I mean - how despicable have our political representatives become - to allow the creation of human/ animal embryo hybrids ----- you couldn't make up this perversion if you tried!!!

Shame on us for not throwing our elected masters into the sea for this monstrous pervisity.

Moo hoo. I'm udderly ashamed. Hoof we got to blame?

Don't agree with you. But I'm not sure you're up to having a serious discussion about it rather than simply Labour bashing. From a scientific perspective, I'd like to see the pro's / cons.

Poor abandoned animals. Do not look while eating !

Repulsive as it is Im thinking that human engineering is reasonable. To do that means exploring possibilities.

Otherwise Ripley would not have managed to kick Alien ****.

Anyway we want and need happy productive creatures that will work tirelessly and uncomplainingly for little reward and that can be disposed of at a whim in an entertaing way.

They'll try anything as long as it keeps HPI going up nicely. I expect they're trying to create a new type of dumbass that will buy property in this climate.

There are two reasons to be against this type of research.

The first is the religious angle which I don't subscribe to.

The second is the mad scientist intentionally creating a monster or the 'experiment goes accidently wrong' scenario. I don't think that Marvel comics are real life, so I don't subscibe to that fear either.

I'm with you 100% I find it shocking that so many sheeple can not see where this is leading. It must be a generational thing.

Maybe you should read 'Brave New World' and then maybe you might have another angle.

whoevr it is he bin a baaa baaa boy and mutton do it agin

I was sort of hoping they could cross me with a donkey...

I bet your avatar was as well

I think you're very prejudiced. No doubt you are the type of person who will be complaining in a few years time about minators moving in to the area and bringing down the house prices.

We may actually literally have property bulls next time around!

I can see it now: "Agnes, Agnes, have you see who's moved in next door? Panthers. Black as the Ace of Spades they are".

These are only chimera embryos, they aren't actually going to be allowed to grow into scary monsters.

Generally speaking, I often think that the general masses shouldn't be allowed an opinion on scientific research, as they usually know naff all about it yet will happily reap the benefits.

However, I sometimes think I'm being a bit harsh and tell myself people are capable of making informed, rational decisions.

Then a story like this comes along and reminds me to go back to they way I originally thought. The public really shouldn't have an opinion on this

Have you ever come across the 'furries' on the Internet? There are millions of people around the world salivating at the prospect of being genetically cross-bred with animals...

I thought the OP was suggesting that the punishment should be being drowned, not hung ...

Out of interest, can anybody actually describe the science behind this? Do you think there will actually be any non-human DNA in the resultant cells, for example?

I agree we need to be careful what's allowed in this area but the aim here seems to be the advancement of research which will help and cure sick people

ie. It could help us and our friends and families in the future

As I understand it they are not talking about crossing animals with humans
It actually involves using a hollowed-out animal egg in the process. The DNA contained in it will be human and will form stem cells which can then be harvested

It seems the catholic church once again want to drag people back to the dark ages and are commenting before understanding whats really involved
Indeed we should be criticising politicians who back that viewpoint rather than making decisions for the benefit of mankind

If the catholics want to do something useful they should be allowing contraception in the third world and influencing governments to protect the rainforests and end wars

Unfortunately the vatican's pig-headed obscurantism means that one is effectively the other where their vile superstitions hold sway.

If Gordon Brown is so interested in the preservation of Human Life, maybe he might like to explain why 80,000 women and children have died.

Gordon Brown has the blood of women and children on his hands, he is not the man to be telling us about medical ethics.

As the liberal society chip away at the core values of what makes a society, the value of life becomes worth less and less.

The picture is far bigger than just about the creation of Animal/Human Embroy's. Think about it, if you are happy to accept this, what next would you be happy to accept ? Over time we have accepted what is the unnaceptable, and any dissenters are told they are flat earthers and ridiculed.

If you the slightest respect for human life, dignity, compassion, the demise of this begins with this bill.

Or you could look forward to the medical benefits this will bring

So the ends always justify the means?

Basically, the proposal is to use animal eggs with the nucleus removed (i.e. none of the animal's nuclear DNA will remain) and replace it with the nucleus of a human cell. The animals mitochondria are not removed, so the mitochondrial DNA will be animal. This re-nucleated egg is then allowed to grow and the cells divide. This ball of cells is then a source of embryonic stem cells, which it is believed may produce cures for currently incurable progressive diseases such as motor neurone disease, and people with severe injuries such as spinal injuries where the body is not able to repair the damage.

