A presumption too far

elixelx

A few years ago some genius came up with the wonderful marketing idea of sending coins to people, adding that they had to pay $5 for a coin they didn't want OR send it back. Few did; many were legally pressured for not paying. In the end, it being ONLY $5, most paid!

The diabolical brilliance of this technique was later enshrined into Rape Law and was known hither and yon by the oxymoronic title "NEGATIVE CONSENT", meaning that if you didn't specifically say "NO" you meant "YES".

I see from Melanie's article that "negative consent" is alive and well and having a successful second go-round as government policy.

"The fault is not in our stars but in our elected representatives....."

Ronnie

I genuinely think that most people fail or refuse to imagine where all this could take us in the future.

I usually try to shy away from being overly dramatic but this really is the medicine of Mengele.

scienceandpies

What do you all have to fear? Seriously, are you well versed in the science of this that you can foresee doom in this that others much better qualified and learned than you cannot?
DNA isn't some magic pixie dust you know...

@Ronnie
"this really is the medicine of Mengele."
That's ridiculous.

Verity

Science And Pies - Oh, the over-weaning, curled-lip superiority of the scientist! Did you ever wonder why no one likes you, Science?

This government is now worse than the Stasi. Not just spying on citizens for trivial infractions of non-laws but local council diktats, but implied ownership of the citizenry. This has already raised its head in the threat of "harvesting" (surely the most ignorant usage of the word ever, as "harvests" are what has resulted from intentional planting) people's newly-dead bodies.

This may be the most sinister government ever to have inhabited the earth.

Sixty million formerly freeborn British at their disposal. (Immigrants and illegal gatecrashers will have "rights" due to their presumed religious objection.)

JJS

There is another scheme the Government floated some time ago: organ donation unless people opt out. It's all part of the same creeping movement to deprive us of our rights. But how's this for a delicious bit of hypocrisy? - while we may legally be cut to bits before we are even dead, we dare not try to end our own lives if we are suffering from a terminal illness. Suddenly the laws are there to "protect" us! Incredible.

Kennybhoy

elixelx,

"The fault is not in our stars but in our elected representatives....."

Aye but "we" elected them, which means that, ultimately, the fault lies in ourselves...

Ronnie

scienceandpies, then why do the learned scientists want to have access to us and our relatives without permission? What are they going to do with the material that can't be explained openly?

Even before we get to that, just don't touch us without permission. Its a very simple moral imperative that non-too-bright scientists seem to need reminding of.

david of currumbin

what could this lead to? a portion of humanity bred and kept alive for organ transplants when they are required by the elites of society?

Lee laurie

See Mels article ref.Winstones Britain.All part of the same deal I'm afraid.
Time for the sheep to wake up to what is being done to them.

Byron in Wahroonga

***seriously, are you well versed in the science of this that you can foresee doom in this that others much better qualified and learned than you***

Really hoping your pompous arrogance is some kind of Z-grade joke? If not, you just kicked an own goal.

Byron in Wahroonga

***It's all part of the same creeping movement to deprive us of our rights***

JJ, please help- why is there not a party in Britain who will stand up for those selfsame rights? Are there no votes worth gathering, is the populace too cowed... please enlighten one from the colonies, who against all the evidence holds a romantic view of Britain's foremost place amongst lovers of liberty.

Tony S

There is nothing repellant in this research, not if you take an enlightened view anyway of scientific research. There is a parade of ignorance though, truly repellant to behold. And as for the Alder Hey 'scandal' does anyone really think that studying human organs for the good of humanity is a scandal? Being forced to let them rot useless in the ground is the true scandal for me.

Verity

Tony S writes does anyone really think that studying human organs for the good of humanity is a scandal?

Yes. Me. Unless it was volunatry on the part of the donor. If the assumption was made by the state that they own people, then it is malign. And to be candid, what's so great about humanity, anyway? Would you really want to give up a fingernail clipping to help Tony Blair out?

You're free to donate your organs if you wish. But I don't want the garbage occupying the benches at Westminster Palace legislating away my rights to my own body. Perhaps they could busy themselves with muslim immigration and repatriation instead.

Verity

Tony S introduces his post with "There is a parade of ignorance though, truly repellant to behold."

I agree. The ignorance of the indigenous people in the spelling of their native language is indeed repellent. Not repellant. I find bad spelling truly repellent because the wanting of sensitivity to his native tongue tells me the writer doesn't do much reading.

