Posted on 06/04/2010 2:30:34 PM PDT by nickcarraway
In the new movie "Splice," a human-animal hybrid terrorizes people. In real life, scientists argue mixing human and animal cells could save lives.
Dren, the half-human, half-animal hybrid set to terrorize Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley in the new movie "Splice," is pure science fiction, but politicians across the country aren't taking any chances.
In the last month Ohio and Arizona have both passed laws forbidding research of animal human hybrids.
Proponents of the laws fear Dren-like creations and object morally to the combining human and animal cells. But scientists say the research could lead to cure for AIDS, immunize people against cancer, or grow replacement organs.
The potential for medical cures or advances is huge, said Esmail Zanjani, a scientist at the University of Nevada Reno who has created sheep that produce livers that are up to 20 percent human.
"But just because we can do something doesn't mean we should," said Zanjani. "We need to have a full discussion with the public," about this kind of research.
In a recent interview, "Splice" director Vincenzo Natali said that his inspiration for "Splice" was the earmouse, a 1995 experiment where scientists grew a large, human-shaped ear from cow cells grown on the back of a hairless mouse.
Despite the fact that no human cells were used in the ear mouse (the scientists placed cow cells on a polymer shaped like the human ear), the research sparked controversy and raised hopes that replacement organs would soon be available.
Since then research into animal human hybrids, or chimeras (after the lion, goat, and snake creature from Greek mythology) has exploded. Over the last 15 years scientists have created sheep with human livers and pancreas cells, mice with human immune systems, and many other combinations of human and animal cells.
None of the modern chimeras look like something out of Dr. Moreau's menagerie. They look like normal animals. The difference is on the inside.
The blood flowing through their veins could be human. The liver or kidneys could contain discrete human liver or kidney cells. These are not transgenic animals, said Zanjani. They are discrete cells, either animal or human. The DNA is not mixed.
If a human had, say, hepatitis, and their liver was dying, scientists could extract liver cells from that person, insert them into a developing sheep, and then harvest a human liver, made from a person's own cells (to reduce the chance of organ rejection), and replace the old liver.
Infected cells can't fight off an infection, whether it is HIV or some other disease. But if uninfected human stem cells were placed in an animal's body, scientists could train those cells to recognize and fight off the infection.
Once they are ready, the cells would be harvested from the animal and introduced back into the original human's body. There the retrained immune cells would fight off the infection.
The same technique could work for cancer, said Jeffery Platt, a scientist at the University of Michigan exploring this very scenario.
Millions of lives could be saved using human-animal hybrids, say scientists, but some people have strong moral objections to mixing human and animal cells. Earlier this week the Ohio Senate passed Senate Bill 243, which prohibits "the creation, transportation, or receipt of a human-animal hybrid, the transfer of a nonhuman embryo into a human womb, and the transfer of a human embryo into a nonhuman womb."
Anyone who violates the new law could spend five years in prison and face up to a quarter million dollars in fines. Other states, including Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arizona have also banned research into chimeras.
National governments have also stepped in. The United Kingdom approved chimera research in 2008, when it granted a Newcastle University stem cell scientist Lyle Armstrong a permit to use cow eggs filled with human DNA to develop therapies for Parkinson's disease and stroke victims. (All cow DNA would be removed before the human DNA would be inserted.)
Canada bans all chimera research, but the Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act of 2009 failed to pass the U.S. Congress.
Fears about new technology are nothing new, said Platt; the advent of railroads sparked controversy about how fast the human body was meant to travel. Nor are they unnatural; people fear what they don't know. But the potential of chimera research to save millions of lives should also be added to the equation.
"Where it becomes a problem is if government responses with undue constraints that are not justified," said Platt.
tweeb is history.....
“Are you opposed to taking an aspirin?”
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Aspirin is the same as chewing the bark of white willow. It isn’t an unnatural substance, while acetominifen, which has been shown to be quite harmful, is totally synthetic.
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“Are we supposed to just let people suffer and die if we pray and God doesnt miraculously heal them?
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I’ll assume that that gross oversimplification was unintentional, and say that there are a vast number of things to be done, that often have not been done, that lead naturally to healing whether prayer has been invoked ot not.
Of course we’re to “pray without ceasing,” but we also have to make sure that we’ve shed all the spiritual blockages to the fulfillment of healing prayer that are stated in the word. (Pastor Henry Wright’s book “A More Excellent Way” deals with this better than I ever could)
In most cases people will continue to suffer until they die if they have turned against the Lord’s way. Diabetics lose limbs, and/or go blind with great frequency, and millions of people have had two, three, or more heart surgeries to relieve arterial blockages. Transplants may temporarily relieve kidney failure, but at the cost of a greatly shortened, and limited life, due to having to take anti-rejection drugs as a consequence, etc.
