called Human Life Matters. I met Mark circa 1996 when we both appeared at an anti-euthanasia conference sponsored by the Compassionate Healthcare Network in Vancouver. We hit it off immediately and became the best of friends. I dedicated Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World to Mark with these words: "To Mark Pickup: Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God."

Mark is a powerful voice against euthanasia, for a human rights bioethics, and on behalf of disability rights. He is also an explicitly pro life campaigner and a Christian apologist. He brings to his work a depth of knowledge of the difficulties disabled people face due to his progressive multiple sclerosis.

I look forward to Mark's comments and urge visitors to Secondhand Smoke to give him a try. Agree or disagree with his viewpoints, perspectives, and faith-oriented approach, Mark Pickup is a man of dignity whose voice is well worth hearing.

UK Woman Not Dehydrated, Starved

A coroner's inquest has determined that the elderly woman in the UK, whom some family members claimed was denied sustenance, died of natural causes. She was not provided a feeding tube, based on what seems to be very vague indications by the patient. Hence, it seems that the care of the patient involved confusion more than intent. But the story still demonstrates the kind of confusion that can rend families and care givers when these matters are not discussed fully beforehand.

Does Cloning Poison Everyone it Touches?

I mean this only half facetiously: Apparently there has been another cloning scandal, as reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education (no link available). An unpublished study had claimed to have obtain embryonic stem cells from cloned monkey embryos. Not so, apparently: "An investigation by the National Institutes of Health has determined that Jong Hyuk Park falsified data while working at the University of Pittsburgh to clone rhesus monkey embryos.

"Mr. Park was a postdoctoral fellow at Pittsburgh from August 2004 through February 2006 in the laboratory of Gerald P. Schatten, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences, as well as of cell biology and physiology. During that time, Mr. Park prepared a paper for submission to the journal Nature on generating embryonic stem cells from cloned monkey cells--a feat not yet accomplished by other labs.

"The NIH's Office of Research Integrity has determined that Mr. Park fabricated two figures for that paper, lied to his colleagues at Pittsburgh about the figures, and falsified records in an attempt to hide his deception. The notice of the NIH's findings appeared on Tuesday in the Federal Register."

Perhaps it's the money at stake. Perhaps it is the desire for acclamation by peers. But corruption in science has become a real problem--which runs the gamut from hype, redefining terms for political reasons rather than scientific, and outright fraud.

The Stem Cell Debate is Bigger Than the Sum of its Parts

Yuval Levin, the former White House policy guy for biotechnology, and now with the Ethics and Public Policy Center (which former Senator Rick Santorum just joined), has a fine piece in today's NRO that bursts the bubble, in an entirely empirical manner, of many of the most prominent arguments advanced by those who are committed to overturning President Bush's ESCR federal funding policy. He does such a splendid job, that it clearly illustrates a sad fact about this debate I have long lamented: In this policy debate, facts simply don't matter.

Levin also argues in favor of a potential "third way" that could find a solution to our current bitter divide over biotechnology were it to be embraced by all sides. This is a bill that would fund "alternative sources" of research, intended to obtain pluripotent stem cells without embryo destruction. Last year, the plan enjoyed overwhelming support in both Houses of Congress, but failed at the last minute on a procedural vote in the House. Levin writes:"But advocates of looser funding rules will not take 'yes' for an answer. Rather than jump at the chance to promote a common-ground way forward on stem cells, they have chosen to ignore the emerging alternatives, and insist that embryo-destructive research must be funded...They would prefer a political rallying point over a scientific way forward."

Levin is right, but there is a reason for this intransigence. The ESCR/cloning debate is about much more than the state of the science, the potential for cures, and indeed, the ethics of biotechnology. These are important matters, of course. But beneath the imbroglio is a more fundamental issue: Which value system will predominate in society? Will our policies and endeavors be founded in the intrinsic value of all human life? Or, will we pursue a "quality of life" ethic, that leads to the instrumentalization of the most vulnerable human lives?

I believe this is why an issue of proper funding levels and requirements is stoking up so much emotion. There is more money available for ESCR with federal, state, and private sources than can currently be spent! It is Bush's assertion of a moral principle, expressed through his policy, that embryos have intrinsic moral worth and should not be treated as harvestable crops, which is the actual cause of all the fuss.

Ashley's Case: The Disability Rights Movement has Engaged

The disability rights movement is really up in arms about the non therapeutic surgeries imposed upon Ashley. Not Dead Yet has weighed in with its own press release (released on the 6th but only linkable now). Here are a few key points:

"'We are saddened but not surprised by the fact that this was publicized and met with a great deal of public approval,' said Diane Coleman, founder of Not Dead Yet. 'The public is willing to sanction the murders of disabled children by their parents, so it's hardly surprising they would rush to the support of parents and their medical partners in a matter like this.'" I actually think there isn't a lot of public approval. Initially, many were reluctant to criticize--including Secondhand Smoke--due to the presumption that the parents were trying to do the right thing in a difficult situation. We needed time to think it through. But the more we have thought about it, and the more we have seen that there was no therapeutic value to the surgeries, the more, I think, people have been repulsed by what was done--as I noted in a post yesterday. But this much is right: When parents kill their disabled children or dehydrate them to death via pulling of feeding tubes, there is widespread support and sympathy--a tragic irony that I mentioned in my first post on the subject.

