The Clone Wars...

[Pyper]

You people are arguing over a moot point. There is no need to create "organ plants" or human bodies empty of a brain used only to harvest organs.

Cloning for medical reasons works on an individual basis. I've already explained this, but people chose to ignore me in favor of a flame war. A person who needed a kidney, or a heart, or spinal tissue, would want only their own cloned tissue. Having bodies lying around from which to harvest organs is hardly improving on the situation we have now. Organs from a general body would not be guaranteed to function.

Thus, a "clone" is made from the person in need. An embryo consisting of stem cells, which could be coaxed into full development of a specific organ in a host such as a pig. The sick person now has an organ that is the exact genetic replacement of their lost or nonfunctioning organ.

The only moral dilemma here is that some people argue that the embryo is actually a person and should not be used for medical reasons.

 

[Ljbonobo]

(ignoring the flame war)

There is but one slight disadvantage to the situation you described. The length of time for the organ to "grow" to complete maturity and such as needed. I personally feel that it would be better instead to learn enough about the protein tags on the cells of every organism. Through these tags the organism can tell the difference between "self cells" and "nonself cells". Or...the basis for all immune system response. If we could determine the minimum necessary for a human body to consider it self without all the tags that are distinct for each individual person, then we could just "manufacture" a large number of these "generic" organs that any person could use without an immune response. However, I do not feel that it will be this simple. I feel that it will be determined that instead there will be subdivisions or subgroups based upon heredity and such that people of one origin and heritage need some tags that others of different heritage do not. That would then lend itself to instead of just one generic organ manufacturing process a few different ones. In other words find the lowest common denominator for how many different types of tags we would need to have the best for the largest amount of the population.

I dunno, just my thoughts and I'm staying out of the flame war at this point. Its pointless and they are arguing something completely outside the realm of this thread.

 

[Ljbonobo]

The only moral dilemma here is that some people argue that the embryo is actually a person and should not be used for medical reasons.

This can be figured out easily in my mind. Once an egg cell from a female is either fertilized or stimulated chemically or electronically to "fool" it into thinking it had been fertilized it goes through a series of steps. These steps are basically just a number of cell divisions starting with 1 cell to 2 to 4 to 8 to 16, etc. Now, scientists have already realized that these divisions continue with or without the nucleus being present. The cellular instructions for these first several divisions are present in the cytoplasm of the cell. They require the nucleus and the DNA to do nothing. It is not until the embryo reaches the 64 or more cell number size that the nucleus actually turns on and starts to do its job in directing the growth of the cell.

Why is that relevant? Some (including myself) cellular biologists consider the definition of life as the use (transcription, translation, etc) of DNA to direct the life of the cell. Therefore, since that embryo will go through the same steps with or without a nucleus (the DNA containing structure), life has not begun yet. This experiment has been done with many amphibian species and does occur. The cellular mass just stops at 64 or so cells. Then, to me as long as embryo's before this time were used there is no problem with life having began. The mixing of the male and female DNA to begin the life of the new organism has not begun, so there is no life.

 

[Guru]

 

[Guru]

 

[Guru]

 

[sterlingclay]

Pardon my random posting... I'm going to get to 25,000 first!

Don't do this Guru. You're just going to piss everyone off. Besides, you have almost twenty thousand to go. Go out for a walk.

 

[Lost Cause]

Round Two...

Well, here goes the second media circus........



Brigitte Boisselier, the head of Clonaid which claims to have produced the clone, told the Belgian VTM-Nieuws broadcast that "the child that will be born is a girl, from a lesbian couple." When asked whether it was in Europe she said it would happen "not very far from here."


An official at the Belgian branch of the Raelian sect, to which Clonaid is linked, said later Friday the country concerned was the Netherlands.


Boisselier herself said the parents of the second baby wanted to remain anonymous.


On Thursday, Boisselier said the parents of a newborn claimed to be the world's first cloned human were balking on whether to allow DNA testing to prove the baby truly was a clone.


"The parents are concerned," she said. Earlier Boisselier said the parents were worried about legal action taken in Florida that could result in the child being taken away from them.


Boisselier said "the baby will be brought up fully knowing it is a clone of its mother."


The president of Clonaid said she did not expect legal problems for the company in the United States.


U.S. authorities had visited her first laboratory and talked with her. "I committed myself to undertake no activity on U.S. soil and I don't think there is a major problem," she told VTM.


Clonaid has refused to offer any proof that the child is a clone. But the company had promised DNA test results to confirm their claim by around the end of this week.


Boisselier did not elaborate on the DNA test in the interview. Clonaid is linked to a religious sect that believes space aliens created life on Earth. She is also a member of the sect, called the Raelians.


Boisselier had previously said that three additional couples were expected to give birth to Clonaid-created clones by early February.


Clonaid, which declines to reveal where its facilities are, was founded in the Bahamas in 1997 by the man who founded the Raelian religious sect. The man, Rael, says he learned about the origin of life on Earth from a visitor from outer space. He says he views cloning as a step toward reaching eternal life.

*A sound agenda.

 

[Dantetier]

God.... if there is any group of people I just CANNOT tolerate, it's Clonaid and the Raelians...They just piss me off to no end... they claim to be scientists, but what they are doing is pushing back world opinion of science a good 50 years or more

 

[Ljbonobo]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/01/04/human.cloning/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/01/04/human.cloning.chrono.reut/index.html

 

[Ljbonobo]

God.... if there is any group of people I just CANNOT tolerate, it's Clonaid and the Raelians...They just piss me off to no end... they claim to be scientists, but what they are doing is pushing back world opinion of science a good 50 years or more

With the Ass backwards way they are going about it, yes I can completely see your point.