Obama's Clever Politics Attacks Schindler Family's Audacity of Hope.

In the last debate between Senators Obama and Clinton, the candidates were asked what their greatest mistake had been. Clinton went to her Iraq vote but Obama said it was his agreeing to the federal law that tried to save Terri Schiavo's life. He stated:

I think professionally, the biggest mistake that I made was when I first arrived in the Senate. There was debate about Terri Schiavo and a lot of us, including me, left the Senate with a bill that allowed Congress to intrude where it shouldn't. And I think I should have stayed in the Senate and fought more for making sure that families make those kinds of decisions and not bureaucrats and politicians.

Fat chance that would have ever happened. The Senate Democratic leadership was all for the bill. It was pushed behind the scenes by Senators Reid and Harkin, for example. Only one senator voting against unanimous consent would have derailed the whole thing. But none did because the politics of the case at that time were uncertain.

It was only after Terri dehydrated to death, and one poll showed that the American people disagreed with the federal action, that the entire political paradigm changed. Suddenly for the Democrats and media, the whole thing had been an incursion by the Religious Right and intrusive Republicans wanting to put the government at the death bed, and Howard Dean promised to make it a big campaign issue. That stimulated this response from SHS:

I don't recall Howard Dean opposing the bill at the time. But if Dean and Democrats try to revise history and claim that the law was exclusively a Republican venture, then they will be branding themselves cynics and demagogues,who, when the heat was on, meekly went along. But later, when some polls showed that the move was unpopular, they claim federal intervention was an attempt to impose theocracy. Talk about political cowardice and cynicism!

That's politics, of course, but I doubt that Obama would have given that debate answer had the federal law proved popular.

But Terri's death--and the way she died-- isn't about mere politics for her family and Obama's answer was a knife in the heart. In response, they released a press release (full disclosure, at their request, I reviewed it for them) which stated in part:

"Is it so incredulous that a family had the 'audacity of hope' to believe its government would care about one profoundly disabled woman?" [Robert] Schindler [Terri's father] asked. "It is a shame that Senator Obama, who claims to embody 'hope,' is crushing it for the families of people with profound disabilities."

Beyond that matter, Obama's answer was brilliantly cynical because it was a response that could not be criticized. You see, Hillary Clinton also gave unanimous consent to the federal bill. So did John McCain. That means he could admit a "mistake" and still not be criticized for the original decision by his political opponents. Clever, but it shows that Obama is as Machiavellian as any other politician.

NHS Meltdown: Hospital Acquired Infection Deaths Skyrocket

What passes for health care these days in the UK keeps going from bad to worse. The latest bad news is a surge in deaths caused by hospital acquired infection. From The Guardian story:

A 72% increase in deaths linked to the hospital superbug Clostridium difficile was disclosed yesterday by the Office for National Statistics.

It said the infection, which causes severe diarrhoea among patients whose resistance has been weakened by antibiotics, was mentioned on 6,480 death certificates in England and Wales in 2006, compared with 3,757 in 2005. More than half registered C difficile as the underlying cause of death and the rest mentioned it as a contributory factor.

The response of the NHS is typically weak:

David Nicholson, the NHS chief executive, yesterday held a "cleanliness summit", saying he would publish hospitals' individual MRSA infection rates.

You think the USA's people see health care as an election issue? Just imagine being a British voter!

Humane Society of United States Not so Humane to People

The Humane Society has outed itself as indifferent to human welfare. When the HSUS revealed abuses by a meat packer, leading to a massive meat recall, many applauded. But apparently, the HSUS kept the news of animal abuse and downer cows entering the food chain to themselves for months. From the story:

At a hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Representative Michael C. Burgess, Republican of Texas, assailed the Humane Society for waiting to inform the federal government. "Why wait until February to release the video?" Mr. Burgess demanded of a Humane Society representative. "Why wait until now to bring this to our attention?"

His criticism echoed a point made last week by Ed Schafer, the secretary of agriculture, who said he was "extremely disappointed"in the Humane Society. He complained that "for four months, theoretically, animals were not being properly treated, and the Humane Society stood by and allowed it to happen."

Humane Society representatives said Tuesday that the criticism was misplaced. They said the primary concern of their organization is animal welfare, not food safety, and as soon as they had the tape they took it to local prosecutors in California.

What? So, to promote their animal rights agenda, they were willing to allow people to be exposed to potentially tainted food! And, it was willing for animals to continue to be abused until they had the images they wanted to discredit meat eating. That says it all, doesn't it?

And don't buy the baloney that they didn't trust going to Agriculture Department to stop the abuse. HSUS's primary goal was to embarrass the beef industry because they raise cattle--which animal rightists consider slaves--and slaughter them for food--which liberationists see as murder. Exposing the abuse of the downer cows was merely the means to that overarching end.

Haleigh Poutre Talking?

Haleigh Poutre, now 14, was on the verge of being dehydrated to death by court order. She was spared a potentially agonizing and slow death because she showed unmistakable signs of consciousness just prior to the deed being done.

Now, apparently, she is talking. From the story:

A motion filed in Hampden Superior Court by Alan J. Black, defense lawyer for Jason D. Strickland who is charged with assaulting the girl, states that Poutre is communicating new information to authorities about Strickland. A trial date of Oct. 11 for Strickland, of Westfield, was set yesterday. Black wrote that it is clear to him that the victim "is now making statements alleging abuse by the defendant." Black said after the hearing that he is prohibited by the court from saying anything beyond what he wrote in the motion filed late last month.

Let's be clear here: Accepting the "quality of life ethic,"which is promoted so heavily among bioethicists, led to the Department of Social Services and the Supreme Court of Massachusetts to approve taking a little girl's food and water away. No thanks to them, she lives, is in rehab, and apparently is talking.

Will we learn a lesson from this travesty? Not on your life, or better stated, not on the lives of people with profound cognitive disabilities.

Killed for Organs? The Preliminary Hearing

Readers of SHS may recall the terrible San Luis Obispo case of a transplant surgeon named Hootan Roozrokh who is charged felonious wrongdoing in trying to kill a profoundly disabled patient so his organs could be procured under a "heart death" protocol. I wrote about the case here and here.

The preliminary hearing is ongoing now, in which a judge will determine whether there is sufficient evidence to have the matter proceed to a full blown trial. The standard of evidence is lower than for a conviction, and usually the defendant does not testify nor present a formal defense. Indeed, it is an opportunity for the defense lawyer to force prosecution witnesses to get their stories set in stone for later attacks on credibility, which is to say that it is not fair to reach a final conclusion based on the outcome of a preliminary hearing or evidence presented therein.

That being said, the victim's doctor sure presented some damning evidence. From the story:

Ruben Navarro showed no signs of pain the night he was removed from a ventilator, the disabled man's last attending physician testified Wednesday, and in her opinion did not need large amounts of painkillers and sedatives ordered by a San Francisco organ transplant surgeon. Laura Lubarsky, a pulmonologist who has practiced for 12 years with Central Coast Chest Consultants, was the first witness to testify in Hootan Roozrokh's preliminary hearing, which began Wednesday in San Luis Obispo Superior Court.

Prosecutors charged Roozrokh in July with three felonies, alleging he attempted to hasten the death of the potential organ donor by ordering a nurse to give excessive amounts of medications. They also accused Roozrokh of injecting Betadine, a topical antiseptic, into Navarro’s feeding tube. Roozrokh is charged with dependent adult abuse, unlawful prescribing of a controlled substance and administering a harmful substance, Betadine.

Can there be any excuse for putting Betadine in a feeding tube? According to Healthline, that should only be done after death because it is a poison that can cause iodine poisoning! If Dr. Roozrokh actually did that, he should consider himself fortunate not to be charged with attempted murder.

Still, it is important to emphasize that this case is an anomaly. However, it reflects a dire need within transplant medicine to create uniform standards for obtaining organs that apply universally. And better training for all concerned! This is a devastating admission by the witness about how very bad her training in organ procurement protocols had been:

Based on her conversations with the California Transplant Donor Network and her lack of knowledge of organ donation after cardiac death, Lubarsky said she thought her role that night was to be an independent observer and declare Navarro's death if and when he died. She said she believed the transplant team would direct Navarro's care.

Good grief! Under cardiac death protocols, she was to be in charge of the care and Dr. Roozrokh should have had no contact with the patient until death had occurred!

And here is another disturbing thing: Maybe I am just not aware of it, but the crying need for energetic reform that this case exposes does not seem to have lit the fire. Indeed, from what I can tell--and again I could be wrong and would love to hear it here--it seems to me like business as usual.

Canadian Murderer of Disabled Daughter Given Day Parole

Robert Latimer, perhaps because of public pressure, is being granted day parole in Canada. He murdered his daughter Tracy because she had cerebral palsy and became something of a folk hero in the process, seen as a loving father for killing his daughter.

I have heard already from one Canadian woman with cerebral palsy who is devastated by this decision because of what it tells her about the perceived value of her life. But we will leave that for now.

I have written here at SHS several times about the "loving" father, and more extensively in Forced Exit. So, rather than rattle on again, I will let my good pal Mark Pickup express my disdain from his blog Human Life Matters:

Seven years into his second-degree murder conviction, child-killer and
Canadian folk-hero, Robert Latimer won day parole today. In Canada, second
degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison with no chance of
parole for at least ten years. (They recommended he only serve one year.)
Happily the sentence was mandatory, but he still gets out three years earlier
than minimum requirements. Hey, who's counting?

Actually Canada's disability community, their advocates and allies were counting. You see, Canadian courts tend to be easy on killers of the disabled. Seven out of ten Canadians support Robert Latimer. Seventy percent of Canadians agree with assisted suicide for the chronically ill and disabled. Canadians citizens with disabilities and incurable illnesses needed re-assurance that we are seen as deserving equal legal protections as able-bodied Canadians. We didn't get it.

Mark has progressive MS and understands the kind of pain my correspondent with cerebral palsy experiences when mercy killing is applauded or praised with faint damnation. He is an adamant opponent of euthanasia and assisted suicide, and in fact, we became best friends after we both spoke at an anti-euthanasia conference hosted by the Compassionate Healthcare Network and Cheryl Eckstein about ten years ago. I dedicated Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World to Mark.

Mark's voice on these matters is clarion and he has a longer post here that describes the truth about Robert Latimer and Tracy's murder. Everyone interested in this case should read it.

It's late and this news is disheartening. So I will close with a question: Why is it that the most supposedly progressive countries seem to be moving the fastest toward reviving eugenics thinking?

Should Animals Be Doing More For Animal Rights?

This panel discussion from The Onion, has an interesting discussion of what animals should do to win the fight for their rights.

A few of my favorite lines:

"Animals need to stop eating each other and come to the table."

"What should PETA do to get these rights for animals?"

"Just keep throwing paint on people!"

Yea, that should do it.

HT: Michelina

Lead Into Gold: More IPSC Advances Announced

Do you wonder why the stem cell dispute that was supposed to propel Democrats into the White House is now a non issue? Credit the Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells that can be made from normal skin cells. After this astonishing breakthrough was announced, some among "the scientists" continued to insist that cloning was necessary because the IPSCs might cause cancer. That excuse is withering on the vine. From the story:

The main obstacle to using "reprogrammed" human stem cells--the danger that they might turn cancerous--has been solved, claims a US company. PrimeGen, based in Irvine, California, says that its scientists have converted specialised adult human cells back to a seemingly embryonic state--using methods that are much less likely to trigger cancer than those deployed previously. The company also claims to be able to produce reprogrammed cells faster and much more efficiently than other scientists. Right now, the hottest area in stem cell biology is that of induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, which have the ability to develop into several different tissue types.

It is always wise to take such press releases issued by companies that may be looking for investment capital with a grain of salt. Still, while we are not home free yet, the foundation of the cloning agenda is cracking under our feet. If scientists want to clone, pretty soon they will have to honestly explain how they hope to use the technology to learn how to genetically engineer the human race, use cloning for fetal farming, and permit reproductive cloning. The stem cell excuse won't fly for much longer.

Another Reason to Like Sweden

Swedish doctors oppose euthanasia. From the story:

84% of Swedish doctors say they would never consider helping a patient die, even if the patient asked for it and it was legal. 54% of Dutch doctors say that they have helped someone die. Euthanasia is legal in the Netherlands. 16 000 doctors from 7 countries took part in the survey and Swedish doctors together with their Italian counterparts were the most sceptical.

No one can say the Swedish medical resistance to turning killing into a "medical treatment" is based on religion: The Swedes are just as secular as the Dutch.

Terrorized Researcher Shouldn't be "Flabbergasted" That She Was Targeted

The unnamed researcher whose home was invaded by masked thugs in Santa Cruz (which we discussed here), whose husband was physically assaulted, is "flabbergasted" that she would be targeted. From the story:

A biomedical researcher who was the target of Sunday's attempted home invasion by masked animal rights activists said Tuesday that she and her young children were terrified, but she will not be deterred from her work to fight breast cancer."I am flabbergasted that people would target me," said the UC Santa Cruz faculty member, who the Sentinel is not naming because of ongoing security concerns. "All our work we do with animals is regulated. They are treated well."

The woman, who said the university has hired security to protect her and her family, has no plans to halt her work with mice. "I'm a scientist, I do research that's really valuable," she said. "One in seven women get breast cancer."

So? To animal rights activists the mice are just as important as women with breast cancer, or as Ingrid Newkirk so infamously put it,"A rat, is a pig, is a dog, is a boy." You kill mice, lady! You are an animal abuser and you and your family deserve to be terrified and assaulted.

This poor researcher's ignorance about the nature of the enemy she faces epitomizes why I decided to write my upcoming book: People still think that "animal rights" is merely a generic term for being nicer to animals. That isn't true, of course. Indeed, most people have no idea how dangerous the liberationists are to our moral values and to public safety.

Embryonic Stem Cell Superiority Myth is Crumbling

With the exception of the Missouri media and perhaps, the New York Times, it is now clear that adult stem cells offer tremendous hope for treatments for a wide variety of ailments. The Journal of the American Medical Association reports some good news. From a video presentation:

Adult stem cell therapy has become a standard of care when treating several types of cancer. Now a review of clinical trials involving adult stem cells during the past ten years indicates they are helping patients who have a variety of diseases and even heart trouble. One patient diagnosed with multiple sclerosis says his symptoms are gone. Jennifer Mitchell explains in this week's JAMA Report...

