Posted on 07/02/2006 12:59:04 PM PDT by neverdem
Outlawing human/animal chimeras will hurt serious research
Last year, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan) introduced the Human Chimera Prohibition Act. The act is cosponsored by his fellow conservatives Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev), Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla) and Sen. Richard Santorum (R-Penn). The aim of the act is to ban various types of research in which human cells and genetic material are mixed with animal cells and genes. Why? Because the act claims, "respect for human dignity and the integrity of the human species may be threatened by chimeras." Violations of the Act would be punishable by fines of $1 million or ten years in prison or both.
In his 2006 State of the Union message, President Bush, somewhat confusedly, urged Congress to pass legislation that would ban "creating human-animal hybrids." Why confusedly? Because interspecific hybrids are produced by mating two individuals from different species such as donkeys and horses to produce mules, but most people understood the President to be coming out against human-animal chimeras and in support of Sen. Brownback's legislation.
Before looking at the Act, what are chimeras anyway? In Greek mythology a chimera was a fire-breathing monster that had the head of lion, body of a goat, and tail of a serpent. In modern biotechnology chimeras are creatures composed of cells from two or more species. An example would be the "geep" that was created in 1984 by fusing goat and sheep embryos.
So what kind of heinous research does Sen. Brownback want to criminalize? The Act would ban:
(A) a human embryo into which a non-human cell, or any component part of a non-human cell, has been introduced;
(B) a human embryo that consists of cells derived from more than one human embryo, fetus, or born individual;
(C) a human egg that has been fertilized by a non-human sperm;
(D) a non-human egg that has been fertilized by a human sperm;
(E) a human egg into which a non-human nucleus has been introduced;
(F) a non-human egg into which a human nucleus has been introduced;
(G) a human egg or a non-human egg that otherwise contains haploid sets of chromosomes from both a human and a non-human life form;
(H) a non-human life form engineered such that human gametes develop within the body of a non-human life form; or
(I) a non-human life form engineered such that it contains a human brain or a brain derived wholly or predominantly from human neural tissues.
Let's consider how any of these proposed procedures might threaten respect for human dignity and the integrity of the human species. The first consideration, of course, is the endless argument over the moral status of very early embryos. If one believes, for whatever reasons or revelations, that an embryo consisting of a 100 or so cells has the same moral status as a 30-year old mother that's the end of the matter for them. No experimenting on human embryos, period. But please note, some of the procedures banned by the Act arguably do not produce human embryos. And in any case, if one doesn't believe that embryos are people, are there still good moral reasons to ban some of the procedures listed in the Human Chimera Prohibition Act?
Let's turn provision A on its head—if it's wrong to introduce animals cells into a human embryo, is it also wrong to introduce human cells into an animal embryo? Well, actually researchers have already been doing something similar to this. For example, University of Nevada-Reno researcher Esmail Zanjani has been injecting sheep fetuses with human stem cells that then incorporate themselves throughout their bodies to produce human liver, heart, and other cells. Some of these chimeric sheep have livers that are composed of 40 percent human cells. The hope is that this may become a way to produce transplantable tissues.
In May, Chinese researchers reported that they had injected human cord blood cells into goat fetuses which were then born with human cells spread throughout their bodies. Evidently, waiting until fetal development has already progressed significantly means that the injected human cells will not proliferate to dominate the tissues and organs of the developing chimeric animals which should allay any moral qualms that people may have. Injecting human cells into fetal animals would probably not fall afoul of the Act.
But what about a banning the creation of "a human embryo that consists of cells derived from more than 1 human embryo, fetus, or born individual." One clumsy interpretation of this language might find that it prohibits normal sexual reproduction because after all today each embryo "consists of cells derived from more than 1 … born individual"—namely eggs and sperm. This language might well also be interpreted as outlawing both reproductive (to produce a baby) and therapeutic cloning (to produce transplant tissues) since cell nuclei could be taken from another embryo, fetus or person and combined with an enucleated egg. In June, Harvard researchers announced that they have begun a program to clone human embryos to create transplant tissues. This provision would also outlaw an assisted reproduction technique in which cytoplasm containing mitochondria from a donor egg is used to rejuvenate another woman's egg so that she can bear healthy children. Children born using this technique carry mitochondrial genomes from the donor which means their genetic heritage derives from three people.