Human eggs are, as you might imagine, in very short supply. Donating eggs is not a simple procedure for humans, and although a small number come through the fertility clinic route, there simply are too few to meet the demand doing this research properly requires. Hence, the idea of using animal eggs which are easier to get hold of.

I hope that helps with why this research is considered important, and why the government is willing to put through legislation to allow it. (I must point out here that I am NOT a fan of the current government).

UM

No, but in this case they do.

Ta UM, a very useful summing up.

If the clone was allowed to mature would it be a viable lifeform? If implanted into a womb?

I doubt it. I think the plan is to use eggs from ruminants such as cows and their mitochondria are different enough to humans that I think that when the cells began to differentiate, I think the differences would be embryonically lethal. But that's my opinion and it isn't my area, I'm a geneticist not a cell biologist or an embryologist.

UM

Thank you. It seems to me that many people are reacting very emotionally to the screaming "animal-human hybrids" headlines and really don't know what is actually proposed. This isn't necessarily their fault, the amount of misinformation out there is huge and makes me very cross. I would not for one second suggest that there are no ethical issues, but the hype generated is obscuring those real issues in favour of column-inches-generating hysteria.

UM

Politics is full of potential hipocricy and vested interest
However this issue is about medical progress rather than which party or leader happens to be in power. It will allow for more research and use of stem cells to cure diseases which are currently hard to treat or incurable

Gold star for that person.

Now how many people, the BBC included aparently, think that scientists are trying to create some kind of mutant human/animal hybrid with DNA from both?

Lord Winston has also been in the news accusing the Catholic church of telling outright lies about the science involved.

Oh and Gordon Brown can get stuffed. I think MPs should have a free vote.

Does anyone else think its a bit odd that a foreigner can dictate to British MPs how they vote? If it was anyone else there'd be outrage, why's the Pope allowed to suppress British democracy?

Go to the back of the class, put the D cap on and stand on the chair.

Its not about Stem Cells, its about creating an Embryo, half man half beast, keeping it alive for a maximum of fourteen days, then killing it. Fourteen days is obviously going to change in years to come.

What is the bill about?
The draft bill will overhaul the law on fertility treatment, such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF), and embryo research, including human-animal embryos. It follows a government white paper, published last December, which proposed banning the creation of chimeras - an organism consisting of at least two genetically different kinds of tissue - and other kinds of interspecies embryos.
Will it allow the creation of human-animal embryos?


Yes. The draft bill reverses the position of the white paper and will allow scientists to create three different types of human-animal embryos. The first, known as a chimeric embryo, is made by injecting cells from an animal into a human embryo. The second, known as a human transgenic embryo, involves injecting animal DNA into a human embryo. The third, known as a cytoplasmic hybrid, is created by transferring the nuclei of human cells, such as skin cells, into animal eggs from which almost all the genetic material has been removed.

However, the bill does not allow the creation of "true hybrids" by fusing the egg and sperm of humans and animals. The human-animal embryos it does sanction could only be grown in a lab for two weeks. It would also be illegal to implant them in a human. More information on hybrid embryos can be found here.

What else does it say about embryo storage?


The bill extends the statutory storage period for embryos from five to 10 years. If one of the couple involved decided to withdraw their consent to embryo storage, there would be a "cooling off" period of up to a year before the embryos were destroyed. This is intended to give couples time to reflect on their decision and try to reach an amicable agreement.

What does it say about embryo selection?


The bill would allow the screening of embryos for genetic or chromosomal abnormalities that might lead to serious medical conditions or disabilities, or miscarriage. It would also allow doctors to check whether an embryo could provide a suitable tissue match for a sibling suffering from a life-threatening illness. However, it bans the deliberate selection of an embryo with a disease or disorder, such as if two deaf parents wished to have a deaf child.

How does it affect fertility treatment?


The bill also proposes scrapping the requirement for fertility clinics to consider the need for a father when deciding on treatment. This means clinics will no longer be able to deny treatment to lesbians and single mothers out of hand. In practice this will mean regarding a birth mother's female partner as a legal parent. In certain circumstances, a gay male couple will be able to apply for a parental order in surrogacy cases. Same-sex couples can already be recognised as parents when they adopt, and this change extends the same principle.

What does it say about egg and sperm donation?