Dr. Richard Burt and his colleagues at Northestern University reviewed the outcomes of about twenty-five hundred patients who had stem cell transplants. They found the cells appear to be putting some patients with autoimmune diseases into remission and are offering some improvement in heart patients who have suffered heart attacks... AUDIO:"It's a whole new approach to these diseases. Rather than just surgery or drugs that you can use, a cellular approach that seems in many different studies to be benefitting the patient." ...

AUDIO:BARRY NOW LEADS AN ACTIVE LIFESTYLE. HERE HE IS WITH THE ICE HOCKEY TEAM HE COACHES. AUDIO:"I've had five years of good life. Five years. If I didn't do the transplant I would probably be in a wheelchair today."

Remember when embryonic stem cells were going to be a huge issue in the 2008 election? Where are the critics now?

Animal Rights Terrorism: Somebody Could Get Killed

I am sick of animal rights apologists stating that their "direct actions" aren't violent. In Santa Cruz, the home of a scientist was invaded by masked activists because the scientist uses animals in cancer research. And there was a physical assault of a family member: From the story:

A UC Santa Cruz faculty member whose biomedical research using animals sheds light on the causes of breast cancer and neurological diseases was the target of an attack Sunday afternoon, reportedly by animal rights activists. UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal confirmed late Monday that an off-campus home invasion by six masked intruders occurred at a faculty member's home. In a statement, Blumenthal called the incident "very disturbing."

Santa Cruz police reported that six people wearing bandanas tried to break into a Westside home just before 1 p.m., and that one of the family members, not the faculty member, was attacked before the intruders fled. The male victim had made sure his wife and children were safe in the back of the house before he confronted the attackers. He suffered minor injuries after being hit with an unknown object. None of the other four people in the house were injured.

Anyone who can't see that invading a home is violence, and could easily lead to someone being killed--like if the homeowner has a gun and reasonably fears for his life--is just plain irrational. But animal rights is irrational.

So aplogists: Are you going to justify this crime as you have arson?

SHS Funnies

An antelope learns that hyenas don't have the capacity to respect the remains of the deceased.

Ideology Distorts Reason: Animal Rights Advocates Oppose Necessary S. African Elephant Cull

The South African government has relegalized the culling of elephant herds. Predictably, animal rights activists are calling for a boycott. From the story:

Beginning in May, the government will lift a 13-year ban on elephant culls, which are usually carried out by shooting entire herds, including youngsters, from helicopters.Animal Rights Africa said culling was "cruel and morally reprehensible," adding that elephants have emotions similar to those of humans.

The move could hurt the country's tourism industry, with animal welfare lobbies calling for a tourist boycott to protest culling...The guidelines call for "humane" killing, specifying that a rifle of at least .375 caliber be used. Sharpshooters usually kill entire herds because of the complex social structure of elephants and because young animals need to be taught social behavior by adults in order to survive...

Although elephants are endangered in other parts of Africa, the population in South Africa is robust. But the issue of culling is emotional for many, because of elephants' keen intelligence and elaborate social behaviors. Elephants are known to grieve for their dead. There are 18,000 elephants in South Africa, including more than 12,500 in Kruger National Park, one of the country's most famous tourist attractions. SANParks, the government agency in charge of parks and national game reserves, called for culling in a 2005 report to the government, arguing that too many elephants threaten other species.

Van Schalkwyk said there also was concern about the impact of elephants on the landscape and the livelihoods and safety of people living near the herds. Before culling, reserve managers will have to prove that they have excess elephants and that killing is the only effective option.

Animal Rights Africa said culling was "cruel and morally reprehensible," adding that elephants have emotions similar to those of humans. "The latest research has proved that elephants have a sense of self-awareness, placing them in a unique category with great apes, dolphins and humans," the organization said. "How much like us do elephants have to be before killing them becomes murder?"

The reaction of groups like Animal Rights Africa demonstrates the profound irrationality that is a hallmark of animal rights ideology. Killing elephants isn't murder. Moreover, the animal rights activists are the cruel ones: Not culling would eventually lead to mass starvation of the elephants and other animals.

I have visited these parks--the experience of a lifetime. I have seen wild elephants very close up and they are magnificent. But I have also seen firsthand how elephants destroy the environment. In closed systems like the S. African parks, their population must be kept in check or the parks will be destroyed. The only way to not cull would be to remove all humans from the adjacent area and make the entire east side of S. Africa an animal reserve. But most of the people I saw in the area are subsistence farmers. But, of course, they matter little to the animal rights advocates.

Boycott S. Africa? That was a totally righteous action to eradicate the evil of Apartheid, but over proper animal husbandry practices that are not pleasant but are definitely necessary? No!

Obesity "More Dangerous Than Terrorism"

Are you as sick of this kind of nanny state advocacy as I am? So called "experts,"--who I have come to believe are the cause of most society's problems--are now proclaiming obesity to be more dangerous than terrorism. From the story:

World governments are focusing too much on fighting terrorism while obesity and other "lifestyle diseases" are killing millions more people, an international conference heard Monday. Overcoming deadly factors such as poor diet, smoking and a lack of exercise should take top priority in the fight against a growing epidemic of chronic disease, legal and health experts said. Global terrorism was a real threat but posed far less risk than obesity, type two diabetes and smoking-related illnesses, US law professor Lawrence Gostin said at the Oxford Health Alliance Summit here.

"Ever since September 11 we've been lurching from one crisis to the next which has really frightened the public," Gostin told AFP later. "While we've been focussing so much attention on that we've had this silent epidemic of obesity that's killing millions of people around the world and we're devoting very little attention to it and a negligible amount of money."

Give me a break! Stop the hysteria! This kind of inapt moral equivalency not only diminishes the true dangers of terrorism--which is mass murder most foul and could become genocide if the terrorists ever get nukes or a deadly microbe--but it also promotes the idea that the state has the obligation to force us to live lifestyles acceptable to "the experts." I am not against educating people to live healthy lifestyles, of course. But this is flat out ridiculous.

P.S. Does it seem to you that these experts really want money transferred from stopping Osama and into their pockets so they can micromanage the lives of billions of people? Now, that's power!

A Telling George Soros Moment

George Soros is a big fan of euthanasia and assisted suicide and wants to see it legalized everywhere. Toward this end, Soros has donated millions to groups promoting the cause--which I believe to be an ultimately abandoning policy that implicitly tells people with terminal illnesses and other serious conditions that their lives are not as valuable or worth protecting as those of other people.

The assertions made by Soros in this feature about his philanthropy around issued of death and dying, are, I think, quite telling about his ultimately disdainful perspective about people who are approaching the end of their lives:

"Death has replaced sex as the taboo subject of our times," said one of the world's richest men and leading philanthropists, George Soros, when he launched the Project Death in America fund at Columbia University's College of Physicians & Surgeons in 1994. It promotes euthanasia or assisted suicide, and has been succeeded by the Open Society Institute's International Palliative Care Initiative . Soros's mother committed suicide, as a member of the Hemlock Society. His father died a lingering death from cancer, and Soros was "disappointed" at the way the old man clung miserably to life.

Poor George. His mother had the good grace to get it over quickly so he wouldn't have to face the months of pain and grief that come when those we love enter into their final days. But his father wanted to live until the actual end of his life, and for that he did not measure up in his son's eyes. I wonder if Soros's father sensed his son's "disappointment," and if so, how that didn't drive him over the edge to wanting suicide?

SHS Funnies

I had a wonderful time speaking in the Tri City area of Washington as the campaign to kill the assisted suicide proposal begins. But it was a travel day from hell getting home. It's at times like this that I turn to the SHS Funnies:

Lio does Richard Dawkins a personal favor:



The Larry the Croc learns that while animals may have rights, one of them is not the right to catch and eat prey:

Dark Clouds on CIRM Horizon?

The deconstruction of the CIRM, enacted by California, is earnestly to be wished. That won't happen, but at the very least, given its many troubles, a good reorganization is needed. That is apparently the idea behind a bill in California. From the story in Entrepreneur.Com (no link):

California Sen. Sheila Kuehl introduced a bill Friday to study the structure of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine--the agency created to distribute $3 billion in state bond funds for embryonic stem cell research--and to require therapies from the research to help the state's neediest residents. Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, and Sen. George Runner, R-Lancaster, authored the legislation, S.B. 1565.The Kuehl-Runner bill requires that publicly funded programs get the best prices for stem cell therapies and drugs by requiring CIRM grant winners and licensees to sell them to those programs at a price that does not exceed one of the benchmark prices in Cal-Rx, the state's prescription drug discount program.The bill also calls for the state's Little Hoover Commission to study the existing governance structure of San Francisco-based CIRM and report to the Legislature by July 1, 2009..."The bill will ... help ensure the public's trust by identifying ways to increase public accountability and reduce conflicts of interest," Kuehl said in a prepared statement.

Poor Sheila actually bought the propaganda about the researchers paying back the state if they hit the jackpot. I think I'll try to sell her that worthless swampland I inherited. Expect the entrepreneurs of science to push back hard on this one.

Close Call: Husband Wakes Wife Up After Doctors Threaten to Cut Off Care

Doctors deciding who will be allowed to fight to remain alive and who will be forced out of treatment is epidemic in the UK where nationalized health care combined with huge influence by utilitarian bioethicists results in some patients being thrown out of the lifeboat.

This is a case of a near miss. From the story:

Yvonne Sullivan, 28, lost consciousness suffering from severe blood poisoning moments after being told that baby Clinton had died. Despite grieving for their lost son, her husband Dominic, 37, kept a round-the-clock vigil at her bedside for two weeks as she lay in intensive care.

But when doctors told him they could have to switch off her life support machine, Mr Sullivan took drastic action--by giving his wife a firm telling-off. He held his wife's hand and demanded: "You start fighting. Don't you dare give up on me now. I've had enough, stop mucking around and start breathing. Come back to me."

Two hours later she started to breathe steadily again.

This case is also an example of a supposedly unconscious woman--who wasn't:

She even remembers hearing her husband yelling at her as she lay in a coma and says it gave her the strength to pull through.

She said: "I can't remember exactly what he said but I never liked getting told off by Dom. Something inside me just clicked and I began to fight again. When I came round I thought he'd been gone a few minutes, then he told me I'd been out for two weeks. It's a miracle. I owe him so much."

We will never know how many such cases there are when patients who might have come back were cut off by doctor decision making. This is our future, too if we don't stop Futile Care Theory.

Animal Rights Terrorists Continue Arson Threat Against Researcher

Animal rights advocates and ALF apologists often say that they aren't terrorists because all they do is burn buildings, and not hurt people. But they also terrorize their enemies with threats, like the one quoted below--intending to coerce her out of research by threats of burning her house to the ground:

Communiqué from ALF activists

Date: February 21, 2008
Institution targeted: UCLA Primate Vivisector Edythe London

Received anonymously

Edyth London, you and your work are deplorable. You are given paychecks in exchange for addicting primates, the closest kin that the human species knows, to numerous sickeningly addicting drugs like crystal meth. For forcing these innocent and sensitive beings to suffer through a type of hell that they would never encounter if it wasn't for your deranged science you deserve to know true justice.

This is why on February 3rd 2008 we left an incendiary device at your house at ADDRESS OMITTED in Beverly Hills. Edyth, the fire that night was exactly the size we wanted it to be. It was just a little outreach because we want to see you make the sound ethical choice to stop vivisecting primates. We know what we are doing and fires can be much larger.

Edyth, your secrets are very ugly and the spotlights on them are getting brighter. The LA Times says that you plan to expand mad science to include teenage human beings. They also pointed to the fact that you torture monkeys and Phillip Morris picks up the tab. The LA Times didn't ask but we will, "Do you get rich while animals (and soon humans) suffer all in the name of making tobacco products more addicting?"

You make us sick and you inspire us into action Edyth. As each day begins and nothing that you own is burning consider yourself lucky.

Now is the time to stop vivisecting.

We don't back down.

Ever.

-the Animal Liberation Front

This kind of action is supported by the many if not most leaders of the mainstream movement, and in the hearts, apparently, of the grass roots. Shameful.

The court has issued a restraining order and the thugs have laughed:

Jerry Vlasak, a spokesman for the Animal Liberation Press Office, had earlier said underground protesters would not be moved by the lawsuit. "Here they are risking 30-year sentences for arson and they're going to be threatened by a restraining order? It doesn't make sense to me," he said. "I would be laughing out loud."

The book depicted in the illustration contains explicit support for actions such as this from the likes of Stephen Best, Ingrid Newkirk, and Bruce Friedrich. Peaceful movement my foot. LA is in a war and the silence from animal rights "peace" activists is deafening.

Embryonic Stem Cells Help Diabetic Mice

A few years ago this would have been a huge story. No more. The wind is slackening behind the embryonic stem cell research sails.

Still, it is worth pointing out what the Times reported, and then, what they--so unsurprisingly--left out of the story:

The scientists, at the biotechnology company Novocell, turned the stem cells into cells that produced insulin in the mice. Those cells kept blood sugar in check after the mice’s own insulin-producing cells were destroyed...Still, a small number of the mice developed tumors, and some experts said the cells might not be well-characterized enough for use in people. In any event, Novocell said it would be several years before any human tests could begin.

The story proceeds to discuss some alternatives, such as islet cell transplantation.

But completely missing in the story are the far more advanced methods of treating diabetes with adult stem cells and other substances. Fourteen human patients were able to go off insulin with a combinatin of blood stem cell therapy and a one-time immune suppression. As I recall, the NYT didn't think that story worthy of being reported even though it was published in a peer reviewed medical journal. Yet, a mouse study makes the paper. How telling.

Last year adult stem cells showed great promise in treating Type 2 diabetes in mice.

A Harvard study showing that Freund's Complete Adjuvant, a mixture of water, oil and parts of dead bacteriam over stimulates the immune system cells that are attacking the pancreas, cured Type 1 diabetes in mice, has been confirmed in follow up reports. In an earlier study, adding adult stem cells from the spleen provided increased efficacy rates.

Perhaps the reason the story was not the subject of a banner headline is that the adult/umbilical cord blod stem cell and the recent IPSC breakthroughs have penetrated into the public consciousness at last. Or to put it another way, there is little use in beating a dying horse.

SHS Funnies

Lio meets Dick Cheney's cat.

Court Overrules MO Secretary of State on Cloning Initiative

I admit that I am pleasantly surprised. The pro cloning bias among the political elite and media in Missouri make it almost impossible to get the straight information to the people of MO about this crucial ethical issue. When a new initiative to outlaw all human cloning was filed awhile ago, the Secretary of State wrote a summary that was both inaccurate and breathtakingly biased. Well, lo and behold, a court has righted the wrong. From the story:

A judge rewrote the ballot language Wednesday for a proposed constitutional amendment banning a particular kind of embryonic stem cell research after supporters claimed the state's original description was biased...

