are stem cells people? March 24, 2008
Posted by Simon in aardv:ark.trackback
what do people think about stem cell research?
i’ve read a bit about it on the bbc website. people have been getting annoyed with the catholic church for being vocal in critising the new bill that’s going through parliment that allows human embryos to be mixed with animal ones which could potentially help us get cures for some pretty nasty diseases.
but i wonder if the catholics are right. it makes me feel quite uneasy really… it sounds a bit nazish to me (harvesting some people for the sake of others). people want power and to play God… it goes right back to adam and eve and is stem cell research part of that or is it a legitimate way of searching for cures? do the ends justify the means?
i guess what it really comes down to is whether stem cells are people or not? because if they are then it’s obviously very very wrong. if they aren’t fully a person then it’s still a moral dilema but i guess it’s not as black and white.
like most things, because it’s hidden and doesn’t really effect us it’s easy to ignore and carry on with our lives… especially if it would cause conflict to bring up.
anyway just wondered if anyone had any thoughts.
perhaps i’ll write to my MP?
……or, look at it another way. The biggest improvements to health in the last century or so have come from having clean water, good sewage and enough food to eat. Some drugs, like penicillin, have played a part but it remains true that the greatest potential for improving the health of whole populations lies with low tech issues like diet and hygiene. Hi tech research has not so far contributed much, in volume terms, to human health. So why do we find so much money channelled into such areas? it could have something to do with the power of large corporations who make money from medicine for the developed world, or the influence of medical acedemia who are more interested in hi tech, regardless of the benefits.
Spending money on stem cell research when there are people still needing good housing, drains and a better diet is like buying new wallpaper for a house whose foundations are crumbling.
It could indeed have a lot to do with big corporations but I think that perhaps that doens’t give enough credit for what they do. Undoubtedly we need to be putting a lot more money into the basics but it IS needed in “hi tech” areas. Every drug that comes on to the market takes literally years and probably hundreds of thousands of pounds to get it there. But I would never say it was wrong for the hi-tech people (because creating new drugs is a very skilled and highly technical process) to have spent that money on eradicating smallpox, on being able to vaccinate against poliomyelitis, diptheria, meningitis, rabies… to be able to take drugs to stop getting malaria. I don’t see it as buying new wallpaper for a crumbling house but repairing another crumbling house in the same row!
I know none of those things were achieved through stem cell research but it’s feasible to see how decades ago people were saying the same critical things about the massive amounts of money spent in the chemistry labs that led to these drugs and vaccines.
As for the current animal-human embryo debate. I think it’s really important to distinguish between Frankenstein-type horror stories and the actual science. I am by no means a nexpert but here goes…The nucleus of the animal cells is removed along with all the animal DNA it contains so the main DNA in the hybrid is purely human. There is nothing left in the animal cell that gives rise to life in any way, basically using an animal cell is just a way of getting the support structure. This might be a rubbish analogy but if you think of the human part of the hybrid as a rabbit then the animal part is the hutch!
By using animal embryonic cells like this it means we don’t have to use human embryos for the same purpose which I think in a way makes it a better method. Having said all this however…I don’t like it! Maybe it’s irrational but I just don’t like it. It seems wrong to me. I am all for stem cell research but I think there must be a way round this rather odd mixing of species. If the law is passed then I won’t be devestated but I’d like to see a free vote in parliament preceeded by a proper debate out of the sensationalist media. I don’t think stem cells are life but they are potential and we should be careful with how we regard them.
i like the repairing of house analogies…. very topical.
thanks for the replies… interesting stuff.
yeah i guess what i’m thinking is that i was once a stem cell and so was everyone else. it seems weird that some people aren’t here because the tissue that was going to make them ended up being used for an experiement. i guess we don’t really know what happens to that life but it seems funny to take that chance… but then it could potentially save lots of people (not so black and white) that’s why i’m interest to see what people think.
a part of me wants to be fine with it… partly because it’s all fundamentalist to be against it.
…one time someone asked mother teresa what she thought about abortion and she just said… have the baby and i’ll take care of it (or words to that effect)
she sort of got to the root of the issue without getting into conflict. i wonder if there’s an equivalent answer for this issue?