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“Are you saying we cant use something to help someone unless the treatment is specifically listed in scripture?”
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Straw!
If we are NOT doing what we’ve been given in the word, and turn to something out of the “wisdom” of men (that the word says is foolishness) then it becomes a self-inflicted curse, as stated in Jeremiah 17.
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Someone who signed up a week ago IS a noob.
The troll designation was based on the nazi inference. Someone who doesn't bring anything relevant to the thread but just throws out slurs like that IS a troll, and obviously the mods thought so too.
” Im not going to walk by a wounded traveler or simply say a prayer on his behalf...”
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James 5:
13] Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms.
[14] Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
[15] And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
Simply? - Simply do the only thing that is effective for you to do?
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tweeb didn’t make his slurs with the intent of making a point as attacking posters who he disagreed with.
You’re trying to play both sides against the middle isn’t working.
No doubt you are thinking that you’re trying to be a peacemaker, but all that comes across is that you are willing to compromise what you think depending on who you’re talking to.
A weather vane??
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We DON'T need to do this stuff to survive. The human race has managed to survive for thousands of years without hybridizing man and animals.
The atheist/evolutionist game is is always the same and they only have a few tricks in the book but tricks is what it is.
Citizen, you asked for the scriptures.
You’ve been given scriptures, and now you try to squirm free of them by asking sophistic questions.
Which is it?
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Nobody is going to live forever anyway, no matter how much DNA manipulation goes on. The medical community is always carrying on about saving lives, implying that they can keep you alive indefinitely, and while that's good to a point, it's not going to happen that people are going to live forever, and it does not justify the kind of corruption of humanity that combining DNA is going to result in.
Then you explain to God how manipulating human DNA and combining it with animal DNA and corrupting mankind is acceptable.
Their biggest trick is to conflate basic, simple procedures and treatments with something as morally repugnant as human/animal hybridization.
Aside from the simple wrongness of it, there is just no need whatsoever for it, just as there is no need for embryonic stem cell research.
We AREN’T going to live forever, no matter how hard scientists try to make us or want us to think that they can accomplish it.
There is NO justification for going into this kind of territory.
Inevitably someone attempts to examine the question of how much effort to save a life is enough and what means are proper from a Biblical perspective, well and good, so I'll ask this for anyone’s input:
Since Jesus had the demonstrated ability to heal anyone of anything why was healing people's physical ills always secondary to work of preaching the good news?
YOU don’t need it to survive. Plenty of others are not so fortunate.
“There is NO justification for going into this kind of territory.”
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Unless you’re completely fear-stricken about where you know you’re going when you die.
You said humanity needed it to survive, not any particular individual.
Humanity survived just fine for thousands of years without the need for chimeras.
That's essentially what it gets down to.
Everyone dies. It's a given. You can maybe delay it a couple years but in light of eternity, it isn't going to make much difference.
Although I can see that if you're not going to heaven, you'd want to get as much time here as you can.
Since it's what comes after this life that is the most important, you'd think that people would invest as much into their eternal destiny as they do to their temporal comfort.
Sorry, but you are putting personal opinion over what scripture actually says.
Yes, someone who is afflicted should pray and be anointed by the elders. I agree.
No, that doesn’t preclude taking other steps to heal someone. In fact, you are putting a spiritual burden on Christians by adding more to scripture than what it really states.
Your definition of what’s natural and not is also a purely specious one. At what point does natural become unnatural? I suppose I’m allowed to chew the bark of a white willow. Ah, but what if I process it to increase its purity? Is that now stepping over the line? What if I mix it with other naturally occurring substances to make something new? Is THAT sinful?
No, you are putting stumbling blocks in the lives of your fellow Christians. You imply a diabetic is weak of faith if they take insulin? You would rather they suffer, lose limbs, and die from it? Let the children suffer for the sake of acetaminophen. NOWHERE in scripture!
Instead of having freedom, you’d bind the sick with a terrible requirement for them to suffer and die in faith! Why not encourage their faith AND heal them by whatever moral means you can? Tend to their spirit AND body? One does not prohibit the other!
Wouldn’t that be far more keeping with the royal rule to love your brother as yourself?
metmom: “The troll designation was based on the nazi inference. Someone who doesn’t bring anything relevant to the thread but just throws out slurs like that IS a troll, and obviously the mods thought so too.”
Agreed. Calling him a noob and troll was justified. He was a noob AND a troll. However, I hope you can see why pointing that out does not discredit his statements? Someone can be a noob and be entirely correct. That didn’t apply in his case, because he used the Nazi smear against you of course. You are most definitely NOT a Nazi, and that’s a terrible thing to call anyone (unless they really are a Nazi).
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