Donors will be informed if their child is seeking identifying information about them. Donor-conceived children will also be allowed to find out if they have sisters or brothers also conceived through donation, when they reach 18.

What else does the bill propose?


It will overhaul the regulation of embryo research and fertility treatment. The existing Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which regulates fertility treatment and embryo research, will be merged with the Human Tissue Authority, which regulates the removal, storage, use and disposal of human bodies, organs and tissue from the living and the dead. The new super-regulator will be known as the Regulatory Authority for Tissue and Embryology (Rate).

How has it been received?
An expert parliamentary committee that scrutinised the bill has called for sweeping changes to the proposed legislation. The report of the joint Commons and Lords panel calls for the biological origins of IVF children to be stated on birth certificates.

It proposes extending the legal time limit for storing IVF embryos from five to 10 years, bringing it into line with the rules for freezing sperms and eggs. Another recommendation seeks to relax the laws on the creation of "saviour siblings".

The report says this should be allowed not only where the sick child has a potentially fatal illness, but also for any "serious medical condition".

Other recommendations include giving the HFEA the power to grant research licenses to scientists wishing to create hybrid or chimera embryos. The expert committee opposes the creation of Rate, contending that it would be a weaker body than the two existing regulators.

laurejon thanks for the info

even though it's made me puke

what a sick world we're living in.

What medical benefits?

Why does the medical profession constantly tout interference with the body? It works perfectly well if you treat it right.

This kind of research is like lawyers calling for more laws, bankers calling for more credit. Life shouldn't be this complicated, but we have the professions wanting more and more and screwing up things that actually work.

People are what matter - not the wounded pride of nanny state professionals.

I`m sure the fellow sitting next to me in the cinema had already been crossed with a dead skunk, dirty bas-tard!!
put me off my pick-n-mix

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7306886.stm

Well I am gad to see that we have someone else who is not going to have the wool pulled over their eyes.

These Embryos have the potential to become viable if planted in humans, currently that would be illegal under this legisation however I do not see any legislation that would prevent them being planted in animals to go to full term.

The consequences of this are indeed sickening, and although many might see this move in legislation as valid, it simply moves us yet another step past the frontiers of decency and the underlying argument with regard to respect and value for human life.

I am no pro life animal rights activist, I do not own a balaclava, and I do not own a petrol can, but I do see the values of our society going down the pan on a daily basis.

Society is formed by having respect for one another, when that respect is destroyed society ceases to exist.

Women have been having babies for millions of years, for the past hundred years women have been going to hospital to have their children.

This Government have been closing maternity wards en mass to cut costs.

Lets not believe the story this is for the benefits of the people, this research is for the benefits of the pharmaceutical industries profits who refuse to allow the third world share in what is basic advances in medicine, putting huge costs on their products and securing them under licence.

When the third world are afforded the right to produce their own medical aids at a price they can afford then maybe we might argue the case about advances in medical science, and maybe we might even have a conversation with scientists about ethics without falling off our chairs p1ssing ourselves laughing.

Do you have any evidence to back this up?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/aug/01/health.politics

Will it allow the creation of human-animal embryos?

Yes. The draft bill reverses the position of the white paper and will allow scientists to create three different types of human-animal embryos. The first, known as a chimeric embryo, is made by injecting cells from an animal into a human embryo. The second, known as a human transgenic embryo, involves injecting animal DNA into a human embryo. The third, known as a cytoplasmic hybrid, is created by transferring the nuclei of human cells, such as skin cells, into animal eggs from which almost all the genetic material has been removed.

However, the bill does not allow the creation of "true hybrids" by fusing the egg and sperm of humans and animals. The human-animal embryos it does sanction could only be grown in a lab for two weeks. It would also be illegal to implant them in a human. More information on hybrid embryos can be found here.

So we had the Geep, now we will have the Human Goat


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geep

I don't know why you believe that. Contrary to the images of mad scientists in movies, we are not crazed individuals running amok. The cytoplasmic hybrids I talked about earlier are about studying the possibilities of stem cells as treatments. I know some of the people involved in this research personally. They care deeply about curing some of the most horrific diseases imaginable and believe that stem cells offer the best hope we have right now. To do that research they need embryos, but using human eggs to produce them when they are in such woeful short supply even for fertility treatment is wasteful.

