Monday, June 18, 2007

"Human-animal embryo tests 'vital'"

Read the full article on BBC News, June 17, 2007.

Lead: "Medical research using hybrid embryos that are a mixture of human and animal is "vital" in the fight against disease, scientists have said."

The article continues:

The Academy of Medical Sciences said it backed the draft Human Tissue and Embryos Bill allowing embryos that were 99.9% human and 0.1% animal....

The report says that, in the future, the "true" hybrids - containing more animal DNA - may be vital for research.
Comment: Unfortunately, the Bush administration seems not to care, or not to care for the people that will suffer unnecessarily due to its bans on research involving human embryos. JAD

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i think embryo testing is wrong if you have a child you should love them for who they are and not worry f they have something wrong because it's easy to look after

John Daly said...

I agree that if you have a child, you should love it.

I am not sure I agree that if you have an embryo you should always implant it in a woman, birth it, and bring up the child. How about couples that are doing in vitro fertilization because they can not conceive in the normal way. It is regularly the case that such couples try to produce several embryos in case the implantation does not work. If the parents are only going to have some implanted but not all, does it not make sense to have them tested for genetic defects? An embryo with such defects will probably not be successfully brought to term if implanted.

The Science article however deals with chimeras -- embryos that have human and non-human DNA that are produced artificially for research purposes. The Academy of Medical Sciences report says such embryos should be produced because of their scientific importance. I don't think anyone suggests that these research cell balls if they are produced be implanted in women and brought to term.