Comments on: Healing our Brains, Changing our Selves? http://www.scienceline.org/2009/07/16/joelving-stem-cell-brain-moral/ The Shortest Distance Between You and Science Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:01:23 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Michael http://www.scienceline.org/2009/07/16/joelving-stem-cell-brain-moral/comment-page-1/#comment-4412 Michael Wed, 27 Jan 2010 03:03:23 +0000 http://scienceline.org/2009/07/16/joelving-stem-cell-brain-moral/#comment-4412 Dear Sir/Madam Am very glad to mail this to you.i am having a problem of life which i need help from you.it's about having sex with my girlfriend but i don't go too long then i will release so shot time.please i want a solution, thank you. Dear Sir/Madam
Am very glad to mail this to you.i am having a problem of life which i need help from you.it’s about having sex with my girlfriend but i don’t go too long then i will release so shot time.please i want a solution, thank you.

]]> By: Peg http://www.scienceline.org/2009/07/16/joelving-stem-cell-brain-moral/comment-page-1/#comment-3230 Peg Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:09:55 +0000 http://scienceline.org/2009/07/16/joelving-stem-cell-brain-moral/#comment-3230 I agree with Jojo - the alteration of personality is already there with neurodegenerative diseases. My son died at age 8 from Batten Disease. If you have ever known a child with it, then you know that stem cells altering personality is the least of the worries. The brain deteriorates robbing the children of sight, mobility, speech and cognitive skills, until it finally takes their life. So what there may be a slight change in personality. Who wouldn't want to save their child's life vs. not doing anything at all if there was a viable treatment. It is up to the doctors, patients and parents to weight the risk vs. benefits. I often wonder if the geneticists venture out of the lab and see the real effects on the human vs. the mouse in the lab. I agree with Jojo – the alteration of personality is already there with neurodegenerative diseases. My son died at age 8 from Batten Disease. If you have ever known a child with it, then you know that stem cells altering personality is the least of the worries. The brain deteriorates robbing the children of sight, mobility, speech and cognitive skills, until it finally takes their life. So what there may be a slight change in personality. Who wouldn’t want to save their child’s life vs. not doing anything at all if there was a viable treatment. It is up to the doctors, patients and parents to weight the risk vs. benefits. I often wonder if the geneticists venture out of the lab and see the real effects on the human vs. the mouse in the lab.

]]> By: CordBloodReviews http://www.scienceline.org/2009/07/16/joelving-stem-cell-brain-moral/comment-page-1/#comment-3229 CordBloodReviews Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:42:31 +0000 http://scienceline.org/2009/07/16/joelving-stem-cell-brain-moral/#comment-3229 I can hardly see the philosophical implications of inserting your own cells into your body. In comparison to the medication and invasive brain surgeries people undergo, transplanting ones own cells into the body can not cause any issues that I can see. Its like adding extra workers to a construction crew when there is a job thats bigger than the existing job. Once the job is done, they are done. Cord Blood and Adult Stem cells, unlike embryonic stem cells, are not know for doing more work than which is needed and pose no real risk for tumors. If your brain has an issue, it would be fixed, if not, the cells will do nothing. http://cordbloodreviews.wordpress.com I can hardly see the philosophical implications of inserting your own cells into your body. In comparison to the medication and invasive brain surgeries people undergo, transplanting ones own cells into the body can not cause any issues that I can see. Its like adding extra workers to a construction crew when there is a job thats bigger than the existing job. Once the job is done, they are done. Cord Blood and Adult Stem cells, unlike embryonic stem cells, are not know for doing more work than which is needed and pose no real risk for tumors. If your brain has an issue, it would be fixed, if not, the cells will do nothing.

http://cordbloodreviews.wordpress.com

]]> By: Jojo http://www.scienceline.org/2009/07/16/joelving-stem-cell-brain-moral/comment-page-1/#comment-3228 Jojo Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:50:39 +0000 http://scienceline.org/2009/07/16/joelving-stem-cell-brain-moral/#comment-3228 With several of the neurodegenerative diseases at least, personality changes have occurred already. My wife and her family suffer from Huntington's disease and I can't count the number of times I have heard, "it's not her, it's the disease." The truth is it her now. She is the disease or the disease is her. Those structures of the brain are already damaged. You aren't going to hurt a thing in the attempt. Untreated they won't be who they were either. No one would worry if macular degeneration was treated to the point where sight was restored but they are color blind. I am sure there are times where this sort of treatment would be like using an elephant gun to kill a fly and be inappropriate, but general ethics would resolve that. The hope will always be to restore lost function with these treatments but I don't see them as curative anytime soon for things like PD, HD, or Alz. So one won't get "perfect". In the meantime for accident victims, or stroke victims, it's pretty much the only hope and one could weigh the risks of the actual loss or change with the prospective changes incurred by the treatment. It's seldom that an ethesist would be able to predetermine the choice of the individual. It's ethics that gives the right of refusal to a psychotic who is in prison based on that psychosis. It's ethical to allow sex change with both surgery, and hormone therapy, and technically nothing wrong with people who underwent those procedures in the first place. This is one area where I think ethics are the least of our worries in so far as loss v. gain is concerned. As a general rule I don't think it matters if a scientist thinks through all the implications of their work as is implied. An individual and a doctor will decide, and those who are the test subjects in trials will be informed as to the possibilities. The researchers do the work as they should, and implementation of the work is passed along to those who do think things through in their practice and note deficits. Will there be horrible results from this type of procedure? I am sure there will be. They will be self evident and attempts to correct them will be the next step. I don't see the ethical dilemma. The FDA is strict now that ethics are built in. Some nutty professor, or greedy company won't slip by some procedure like this without intense scrutiny. With several of the neurodegenerative diseases at least, personality changes have occurred already. My wife and her family suffer from Huntington’s disease and I can’t count the number of times I have heard, “it’s not her, it’s the disease.” The truth is it her now. She is the disease or the disease is her. Those structures of the brain are already damaged. You aren’t going to hurt a thing in the attempt. Untreated they won’t be who they were either. No one would worry if macular degeneration was treated to the point where sight was restored but they are color blind. I am sure there are times where this sort of treatment would be like using an elephant gun to kill a fly and be inappropriate, but general ethics would resolve that. The hope will always be to restore lost function with these treatments but I don’t see them as curative anytime soon for things like PD, HD, or Alz. So one won’t get “perfect”. In the meantime for accident victims, or stroke victims, it’s pretty much the only hope and one could weigh the risks of the actual loss or change with the prospective changes incurred by the treatment. It’s seldom that an ethesist would be able to predetermine the choice of the individual. It’s ethics that gives the right of refusal to a psychotic who is in prison based on that psychosis. It’s ethical to allow sex change with both surgery, and hormone therapy, and technically nothing wrong with people who underwent those procedures in the first place. This is one area where I think ethics are the least of our worries in so far as loss v. gain is concerned. As a general rule I don’t think it matters if a scientist thinks through all the implications of their work as is implied. An individual and a doctor will decide, and those who are the test subjects in trials will be informed as to the possibilities. The researchers do the work as they should, and implementation of the work is passed along to those who do think things through in their practice and note deficits. Will there be horrible results from this type of procedure? I am sure there will be. They will be self evident and attempts to correct them will be the next step. I don’t see the ethical dilemma. The FDA is strict now that ethics are built in. Some nutty professor, or greedy company won’t slip by some procedure like this without intense scrutiny.

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