The next two prohibitions forbid creating embryonic chimeras by fertilizing a human egg by a non-human sperm or fertilizing a non-human egg by a human sperm. As far as I know this has only been done once in 1977 with a researcher using human sperm in an attempt to fertilize a gibbon egg. The sperm did penetrate the gibbon egg, but it turns out that human sperm bounces off the eggs of non-hominoid monkeys, making it likely that it wouldn't do much for the eggs of cows or pigs either. Of course, scientists could force the matter by using intracytoplasmic sperm injection.
Normally, prolifers such as Brownback draw their line at protecting human embryos. However, any embryos produced by combining human and animal gametes are not human. So Brownback and his supporters must believe that human eggs and sperm have a special moral status before they combine to produce embryos. As Monty Python once suggested: Is every sperm sacred? Brownback must also be taken aback by the recent finding that human ancestors and the ancestors of chimpanzees practiced interspecific miscegenation a few million years ago.
Presumably one goal of Brownback's ban on mixing human and animal gametes is to prevent the birth of a creature that is in some sense a diminished human being. Since combining human and non-hominoid animal gametes will most likely not result in viable hybrids, banning that practice seems superfluous. I don't think that any Institutional Review Board would approve of an experiment that was designed to create a live hybrid by means of fertilizing human eggs by chimpanzee sperm or vice versa. But if banning such experiments would make Brownback happy, let's do it.
The next two provisions propose to ban cloning experiments. The second of the two provisions would ban experiments that are already ongoing. For instance researchers at Harvard are adding human cell nuclei to enucleated rabbit eggs. They hope to use this cloning technique to produce transplantable tissues. They are using rabbit eggs because they are much more plentiful than human eggs. The first of these two provisions is superfluous because human eggs are so hard to come by that it is unlikely anyone would use them to produce transplantable tissues for rabbits. In any case, such "embryos" would again not be human embryos. In fact, because such embryos could not fully develop into living creatures, they would be very much like the genetically impaired embryos that some members of the President's Council on Bioethics believe could morally be used as sources of stem cells.
The next provision would prohibit the creation of "a human egg or a non-human egg that otherwise contains haploid sets of chromosomes from both a human and a non-human life form." I'm not sure, but perhaps this provision differs from the preceding ones that outlaw human/animal hybrid embryos by forbidding the addition of individual chromosomes derived from animals or humans to human and animal eggs.
The next to last provision bans the creation of "a non-human life form engineered such that human gametes develop within the body of a non-human life form." It could happen that injecting human stem cells into mice fetuses could result in those stem cells migrating to the ovary or testes of those fetuses where they develop into egg and sperm forming cells. One can even imagine mating two such mice so that the embryo they produce would be a human embryo. Given size differences, a mouse could never give birth to a man. On the other hand, one can also imagine the same thing happening between reproductively chimeric cows or sheep. Given safety issues and concerns about the future well-being of any children that might be born of domestic livestock, researchers must be careful to make sure that this kind of mating between chimeric animals does not occur.
That being said, it has already been proposed that this technique might be adapted to help some people who cannot produce gametes overcome their infertility. For instance, a fertility specialist could inject bone marrow stem cells from an infertile person into fetal mice in which those human stem cells are transformed into cells that produce human gametes. Such fully human gametes could be harvested from the chimeric mice and used to produce genetically related children by means of conventional in vitro fertilization.
Brownback's final prohibition would forbid the engineering of a non-human life form such that it contains a human brain or a brain derived wholly or predominantly from human neural tissues. Already, Stanford University researcher Irving Weissman has injected human neurons into mouse fetuses producing mice with brains composed of 1 percent human neurons. Weissman next wants to create a strain of mice with brains made almost entirely of human neurons. Such mice would be invaluable for studying human brain diseases and testing medicines to cure those diseases. Mice with brains composed entirely of human brain cells are unlikely to begin contemplating the meaning of life. Why? Among other reasons, because mouse brains weigh just 0.4 grams compared to around 1500 grams for human brains.