And this point is right on: "Not Dead Yet calls for a total ban on this procedure and similar ones, no matter what ethics committees think of them. Ethics committees are not a substitute for the constitutionally-guaranteed right of due process. In fact, they often act as an end-run around those protections. 'Ethics Committees often say they strive for diversity in their membership, but they have historically excluded representation from the disability community about whom they are making life and death decisions,' said Coleman."

Knowing these fine people as I do, this isn't over. The doctors and ethics committee members who approved Ashley's surgeries are going to have a lot of 'splainin' to do.

The Making of an Activist

I am often asked how and why I became an activist on behalf of human exceptionalism. I sure never planned it! Nor, when I began this work, was I aware of the depth and scope of the issues in which I would one day engage.

My path to posting this blog entry began with the suicide of my friend, Frances, in 1992. The current edition of my podcast Brave New Bioethics tells the story.

Ashley's Case: It is Getting Ugly

The never shy Steven Drake has blistered the doctors who performed the surgery on Ashley in an open letter. Here is what he wrote in full:

"I am writing to you wearing several hats.

My first hat is as a person with a disability related to injuries received at birth. The doctor who inflicted those injuries told my parents I probably wouldn't live very long and that it would be better for all concerned if I died. Obviously, my parents didn't take the road being offered and I'm here 51 years later.

"My second hat is that of a person who spent over ten years working in schools, group homes and day treatment centers supporting people with just about every conceivable combination of physical and cognitive disabilities you could imagine. Some of them had lousy lives and some had very good ones. The quality of their lives was unrelated to the severity of their disabilities. It always came down to the level of support, love and acceptance they experienced from those around them.

"My third hat is as a disability activist who has been dealing with the increasingly hostile policies emerging in medicine and bioethics over the past decade. Mostly I deal with issues such as infanticide, euthanasia and assisted suicide.

"But your actions and the sanctions given by your so-called ethics committee represent one of the most openly egregious attacks on the bodily rights of people with disabilities I have seen in my work as an activist. Where were your social workers? Are there no families with severely disabled adults finding the support they need? Did you bother to find out?

"Rather, I suspect this was an all-too-appealing chance to do a 'cutting-edge' procedure involving 'cutting up a little girl. It brings us back to the times of the infamous Willowbrook Institution, where children were injected with hepatitis in the efforts to develop a vaccine, with the coerced consent of parents.

"As an activist, advocate and person with a disability, I promise to do all in my power to have your assaults on disabled children halted and to call for investigations into what passes for 'ethics' in your ethics committees."

Very Sincerely,

Stephen Drake
Research Analyst
Not Dead Yet"

Specter's Ridiculous "Amen Moment."

People rightly ridiculed then Senator John Edwards when he claimed that if people voted for Senator John Kerry, "people like [the paralyzed] Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again." This was rightly criticized as the "Amen Moment," and the clear oversell helped ensure that stem cell research would not be a significant issue in the 2004 Presidential campaign.

Now Senator Arlen Specter has managed to top Edwards in sheer hyperbole and advocacy spin. At a press conference today, he said: "It is scandalous that eight years have passed since we have known about stem cell research and the potential to conquer all known maladies, and federal funds have not been available for the research."

All known maladies? Every single one? The common cold? Herpes? Tooth decay?

And as for "no federal funds" being available to fund ESCR: In 2005 the Feds put out about $50 million for human ESCR, using the Bush approved lines. But I guess to a senator, that is the same as no money at all.

Two whoppers in one sentence: Perhaps a new record.

HT: Kathryn Jean Lopez, The Corner

Starving the Elderly: A Sign of the Times?

This story out of the UK is disturbing and a warning about where the "quality of life" ethic can take us. A 91-year old had a stroke. Rather than treat her, her family charges, doctors instead let her lie in bed and die of starvation. This, even though she begged for food!

We have no grounds for looking down our noses. In Florida, Marjorie Nighbert was dehydrated to death by court order even though she begged for food. As I described in Culture of Death: As she slowly dehydrating to death, Marjorie began to ask the staff for food:

"She was saying things like, 'Please feed me, I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, and I want food,'" attorney William F. Stone told me, who briefly represented Marjorie as a court-appointed guardian. In response to her pleas, members of the nursing staff surreptitiously gave her small amounts of food and water. One eventually blew the whistle, leading to a state investigation and a brief restraining order requiring that Marjorie be nourished

Stone was appointed Marjorie's temporary guardian by Circuit Court Judge Jere Tolton, who instructed Stone to conduct a twenty-four hour inquiry, the sole issue being whether Marjorie was competent to rescind her power of attorney and make her own decisions. After the rushed investigation, Stone was forced to report to the judge that she was not competent at that time. She had, after all been intentionally malnourished for several weeks. Stone particularly noted that he had been unable to determine whether she was competent when the dehydration commenced.