After Carnahan released the stem cell summary in October, the sponsoring group Cures Without Cloning immediately claimed her language was biased against it. Now that its legal challenge is resolved, a group spokesman said supporters plan to start gathering the petition signatures needed to qualify for the November ballot. Cures Without Cloning chairwoman Lori Buffa claimed Carnahan's language was a "blatant attempt to mislead the Missouri voters. This ruling proves what we've said along: that our clear, concise initiative would prohibit human cloning and the taxpayer funding of human cloning in Missouri," Buffa said in a written statement...

The Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures, which sponsored the 2006 amendment, said it was considering an appeal of Wednesday's court ruling and would mount a "vigorous campaign" encouraging people not to sign the new initiative petition. The coalition spent $30 million for the 2006 initiative.

The pro cloners will undoubtedly appeal , if for nothing else than to slow down the signature gathering process. Well, that's politics and never mind. A little fresh air has entered the usual smog of bias that permeates Missouri on the cloning issue. Anyone who believes in the democratic process should be grateful regardless of their opinion on the propriety of human cloning.

"Pushing Infanticide"

I am still taken aback by the Hastings Center Report publishing a pro infanticide article--bringing that agenda into the heart of the bioethics mainstream. As is my wont, I wrote about it. This is a piece just published in the Center for Bioethics and the Culture's weekly newsletter. Here is an excerpt:

The article assumes that guidelines will protect against abuse, but infanticide is by definition abuse. Moreover, even if undertaken in good faith, Dutch euthanasia guidelines for adults and teenagers have continually been violated without legal consequence for decades, and so why would any rational observer expect anything different from infanticide regulations? Even the authors understand that mistakes will happen and, typical of the mindset, assume that if murder of the helpless is committed in front of an open window it is somehow more acceptable:

Determining in an instant case whether the protocol is applicable will always require judgment, and because the stakes are inordinately high no matter what is decided, the judgment must be made with fear and trembling. That said, however, we believe that transparency in the deliberations concerning the ending of an infant's life--which is just as important as it is in the deliberations concerning euthanasia in adults--is adequately promoted by the protocol's requirements.

It wasn't many years ago that almost everyone accepted that infanticide is intrinsically and inherently wrong. Clearly, this is no longer true. With growth of personhood theory that denies the intrinsic value of human life, and with the invidiously discriminatory "quality of life" ethic permeating the highest levels of the medical and bioethical thinking, we are moving toward a medical system in which babies are put down like dogs and killing is redefined as a caring act. But bigotry is bigotry and murder is murder—even if you spell it c.o.m.p.a.s.s.i.o.n.

CIRM Executives Up for a Big Fat Raise

California is in the midst of a financial meltdown. Red ink is spilling down the stairs of the Capitol. But of course, none of this affects the fiefdom that is the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine created by Proposition 71. As I wrote during the campaign, under its terms half the state could fall in the ocean and we put upon California taxpayers would still have to borrow $300 million to put into the pockets of private biotech companies and their business partners at the universities.

And now, more! The top executives at the CIRM may be getting a big fat raise. From the watch dog press release:

The California stem cell agency is proposing raising salary ranges for top employees a whopping 50 percent, an increase that is unjustified in the face of a state budget crisis, the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) said today.

The proposal, to be considered by the stem cell agency's Governance Committee on Wednesday, comes after a $65,000, 41 percent, pay raise given to the agency's general counsel, Tamar Pachter, in December after 10 months on the job. With the increase Pachter now makes $225,000, more than state Attorney General Jerry Brown's annual salary of $184,301. Pachter was a state deputy attorney general when she was hired by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) last spring at a salary of $160,000."They are demonstrating a particularly tone-deaf action at a time when the state faces a serious budget crisis," said John M. Simpson, FTCR Stem Cell Project Director. "These salaries and proposed ranges are simply too high for an agency that when fully staffed will have a total of 50 employees. For comparison, the governor's salary is set at $212,179."

The Governance Committee is being asked to set the top salary range for the oversight committee chairman and the agency's president at $618,750, a 50 percent increase from the current top of $412,500. The new president, Alan Trounson, is being paid $490,000, an amount already above the current official range of $275,000 to $412,500. Chairman Robert Klein has declined to take a salary.

The elitism and sense of entitlement is so thick it seem impenetrable. At least, one would think this travesty would be big news in the California media that so hates privilege and which acted as so many in-the-tank boosters for this benighted measure when it was up for a vote.

But so far, we hear the chirping of crickets. Hey, I know! The MSM will report it after the raises are given--just like they finally reported the many problems with Proposition 71 after the election was held.

Luxemburg Close to Legalizing Euthanasia

Even though the Dutch are close to legalizing infanticide and nearly 900 patients are killed each year who have not asked for euthanasia, even though assisted suicide is permitted for the depressed in the Netherlands--heedless of the moral cliff off of which they are hurtling their country--the Luxemburg Parliament has gone ahead and legalized euthanasia. No it won't be restricted to the terminally ill. And of course, it assumes that regulations will prevent against abuse when it hasn't anywhere else where assisted suicide and euthanasia have ever been tried.

But of course the media doesn't get into any of that. Instead, Reuters makes the utterly false and ludicrous claim:

The Netherlands became the first country to permit assisted deaths for the terminally ill in April 2002.

Just once, wouldn't it be refreshing for media to report this issue accurately? I know, I know: That's not the real purpose of journalism any more. Sometimes facts get in the way of the desired narrative.

UPDATE: It turns out--surprise, surprise--Reuters had the story wrong. The law has not passed. It has passed a first reading by one vote and still needs to pass a second reading before taking effect. Hopefully, anti-euthanasia forces will marshall their forces and stop this travesty.

Trounson vs. Neaves: Embryonic Stem Cell Reality versus the Politics of Hype

I wrote the other day about the hype merchant, William Neaves of the Stowers Institute, continuing to tout embryonic stem cells--which he usually intentionally confuses with human cloning--as moving on the fast track to provide cures:

"The rapid pace of advances in embryonic stem cell research means that day when this science can be translated into cures is drawing near,"

But Alan Trounson, the new head of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine states that despite Californians borrowing $7 billion (including interest) to fund ESCR and human cloning research, cures may be 25 years away. From the story:

The same day that President Bush won a second term, California voters approved a bold plan to pour $3 billion of taxpayers' money into stem cell research over the next decade. Supporters argued the investment would save millions of lives through new medical therapies, generate millions of dollars in added tax revenue, cut healthcare costs by billions, and create thousands of high-paying jobs.

Three years later, Californians are still waiting for some results. Until recently, most of the money was tied up in lawsuits. And even now that the tap is flowing, proponents acknowledge it could take years, if not decades, for the grants to pay off.

"It's too early," said Alan Trounson, president of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the agency charged with administering the stem cell funds. "There are very few substantial developments [in medical science] that have happened in less than 25 years. There have been some, but they tend to be rare."

Of course, when the propounders of Proposition 71 in CA wanted Californians to dole out of their pocketbooks and into "the scientists'," they too hyped CURES! CURES! CURES!. But now, with the money in the bank so to speak, suddenly the promised benefits are decades away.

But at least Trounson is finally telling the straight scoop. Don't hold your breath for Neaves to be so honest. You might faint.

NHS Meltdown: Patients Left in Ambulances for Hours

Can you imagine? Say, you are hit by a car and are rushed to the hospital by ambulance. It arrives at the entrance, and instead of being taken into the ER for immediate treatment--you are left waiting for hours so that the hospital can say you were treated within four hours of arriving at the hospital! From the story:

Seriously ill patients are being kept in ambulances outside hospitals for hours so NHS trusts do not miss Government targets.

Thousands of people a year are having to wait outside accident and emergency departments because trusts will not let them in until they can treat them within four hours, in line with a Labour pledge. The hold-ups mean ambulances are not available to answer fresh 999 calls...

Labour brought in the four-hour A&E target to end the scandal of patients waiting for days in casualty or being kept on trolleys in corridors. But a shortage of out-of-hours GP care, after thousands of doctors opted out of treating patients outside working hours under lucrative new contracts, means more and more are going to casualty units, putting them under greater pressure.

Dr Jonathan Fielden of the British Medical Association said: "The vast majority of patients coming into hospital by ambulance are in critical need of care in hospital and therefore delay can worsen their outcome."...Conservative health spokesman Mike Penning said: "Not admitting people to hospital but stacking patients in car parks beggars belief in the 21st century."

This is a death spiral.

Medical Futility Blog: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

I just learned about this blog, "Medical Futility," that tracks futility care cases. The author is a law professor named Thaddeus Pope who, from what I have seen of his entries, clearly supports Futile Care Theory.

In reading his entries, it validates my belief that the twin ideological beliefs behind Futile Care Theory are a feeling of repugnance about the lives of people with profound disabilities and a utilitarian view that maintaining their lives is, therefore, a waste of money.

In this entry, Professor Pope reports that medical students apparently believe it is wrong to sustain the lives of patients diagnosed with PVS. He doesn't comment, but based on the next entry, he no doubt approves.

Professor Pope seems to support cutting off all patients' with profound cognitive disabilities--meaning feeding tubes for those who need no other interventions--because of the cost of their care:

I happened to notice the following dollar figure in a medical malpractice case being tried in Wisconsin. The Madison County Record reports that Christina McCray was undergoing a right hand carpal tunnel surgery in 2001 when she was over-sedated by the anesthesia team, causing her to become bradycardic, hypotensive and hypoxic which caused severe and permanent brain damage. She is now in a PVS. One of McCrary's expert witnesses, Jan Klosterman, a certified life care nurse planner testified that McCrary's medical bills will average $250,000 per year--totaling $8.4 million if she lives another 30 years.

What does this have to do with medical futility? It permits one to perform a back-of-the-napkin calculation of the cost of inappropriate care. If it costs $250,000 to treat one PVS patient for one year, and there are around 25,000 PVS patients in the United States, then the total cost exceeds $6 billion per year--more than the entire federal portion of the SCHIP program. That is a considerable amount of money to so deplorably misspend.

Never mind that such expert calculations were part of a litigation in which the plaintiff's lawyer is duty bound to make the damages appear as high as possible. The point is that if futilitarians get their way, and if PVS is deemed a condition for which it is inappropriate to provide sustenance, we are looking at the mass dehydration of tens of thousands of patients against their families' desires, and perhaps against their own advance directives. Is the country really ready for that?

If that prospect ever became an imminent reality, I have no doubt that we wouldn't resort to mass dehydration to rid us of these useless eaters, but instead would opt for the lethal injection as more humane. Cheaper too. Now, let's see. Dehydration takes 12-14 days. The cost of the care for those days for all of the patients would amount to the tens of millions. Yup. Inject them. We have better uses for that money.

SHS Funnies

I am connecting too many dots today. Time for the SHS Funnies.

Zebra learns that while he may have a right to life against humans, he doesn't against lions.


Dusty's 24/7 barbeque is getting him in deep trouble. Animals are being cooked! The earth is warming! His neighbor sues. He is clueless. Hey, Dusty: Welcome to the 21st Century!

Good for LIFE SITE NEWS

Earlier today I noticed some inadvertent factual errors in a Lifesite News story about the unexpected awakening of a woman, the media reported was "brain dead" but was clearly not. I posted a quick response about the matter here in order to do my best to ensure that the differing issues and controversies that involve a declaration of death by neurological criteria, and those involved with a diagnosis of PVS were not confused in the readers' minds.

Well, to their great credit, Lifesite News corrected the story promptly, noting that the term brain dead is sometimes used inaccurately by the media when a diagnosis is actually unconsciousness. I have taken down my earlier post and link the corrected story above. Bravo to them for doing the right thing. There is a word for that: Integrity.

Bobby Schindler Assails "False Compassion" of Intentional Dehydration

Bobby Schindler has a column in today's Washington Times entitled "False Compassion." He writes about some notable food and fluids cases past and present in an overall piece against dehydrating people with cognitively impairments. He concludes strongly:

Make no mistake: thousands of conscious and unconscious persons die by deliberate dehydration every year. We only hear of the cases in which there is family disagreement. Believe me when I tell you that death by dehydration is something that no family member should ever have to witness. It is cruel and barbaric and takes days and often weeks to play itself out, torturing not only the patient but all who love them as well.

I watched my own sister anguish through 13 days without food or water and there are no words that can properly describe this inhumanity. At the end, blood appeared in her eyes because her tissues were cracking from a loss of moisture.

Tragically, killing the cognitively disabled by taking away their food and water is about as common in our nation as it is for our politicians to abandon this issue. And for reasons I still struggle to understand, deliberately dehydrating persons with brain injuries really doesn't seem to catch the ire of most Americans, certainly not those in the media. If you did the same thing to a dog, you would rightly join Michael Vick in jail for animal abuse.

Persons with disabilities, no matter how serious, are just that--persons. They should be treated as our most precious treasures reflecting who we should be as a nation--not as damaged goods to be discarded when they outlive their "usefulness"--which, sadly, says more about our growing moral bankruptcy than it does about their intrinsic value or human worth.

Agree or disagree with Bobby on the issue of removing tube-supplied sustenance, he has the "moral authority" many in the media demand of those who comment on these issues. Check his piece out. He says a mouthful.

NHS Meltdown: Dentistry in Disarray

The NHS continues to implode. Now dentists are leaving the service, perhaps leading to a collapse of socialized dentistry. From the story:

Contract changes that have seen more than 1,000 dentists leave the health service threaten to bring about the end of NHS dentistry, MPs will be warned next week. The introduction of financial penalties for missing targets has already seen twice as many dentists leave the NHS as the Government estimated.

Thousands more are questioning their future in the NHS because of the uncertainty surrounding their earnings, the British Dental Association (BDA) said. Already the changes have left an estimated one million extra patients without access to a dentist. Almost one in three children do not receive any form of dental care...

Dentists also complain that they have less time to advise patients on how to prevent future dental problems because of the "treadmill" conditions they are forced to work under. The future of NHS dentistry is "at risk", the BDA says in written evidence to the committee, because "dentists are facing financial penalties derived from untested targets". The BDA also accuses the government of "chronically underfunding" dental services. Spending on dentistry in the NHS is now just 2.8 per cent of the overall budget, less than in 2002.

Did you see the part where it states that that one in three children have no dental care? In a prosperous country like the UK? British teeth deserve better.