Still one can imagine that adding a substantial number of human neurons to fetal primates might end up producing a creature that could be regarded as a diminished human being. However, concerns of this sort should not be allowed to outlaw experiments like that of Yale researcher Gene Redmond. Redmond is trying to find a cure for Parkinson's disease using experiments in which he injects human brain cells into the brains of green vervet monkeys.
This quick review shows that current experiments using chimeric animals and embryos do not threaten our "respect for human dignity and the integrity of the human species." Ultimately, the Human Chimera Prohibition Act is a misbegotten legislative blunderbuss that would criminalize much valuable research aimed at curing human diseases. We can afford to wait until we hear that a Harvard or Stanford institutional review board has approved an experiment to produce a humanzee before Congress needs to act.
Ronald Bailey is Reason's science correspondent.
Chimeras strike me as creepy.
I have a friend who had to go to the U.K. in order to have them grow a meniscus from his own tissue for a knee injury repair because it can't be done here.
It is not the role of politicians to rein in science.
It is if my tax dollar is being spent on it.
Please FreepMail me if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.
I agree, but that's another, separate problem.
You are right. My concern is the removal of moral argument from science. Science should never operate in a moral vacuum. Intelligent, brilliant men have achieved great good in science. But the same intelligence and brilliance has also achieved great evil. We should never forget that.
I'll see if I can't get him to register and tell the story himself.
This may be enough impetus.
Be interesting to see why your friend thinks he has to get a new piece of cartilege instead of a demonstrably safe and workable artifical knee.
Found this reference without any effort: http://www.birchbob.com/MarketingPieces/jhu/indexJE.htm
Another reason to ban chimeras, which has nothing to do with religion or ethics, is that, for example, a pig with a human liver would be the "ideal" location for a new virus to mutate, bringing pig diseases to humans. It's pretty hard to certify that any animal is virus-free, especially if the virus has few or no symptoms for the animal, unless you already know exactly what virus you're looking for. Note that examples (e.g., HIV) are known of viruses that host animals are essentially immune to, but that are similar to viruses which are devastating to humans, and would remain so until humans evolved resistance (which process might first take wiping out most humans). I'd say a global pandemic, while not especially likely for a given experiment, is so much more horrible than the potential upside of such experiments, that we should not perform them. I say this as someone who has no problem with GMOs or hormones in cattle.
What a wonderful way to spread diseases between species! We just need to create enough intermediate species to allow communicable diseases a chance to adjust themselves to the human genome.
Think of the opportunities for medical science to battle brand new maladies.
In a series of science fiction stories this State Deaprtment professional examined the prospects and outcomes of some future time where chimeras were common.
He observed that slavery was readily re-established without a second thought as long as the slave had a sufficient level of animal ancestry.
Now that we are living in the cusp of Smith's future, we really ought to take a good look at what it is we intend to do with these creatures before we create many more of them.
Sounds good to me.
>It is not the role of politicians to rein in science.
It is if my tax dollar is being spent on it.<
You cannot "rein in science". Politicians meddling in science generates absurdities like Al Gore posing as someone who knows what he is talking about. Attempts to lock down the clock produce societies like those in most Islamic countries that produce nothing and only consume the technological creations from other places.
It was actually a factor of money and time that led him to the U.K. to get this done.
He had an established relationship because he lived there for awhile, working as a professional soccer player.
He went there for the work because he was uninsured and the cost estimate here was $300,000 and the cost there was $60,000.
Timetable from start to finish over there was 20 months versus 36 here.
I hope I didn't mislead anybody.
Still working to get him to sign up.
For a relatively young fellow, he has done a number of very interesting things.
Right: playing with humanity is wrong, in part because those playing around have no idea what the result will be. Heck, Have them read Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein."
I'll bet Ronald Bailey wishes he could have been around to be a propagandist for Hitler's "scientific" efforts at building a super race ... He has a knack for making the preposterous seem reasonable and the diabolical seem like the "humane" thing to do.