As it stands, no scientists are currently intending to produce a chimeric hybrid or a human transgenic. But 20 years ago, nobody thought cytoplasmic hybrids were viable or of much use. Things change, there are now several areas of research which would benefit from this kind of work. The bill is trying to build in some future-proofing I suspect.

Doing research in the biomedical field is not a free for all. Each proposed study requires quite a lot of scrutiny before anything is allowed to happen. All research involving humans or human tissues are tightly regulated by a number of laws including the newly minted Human Tissue Act and are carefully examined by Research Ethics Committees, who I can assure you are not willing to wave through a piece of research without going over it thoroughly and being satisfied that the researchers are fully aware of the ethical implications of the work they are proposing. Members of these committees come from a range of backgrounds, not necessarily biomedical. If an application doesn't address the ethical implications to their satisfaction, they will block it. Work using embryos of human origin also is scrutinised by the HFEA, work involving animals is licensed by the Home Office.

The idea that half-human, half animal hybrids would even be able to develop into a viable organism is fantasy. The only known viable hybrids are from closely related species (e.g. the hinney) and are frequently sterile. For humans that would mean hybridising with some close ape relative, and nobody is proposing that we do that. Why would you? What benefit could be gained?

I won't comment on the changes to human fertility treatment, since these are not scientific issues so much as sociological ones.

UM

Although many many years ago, the US Government did discuss the possibility with the department of defence of creating hybrid humans for the battefield, its not fantasy, and if you look at my previous post you will see they have crossed animals to create a half sheep half goat, and that was years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geep

I can understand the frustration of the scientific community as its in their blood to push the barriers further and further.

However we have to draw a line in the sand, and we have to say not more fooling with creation. It was bad enough creating animals, but humans is not an option in my mind.

BTW how many years do you think we are away from creating the perfect human, with the smelling power of animals, the migratory senses of birds, the fitness of cheetas, and the ability to breath under water ?

Thats where we are heading, and I suspect you know it.

someone asked in another thread if brown was a man of the cloth...I think this proves exactly what brown is.

No doubt brown will get his bill passed but Britian will be very sorry he did.

The sheep and goat are very close, evolutionarily speaking. It is not a surprise that a viable hybrid or a chimera could be formed.

The US and British governments have done some pretty hideous things in the name of research, I will not deny that. The syphillis experiments in the US, the Sarin experiments at our very own Porton Down. Some of the research has been plainly bonkers, such as the psychic experiments during the cold war. But regardless of the ethics, human animal hybrids would not develop into viable organisms. Even somatic cell nuclear transfer within a species can cause some horrible effects, strange overgrowth and shortened life spans.



As a scientist I have 2 primary motivations (given the bad pay and complete lack of recognition scientists get outside their field!). Firstly, as a geneticist I want to understand how our genes influence human diseases and traits. Secondly, I want to help people who suffer because of their genotype. In my case that means understanding the genetic influences on vision and preventing millions people being affected with preventable blindness each year. I'm curious but I never let that curiosity let me forget that people are my focus.

I do not operate in a ethical vacuum and neither does any scientist I know. If I am sent a paper or a research grant proposal and I am not happy with the research ethics, my review will state it clearly. Even if it was a mate of mine.



How many years are we away from creating the perfect human? Seriously? I would be surprised to see it in my lifetime (I'm 31)or even my nephews'. And that is an answer purely from the technical side of the question, not addressing the ethics of it.

It might never be feasible. Mammalian development is massively complex and much of it remains a mystery. The only thing we know for certain is that there is more that we don't know than we do know and we don't even know everything we don't know. The idea of acquired traits being inherited was laughed at until very recently - now epigenetics tells us differently.

Ethically, I think it is not defensible. In the same way that sex selection for non-medical reasons is not. Assuming the technical problems were addressed (imagine the horror if they were not) where would such a child fit in? Are they even human anymore? What would be the justification for doing such a thing?

So no, I don't think we are heading in that direction. The same fears have been around for years, everytime there is an advance the designer babies horror story comes out of the woodwork. It was once said about bacterial cloning and IVF.

UM

Yes, the idea that anyone should form their opinions on anything 'because they are catholic' is an abomination which, to me, is far greater than this embryo research.

A greater example of sheeple thinking would be hard to find.

When exactly was the top of the market in 'life value'?

It was not that high for the majority in this country no more than 100 years ago and in many places where they do not know the meaning of liberal it never has been high.