Once More William Neaves Misleads

William Neaves, head of the Stowers Institute, is perhaps the most disingenuous advocate for human cloning that I have ever encountered. To say that I disrespect the man is to say the sky is blue. Well, he's at it again in this story about human cloning and stem cell research in Missouri. From the story about the Stowers Institute staying in MO:

Under this protection [Amendment 2]research with human embryonic stem cells has begun at the Stowers Institute," he said.

But of course, embryonic stem cell research was being done before the passage of Amendment 2 at Stowers. More than a year before Amendment 2 was voted on, I testified at a legislative committee hearing opposite Neaves, and heard him say so. Indeed, had the legislation that gave rise to Amendment 2 (to outlaw all human cloning) passed, ESCR could still have been done at Stowers.

Given, that ESCR has been done for years at Stowers and given that Mr. Stowers donated $985 million to his institute to conduct ESCR according to the Rockefeller Institute, how can Neaves say that thanks to passage of Amendment 2 ESCR "has begun?" Because he actually is saying that Stowers' scientists are attempting to clone human embryos, for that--and not ESCR--is what Amendment 2 protects. But he would never be so honest.

"Those that oppose this research still threaten to overturn the stem cell amendment and the struggle to keep Missouri safe for medical science must continue." A new bill to ban Stowers research is pending in the General Assembly."We remain optimistic that most Missourians will oppose misguided efforts by some politicians to outlaw legitimate biomedical research," Neaves said.

I don't know about any bill in the Assembly and a search did not turn up any. There is a planned initiative to outlaw human cloning. But many believe human cloning is not legitimate medical research, which is why Neaves pitches so much junk biology to pretend that the new planned initiative would outlaw ESCR, which it would not.

Stem cell research in general has progressed rapidly over the past year across the nation, Neaves said. Embryonic stem cell work in Dallas last month resulted in treating muscular dystrophy in mice successfully. "The rapid pace of advances in embryonic stem cell research means that day when this science can be translated into cures is drawing near," Neaves said.

Earth to Neaves: Except in Missouri that kind of hype no longer works. ESCR has not advanced rapidly. There are no human trials. No animals have been cured of anything with ESCR. Only by bootstrapping onto the advances in adult stem cell research could that statement be made, for in sharp contrast to ESCR, adult stem cell research is moving fast, with human trials ongoing showing very hopeful results. Embryonic stem cell research isn't even in its first human trial yet and as for cloning, which is the issue surrounding Amendment 2, no stem cells have been derived from cloned human embryos.

And as for the mouse study Neaves mentioned: It did not successfully treat MD in mice. It was a proof of principle experiment that showed ES cells "could be turned into muscle producing cells," an advance that was described as "a strong first step." Second, they weren't normal ESCs but genetically manipulated. Finally ESCR is way behind adult stem cell advances for treating MD that have already moved from rodents to experiments with large animal, specifically dogs.

And get this: Look at what the head scientists said would be the likely source of stem cells for treating humans--induced pluripotent stem cells, that are reprogrammed from skin cells! This means, no cloning needed. From the story about the mouse experiment:

The study is headed by Dr. Rita Perlingeiro, assistant professor of developmental biology and molecular biology."We envision eventually developing a stem-cell therapy for humans with muscular dystrophy, if we are able to successfully combine this approach with the technology now available to make human embryonic stem cells from reprogrammed skin cells," Dr. Perlingeiro said. "These cells can be transplanted into the muscle, and they cause muscle regeneration resulting in stronger contractility."

So, once again William Neaves is proved to be a prevaricator par excellence, also known as a cow manure artist. He's lucky that the Missouri media is so in the tank that reporters never call him on his profoundly misleading rhetoric.

Dog Cloning Will Not "Recreate" Beloved Companion

A South Korean company is in the business of cloning dead dogs to "recreate" the beloved pets through reproductive cloning From the story:

The world's first pet cloning service is to offer animal lovers the chance to recreate their dead companions, it was announced today. South Korean company RNL Bio will work alongside scientists who created the first cloned canine.

A company spokeswoman said it was already working on its first order from an American who wanted a clone of her dead pit bull. The client, Bernann McKunney, of California, was very attached to the pet because it had saved her life during an attack by another dog. Kim Yoon said that ear tissue from the dog had been preserved at a US biotech laboratory before its death.DNA from the sample could now be used in an attempt to create a clone, she said, although the chances of success were about 25%.

RNL Bio is charging customers $150,000 (£75,000) for the clones, which clients pay only after they receive their new pet.

But it won't be the same dog. It might have the identical genetic makeup, but it will be an entirely different individual that might not even have the same markings or personality, since much of what an animal (or human) becomes results from envorinment beginning in the womb and on into life, as well as on genetics. Moreover, trying to clone the dog could become a form of abuse since reproductive cloning often leads to terrible defects and birth anomalies. It could also kill the birth mother since some cloned embryos develop into gigantic fetuses.

Besides, as they say, you can't go home again. That special bond that is so desperately missed was unique and cannot be replicated. Wouldn't it be better instead to give another dog that needs a loving home a chance at a good life instead of longingly trying to use the alchemy of biotechnology to recreate that which was a one and only?

Legal and Moral Paradox About the Unborn

It is often asserted that the law does not recognize the moral equality of fetuses and embryos. That isn't entirely true. In the abortion controversy, the battle is over which should be paramount--the life of the fetus or the autonomy of the woman--and the law has concluded that it is the woman.

But in other than abortion contexts, the unborn do often receive significant protection, and even equal moral value. Case in point: The conviction for murder of Bobby Cutts Jr. for killing his pregnant girlfriend and their late gestational unborn child. I use the term "unborn child" because I am not bound by the political correct biases of the AP style book, which insisted in the story linked below on repeatedly calling the dead baby a fetus. More importantly, the word baby is more accurate in this context than fetus because Cutts may face the death penalty--not for the murder of his girlfriend but of the baby. I use the word "baby" because murder is legally defined as the illegal intentional killing of a human being with malice aforethought. Moreover, in this case, there are special circumstances for the murder of the child leading to the possible death sentence for her killing. That certainly means the fetus is considered a full human being in the context of this crime. From the story:

Cutts, 30, was convicted of aggravated murder in the death of the nearlyfull-term female fetus, which carries the possible death penalty. The jury found him not guilty of aggravated murder in Davis' death, a count that includes intent to kill with prior calculation. But they convicted him of a lesser charge of murder in her death.

Society and the law take relativistic views about the unborn depending on circumstances. The paradoxes are remarkable. But this much is clear: Human fetuses and embryos have moral status--sometimes even equal moral status--to born people. And that is an undeniable truth.

The Politicization of Science: No Good Deed Goes Uncriticized

This is unbelievable: Malaria is a terrible affliction that takes the lives of millions. To their great credit, Bill and Melinda Gates, through their foundation, have poured wheel barrows full of money ($1.2 billion) to fight the disease. And what is their thanks? Dr. Arata Kochi, a World Health Association official accused them in a memo of creating a "cartel" for malaria research, criticism echoed by some other scientists! From the New York Times story:

In a memorandum, the malaria chief, Dr. Arata Kochi, complained to his boss, Dr. Margaret Chan, the director general of the W.H.O., that the foundation's money, while crucial, could have "far-reaching, largely unintended consequences."

Many of the world's leading malaria scientists are now "locked up in a 'cartel' with their own research funding being linked to those of others within the group," Dr. Kochi wrote. Because "each has a vested interest to safeguard the work of the others," he wrote, getting independent reviews of research proposals "is becoming increasingly difficult."...

There have been hints in recent months that the World Health Organization feels threatened by the growing power of the Gates Foundation. Some scientists have said privately that it is "creating its own W.H.O."

So what? I guess it's okay if WHO has the monopoly? Please.

It is shocking the extent to which politics and ego drive the leadership of the scientific/medical community these days. This seems more about turf protection than anything else. No good deed goes unpunished.

Lead Into Gold; MORE Progress on IPSCs

Good news on a Saturday morning: A new paper is out touting more advances in understanding the mechanisms of IPSCs. It is written in pure scienceze and is way over my head. But a scientist friend of mine translated it and it appears that the paper's authors have discovered that two potential obstacles to the full use of these new cells--the use of viruses to introduce the genes that reprogram the skin or other cells into stem cells and concerns about the genes themselves--may not be serious problems after all.

In an article called "Defining Molecular Cornerstonesduring Fibroblast to iPS Cell Reprogramming in Mouse," published in Cell Stem Cell (2, 1-11), scientists apparently found that the viral expression shut down after 10 days and that the added genes only needed 10 days to achieve full and stable reprogramming. If the virus expression is shut down it means they become dormant (I think). And the genes seem to have completed their work are no longer a factor after 10 days because the IPSC become stable and can be multiplied in culture as IPSCs. Of course, that still leaves tumor formation, but that is true of embryonic stem cells as well.

The "need" for therapeutic cloning is becoming an increasingly difficult argument to make--if all you want from cloning are tailor made, patient specific pluripotent stem cells. Of course, that has never been all "the scientists" (by which I mean the intelligentsia and the brave new worlders) wanted. Rather, their ultimate goals, in my opinion, have always been fetal farming, genetic engineering, reproductive cloning, and all that jazz.

Three cheers! We may be getting to the place where a ban on all human cloning will be politically viable.

P.S. I have the PDF. If anyone would like it, send me a private -e-mail and it will be on its way to you.

Belgian Euthanasia: Going Up

Euthanasia is legal in Belgium as well as the Netherlands. And if anything, the Belgians have embraced it with greater fervor than the Dutch. Cases have risen 15% and that is thought to be underreported. From the story:

However, the real number of cases is believed to be double that 1% of deaths in Belgian are speeded up by euthanasia. Around 1,000 people received help to end their lives last year.

Most cases were in Flanders, which makes sense since it is closest culturally to the Netherlands. Not coincidentally, a few years ago a Lancet study found that about 8% of all babies who die in Flanders are killed by doctors. That's what happens when killing is deemed an acceptable answer to human suffering.

Promoting Infanticide in the HASTINGS CENTER REPORT

The Hastings Center Report is the world's most prestigious bioethics journal. Articles published in its pages are generally in the mainstream thinking of bioethics discourse and at the heart of the process of debate within bioethics that often leads to changes in public policy--such as the discussions in the 1980s about dehydrating the cognitively impaired led to routine withholding of sustenance today.

In the last several years, Report articles have promoted a "duty to die" and a right to assisted suicide for the mentally ill. In the most recent edition, it promotes Dutch style infanticide. From the article "Ending the Life of a Newborn," (Hastings Center Report 38, 1 pp. 42-51 )by an American bioethicist named Hilde Lindemann and a Dutch bioethicist named Marian Verkerk (no link available). The authors approve of the so-called "Groningen Protocol," under which doctors murder dying and disabled babies in the Netherlands without legal consequence. (I call it murder because that is how it is still defined in Dutch law.) The Protocol permits babies to be lethally injected if:

1: they have no chance of survival (which is sometimes misdiagnosed); 2, if they "may survive after a period of intensive treatment but expectation for their future are very grim;" or, 3 they have an extremely poor prognosis "who do not depend on technology for physiologic stability and whose suffering is severe, sustained, and cannot be alleviated."

The authors defend the Protocol from most criticisms, even to the point that they believe killing the non terminally ill is more important than terminating babies about to die:

Critics charge that the protocol does not successfully identify which babies will die. But it is precisely those babies who could continue to live, but whose lives would be wretched in the extreme, who stand in most need of the interventions for which the protocol offers guidance

They proceed to discuss at great length the issues involved in doctors and parents determining whether a disabled baby's future life will be worth living. Here is a sampling of their murder-promoting advocacy:

Where the Dutch go further than other countries is in their shared belief that even newborns have a fundamental interest in not prolonging a life that is or will become an intolerable burden to them. This understanding is buttressed by a consensus--within the National Association of Pediatricians, for example, but also in the wider community--on some criteria regarding quality of life, including the amount of suffering that is to be accepted, the capacities for communication (nonverbally as well as verbally),the capacities to live a self-supporting life, and the dependency on care institutions. It is one of the harsh realities of twenty-first-century medicine that quality-of-life judgments must be made. What we must not do is pretend that we do not already make them, and that there is somehow something morally different about doing it for a newborn baby.

One might object that even if we do make quality-of-life judgments for others, there is surely a moral difference between killing and letting die. In fact, sometimes there is, and sometimes there isn't. As James Rachels has famously argued, whether you drown your six-year-old nephew in the bathtub so that you can collect his inheritance or merely refuse to intervene as he slips and hits his head and falls face down into the bathwater, either way you are a murderer. [Me: And both are evil, just like infanticide.] We agree with Rachels that actively ending a life can sometimes be more humane than waiting for the person to die, and that in the desperate cases where death does not come of its own accord to end unendurable suffering, the morally right thing to do is to summon it.

The article assumes that guidelines will protect against abuse, but infanticide is by definition abuse. Moreover, the euthanasia guidelines for adults and teenagers have not held, so why should anyone expect that those being established in the Netherlands for legalized infanticide will? Even the authors understand that mistakes will happen and, typical of the mindset, assume that if murder of the helpless is committed in front of an open window it is somehow more acceptable:

Determining in an instant case whether the protocol is applicable will always require judgment, and because the stakes are inordinately high no matter what is decided, the judgment must be made with fear and trembling. That said, however, we believe that transparency in the deliberations concerning the ending of an infant's life--which is just as important as it is in the deliberations concerning euthanasia in adults--is adequately promoted by the protocol's requirements.

Concerning the larger question of whether the practice for which the protocol was developed can be morally justified, we think it can--in the Netherlands, at any rate. When a tragically impaired infant is born into a society that is hospitable to its children, offers universal access to decent health care, and promotes an ethos among its citizens whereby they look after each other as a matter of course, we believe that the doctor's ending the baby's life could be the best, most caring response.

It wasn't many years ago that almost everyone accepted that infanticide is intrinsically and inherently wrong. No more. With personhood theory and the "quality of life ethic increasingly permeating the highest levels of the medical and bioethical intelligentsia, we are moving toward a medical system in which babies are put down like dogs and killing is redefined as compassion.

But bigotry is bigotry even if you spell it c.o.m.p.a.s.s.i.o.n. And to think, after World War II German doctors were hanged for doing precisely what is being promoted in the "prestigious" Hastings Center Report.

SHS Funnies

Piraro believes in animal rights. But so what? He's also funny. Have a chuckle.

NHS Meltdown Disgrace--Again!

