“HeLa cells? I do not believe I have ever mentioned a specific cell line, nor have I ever grown that one.”
See post 38 on the following thread
Hospital Agrees to Let Family Move Jahi McMath to New Medical Facility
Life News ^ | Steven Ertelt
Posted on January 5, 2014 at 6:46:51 PM PST by Morgana
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3108741/posts?page=38#38
Quote from that post using HelLa cells an an analogy to Jahi McMath’s condition:
As a scientist, I have worked with cell lines removed, in some cases, from dead humans or animals. The cell lines will live indefinitely as long as they are kept warm, fed, and sterile, and provided with sufficient carbon dioxide. The Hela cell line was taken from a woman who died in the early 1950s. The cells are alive, but she is not.
This little girl, Jahi, died on Dec. 12. What is going on now is more fitting to a Steven King novel than real life. The judge who has allowed the family to keep her corpse ventilated is irresponsible.
Ah, I see. Context is everything. I have not grown HeLa cells, but they are a great example of how a tissue can be taken from a living (or dead) person and maintained indefinitely as long as it is provided basic survival needs, i.e., food, oxygen, warmth, and CO2. But, no matter how long those cells are maintained and continue to live, the continued survival of the tissue is completely independent of the survival of the person. In Jahi's case, the cells were not removed from her body, but are cultured within the body through ventilation, externally supplied heat sources, and nutrient solutions inserted through an IV. The fact that the cells are kept alive does not mean that Jahi is alive, because that person died back in December, 2013.