In other words, he doesn't think anyone has anything to tell him.

Ronnie

Its like this Tony S. We are talking about human beings here, not cultures grown in a lab.

However, it seems that scientists can't seem to understand that if they treat us in this way, the humanity that they say they are saving is actually destroyed.

The physical and biological entity may be preserved but that is all.

Ronnie

My God Verity, I hope you are never cloned.

However, your dreadful contributions merely serve to reinforce my opposition to what the scientists want and what they may achieve in future.

hadrian

Many of us object to these cloning/genetic modifying plans as they directly contradict our Maker's instructions. God knows what these fellows in white clothes will produce in the name of 'humanity'. The fondly trusting notion of the unquestionable wisdom of the scientist has yet to be fully exploded. Well, Brave New World and all that, not to mention some of the atrocities perpetrated under the Nazis and Communists in the name of 'science'- we've been warned time and again.

david skinner

We are assured that the hybrid, animal/ human embryos will be destroyed after 14 days. Why? Is it because this is based on humanitarian considerations of not allowing the organism to suffer, in the same way that Daniel James, the young rugby player who committed suicide, believed that he would have done by living in a “second class body?
So a fourteen day embryo has more human rights than a 22 week human embryo which is not accorded any value whatsoever because, as Dr (Death) Harris MP says, it is merely “tissue” or a “product of conception.”

This Bill is one of the most destructive and evil pieces of legislation that Britain has seen in 2000 years.

Tony Jackson

Verity says: “Science And Pies - Oh, the over-weaning, curled-lip superiority of the scientist! Did you ever wonder why no one likes you, Science?”

Oh well, apart from the anaesthetics, antibiotics, vaccines, insulin for diabetics, clotting factors for haemophiliacs, HIV retrovirals, medicines for epilepsy, stroke heart disease and a hundred other conditions..... what have medical scientists ever done for us?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaE3EaQte78

Tony Jackson

Ronnie says: “Its like this Tony S. We are talking about human beings here, not cultures grown in a lab.”

Except of course Ronnie has got it 180 degrees backward. In actual point of fact we ARE talking about cell cultures grown in the lab and NOT about human beings.

Here’s how it works:

1.Collect ova from cows (if you eat meat, you have no right to object to this).

2.Remove the nuclei from the eggs.

3.Isolate nuclei from human skin or blood cells (you shed thousands of such skin cells every day).

4.Combine the cow cytoplasm with the human nuclei. This is the genuinely tricky bit as the aim is to reset the nucleus to allow cell division.

5.Allow the cell to develop in a dish into a blastocyst (a small ball of a few hundred cells) from which you can harvest stem cells.

6.Propagate the hybrid stem cells in plastic flasks for research.

Since the hybrid cells contain human nuclei, 99% or so of the DNA is human and since this DNA instructs the cells to make human proteins, they gradually replace the cow proteins in the cells. It’s one potentially useful research tool to better understand how genes work and how they can go awry in genetic diseases. Doctor Moreau it ain’t.

If you don’t like the idea of mixing together DNA from humans and other species, then logically you should also object to recombinant insulin used to treat diabetics (since this is produced from human insulin-coding DNA expressed in bacteria). And you should definitely object to drugs like Herceptin, which are produced from spliced together human and mouse antibody-coding DNA.

Hadrian says: “Many of us object to these cloning/genetic modifying plans as they directly contradict our Maker's instructions.”

And what exactly are these instructions? Do they include Tay Sachs disease, which normally kills an affected child by the age of six? Or spinal muscular atrophy perhaps, which can claim infants as young as 12 months? Or maybe I cell disease... or lissencephaly... or...what?

Verity

Tony Jackson, I don't think that's fair comment. The post of Science And Pies was arrogant and dismissive of anyone who is not a scientist yet has the temerity to judge science and scientists.

I don't think scientists are the best people to judge the moral value of their work; and indeed I think that many if not most think their work should not be impeded at all by the imposed moral values of others.

I feel the same way about gun ownership. I suspect you would have a "moral" objection to private ownership of guns. And you would expect your "concern" to override my rational wish to carry a handgun in Britain.

So who's the judge?

You?

I think not.

Ronnie

Tony Jackson, do you think scientists should tamper with our bodies 'in secret' and without our, or our relatives', permission?

The core discussion here is not what you do with a material, that is a huge debate for a different thread. The issue here is that the government wants to give 'scientists' access to us, the citizens, unconditionally. In effect to turn us into lab mice, or rats.