Sounds to me like it wasn't so much a case of the technology, or the politics, or even the cost ~ rather, the problem was a poor choice of career avenues!
...which it undoubtedly is...
Let's put a name to this:
Dr. Josef Mengele
He's now a commercial mortgage banker at my firm, on track to make $400,000 this year at the age of 34.
I'll pass along your career advice.
Shudder. That name be ever cursed.
Science should never operate in a moral vacuum. Intelligent, brilliant men have achieved great good in science. But the same intelligence and brilliance has also achieved great evil.
_______________________
Absolutely correct. The beginning of the 19th century saw the birth of eugenics. This evil science still permeates the laboratories of biologists who rule God out of nature.
As to the cure for Parkinsons, that old saw is used for every imaginable heinous act of human degradation. None of which have created any cures for anything. These biomedical terrorists simply want their Frankenstein laaboor-a-toories free from meddlesome ethics inquiries.
Science and theology, from which we derive morality, are separate and distinct disciplines, but symbiotically related. Theology is not equipped to give us the power to split atoms. Nor is science equipped to define the good, the true, beautiful, the right, the just, etc.
A place for everything, and everything in its place...
I am sure there are benefits from creating chimeras. But like fire, it can either provide heat or burn the house down. What is getting lost is the potential for disaster if extreme care isn't taken.
What kind of warped mind wants to do experiments like this? Something out of Transylvania?
Sorry, but the way I and most other people look at this is that if some of you folks want to strand yourselves in some previous century due to some Talibanesque religious beliefs, go for it.
Just don't saddle the rest of us with it via legislation. Taking away the taxpayer funding is just ducky, just don't stop the research.
Good thing he's your buddy now and is following your advice.
Every human being, including those who have been the greatest benefit to humanity, was at one point those "100 or so cells."
One example in the article's long list was of a non-human egg being fertilized by a human sperm.
One has to ask what adaptations terrifying bacteria could make that are resident in non-human species but not present in the human population. Could they "learn" to attack humans by virtue of their exposure to semi-human cells? I would bet that they could.
So, we find a way to transplant adult stem cells from one person to another, but, at the same time, we find that some people have superior stem cells.
That is, some folks have stem cells so good they simplify the process, reduce side effects, and create vastly superior cures.
Let's go a little further and imagine that to harvest these adult stem cells we must flense the undrugged donor and decant his or her stem cells before the last signals flitter among the cells in his brain.
Donors will be chosen on the basis of the superiority of their stem cells.
So, the question is, assuming you were identified as a suitible donor, will you come quietly or resist?
With all due respect, that is known as fearmongering.
If the scientists cannot police themselves the people have to have their representatives step in. I'd much prefer the former.
I don't like the idea of mice having human neuronic tissue in their brains.
Some of this stuff is just beyond questionable.
Unfortunately it seems that self-policing isn't working. Medical Ethics today translates as "how can we spin this to make it justifiable?"
I would resist.
That is eugenics.
Would I resist benign research which might benefit my kids' or my 4-day-old grandkid's life sometime in the future?
The answer is "No".
I see it as a legitimate question. It is a fearful question.
And the answer to it could be even more fearful.
Someone said once that the only "dumb" question is the one that isn't asked. It would be incredibly stupid not to ask this particular question.
Everyone accepts that certain chemicals, due to their well-known volatile attributes, are rightly controlled by legal regulations, even those who rail against "government getting in the way of science."
We can't just have carte blanche for science just because the area of science involved is not well-known especially when the potential for disaster could be a least an order of magnitude higher than a localized chemical spill.
Nevertheless, this area of regulation must not be dealt with a heavy hand. The legislators must have good science to back them up so they don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
It's a major balancing act. There's not a lot of room for error.
I think the way society is tending, you will have no choice but to come quietly.
We humans came to be the most dominant species on this planet completely by accident, and we are consequently unable to cope with any new situations.(/sarcasm).
We're all doomed.