Every day it gets worse. Now, stroke victims are not being treated properly. From the story:

Thousands of stroke victims die every year because they are not given life-saving drugs swiftly enough. Almost a third of stroke patients die within one month, a figure that could be cut if clot-fighting drugs were given earlier, say researchers. Studies show treatment within three hours greatly improves the chances of survival for more than six months. In 2006, only 30 NHS trusts across Britain administered the drugs within three hours

How hard can it be to provide clot fighting drugs???? And forgive me if I think this is because stroke victims tend to be elderly. Can you imagine if something like this happened in the USA? The screaming would never stop.

Lead Into Gold: More Advances on ISPCs

As I alluded to earlier this week, research into ISPCs are advancing in the animal models. From the story:

Stem cells are considered a potential magic bullet cure for a host of diseases because they can be transformed into nearly any cell in the body and used to help replace damaged or diseased cells, tissues and organs. However, stem cell research is highly controversial because, until recently, viable human embryos were destroyed in the process of extracting the most flexible stem cells. Two groups of scientists recently bypassed this problem by transforming human skin cells into stem cells which had the same properties as embryonic stem cells. This offered the promise of treatments tailored to the specific genetic code of a patient--anything from blood transfusions to transplantable organs grown in a petri dish--without the need for harmful drugs to prevent rejection.

But the skin cells were regressed using a method which caused tumors and the potential for genetic mutation, which meant those induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS, were not safe for clinical use. One of those teams has now managed to induce stem cells without causing tumors and in a way which may not cause as much genetic disruption. They again used a retrovirus to introduce four genes, this time experimenting with adult mouse liver and stomach lining cells.

Mice implanted with these induced pluripotent stem cells remained tumor free after six months, according to the study published online in Science Express. And the researchers showed that the retrovirus did not need to burrow into the adult cell genome at a specific sites. This could help scientists develop avoid viral integration at sites prone to trigger tumors.

Embryonic stem cells cause tumors too, which seems to be a product of pluripotency. But if the IPSC breakthrough can get around that problem, and they can be tailor made from every patient, what wonders medicine may hold.

Javona Peters Has Died

I just received word that Javona Peters has passed away. It is my understanding that, to their credit, both parents who are estranged, never got to the place where they fought in court over removing her feeding tube, but instead cooperated in medical decision making. This may not assuage their grief now in the agony of losing a child, but I hope both can take a bit of comfort that she was given every medical chance to survive. Our sympathies to her family.

Cancer Drug for MS Brings Up More Thoughts on Off Label Prescribing

The other day, to the consternation of some, I discussed my opposition to "off label" prescribing, meaning when a drug is approved for use to treat one malady, it is prescribed for a different one even though the medication was not specifically tested for that circumstance. To me, off label prescribing is a form of human experimentation that should either not be allowed or which should be thoroughly disclosed to the patient at the time of prescribing--with potential civil liability if things go wrong.

That is not to say that when a drug is found to have potential off label uses, it should just be ignored. The proper approach, it seems to me, is to alert the medical community and FDA, and then test it properly for the new use. And that is exactly what has been done with a cancer drug that may be efficacious for treating MS. From the story:

The blockbuster cancer drug Rituxan may help treat multiple sclerosis, according to the results of a small clinical trial that opens up a broad new approach to understanding and possibly treating the disabling disease.

The study encouraged Rituxan's co-developers Genentech Inc. and Biogen-Idec, which hope larger trials will establish the drug as an approved treatment for the disabling neurological disorder. But the trial's more sweeping impact may come from the light it sheds on the mechanisms of the disease.

Such off label trials would move much faster than the original testing process because so much would already be known about the drug's working and risks. This is the proper way to go.

NHS Meltdown: A Baby Dies

This is worse than awful: A 54 day old baby was sexually abused and beaten to death by her father. Yet during her brief life 30 different health care workers cared for her, and somehow didn't notice a thing. Plus, her mother is schizophrenic, which should have triggered a referral to social services--but didn't. From the story:

A report has revealed that Jessica, whose mother was schizophrenic, spent nearly half her life in hospital. She was seen by 30 health workers and had also been seen at home on 10 separate occasions. Yet no one noticed what was happening, so the emergency child protection procedures that could have led to her being removed from her family were not triggered...

He had abused and sexually assaulted Jessica, who was born five weeks prematurely with a heart defect, from "the moment she left hospital"...At one stage he forced three fingers down his daughter's throat and on other occasions held her arms and legs and twisted her as if he were wringing a cloth...

He said Jessica was last seen at the hospital a few days before she died, when she was admitted because she was twitching. Dr O'Malley said the doctor who saw her suspected she was being abused but did not include an "extensive account" of those suspicions in his notes because he felt his examinations of her ruled it out.

I read the UK papers every day and they are filled continually with stories of medical malfeasance and misfeasance, of filthy hospitals, personnel shortages, failed efforts at improvement, not to mention rationing and futile care impositions. The NHS is in chaos. Surely the time has come for the UK to try a different route.

Golobchuk Update: Temporary Victory Against Futile Care Imposition

Good news in the Golubchuk case. The court has enjoined the hospital from cutting off Mr G's treatment. But there will be a trial. But that is how it should be: Let these doctors and bioethicists justify themselves in open court in front of the press and the world and be subjected to cross examination. Let the Golubchuck family present their own evidence. An open proceeding with transparency and the right of appeal sure beats unilateral termination of treatment and decision making behind closed doors.

Golobchuck Case: The Arrogance of Futilitarianism: A Deadly Combination of Anti-Humanism, $, and the Imposition of a Duty to Die

I have warned that "personhood theory" will lead to terrible oppression of so-called human non persons. It allows cloning for the purpose of treating created human organism as a corn crop. It permits us to dehydrate people to death based on their once having made vague statements about not wanting to live with profound cognitive disability, and it is the ideological basis for denying wanted medical treatment that sustains life. In short, it is the prescription for medical oppression in which people deemed to be without sufficient cognitive capacities become almost the equivalent of the dead and the value of their lives is stripped from them like the medals from a Foreign Legion soldier being kicked out of the corps. At that point, their only remaining task is to die and get out of the way--or perhaps become fodder for experimentation or organ procurement. But don't say that these futilitarians aren't compassionate: They will provide comfort care as they make sure you die from their medical neglect. (Big of them.)

Lest you think I overstate, lest you think I caricature those with whom I disagree on this issue, check out this opinion article in the Winnipeg Free Press from a bioethicist named Arthur Schafer in support of forcing Samuel Golobchuk off of life support. From his column:

Inevitably, doctors are the gatekeepers for patient access to medical resources. You can't obtain restricted medicines unless a doctor is willing to write a prescription; you can't gain admission to hospital unless a doctor decides that you will benefit thereby. There is a scarcity of intensive care beds; so, to admit or keep patients in the ICU who cannot benefit is to rob others who could benefit. Put simply, one person's provision is another person's deprivation. It's unethical to waste scarce life-saving resources.

If a patient will never again know who or where he is, as appears to be the case for Golobchuk, then to artificially prolong his breathing seems at best a waste of precious ICU resources and at worst a cruel ordeal for the patient. Doctors and nurses are not simply technicians providing marketplace services to customers. They are health-care professionals who are bound by the ethical obligation "first of all, do no harm." When a patient has irreversibly lost self-awareness, then using medical high technology in a vain attempt to resist death is often experienced by doctors and nurses as both unprofessional and deeply demoralizing. Physician integrity includes the right, even the duty, to say "no" when treatments offer no genuine benefit to the patient.

Forget for the moment the many times doctors have been wrong about people never regaining consciousness. Schafer is the one de-professionalizing medicine. A plumber can refuse to unclog a pipe, but a doctor has no right to abandon his or her patient. Moreover, Schafer wants doctors to impose their value judgments--as instructed in continuing education clases by bioethicists like Schafer--that the burden of treatment isn't worth the benefit of continuing to live. But that isn't a medical judgment, it is a value judgment that we have always been told resides with the patient and family. Moreover, the treatment isn't being stopped because it doesn't or might not work but because it does or will--and hence it is not really a "vain attempt to resist death," but a potentially successful one. And thus it is really the patient who has been declared futile.

Schafer says that staying alive when that is what the patient wants offers no genuine benefit to the patient. He only has the right to make that claim for himself, not for Mr. Golobchuck, you, me, or anyone else. You are watching the redefining of the ultimate purpose of medicine before your very eyes. It isn't keeping patients alive who want to live, it is treating those who can be cured and reserving the right to refuse service to those who probably won't improve.

This is what socialized medicine--and its' private equivalent the HMO--creates. Medical futility is health care rationing that pits one cadre of patients against others, leading to division and discord. It is the end of trust in medicine because if you are too sick or profoundly disabled, medicine wants little to do with you.

Finally, if Futile Care Theory prevails, what in the world makes anyone think that the forced removal of people from wanted treatment will stop at the ICU? People who only need feeding tubes will soon be dehydrated (if they are not lethally injected first), and care will be rationed based on other criteria. For example, as reported in my books, I once asked a futilitiarian what would come after futile care, since cutting off the dying would not save a lot of money. He immediately said restricting "marginally beneficial care." I asked for an example. He responded, "An 80-year-old woman who wants a mammagram."

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Oregon "Mercy" Killing May Not Have Been "Merciful"

I have seen cases like this before: Husband kills sick wife, claims she wanted to die. Facts later disclose he was getting some nookie on the side or wished to pursue other agendas. Classic example: George Delury who "assisted" the suicide of his wife Myrna Lebov, who was not terminally ill with MS. As I wrote in Forced Exit, when Delury claimed it was a merciful act, the right to die crowd loudly clamored to his side. Then, it turned out that Delury pushed his wife to kill herself. From my book:

Delury became an instant "victim-celebrity." He made numerous television appearances, a speech in front of the American Psychiatric Association, and signed a book deal to write his story. Far and wide, he was acclaimed as a dedicated husband willing to risk jail to help his wife achieve her deeply desired end to suffering. He was allowed to quickly plead guilty to a minor crime and served only 4 months in jail...

Delury [later] admitted that he encouraged his wife to kill herself, or as he put it, "to decide to quit." He researched her antidepressant medication to see if it could kill her, and when she took less than the prescribed amount, which in and of itself could cause depression, he used the surplus to mix the poisonous brew that ended her life. But he went further than that. He helped destroy her will to live by making her feel worthless and a burden on him.

Delury recently killed himself.

Now, the "mercy killing" in Oregon has taken a similar potential turn. From the story:

Prosecutors say a Gresham man who claims he killed his terminally ill wife to end her misery was not the loving, devoted husband he pretended to be. Court documents filed Monday after John Lyle Roberts was indicted on a charge of murder paint a dramatically different portrait of the man who claimed to be a compassionate mercy killer.

For starters, Virginia Roberts wasn't dying of an illness when she was shot in the head as she slept Feb. 2. And she wasn't the only woman in John Roberts' life. Although Roberts, 51, told police and family that his 51-year-old wife was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a doctor who examined her in January told authorities she did not have the terminal disease. Dr. John Ellison determined she was in overall good health but she may have had carpal tunnel syndrome. That could have explained weakness in her hands that is also a symptom of ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

Previously, I worried here that this case would be the kind that would render the Oregon assisted suicide guidelines practically inoperative. But if these facts are true, obviously the mercy defense won't fly. But here is the point: It shouldn't matter whether Virginia had ALS: Killing her was unequivocally wrong and deserving of strong punishment. But I wonder why it has become so fashionable to help kill unwanted spouses and claim it was an act of "mercy."

Geron Touts Pending Human Trial of ESCR--Again and Again and Again and Again

Geron has issued the latest in a long series of press releases claiming that it will soon be applying to the FDA for permission to conduct human trials of a medical trial created with ESCR. Why this is news beats me. As I have pointed out previously, it has been making the very same claim for years, to wit:

Today

November 13, 2007

October 31, 2007

May 10, 2007

January 2007

August 4, 2006

June 17, 2006

March 29, 2006

April 19, 2005

December 1, 2004

Some suggestion of a pending request was also strongly implied as far back as 2002.

This is not to say that this will be another false alarm. But it is to say that perhaps the media should be a little skeptical and report about the many false starts that Geron has previously made.

HT: David Prentice

Where is the Mainstream Media in the Samuel Golubchuk Futile Care Case?

The mainstream media is obsessed with "choice:" Abortion? Choice! Assisted suicide? Choice! Removing feeding tubes? Choice! Futile Care Theory? That sound you hear is the crickets chirping. Indeed, the De Moines Register has already editorialized in favor of futile care, saying the doctors should decide.

What is going on here? As I keep saying to anyone who will listen, it isn't about "choice." It is about putting certain people out of our collective misery. If "choice" gets us there, great. If not, we will impose the duty to die, first through futile care theory--which is just beginning now--and then later through more explicitly terminating actions as occurs already in the Netherlands with its "termination without request or consent" permissiveness toward non voluntary euthanasia.

The current skirmish in this struggle is happeing in Canada where doctors are presuming the right to terminate Mr. Golubchuk's life support, and have the temerity to claim that they have the right to decide when the burden of treatment outweighs the benefit of being alive. That led to litigation, and a crucial ruling due at any time.

Because of the "quality of life" mindset that permeates much of the media, the only media to cover this case with the level of intensity it deserves (from what I have seen) has been the Jewish press because Mr. Golubchuk is Orthodox. Jonathan Rosenblum, a pundit, gets it in this piece, "In Canada, the Schiavo Case With an Outrageous Twist:"

The claim of absolute physician discretion to withdraw life-support advanced by the Canadian doctors would spell the end of any patient autonomy over end-of-life decisions. So-called living wills, which are recognized in many American states, and which allow a person to specify in advance who should make such decisions in the event of their incapacity, would be rendered nugatory...

Just as Nazism gave anti-Semitism a bad name, so too did it discredit Social Darwinism. But just as anti-Semitism has reappeared, so has the assault on the concept of the sanctity of life. That assault is not limited to Princeton ethicist Peter Singer's defense of infanticide, euthanasia and bestiality on explicitly Darwinian grounds.

Global warming activists speak of the duty not to reproduce, and view human beings as the enemy of nature's order. So much for the view of man as the crown of creation. In place of the sanctity of life, we now speak of the "quality of life"--a term that explicitly assumes that some lives are worth more than others.

There is even talk of the "duty to die" and clear the way for higher-quality lives, which is why the American Association of People with Disabilities has been actively involved in so many cases dealing with the doctors' right to terminate medical care. The rage for medical rationing in Canada, of which the Golubchuk case is but one example, derives from a desire not to waste resources on low-quality lives.

I disagree with Rosenblum's final comment about the relevance of the judge being Jewish and I don't think Darwinism leads necessarily to futile care theory, although the eugenics connection is apt. But read the whole piece. He has definitely connected some important dots.