Why is this area of medical science to be conducted in secret and why is our fundamental right to say 'no' being removed?

(By the way, Verity, better, much better.)

Tony Jackson

Verity says: “The post of Science And Pies was arrogant and dismissive of anyone who is not a scientist yet has the temerity to judge science and scientists.”

ScienceAndPies can speak for her/him/self. But I suspect the comment was prompted by frustration at the poor quality of basic knowledge shown by you and others here about what is actually being done. You seem to think mad scientists are making zombie-mutants, like something out of a really bad horror movie.

I’m sorry to be blunt, but we cannot begin to have a serious discussion until you are at least aware of the basics. That also (especially) goes for Mel Phillips, who has a lamentable track record of confusion that extends like a train wreck across different scientific fields from immunology to evolutionary biology.

More worryingly, I get the impression that rather than trying to find out the facts, some people here seem to almost revel in moral outrage based on these spectacular misunderstandings.

Tony Jackson

Ronnie says: “Tony Jackson, do you think scientists should tamper with our bodies 'in secret' and without our, or our relatives', permission?”

Have you bothered to check the facts? You should know by now that Mel Phillips has a notorious reputation for getting both science and science policy hopelessly garbled.

If we want to understand what goes wrong in genetic diseases, we have to look inside the affected cells and see how the genetic defect interferes with normal cellular processes. One proposed way of doing this was outlined in my previous post to you. The resulting cell-lines could be a particularly powerful tool not only to study the conditions but also to investigate rational therapies.

To generate these cells of course we first have to take cell samples from the affected child. Here’s the problem: many genetic diseases kill their victims when they are only a few years old (see my other post to you). You can’t get informed consent from a three year old – especially a mentally retarded three year old. Under these circumstances it is proposed that the parents be asked to provide consent. I would have thought this was entirely reasonable. See:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7218176.stm

You might also like to check out the site of the ‘Genetic Interest Group’

http://www.gig.org.uk/latest-news.htm – they are after all the ones most directly affected.

Note especially this:

http://www.gig.org.uk/docs/171008HFEBill_press.pdf

“GIG is asking MPs to oppose amendments that will harm child health, No 36 which bans bone
marrow transplants from “saviour siblings” and to oppose amendment Nos 56 – 66 which will prevent parents from consenting for their children to donate genetic material for embryonic research into their condition.”

Once again you’ve got things 180 degrees backward.

Ronnie

Tony Jackson, in the course of your posts you have turned me 360 degrees, se I am back where I started.

I am not disagreeing with your specific points and I am certainly not going to argue with anyone about science. However, you are missing my general point concerning the social, political and economic consequencies of this research. I do not think people are thinking clearly about this and it concerns me greatly.

Some examples of future consequencies of DNA information being held in national databases, in 'secret' .

I think it is possible that people could be refused health insurance on the basis of the DNA information held on them in the growing number of databases. This already happens in cases where people smoke but the greater range of information available would make it more likely.

I think it is possible that people could actually be refused medical treatment on the basis of their DNA information as it may be regarded as uneconomic to treat them for conditions that may seem genetically incurable or too costly to treat. Again, this already happens with smokers.

The possibility of people's lives being changed as a direct result of their genetic information being held makes it utterly unacceptable for the collection of that information to be anythng other than completely open. And for the information itself, and any analysis of it, to be made known to the person concerned at every stage.

There is no question that expected advances in genetics will create many positives for human medicine in the future.

There can also be no doubt that there is potential for very serious misuses of the science that may not be immediately apparent.

Splitting the atom was a monumental scientific advance. That doesn't mean that the development of nuclear weapons was such a great idea.

Verity

Ronnie - I rarely, if ever, write this, but you are correct.

However, take heart! No one in the taxpayer-owned NHS will refuse a Muslim child with a birth defect - born out of the consanginous marriages between generations of first cousins - free treatment for life. The Pakistanis are around 4% of the population of our country, yet account for 33% of the birth defects. All treated for free and for life, on the gracious British citizen taxpayer, who himself, or herself, may be refused treatment if he/she smokes, drinks or eats sweets, fatty foods or, for all I know, watches TV programmes that Lord Rumba from Rio finds dull.

Bradford MP Anne Cryer has been trying to get marriages between first cousins of these people outlawed for years, but our "representatives" are too frightened.