It does seem weird that people aren’t here because the tissue that was going to make them ended up in a lab but it’s also weird that people aren’t here because they’re dying of diseases we might be able to cure.
Tricky.
There seem to be two conversation running through this post and comments. There is Simon’s initial question about stem cell research specifically and then there is the bigger context question that Andrew asks about the amount of money being invested in pharmaceutical companies and the ethics around this.
Heading to the initial question about stem cell’s that Simon asks, I find it hard to answer definitively what my opinion is because I’m so ignorant with regards the science. I’ve read so many conflicting opinions about what’s going on, and everybody’s position on what is morally and ethically acceptable is so varied. The starting point from which they argue their subjective opinion of the science, is equally varied which just adds to the confusion!
Like Chloe in many ways I find my reasoning for why I thinks its wrong potentially irrational, based on little more than a gut repulsion within me.
I think the bigger question that Andrew highlights is a much more interesting one, maybe because this is one that I feel I have a slightly better understanding of.
One challenging and interesting perspective that comes from some majority world theologians and philosophers is that the huge investment in modern pharmaceuticals is nothing more than an institutionalized form of racism. That spending literally millions of pounds to save a handful of white lives with complicated procedures and technologies; which could have saved thousands of African lives through the simple provision of clean water, is morally and ethically wrong.
To use Chloe’s analogy, although stretching it to breaking point, should a thousand black African ’tissues’ die because of diseases we know we can cure while we are spending money on the hope of saving a tiny amount of white ’tissue’?
Tricky!
Martin, perhaps you know the answer to this… how much is it a dramatic we are killing people by putting money into drug research rather than hygiene and other “quality of life” things? If we didn’t spend the money on drug research would the amount of money saved directly go to helping provide basic sanitation in parts of the world where it’s a problem?
Not trying to be inflammatory - genuine question.
Hi Chloe, good question!
I think the simple answer is that if the money that is being invested in drug research wasn’t, it wouldn’t be spent on helping provide basic sanitation etc around the world. Instead it would be invested in some other research/companies/industries. The simple reason being that people (generally speaking, there are of course exceptions to this) invest money to make a profit. Investing money in sanitation for Nairobe slums for instance would have little or no financial return for the investors. (Unless of course you charged high prices for the water etc, then you could make a profit, but would probably end up causing a riot! This actually happened in Bolivia. The World Bank told the Bolivian Government they had to privatise their utility sectors, the water company was bought buy an American company, who then put up prices extortionately (because they had to make a return on their investment) and the people rioted because they could no longer afford that most basic of things water. It all started getting very silly when local people who gave up on mains water decided to collect rain water, and the company tried to ban them from doing that!! You can watch a slightly more detailed account of this story here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw5Fon_EjGw (it’s taken from a film called The Corporation))
The estimated amount of money required to provide basic food and hygiene standards for everybody in the world varies quite widely in terms of the specifics, but the overall amount is tiny compared to the profits of large companies whether they be drug related, arms companies, high tech industries, banking and financial, whatever. But even if somehow the money could be directed to making a difference there are whole other issues of governance, of culture etc that make it anything but a simple solution. For instance a large charity helped build a well in the centre of an African village, but within two weeks it had been broken and the women (its always the women) had to return to their 2 mile walk to collect water. When the charity investigated who had sabotaged the well it was discovered that it was the women. Why? Because they enjoyed their two mile walk as it was the only opportunity they got in their day to get out of the village and chat amongst themselves!
I fear that all these ramblings have done little to answer your questions, but hopefully they may have answered some small part?
Did you hear on the news yesterday that in Japan (I think) they have managed to make stem cells from skin cells. It’s the first time they’ve managed ot get stem cells from anything other than an embryo. Good news I think…
Interesting topic. As Martin says, there are two threads running through this tapestry, so let me pick at each in turn.
