Fantastic Voyage-Type Mini Robot in the Bloodstream--For Real
As regular SHSers know, I love non controversial biotechnology. Here's another good example. If it works, it will be a case of life imitating, well not art exactly, but schlock.
Scientists have invented a mini robot that might be injected into a stroke patient's blood stream with which to perform delicate surgeries--sort of a Fantastic Voyage without miniaturizing Raquel Welch to the size of a red blood corpuscle. From the story:
A tiny robot which could be injected into patients' bloodstreams to carry out potentially life-saving operations has been designed by scientists. They hope that the minuscule "submarines", which measure less than the width of two human hairs, could help surgeons treat stroke patients and those with dangerous heart conditions.Of course, before something like this can be tested in living human beings, it must be first tried in large animals--after non animal work is completed:
The team has tested the device in human blood and artificial arteries and later this year it will begin experiments in pigs, whose arteries and brains are similar to humans, before proceeding to full-scale human trials. A spokesman for the Institute of Physics, which published the report, said that using the miniature robots could "save lives by reaching parts of the body, like a stroke-damaged cranial artery, that (other instruments) have previously been unable to reach."People who oppose animal research on moral grounds deserve our respect. But the cost of their perspective would be to not move forward with potentially life-saving research such as this, since it would be unethical to try it in humans before determining whether it appears safe and efficacious in living organisms. So, that leaves us with the inevitable hard choice: No research on pigs (in this case) or no chance for humans to benefit from this new technology.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 7:14 PM
8 Comments
8 Comments:
"People who oppose animal research on moral grounds deserve our respect. But the cost of their perspective would be to not move forward with potentially life-saving research such as this,"
This is what I so like about you and your blog. You're sensitive to others yet you do not back down.
The end in this case justifies the means.
Thanks again for your perspective.
>Scientists have invented a mini robot that might be injected into a stroke patient's blood stream with which to perform delicate surgeries--sort of a Fantastic Voyage without miniaturizing Raquel Welch to the size of a red blood corpuscle.<
A very interesting story indeed and after reading what you wrote here, I’m starting to believe that God literally might be walking hand in hand with science in order to show us humans that He really does exist.
Needless to say that your knowledge is far superior to mine and I don't know if what I've read is combined with more "Faith" but I'm really starting to think now that The Kingdom of God might literally be within each and every one of US humans.
Well at least these stories should give all atheist and agnostic a lot of material to keep up their fight until The Judgement Day :)
Great information!
Keep UP The Good Work
Either something is moral or it isn't, and when we proceed on a course that is not moral we pay a price. End justifying means is not moral per se, and re animal research, we see how much the end does not justify the means in the effect of utilitarianism on our species. As we have gained these "advances" by doing the unethical and the immoral, callousness to the value of life, to suffering, to rights, and to decency has become engrained in the medical profession and we have all those things that SHS is fighting. One step forward, what cannot even be quantified in terms of number of steps back. Can't have cake and eat it too. Right doesn't come out of wrong.
If we want to stop the death culture, we have to stop experimentation on non-human animals. If human exceptionalists want to call it "biting the bullet, call it that; call it anything, but do it; even if it were only an experiment to see if it would work it should be done; nothing else has worked, now, has it. And aren't the "advances" "improving" the "quality of life"? That's UTILITARIANISM. There you have it.
Ianthe -
I know where you're coming from, and from time to time I agree with you because humans start feeling god-like when they play with animal lives, and that ends up having them hurt both animals and humans.
On the other hand, I'd like to see this progress, with animal experimentation, because it's not something that will only benefit humans.
Hear me out.
Animals are put to sleep for almost anything that could prove fatal. My baby Grey-cious (pronounced Gracious) was put to sleep for having bladder cancer.
The truth is, surgeries, chemo, recovery time, the risks... they're all more expensive than most four-legged-child-parents (or "pet owners," if you insist) can afford. Pet insurence is out there, but doesn't begin to cover the costs of medical treatments when you get something serious, particularly cancer.
Dogs who have strokes end up dead. Half kills me to know it, but I've seen it.
And, quite frankly, I don't care for pigs dying of heart attacks or strokes, either.
What benefits mankind should be used to benefit animal kind as well. I know that I won't convince you, but I still wanted to share my thoughts, because I would love to do anything to help my babies have long, happy lives. I'm willing to give my body up for science when I'm not using it anymore, in the same spirit that I am game for using animals in this kind of research. Fair is fair. But we can't always sit on our hands when we have some new technology presented to us. Anyway, I'm glad you're a reasonable voice for the loyal opposition, and I'm glad to hear from you again.
T.E.: That's like saying that people should have the right to assisted suicide and that there is nothing wrong with Living wills" because the doctors now what they are doing and they and everybody else involved is honorable, ethical, and wise. Also, the animals in laboratories are not voluntarily giving up their bodies when they no longer have use for them, and any one of some species of those animals could have ended up being one of our pets in other circumstances. Yes some would not benefit as the can now if animal experimentation were abolished, and life and its end would be more (God forbid) natural. We also wouldn't have the death culture. You're doing the same thing as the death culture is, citing "quality of life." The objective of the entire animal rights movement is eminently reasonable.
lanthe: I would expect that you are a vegetarian. Yes?
History Writer: You also expect that if you are ever in hospital and end up on life support the doctors will know what they are doing and that their word, and the hospital, will be trustworthy, and that once in the situation, one you had never been in and experienced before, when you may not be able to execute a revocation, you will not change your mind from the time you signed your "advanced directive/living will." The fundamental error in logical reasoning is to assume anything, and assumption can be arrogant, as well. There is a vast difference between eating other animals, which many animals do, and is a matter of survival, and experimenting on them in laboratories, which is unethical, and without which the human race has been able to survive, advance, and be more morally sound, intellectually competent, and capable of continuing to survive.
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