Lead Into Gold: More Research Successes for IPSCs

ULCA is the latest research center to successfully create induced pluripotent stem cells. From the story:

Researchers at UCLA have become the first in the state to successfully create skin cells that can be used to treat a number of fatal or debilitating conditions without the use of human embryos or eggs. The work, which has broad political and ethical implications, appears today in the academic journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The findings confirm earlier research by Wisconsin and Japanese scientists reported last fall.

The manufacture of these cells provides a potential coup for opponents of embryonic stem cell research, which involves destroying cells that some equate to destroying human life and raises ethical issues associated with regeneration of cells through human cloning. The laboratory cells created at UCLA "were virtually indistinguishable from human embryonic stem cells," said Kathrin Plath, an assistant professor of biological chemistry at UCLA and lead author of the study. "We're very excited about the implications of this."

The reporter gets too much wrong in this story. For example, it isn't the destruction of the cells that is a problem, but of the embryos. But let's give her a break: It's a college newspaper.

Supporters of human cloning are quick to point out that IPSCs can't be used in human therapies because they cause tumors. Yet, that is the very problem that has kept embryonic stem cells from being used in humans--and we were told then that this would not be a serious impediment in the long term.

As to the difficulty of creating these cells, alluded to in the story, that is being worked on too. There will be a study published later in this week involving mice and rats--currently embargoed--that will indicate continued advances in this technology. You would think "the scientists" would be happy. But as the story mentioned, many seem truculent. Gee, I wonder why.

Mother's Milk May Have Stem Cells

Now here's a story that gives the old saying, "the milk of human kindness," a whole new meaning. It turns out that breast milk may contain stem cells. From the story:

The Perth scientist [Dr Mark Cregan] who made the world-first discovery that human breast milk contains stem cells is confident that within five years scientists will be harvesting them to research treatment for conditions as far-reaching as spinal injuries, diabetes and Parkinson's disease...

His team cultured cells from human breast milk and found a population that tested positive for the stem cell marker, nestin. Further analysis showed that a side population of the stem cells were of multiple lineages with the potential to differentiate into multiple cell types. This means the cells could potentially be "reprogrammed" to form many types of human tissue..."We have shown these cells have all the physical characteristics of stem cells. What we will do next is to see if they behave like stem cells," he says.

Unsurprisingly, Cregan's research also demonstrates the benefits to the baby from natural feeding. Let's hope all avenues of the research develop as the Cregan hopes.

Borrowed Taxpayers' Money Paying for PR Firm in Another Proposition 71 Snafu

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) would be laughable if it weren't so expensive and engaged in funding immoral research with borrowed money that I and every other Californian will have to pay back. The latest shinanigan was exposed by the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, which found that the wholly publicly funded (again, using borrowed money) CIRM hired an outside PR firm to deal with a news story its leadership didn't like. From the Foundation's press release:

Documents detailing the California stem cell institute's involvement with a well-known "crisis management" public relations firm reveal an agency leadership worried about the state agency's image and committed to keeping PR advice secret by channeling it through an outside law firm, the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) said today.

The stem cell institute, a public body formed to spend taxpayer-approved funds on research, paid the PR agency with money funneled through the law firm, according to documents obtained by FTCR. The PR agency then apparently funneled its advice back through the law firm. The stem cell agency used the tactic to claim legal "confidentiality" on public relations strategies at a time of negative publicity over apparent conflicts of interest among board members.

And there was a little money laundering going on: The CIRM had the law firm hire the PR firm, and then funneled the payments from CIRM to the PR firm through the law firm--classic money laundering that made the payment look like legal fees:

Under the deal worked out with Rubenstein, the PR firm received $10,000 for its advice on CIRM's behalf. However the agreement is technically with Remcho. The letter of agreement with Remcho says, "As part of our services, Rubenstein will provide Remcho, Johansen & Purcell with strategic public relations advice and guidance relative to general corporate matters affecting the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine... Rubenstein's work on this matter will be considered part of your work product and will be governed, to the extent permitted by law, by attorney/client privilege." But the letter makes clear who is paying for the advice. It's taxpayer dollars.

Arrogance, thy name is CIRM.

SHS Funnies

Mr Johnson should start a blog. That's what I did.

Botox Story Illustrates Danger of Off Label Prescribing

One of my pet peeves--yes, I know, I keep peeves like a crazy old man who keeps hundreds of cats--is off label prescribing. Off label prescribing allows a drug that has been approved for efficacy and safety for one condition, to be used instead to treat a different malady for which it has never been adequately tested. I think it should be illegal as a form of human experimentation, or at the very least, patients should be told as part of informed consent that the treatment is not specifically FDA approved to treat their condition.

Admittedly, some good has come from this. But also some evil, such as this story (perhaps) illustrates of deaths associated with Botox, the drug used in cosmetic procedures to erase wrinkles:

In a public alert issued Friday, the Food and Drug Administration said Botox, along with a similar drug called Myobloc, has been linked to life-threatening symptoms such as strained breathing and severe difficulty in swallowing, which can lead to a form of pneumonia. The FDA is advising doctors to monitor patients for such reactions while it decides whether to strengthen warnings on the drugs' labels.

Many of the most serious reactions--deaths and hospitalizations--occurred among children treated for cerebral palsy-associated limb spasticity, the agency said. The drugs are not FDA-approved for that use in children or adults.

FDA-approved drugs often have off-label uses, where physicians take medications approved for one disease to treat another. This practice often benefits patients and drug manufacturers, but can increase risks...

Botox and Myobloc are each forms of a toxin produced by bacteria that can paralyze muscles and lead to botulism, a fatal food poisoning. But in small amounts, the injected toxins can calm muscle spasms. A third product, Botox Cosmetic, is FDA-approved to improve the appearance of wrinkles between the eyebrows.

I have always been dubious of purely cosmetic procedures figuring that even an infinitesimal risk of harm isn't worth the false look of youth. In any event, the propriety of off label prescribing needs some pondering.

NHS Meltdown: A Continuing Tragedy

I cannot believe the disaster that is befalling the health care system in the UK. Now, it turns out that patients are leaving hospitals malnourished! From the story:

Some 140,000 people are discharged from hospital while underweight every year, and most are never diagnosed or treated, nutritionists warned.

Campaigners have consistently called for better food and more time for nurses to help patients eat. NHS guidelines state that all patients should be assessed when admitted to hospital and referred to a dietician if required. But this is not happening regularly enough, said Mike Lean, professor of human nutrition at Glasgow University and Prof Martin Wiseman, of the Institute of Human Nutrition at Southampton University.

Campaigners and hospital watchdogs have consistently called for better food and more time for nurses to help patients eat. Prof Lean said he was surprised that more medical negligence cases had not been brought by patients who were discharged while suffering from malnutrition.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, he said: "There are still many patients arriving at hospital malnourished and ill and doctors deal with the illness and then send them home and no one noticed or recorded the fact they were pathetically malnourished.

Perhaps the law has given the NHS more than they can chew, so to speak. But clearly, hospitals are not getting the job done.

FDA Shuts Down Inhumane Meat Packer

This is good. It is a human obligation--and a proper role of government--to ensure that our food animals are slaughtered humanely. There are rules and regulations in this regard and USDA inspectors at slaughter houses to maintain proper standards.

Apparently, the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company has violated its obligations to the law and the animals it processes. The Food Safety and Inspection Service has shut down Hallmark/Westland's operations. From the USDA news release:

On Feb. 4, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) suspended inspection at Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company based on the establishment's clear violation of Federal regulations and the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. This Notice of Suspension is a regulatory course of action available when FSIS finds egregious violations of humane handling regulations.

At the time allegations were revealed on Jan. 30, the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company voluntarily stopped operations on Feb. 1. The USDA suspension will remain in effect and the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company will not be allowed to operate until written corrective actions are submitted and verified
by FSIS to ensure that animals are humanely handled.

This isn't a slap on the wrist but sanctions with real punch. The meatpacker is making no money because it isn't processing meat. Such enforcement actions are important and in keeping with our human obligation to treat animals humanely.

Jail Politicians Who "Ignore Science"

The shamans of scientisim are growing increasingly strident. Yesterday, we discussed advocacy for creating a world authoritarianism to impose scientific consensus policies about global warming. Apparently, Dr. David Suzuki, the Canadian geneticist turned television star, has opined that politicians be jailed for violating the scientific consensus on global warming. From the story:

He urged today's youth to speak out against politicians complicit in climate change, even suggesting they look for a legal way to throw our current political leaders in jail for ignoring science--drawing rounds of cheering and applause. Suzuki said that politicians, who never see beyond the next election, are committing a criminal act by ignoring science.

If people decide to pursue draconian environmental policies through democratic means, that is one thing. But imposing the "scientific consensus" through authoritarianism or jailing politicians who don't follow "the scientists" in lockstep is quite another. I repeat: Those who wish to create a scientocracy--which increasingly seems akin to theocracy--can go jump in the lake.

A Call For Scientific Authoritarianism

I have warned repeatedly that we suffer from "expertitis," my term for the tendency to hand the most important policy decisions over to "experts." Now, a well known environmental author named David Shearman has written an hysterical piece urging that we toss aside democracy and adopt world authoritarianism to impliment the "scientific consensus" on global warming and other so-called world emergencies. And he holds tyrannical China (forced abortions, infanticide, killing prisoners for organs, repression of dissent, Tiananmen Square, etc. ad nauseum) up as the exemplar because it banned plastic bags! From the article:

The ban in China will save importation and use of five million tons of oil used in plastic bag manufacture, only a drop in the ocean of the world oil well. But the importance in the decision lies in the fact that China can do it by edict and close the factories. They don't have to worry about loss of political donations or temporarily unemployed workers...

Liberal democracy is sweet and addictive and indeed in the most USA, unbridled individual liberty overwhelms many of the collective needs of the citizens. The subject is almost sacrosanct and those who indulge in criticism are labeled as Marxists [me: ya think?], socialists, fundamentalists and worse. These labels are used because alternatives to democracy cannot be perceived!...

The Chinese decision on shopping bags is authoritarian and contrasts with the voluntary non-effective solutions put forward in most Western democracies. We are going to have to look how authoritarian decisions based on consensus science can be implemented to contain greenhouse emissions. It is not that we do not tolerate such decisions in the very heart of our society, in wide range of enterprises from corporate empires to emergency and intensive care units. If we do not act urgently we may find we have chosen total liberty rather than life.

I have been warning that there are some among us who worship at the altar of scientism and who want to institute a scientocracy where "the scientists" are granted a free hand and our opinions be damned. Well, this is a pretty explicit example. And the authoritarianism wouldn't just be over global warming. A scientific consensus could probably be forged around permitting human cloning, creating animal/human hybrids, imposing futile care theory (which Shearman seemed to be alluding in his comment about ICUs) requiring eugenic abortion of disabled fetuses, perhaps even to deny medical treatment to smokers or the obese as has already been called for in the UK, etc. etc.

Democracy is not a luxury. It is crucial to human freedom and thriving. These would-be totalitarians can go jump in the lake.

He Speaks! "Why Being Human Matters"

I am often asked where people can see recordings of my speeches. The Discovery Institute just posted online one I made there last year, called "Why Being Human Matters: Bioethics, Animal Liberation, and the Threat to Human Exceptionalism." Hit this link, and I will appear after a very nice introduction from Bruce Chapman, the head of the DI. In the speech I address the importance of human exceptionalism, personhood theory, animal rights, transhumanism, and the all that jazz. I only have one question: When did I get so gray?

Honest Nitschke

Philip Nitschke, as I have repeatedly written, believes essentially in death on demand. He says so again in the wake of the suicide of woman he "counseled:"

"Nitschke insisted that healthy people of sound mind, who were mature enough, should have the right to take their own lives if that's what they wanted. "Yes, otherwise it effectively disregards and disrespects their views," he told AAP. "We are not uncomfortable with this debate going on."

Nitschke, who is on tour in New Zealand, was commenting after the Sunday Star Times newspaper published details about a physically healthy 68-year-old woman who took her own life. The woman killed herself in her Wellington home with drugs she smuggled in from Mexico after seeking advice from Nitschke's euthanasia group, Exit International.

A friend claimed the woman had been depressed, and said people must be aware that such incidents could stem from Nitschke's euthanasia campaign. But Nitschke, who identified the woman as former Sydney resident Ann Wheble, denied she had been depressed and had simply exercised her desire to end her life in March 2006.

This is the true agenda of the euthanasia/assisted suicide movement. Nitschke is just more candid. And the broader permissibility that is ultimately intended is what the debate should be all about.

ALF Admits London Terrorist Arson

I reported yesterday on the shameful and criminal firebombing of Dr. Edythe London's house. One commentator thought I might have jumped to a conclusion. But the despicable ALF has now bragged about their felonious conduct. From the anonymous press release:

After promising to return if she continued torturing non-human primates in her UCLA laboratory, animal liberationists have again targeted the home of notorious primate vivisector Edythe London. According to the Los Angeles Times, an incendiary device damaged her home today; no one was home at the time. London was targeted by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) last October for her role in torturing non-human animals to death in outdated and unnecessary experiments; in that incident, tens of thousands of dollars in damage was reported after her home was flooded by a garden hose. The ALF claimed to target London for her sadistic routine of addicting non-human primates to methamphetamine; she has also published data on primate addiction to nicotine, and addicting baby lambs to cocaine...

Jerry Vlasak, who has justified murdering researchers, commented:

"London's research is a colossal waste of taxpayer money, and soliciting money from industry groups to study their retail products is considered unethical by most physicians interested in research that might help their patients. Of course, not being a clinician, London appears to have no interest in helping people, but instead derives pleasure in addicting primates to 'Crystal Meth' to further her own personal goals of academic and monetary enrichment. This recent attack should come as no surprise to London; I wouldn't be astonished if she remains a target until she stops her heinous experiments upon these innocent and unconsenting primates."

Come on, FBI: Catch these creeps. Come on "mainstream" animal rights groups: Loudly condemn these criminals and cooperate with law enforcement to catch and stop them. The peaceability of your movement is at stake.

Scientists Use Fish to Observe Cancer Develop in Real Time

No doubt the ALF will want to make up some Molotov cocktails and start threatening to murder scientists' children: Biotechnologists have engineered transparent fish to observe how cancer grows and spreads. From the story:

A transparent zebrafish has been engineered to allow scientists to watch how cancers develop and behave inside the body in real time. Each internal organ of the fish and its bones can be seen clearly throughout its life. Observations have shown already that the spread of cancer cells is not random--they home in on a particular area.