He'd fished around in different places to get an approval, and initially everyone said no, but then he found all he had to do was point to one sample, say "I'm mailing that", and he could get approval.
Eventually others noticed he was mailing several dozen in one crate and violated that limit.
So, no, you are wrong about regulation. The issue you are raising is "approval" to use a special exception. That's where you have to be careful, but that's also the area where the scientists (and others who want to send stuff) will use trickery.
Remember no matter what the rule, there's always a "permissible limit" or a "special exception", and some administrator is in charge of that.
Ethical Issues (from http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/glenn.html)Linda MacDonald Glenn, J.D., L.L.M. (in Biomedical Ethics, from McGill University) is a healthcare ethics educator and consultant
Transgenic biotechnology presents an exciting range of possibilities, from feeding the hungry to preventing and treating diseases; however, these promises are not without potential peril. Some of the issues that need to be considered are the following:
Transgenic biotechnology presents challenges, such as health risks. Are we blurring the lines between species by creating transgenic combinations?
What are the known health risks associated with transgenics?
What are the long-term effects on the environment when transgenics are released in the field?
What ethical, social, and legal controls or reviews should be placed on such research?
Are we inflicting pain and suffering on sentient creatures when we create certain types of chimeras?
Will transgenic interventions in humans create physical or behavioral traits that may or may not be readily distinguished from what is usually perceived to be “human”?
If the blending of nonhuman animal and human DNA results, intentionally or not, in chimeric entities possessing degrees of intelligence or sentience never before seen in nonhuman animals, should these entities be given rights and special protections?
What unintended personal, social, and cultural consequences could result?
Will these interventions redefine what it means to be “normal”?
Who will have access to these technologies, and how will scarce resources be allocated?
Are we crossing species boundaries?
Some individuals have argued that crossing species boundaries is unnatural, immoral, and in violation of God’s laws. This argument presumes that species boundaries are fixed and readily delineated. However, a recent issue of the American Journal of Bioethics reflects that the notion of species boundaries is a hotly debated topic.10 Some bioethicists have pointed out there are a variety of species concepts: biological, morphological, ecological, typological, evolutionary, phylogenetic, to name a few.11 All of these definitions of what a species is reflect changing theories and the varying purposes for which different species are used by individuals.
Will the technology facilitate transmission of disease? While the issue of the morality of crossing species boundaries reflects differing world views and may be conceptually unclear, there are known risks associated with xenotransplantation of transgenic cells or organsfrom animals to humans. For example, there is a small but significant risk of the transmission of usually fatal zoonotic diseases, such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (also known as “mad cow disease”), porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs), and Nipah encephalitis.12 The introduction of these diseases to the human population could have devastating consequences. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has banned xenotransplantation trials using nonhuman primates until the procedure has been adequately demonstrated to be safe and ethical issues have been sufficiently publicly discussed.
Is it ethical to create altered animals that may suffer? The risks and benefits of the experimental use of animals need to be discussed as well. Similarly, by combining animal DNA and human DNA with plant DNA, do we run the risk of creating new diseases for which there is no treatment? The long-term risks to the environment are unknown. Various bioethicists, environmentalists, and animal rights activists have argued that it is wrong to create “monsters” or animals that would suffer as a result of genetic alternation (for example, a pig with no legs), and that such experimentation should be banned.13
See #42.
Don't you wish we had found and quarantined those first folks in the US infected with HIV/AIDS?
You be the judge on your ping list.
Had we treated it like a "normal" STD, that would have been done.
Unfortunately, it became a "politically-protected" STD, and that wasn't done, which is precisely my point.
Thank you for bringing it up.
Yeah yeah, you're an anti-religious bigot, we've heard it all before, spare us.
Exactly. Of course you wouldn't mind slaughtering humans, a little matter you'd conveniently ignore, as long as you have your sob story to cling to of all the good it will do.
Thanks for the ping. But it's too late for me to use my list. Too many anti-science types are here already, so the thread is lost. Another opportunity will present itself. Be of good cheer.
Spare yourself. I am quite religious, thank you.
I'm just not militant...about that.
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