If we want to use money to improve people’s lives, we should absolutely be using existing, low tech solutions to the major problems of the world: condoms for AIDS, mosquito nets and insecticides for malaria, vitamin supplements for the malnourished, wells and irrigation for drinking water, crops and sanitation. I don’t think, however, that drug (or any) companies are to blame for the fact we don’t. As Martin says, they exist to make a profit (and I think most drug research is privately funded). Instead we must blame ourselves, for business in many ways just reflects the will of the population. People don’t like helping the needy, they like pleasing themselves. As for the government, it would be great if it diverted (most? all?) money to helping the needy in other countries rather than our own. But the fact it doesn’t is just a reflection of the majority’s indifference. To tweak the analogy again: “like buying new wallpaper for a house while next door’s foundations are crumbling”. Incidentally, I suspect that this side of human nature is not racist, just selfish.
Are stem cells people? Trivially, stem cells exist in bone marrow and the umbilical cord, and we don’t normally think of ourselves as walking nation states. I guess the issue is whether embryos are people, and that one has been around for a while. As Chloe explains, the embryos can be hybrids, which may change your outlook. But I can’t think of a logical argument that answers the question.
thanks for your replies… interesting stuff.
yeah… being from a non science background it’s hard to quite understand what’s what… and like martin says there seem to be alot of conflicting views around (from which it’s hard to formulate your own opinion). i guess, from a quick glance, when you hear about animal/people hybrid things it sounds quite messed up.
from the sounds of it people dont seem to be certain either way if stem cell research is ethically wrong or not (but people don’t seem to be that personally against the practice itself - if i’ve understood correctly) i’d find it helpful if someone could explain what a stem cell is and what specifically about it makes it good for the research being done?
however people do seem to be more concerned that we (as individuals and as countries) spend alot on a few while when many die that could be save with very little.
anyway thanks again for your thoughts…
PS… i liked the story about the women breaking the well. but i wonder if it’s the case that while ‘developed’ countries are rich in health… people in ‘developing’ countries are richer in life? (that thought probably needs some smoothing out but it’s probably partly true)
I’m not an expert but… stem cells are basicaly cells that have the potential to grow into anything.
As a embryo develops it has three layers and from the middle layer (mesoderm) come these “pluripotent” cells (basically a posh word for saying “cells that can do most things”
from these some go on to create the nervous system which comprises of crazily intricate and clever cells (neurones/nerves) and the others go on to form just about everything else; skin, muscles, organs etc.
Once everything is in place it becomes a specialised cell to do its job and altough you can transplant cells from one part of the body to another sometime they will still do the same job or an adapted version of the same job. For example you know that surgeons sometimes remove skin from one area to help heal an area that’s lst skin from a burn or something but if you put a skin cell in your brain it would not become a neuron. Similarly some nerves can be moved from the peripheral nervous system (the nerves in your body) to the centra nervous system (brain and spinal cord) and it’s function may change slightly but it still acts as a nerve. Following?
So if we can collect stem cells we have the potantial to make any tissue in the body. This is really special when it comes to diseases that start in the brain as the brain is so mentally complicated that it doesn’t repair. You may think that sounds like a bit of a rubbish organ but the reason it doens’t repair is because it is so so so complicated that it is actually better to just write-off part of your brain that goes wrong and let it die than try to repair it because the chances of repairing it right using the nerves that haven’t died is so slim. The problems that might occur from rewiring the brain to repair an injury are worse than just letting a bit of the brain stop working altogether generally so our these nerves are the only cells that don’t repair.
Does that make sense? It’s actually a lot more complicated tha that as no dobt you’ll realsie when yu stat spotting any flaws in what i just said but that’s basically why stem cells are pretty cool. We could cure illnesses that can’t be cured because it involves degeneration of the brain.
Like I said I’m not an expert on the brain and I know next to nothing about stem cell research but that’s my two-pennys worth…
cool… thanks chloe. so in itself, using stem cells doesn’t sound bad… infact it sounds very good.
i guess controversy is around where they collect the stem cells rather than the actual use of the stem cells? if you could get them from skin (like you said earlier) or somewhere else then i guess there’d be a lot less controversy? can’t they collect them from the bone marrow if they exist there?