Researchers who bred the transparent fish at the Children’s Hospital, Boston, in the United States, were able to watch as melanoma cells left the abdominal cavity and made directly for the skin, where the disease took hold. Before the innovation, scientists were reliant on getting a snapshot of the spread by dissecting specimens.

Richard White, the lead researcher in the project, reported in the journal Cell Stem Cell, said that cancer changed so rapidly in the body that dissection was "bound to miss something", but the transparent fish allowed the whole process to be witnessed.

I'm sure Ingrid Newkirk is rending her garments: Oh, the cruelty to a sentient being! Oh, the evil! Oh, the tremendous good that can come from this for the alleviation of terrible human suffering.

Apparent Mercy Killing a Test of Oregon Assisted Suicide Limits

John Roberts has been arrested for murdering his wife Virginia in Oregon. Why is this important? His brother claims that John killed Virginia as an act of compassion because she had Lou Gehrig's disease and didn't want to wait to die until she would have qualified for legal assisted suicide. From the story:

Friends and family of John Roberts, the Gresham man arrested in the death of his wife, Virginia, say her death Saturday was not a cold-blooded attack but an act of compassion for a woman living with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease. John Roberts' brother and daughter and a close family friend told The Oregonian that Virginia's ALS had worsened in the weeks leading to her death on Saturday. They say John Roberts hinted to them that Virginia had asked him to help take her life when she no longer wished to carry on...

"There is a story that makes this not just a murder," said Greg Roberts, a former Seattle police detective and John Roberts' brother. "It is my firm belief that this was a pact between the two of them, that she asked him to do this. "And part of the reason why they chose this method rather than going down the assisted suicide route was that she was so proud that she didn't want to let herself get into the condition she would need to be in before they'd be allowed" to participate in Oregon's Death with Dignity program, which requires a person to be within six months of death. (My emphasis.)

This is the kind of case that led to the complete collapse of euthanasia guideline enforcement in the Netherlands. And I predict: If this is the defense, if Mr. Roberts admits killing his wife for purposes of mercy at her request--he may be convicted of something like manslaughter, but will not be meaningfully punished. After all, the only thing he did was provide "aid in dying" a little earlier than would have otherwise been provided under the law. And so what if it wasn't "self administered" or overseen by a doctor: What is it about "choice" that we don't understand?

If Roberts killed his wife and despite a "mercy killing" defense is seriously punished, I will post it as the state taking the assisted suicide guidelines seriously. But I am betting--again assuming the assertions in the story are true--that Mr. Roberts will do little if any jail time for shooting his wife. This is the tide unleashed when we agree in law that killing is an acceptable answer to human suffering.

Animal Rights Terrorists Close to Killing Someone

I am convinced that unless they change course very soon, animal rights terrorists will soon kill someone. I bring this up because animal rights nuts apparently set fire to the home of Dr. Edythe London:

Authorities are investigating a fire caused by a device left Tuesday at a house owned by a UCLA professor who conducts animal research--the second time the house has been targeted in less than four months. The device was placed Monday morning on the front porch of a Westside house owned by Edythe London, FBI officials in Los Angeles said. London, a professor of psychiatry and bio-behavioral sciences and of molecular and medical pharmacology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, uses lab monkeys in her research on nicotine addiction.FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller confirmed that officials with the Joint Terrorism Task Force were investigating the incident. "It was ignited and caused damage to the property," Eimiller said. "No one was home at the time and nobody was hurt."

Now some animal rights fanatics will say that setting fire to someone's home when no one is there isn't violence. What garbage. Besides. fires spread. They also require fire fighters to extinguish, and some of these brave men and women die in the effort.

If someone died in such a fire it would be murder under the law. Arson is not mere vandalism. It is terrible criminality, brutal and dangerous. The animal rights movement should rise up and declare unequivocally that such sheer terrorism is utterly unacceptable and cooperate with law enforcement and the FBI to catch the arsonists.

But I predict that most won't, or will praise with mere faint condemenation.

SHS Funnies

Lio thwarts an early transhumanist uploading experiment.

AIDS Vaccine Fails: Behavioral Control the Only Answer for Now

The latest efforts to create an AIDS vaccine have failed and the dread HIV continues to spread. From the story:

Last fall's spectacular failure of a three-shot regimen by Merck, which may have left some volunteers more susceptible to HIV infection, is prompting soul-searching at a major AIDS conference here, and calls for a pause in new trials until basic research uncovers new strategies to immunize against the shape-changing virus.

Further evaluation of the Merck vaccine study results has yet to pinpoint why it didn't work, but researchers have uncovered a surprising clue as to why volunteers who received the vaccine may have increased their risk of infection: the infection rate was highest among volunteers who were not circumcised. It was a totally unexpected finding that adds to the mystery of why lack of circumcision seems to play such a big role in HIV infection.

In the wake of a trio of AIDS vaccine field trial failures - Merck's STEP trial was only the most recent - National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases chief Dr. Tony Fauci has agreed to convene a "summit" of top leaders in the vaccine field to rethink strategy and perhaps plot new directions for the flow of federal tax dollars.

I vividly remember the scene in San Francisco when Secondhand Smokette and I moved here in 1992 at the height of the AIDS devastation. The heartbreak of seeing young men barely able to walk and looking as if they were 100 was almost too much to bear. I did some volunteer work to help AIDS patients and I saw the naked face of the plague up close--and the utter heartbreak it causes.

Why would anyone risk that? Yet tens of thousands of people are still infected every year in the USA. And what gets me is that almost every new infection is wholly preventable if people simply control their behavior.

This is an aspect of human exceptionalism that needs more emphasis in all our lives. Unlike animals, we can control our urges. We can deny ourselves that which our biological natures desire. As rational and moral beings, we have the capacity to transcend instinct. Vegetarians, for example, forgo natural human food for moral or health reasons. Monastics forgo sexual relations and family for religious or philosophical reasons. Surely, with HIV such a dread disease, people can restrain their risky behaviors--at least until a true vaccine or cure can be found. Indeed, that should be society's expectation of everyone. After all, lives are literally at stake.

New Twists in Golubchuk Canadian Futile Care Case

I have written previously of the futile care imposition being attempted by a Winnipeg hospital against Sam Golubchuk, an elderly Orthodox Jewish man whose family wants his life support maintained for ethical and religious reasons. Apparently, he continues to improve and the doctors still want the right to determine whether he lives or dies from having his treatment removed. This column, "Fighting to Save Father's Life," by Rhonda Spivak, provides some important details:

The condition of an 84-year-old Orthodox Jew who is on life support in a Winnipeg hospital is improving after doctors unsuccessfully tried to pull the plug on him over a month ago, against his family's will and religious beliefs.

Miriam Geller said her father, Sam Golubchuk, is alert, his eyes are open and his health has improved over the last two weeks. He has been on life support since Nov. 7 2007. According to Neil Kravetsky, the family's lawyer, it is only because the family went to court in November and obtained an ex parte injunction (without notice to the hospital) that doctors were prevented from removing Golubchuk's life support. Kravetsky said that, at a Dec. 11 hearing in the case, Golubchuk's "entire chart was not presented by the hospital, only some parts of it." He asked for and received the chart from the Grace Hospital after the hearing.

And get this:

Following the Dec. 11 hearing, Kravetsky sent the patient's medical records to Dr. Daniel Rosenblatt, a critical care physician in New Jersey, and Dr. Leon Zacharowicz, a pediatric neurologist from New York with an interest in Jewish medical ethics. Both doctors affirmed affidavits filed in court, which gave medical evidence in support of continuing Golubchuk's life support, including the use of a ventilator and feeding tube.

Hospital lawyers objected to the admissibility of the affidavits, taking the position that it is not for the court to decide whether to prefer the opinion of one doctor over another.

I guess the hospital leadership thinks that only they get to pick and choose the doctors it wishes to heed and the patient's medical records it thinks are relevant. Wait, there's more:

The hospital maintains that it is the right of the team of treating physicians to decide when to terminate life support, as opposed to the family or the courts. Otherwise, Olson said, the medical system could be bogged down and not function effectively if hospitals' decisions had to be scrutinized by the legal system.

So, when families want to end high tech life support and feeding tubes, the bioethicists told us that it was wrong for others to interfere with the intimate family decision making. But if the families' intimate decisions are deemed wrong by the powers that be, well then, "choice" has its limits. And even though the issue is literally about life and death, the courts should stay out of it because it could interfere with medical efficiency!

This is literally the beginning of the creation of a duty to die that has been discussed in bioethics journals for about ten years. If they wanted to destroy what remains of the people's trust in health care, then bioethicists and the medical intelligentsia could not do better than foisting futile care theory onto the backs of helpless patients and desperate families. The futile care agenda must be stopped.

French Scientists Develop Skin Lines for use in Research Instead of Animals

This is very good: French scientists have used leftover human skin from cosmetic surgery to develop a product for testing cosmetics that is better than using animals. From the story:

Cosmetics giant L'Oreal showed Sky News their new product called Episkin in an exclusive visit to their laboratory in Lyon, France.

The skin is grown from cells removed from donor skin left over after cosmetic surgery. Tests have shown it gives more accurate results than animal skin. The new skin has been cleared for use and will now be available to use in the cosmetic industry.

There is a theory in animal welfare advocacy called "The Three Rs"--replacement, reduction, refinement--to reduce the use of animals in various areas of research. This is a proper and lauditory goal. But note: It ain't animal rights because it accepts the necessity of using animals in research.

This is a wonderful achievement, ethically and scientifically, and a noble and important expression of human exceptionalism. And credit where credit is due: This resulted from the European Union outlawing using animals in cosmetic testing.

But it isn't animal rights.

Four Month Premature Baby Doing Well

I wrote earlier today about late term aborted babies in the UK being left to die even when born alive. Awful. Then, this story comes out about a baby born 4 months early who is thriving:

Born 16 weeks premature and weighing just 1lb 4oz, Charlie Jo Glover was so tiny her hand could fit inside a ring. Put on oxygen in an incubator, she clung on to life while doctors warned her worried parents she might not survive. But now Janice Snalam, 39, and partner Michael Glover, 41, are preparing to celebrate the birthday they feared their daughter would never see...

Miss Snalam and her partner, a delivery driver, were told that Charlie Jo could die because she was so premature her lungs were not properly formed. Her parents, who have been together for ten years and have another daughter Holly, four, were also told their baby had a 50 per cent chance of being physically or mentally disabled. But after a battery of tests, she has finally been given the all-clear. Miss Snalam said: "Charlie Jo's fantastic. She's got two teeth, she's eating off a spoon and she's sitting up on her own.

Would some of the aborted babies neglected to death have survived and similarly thrived? Unknowable. But they deserved the chance to try simply and merely because they were human.

Life for Lauren

This is a video of Lauran Richardson. Whether she is conscious or not is irrelevant to her equal moral worth as a human being. But she seems reactive to me, particularly when she is being stroked and loved by her father.

The fight in this case is over whether she lives as a profoundly disabled woman or is made to die slowly over two weeks by dehydration--as Terri Schiavo did.

If we did that to a dog, we would go to jail. Do it to a disabled woman who needs a feeding tube and it it is called medical ethics.

There is a Web site, Life For Lauren, which can be found at www.lifeforlauren.com

The Moral Equivalent of Infanticide in the UK

Babies who survive abortion are left to die in the UK each year, according to reports. From the story:

Botched abortions mean that scores of babies are being born alive and left to die, an official report has revealed. A total of 66 infants survived NHS termination attempts in one year alone, it emerged. Rather than dying at birth as was intended, they were able to breathe unaided. About half were alive for an hour, while one survived ten hours.

It is important to remember that once these little boys and girls were born, which is what happened when they survived the attempted abortions, they were no longer fetuses but babies, and yet no medical care was offered:

The figures are the first to give a national picture of the number of babies who survive abortion but are left to die. Experts previously believed the phenomenon was limited to a handful of cases a year. The babies were aborted using a drug to soften the cervix and induce labour. Once born no medical help is offered.

This is an abomination. Refusing to treat these babies is outrageous medical neglect that crosses the line into infanticide.

The United States has the Born Alive Infants Protection Act and the Baby Doe regulations to protect against just for such circumstances. Will the UK at last say, "Enough?"

The Need to Use Animals in Research

The attackers of animal research take two paths toward attempting to end it--one of which I respect but with which I profoundly disagree--and the other which I neither respect nor accept. The argument that I think is wrong but respect (epitoimzed by Gary Francione), admits that scientific research with animals can benefit people--although the extent of benefit is generally downplayed. Their argument is primarily ethical; that regardless of the scientific knowledge obtained, or indeed, potential medical treatments derived, it is morally wrong to use a sentient being as an instrumentality in research.

Others claim that animal research offers no benefits to humans, and indeed is harmful. This criticism is patently false and anti-empirical as well as (in my view) wrongheaded from an ethical perspective. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine--a PETA creature--is an example of this approach, as are the assertions of the violence justifier against researchers Jerry Vlasak.

But animals are required for science to advance. Here is an example that came across the transom today, a summary of advances published in a science journal, of the attempt to find a vaccine for bird flu:

A vaccine against the most common and deadliest strain of avian flu, H5N1, has been engineered and tested by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Vaccine Research and Rockville, Maryland-based Novavax. According to a study published by the journal PLoS ONE, the vaccine produced a strong immune response in mice and protected them from death following infection with the H5N1 virus. The vaccine is being tested in humans in an early-phase clinical trial. Recent outbreaks of avian flu around the world have prompted health officials to warn of its continued threat to global health and potential to trigger a flu pandemic. Unlike other avian flu vaccines, which are partially developed from live viruses, the vaccine uses a virus-like particle that is recognized by the immune system as a real virus but lacks genetic information to reproduce, making it a potentially safer alternative for a human vaccine. Given the evolving nature of H5N1, the vaccine was engineered to encode genes for three influenza viral proteins to offer enhanced protection against possible new strains of the virus. The researchers said that mice immunized twice with the vaccine developed protective antibodies against H5N1 and were protected from disease and death when directly exposed to the virus. The study was funded by Novavax.

Does this mean this experimental vaccine will necessarily work? Of course not. But the use of the mice was an essential part of the process of getting to human trials.

I think this issue is so important that I intend to spend one entire chapter in my forthcoming book describing why animals are so important to scientific and medical research. From a scientific perspective, their benefit is really uncontrovertible. That doesn't end the ethical argument, of course. But good ethical analysis requires accurate data, which is what I hope to provide and which too often the animal rights ideologues refuse to admit.