With Stone's report in hand, the judge decided to allow the dehydration to be completed, apparently on the theory that Marjorie did not have the competence to request the medical treatment of food and water. Nighbert died on April 6, 1995. Stone told me he would have appealed but he, and his client, ran out of time.

Ethical Biotechnology Brings Results

Most of bioetechnology is ethical, efficacious, and has nothing to do with embryonic stem cell research or human cloning. Here is one such area of beneficial research: Scientists have genetically modified skin, which can be applied when the burns are dressed, to make skin grafts more resistant to germs. This can bring great benefit to the treatment of serious burns. Animal testing--see, we do need it--will soon begin. Hopefully, it will work and this advance will soon be available to burn victims around the world.

Ashley's Case: Reason for Hope

I have spent the last few days doing a lot of media about Ashley, the disabled little girl subjected to invasive surgeries and hormone injections to keep her small and physically immature. I have been quite heartened that other than the occasional transhumanist, while accepting the parents' benign motive, most people seem to recognize the intrinsic wrongness of much of what was done to her. This expresses, I believe, a deep and profound embrace of Ashley's intrinsic human value--regardless of her capacities or characteristics. And this somewhat surprising development has come from the MSM, as in an on-line Time article, byline Nancy Gibbs, as well as the disability rights movement.

Here is part of what Gibbs wrote: "Ashley may be an extreme case; but she is a terrifying precedent. Critics note that for brain damaged children, development can come very, very slowly--so deciding when she's only six to change a child's body irreversibly can amount to a medical form of identity theft. Frequent touch is indeed important; but is it really so much harder to hug someone who is 5'6," or bring her to the table at dinnertime? Turning people into permanent children denies them whatever subtle therapeutic benefit comes from being seen as adults."

Meanwhile, this press release from the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, a Berkeley based non profit, makes the concern of the disabled community unequivocally clear: "[T]he conduct of Ashley's physicians and the ethics committee's decision in this tragic story should be widely questioned--there are future implications for other families and their children who have significant impairments. We rely on healthcare professionals to alleviate pain and suffering and maintain functionality, not decide when someone is worthy of holding human rights. After decades of struggle to enshrine the human rights of people with disabilities in law and policy and to challenge the overwhelming prejudice, negative attitudes, and misperceptions that are widely held about people with intellectual disabilities, this sad and puzzling episode must not mark a turning point for those hard-won gains."

The more I think about this episode, the more I think there should be an independent investigation.

Pain Control Doesn't Kill

This is very good news for dying patients and their families. A new study has been released demonstrating that pain control using opioids (narcotics) in end of life care "poses an extremely small risk of hastened death in this population [hospice patients]."

The results of this study undermines the pro-euthanasia meme that using strong pain control often leads to earlier death, and hence intentional mercy killing is little different than treating pain. Moreover, and more urgently, it should make doctors less reluctant to aggressively treat pain, which remains a problem in the clinical setting. For as the study points out:"Undertreatment of pain is a far more pressing concern than is the risk of hastened death in those with advanced disease, and physicians should be encouraged to use opioids effectively to relieve suffering at the end of life."

Good Ethics Makes for Good Science

I am surprised and pleased: The story about the versatility of amniotic fluid stem cells was major front page news in today's San Francisco Chronicle. The story, byline Carl Hall, also had one of the fairest presentations of the stem cell controversy I have seen in the MSM. Here are a few key points:

"Moral objections to embryonic stem cell research prompted the Bush administration in 2001 to limit federal backing for the work. Scientists are opposing those limits but simultaneously exploring other sources, noting that human embryos for research would be rare even in ideal circumstances. And some of the alternatives may have valuable properties not seen in the embryonic cells." Will Bush get credit for stimulating such advances? Not a chance, but good for Hall for noting that ethics drove science to places it might not otherwise have gone.

"Even if the federal grant restrictions are erased, there is a limited number of human embryos available to researchers, and their use requires special procedures to ensure informed consent on the part of donors. The embryos are generally leftovers donated by couples undergoing in vitro fertilization. Attempts are under way to produce stem cells in other ways, such as by reprogramming adult cells or cloning. But those experiments also are controversial, and in some cases have yielded disappointing results...

"The amniotic cells didn't need to be grown on layers of "feeder" cells, as is the case for cell lines taken from embryos. Unlike embryonic stem cells, the fluid-derived cells showed no apparent tendency to develop into cancerous tumors.

That may be because the amniotic cells lack true 'stemness'--the ability to turn into different cell types, a feature known as 'pluripotency'--but it's clearly a plus as far as reducing the cancer risk of any stem cell therapy.

Because the cells are so immature, they lack immune system flags that could start rejection if the cells are ever fashioned into replacement parts for patients. Atala calculated that only about 100,000 specimens would be needed to create a stem cell bank to cover 99 percent of the U.S. population."

The story also reports the reasons why "the scientists" want to proceed using embryos. But that's fine. That is part of the story. Hall's reporting stands out because it presented a balanced and thorough reportage of the news and the underlying controversy. Credit where credit is due.