Senator Clinton Might Garnish Wages to Force Citizens to Pay for Health Insurance

"Hillarycare" crashed and burned in 1993 because it was overly bureaucratic and complicated. She has now gone in the opposite direction--mandatory private coverage. But, I don't think this policy idea is going to fly, either. When asked how she would force people to buy health insurance, she apparently stated that the wages of refuseniks could be garnished. From the story:

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday she might be willing to garnish the wages of workers who refuse to buy health insurance to achieve coverage for all Americans. The New York senator has criticized presidential rival Barack Obama for pushing a health plan that would not require universal coverage. Clinton has not always specified the enforcement measures she would embrace, but when pressed on ABC's "This Week," she said: "I think there are a number of mechanisms" that are possible, including "going after people's wages, automatic enrollment."

Clinton said such measures would apply only to workers who can afford health coverage but refuse to buy it, which puts undue pressure on hospitals and emergency rooms. With her proposals for subsidies, she said, "it will be affordable for everyone."

Well, what kind of bureaucracy would that take to enforce mandatory enrollment and determine who had to pay what?

I have been furious at the Clintons since 1993 because they wasted the one political window of opportunity in my lifetime to straighten American health care out. And now, the mess is worse. Solving the matter will require incremental change, a willingness to limit the scope and breadth of coverage and avoid mine fields like abortion, as well as a mix of public and private coverage opportunities. Perhaps a good place to start would be to reduce Medicare eligibility to age 60. That would bring healthier people into the Medicare system, allowing for a better actuarial spreading of the risk, while at the same time, taking people who are more expensive to care for than young people out of the private pool, thereby helping with affordability in the private sector.

This much is sure: We are all going to have to be flexible in at least some regards or the job will never get done.

SHOCK (Not): Assisted Suicide for a Depressed Woman

The media in Australia and New Zealand are shocked that Philip Nitschke--the Down Under Jack Kevorkian--would help a woman commit suicide who wasn't terminally ill. What amazes me is that they are seemingly surprised. He's done it before in the Nancy Crick case, in which he admitted both that he and Crick knew she wasn't terminally ill when he counseled her to commit suicide and that he and she had lied to the media before the event claiming she was dying in order to gain sympathetic coverage. From the current story:

Australian euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke has been accused of advising a depressed woman who took her own life about smuggling lethal drugs from Mexico. The Sunday Star-Times reported that the 68-year-old woman, who was not terminally ill, killed herself in 2006 with drugs she smuggled home from Mexico after seeking advice from Dr Nitschke.

Why is anyone surprised? When I toured Australia in 2001, we made headlines proving that Nitschke wants his suicide pills to be made available to troubled teens. (He admitted it in an interview with NRO, which I wrote about here.) I arrived in Australia on a Sunday morning to a media frenzy (caused by our press release). On Monday, Nitschke admitted his belief to the Sydney Morning Herald. More media frenzy. On Tuesday, he changed his story and denied it. I remember one radio host stating I had been rebutted. I said lying wasn't a rebuttal, and read his admission to the Herald. Rather than deal with that issue, the assisted suicide-sympathetic host quickly changed the subject. We then made headlines proving he was importing the "Exit Bag" suicide devices from Canada, with a big front page story in the Australian, Australia's national newspaper.

With regard to assisted suicide not really being about terminal illness: Many just don't want to see the evidence that is before their very eyes. Here is just a sampling:
- Euthanasia/assisted suicide is available to the depressed in the Netherlands.
- The Swiss Supreme Court recently created a constitutional right to assisted suicide for the mentally ill.
- There is advocacy in very high places here in the USA for the same thing.
- Most of Jack Kevorkian's "patients" were not terminally ill, and five weren't even sick upon autopsy.
- At least one non terminally ill patient (as defined by the Oregon law) has received a lethal prescription in that state. Despite it being revealed in a peer reviewed journal article, the state took no action against the prescribing doctor.
- In Canada, Tracy Latimer, murdered by her father because she had cerebral palsy was not terminally ill--and he was supported by a wide swath of the public and media commentators.

I could go on. But you know the old saying, none are so blind as those who refuse to see.

Seriously Disabled Babies are "Not Viable People" and Should be Aborted

The new eugenics is growing at a horrifying pace. In the UK, a House of Lords, member argued that disabled children should be aborted for their own good. From the story:

Seriously disabled children should be considered non-persons and would be better off having been aborted, according to a Peer speaking in the House of Lords Tuesday. Attempting to couch her assertion in terms of children's "rights",

Molly Baroness Meacher told the Lords that children born with severe disabilities are "not viable people". The comments came as the Lords debated an amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, put forward by Lady Swinton, Baroness Masham of Ilton, that would have protected unborn disabled children from abortion after the 24 week gestational time limit. The amendment was defeated by 89 votes to 22.

Under Britain's abortion law, children judged to have some form of disability, including such comparatively minor disabilities as club foot or cleft palate, can be aborted up to the time of natural birth.

Referring to two children she knows who were born prematurely with severe cerebral palsy, Baroness Meacher said, "They were natural births. Those two children cannot breathe naturally; they have to be helped to breathe. They will never talk. They lie on their backs and can do nothing. My belief is that there are children, born at those very early ages, who are not viable people. It would be in their best interests to have been aborted."

Why limit the killing of the disabled to abortion? Why not kill babies that make it to birth with serious disabilities like they do regularly in the Netherlands? Indeed, why limit the killing to babies? After seriously injured or ill patients become non viable people let's just put their heads on the chopping block, so to speak, and put us, er I mean them, out of our, er I mean, their misery?

There was a time when such bigoted sentiments would have led to shunning. People saw it for the naked bigotry that it is. No more. These attitudes permeate the elite and medical intelligentsia and are seeping into society. The only antidote is to say, "Not on my watch," and mean it.

The Unfunny Joke That is UK Biotech Regulation

The Brits like to brag that their approach to cloning is the most enlightened, that is, it allows new biotechnologies to proceed, but only under "strict" regulations. Except, I have yet to see any meaningful restrictions or strict regulations actually enacted or enforced. But it's the thought that counts, right?

Now, the UK is about to allow cloned embryos to be manufactured from tissue lines without consent from the tissue donors. This means that embryonic virtual twins of these patients will be made and the patients have no right to approve or disapprove. Why? Because that's what the scientists want and that is the only thing that matters. From the story:

The government may allow scientists to clone embryos from tissues donated for research without the need for donors' "express" consent, the BBC has learned. Health officials say they have accepted that the requirement, currently in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, would hamper vital research.

As regular readers of SHS know, this routine is always the same: First the scientists want to cross an ethical boundary line. The regulators say, "Okay, but with some restrictions." The scientists howl, claiming that the proposed minor limitations will "hamper science, thwart cures, and put the UK behind other countries in the race for biotechnology billions." The regulators quickly and meekly say, "Oh, that's different then. By all means, do what you want."

And the media pretends this Kabuki dance amounts to strict oversite. Like I said: What a pathetic joke.

SHS Funnies: I Feel Pig's Pain

Things have been getting a little too heavy around here lately. That's when I turn to Pearl's Before Swine.

I Am Asked About the Lauren Richardson Case

James asks:

Wesley, What's your take on the Lauren Richardson case in Delaware? Can you get involved to protect the life of this young woman?

Lauren Richardson, for those who may not know, is a young woman diagnosed to be persistently unconscious whose parents are fighting in court over who should be named her guardian. How the court decides that question is literally a matter of life and death. Her mother wants to pull her feeding tube, her father does not. Here's the tragic story.

James. I have received several inquiries such as yours. It is a reasonable question that breaks my heart and deserves a bluntly honest answer: I am at a loss to know what I can do. I haven't been called to help and it is not my way to interpose myself into these gut wrenching situations. A blog entry isn't going to matter, nor sending ten articles to the New York Times--which wouldn't be published anyway. Dehydrating the cognitively devastated is a ubiquitous practice in US hospitals and nursing homes. It isn't even controversial unless, as in this case and a few others such as Terri Schiavo and Robert Wendland, there is a family division and someone kicks up a fuss. Usually, families go along and no one is the wiser.

Let me repeat this sickening fact: The dehydration of people who are elderly stroke or dementia patients, people of all ages with brain injuries, and others with profound cognitive incapacities who require feeding tubes goes on ALL THE TIME in ALL FIFTY STATES to people who are both CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS. And society generally applauds.

Like I said: What can I do? But I appreciate very much the love in the hearts of everyone who contacted me about Lauren and my deepest respect to all who care so profoundly about the life of a tragically injured young woman whom they have never met.

And Those Adult Stem Cell Hits Just Keep on Coming

A man's jaw was refashioned using adult stem cells from his own fat. From the story:

Scientists in Finland said they had replaced a 65-year-old patient's upper jaw with a bone transplant cultivated from stem cells isolated from his own fatty tissue and grown inside his abdomen...Using a patient's own stem cells provides a tailor-made transplant that the body should not reject.

I can't think of anything pithy to write here, there are so many of these stories being reported these days. But we shouldn't let that make us sanguine about how remarkable moral regenerative medicine is turning out to be.

Not a Hoax! Mississippi to Make it Illlegal for Restaurants to Serve the Obese!

A bill in Mississippi would make it illegal to serve obese patrons. When I first read this, words escaped me, and that is rare. Then I thought: Hey, send a copy to the UK. They love surrealistic nonsense like this. Then, I thought: This is too fat a target. So I went to the Mississippi Legislature Web site and looked up HB 282. Sure enough, it was a measure, since dead, to regulate lawyer advertising. And I posted it as such.

Ah, but I was wrong. When I looked again at the bill, I noticed it was from 2006. So, I did another search and, by golly, three legislators, two of whom are Republicans who I thought are supposed to oppose big government, want to force restaurants into being the fat police! I only have one question: When did Mississippi become San Francisco?

NHS Follies: Rent a Womb--Paying for Surrogate Mothers While Rationing Health Care to the Elderly

This is unbelievable: The NHS is seriously considering paying 15,000 Pounds (about $32,000) to surrogate mothers to gestate babies for infertile couples. This, from the same NHS that rations care to the elderly. From the story:

Surrogate mothers could be given up to £15,000 of Health Service money to have children for gay couples, it emerged yesterday.

An NHS trust is considering funding the service for infertile couples - whether they are heterosexual or of the same-sex. If the proposals are approved, the Health Service will pay for IVF cycles and the expenses surrogate mothers are allowed...Surrogates would also be able to claim damages if things went wrong.

The issue isn't gay couples, the issue is restricting care to some populations while going to extreme measures to assist others. More to the point, paying women to be surrogate mothers is to include an expensive non medical procedure as a health benefit. Here is what I mean: If a woman is infertile, helping her conceive and carry to term is health care to her. Paying somebody else to do that job isn't health care at all, it is social policy. Helping gay couples is similarly not health care but paying for a social policy to circumvent fundamental biological impediments.

In addition to which: Paying surrogate mothers publicly turns these women's bodies into commodities while at the same time pandering to a sense of entitlement of a "right" to have a child. Frankly, I don't think it should be legal to pay women to carry someone else's baby. But surely, if it is going to happen, those who want the baby should be responsible for the costs.

No health care financing system can pay for everything. But when it begins to fund non medical services, it is a symptom of a system that has gone terribly awry.

Lead Into Gold: Koreans Improve Upon IPSC Technique in Mouse Studies

Korean scientists have created pluripotent stem cells from normal skin cells and have further improved the technique. From the story:

Park said the overall process of making the stem cells is similar to those by U.S. and Japanese scientists, there has been a marked improvement in the success rate. "Foreign scientists used the so-called retrovirus, but we made headway by attaching the lentivirus to the transporting vector, and inserted it into the somatic cell of the lab animal," he said.

This process resulted in a stem cell being confirmed by a fluorescent microscope. The team claimed it was able to push these stem cells to differentiate into liver, nerve and muscle tissues. They said efforts are underway to recreate the process using human somatic cells.

Patent applications are also being filed. The lawsuits to come as various bioetechnology companies vie to become the next Microsoft or Google are sure to keep lawyers happily litigating for years to come.

Suicide is in the Atmosphere

A story from Japan I think is metaphorical to a larger ennui or nihilism in the West. Suicide rates are at very disturbing proportions. From the story:

If the Golden Gate Bridge had been built in Japan, there might be little discussion about erecting a barrier to keep people from jumping off. Since 1998, an average of 30,000 Japanese people have committed suicide annually, according to the National Police Agency. In a nation of 128 million inhabitants, that's 24 per 100,000 people - the highest rate among developed nations. In contrast, the U.S. suicide rate is 11 per 100,000 (Lithuania currently has the world's highest with 38.6 per 100,000 people, according to the World Health Organization)...

"This country has done nothing until recently to prevent suicide," said Yukio Saito, director of the 24-hour suicide hot line Inochi no Denwa, or Phone of Life, which he says receives an estimated 720,000 calls a year at 49 call stations across Japan.

Saito and other critics say the government traditionally treated suicide as a personal problem, one that didn't need state intervention or be discussed publicly. But pressure from suicide prevention groups finally spurred the Japanese parliament known as the Diet to pass prevention legislation in 2006 and issue a white paper outlining the problem in November.

We seem to be moving in the opposite direction here. We worry about suicide rates on one hand, some of us promote suicide facilitation for certain categories of suffering people, on the other--the terminally ill, the "hopelessly ill," even the mentally ill.

In our debate at the Houston Holocaust Museum, Kathryn Tucker insisted that suicide shouldn't be called suicide when people diagnosed as terminally ill kill themselves, but "aid in dying," Why this postmodernist redefinition? The word suicide stigmatizes. (Actually, she is upset because it helps keep people from legalizing assisted suicide, but never mind.) But beyond that, I don't think that is true anymore. And that is dangerous.

It isn't that I want people shunned, I want people motivated to find other solutions to the problems of human suffering than self destruction. If fear of being thought badly of saves a life, what is the problem? And certainly, suicide prevention seems to receive far less emphasis today than it did when I was practicing law in the 1980s and suicide prevention hotlines were advertised on billboards and were reported about ubiquitously in the media. About a year ago, I had a suicide threat e-mailed to me and I couldn't even find a suicide prevention center in my correspondent's county in Texas!

Saying that some suicides are okay but others are not sends a terribly mixed message that ends up promoting suicide as legitimate. It is akin to telling people not to smoke but if you do, use filter cigarettes. That isn't going to prevent anyone from lighting up. Indeed, it seems to me that we are far more unequivocal about the non smoking message than we are about preventing suicide.