What Would Socrates Do?

I've been thinking, as I'm sure most of you have, about the coming presidential election. As you are probably aware, I've been backing Ted Cruz since day one. He is the only candidate with an actual record of standing on the principles of the Constitution (unlike Hillary Clinton who actually stands on the Constitution - couldn't resist a little dig - Hillary does respect the fifth amendment, at least).

So at this point in the race it looks like the election will be between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Clinton has so far received 55% of the Democratic vote, and Trump has gotten 41% of the Republican vote (so much for the "will of the people"). If these things do not change, and given recent polls, and recent election history, I'm calling Hillary Clinton our next president by a landslide.

For her part, Clinton has already started maneuvering her positions to take away as much of Sanders' power at the convention. And Trump long ago ceased caring about his constituency or positions (which is why his base has been eroding, or as he would say, which is why he's being cheated out of what's rightfully his).

But that's not what this post is about. What I'd like to address is, if you are a Cruz or a Sanders supporter, what do you do when faced with a Clinton/Trump ballot? Quite a number of my friends subscribe to the "you must vote with me or "X" will win (where "X" is a candidate they know I don't like). However, this to me is political blackmail - it is using a negative consequence ("X" will win) to try to make me do something I don't want to do (vote with them). It is a fact that if you will always vote for someone you don't like over someone you do like, then you will always get a candidate you don't like, and will never get one you do like.

So let's talk about some of the principles involved. I am not trying to convince you to vote one way or the other, I am telling you why I will vote the way I will, and why I don't want to listen to the same old arguments of people trying to influence me to vote for their candidate, for whom I do not want to vote.

1. Vote for the lesser of two evils. This is based on two fallacies. First, that there are only two choices, and second, that choosing an evil is good.

In voting for president there are more than two choices. At this point someone will no doubt chime in with "Oh, but Mike everyone knows that only one of the two big parties will win." That's only true if everyone follows the "vote to keep 'X' out of office" strategy. There is nothing preventing large numbers of people from voting for a third party, or even writing in the candidate they like. So, faced with a myriad of choices, why should I vote for evil, even if it is less than another evil choice?

2. Don't vote like Onan. If you recall, in Genesis 38, Onan neglects his duty to produce a child for his sister-in-law by spilling his semen on the ground. I've heard the term used to describe voting for a candidate who has no chance of winning (aka is not one of the big two parties).

The fallacy here is that your vote matters more if it is for one of the two parties than if it is for someone else. In reality, your vote counts as... ready for this? One vote, regardless of who you vote for. When you look at it from a mathematical perspective it is one vote. From a philosophical perspective we could say that only one vote actually counts - the one that puts the winning candidate in the lead. But I think that's a pretty negative view, and doesn't do justice to the democratic system of elections. If my vote counts for little it's because there are so many other votes, not because it doesn't count.

3. Don't let perfect be the enemy of "good enough." The problem is, who defines "good enough?" There is a problem in ethics called "The Trolley Problem". It goes like this. There is a trolley going down the tracks. five people are on the track ahead and will be killed. If you pull a lever, the trolley will be diverted to a different track on which there is one person, who will be killed. Do you pull the lever? Don't be too hasty to pull it - with minor changes to the description of the scenario you will say "no."

Socrates said "it is better to suffer evil than to do evil." Likewise, the "correct" answer depends on whether the pulling of the lever is cooperating in evil (explore the variations on the problem if you think the answer is obvious). The principle on which the lever can be pulled (or not pulled) is called "double effect" and I find t interesting. You can read more about it here.

You may say "well, neither candidate is going to kill people" but that's not true. Abortion kills a million Americans a year. A(nother) war could kill millions. Foreign policy and/or immigration policy could allow thousands to die from terrorist attacks. The things many people think will kill people (elimination of entitlements or an environmental policy) are unlikely to have much of an effect, but it's something to think about. So it is literally a matter of life and death. Don't think I don't take that aspect seriously.

But if I say "candidate A will get us into a war and not really change anything else" and conversely "candidate B will get us into a war and make things worse" why should I participate in electing either of them? It's the trolley problem, with a third option. I could yell "stop" and hope the trolley stops. The odds are as small as my voice (e.g. my vote), but at least I will not have contributed directly to the deaths of millions.

4. It's fine for you because you have the luxury of not having your vote matter. Yes, I live in NJ, which is a heavily "blue" state. No matter how I vote (one might be cynical and say no matter how everyone votes) my state will throw it's measly 14 electoral votes behind Hillary Clinton (I also think "winner takes all" policies are the worst abuse of power in the political system).

So, does this mean that my vote counts for less, and therefore I can throw it behind whomever I choose? I don't see it that way. As I said above, my vote counts for one vote, no more no less. I take voting just as seriously as if I were the only one voting, which is precisely why I will not vote for someone whom I do not like.

Conclusion? Let's see who actually gets on the ballot and we'll see. If it's Trump/Clinton you can bet I'll be researching third party candidates. Worst comes to worse I can write in a name. Laugh all you want, I will do what I feel is right, as long as I have a country that let's me vote I will vote my way. I recommend you consider carefully who you will vote for, and why...

Now, here's a shiny video of why our voting system sucks:



and some alternatives to think about (I am not endorsing these candidates, just mentioning them)

 

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Common Ground

What do Israeli feminists and Catholics have in common? Concerns about surrogate motherhood. From BioEdge:

The Israeli feminist group Isha L’Isha has published a harshly critical report on surrogate motherhood. Israel was the first country to legalise surrogacy, in March 1996. But 15 years later, says Isha L’Isha, “insufficient data have, as yet, been gathered to enable full evaluation of this innovative social experiment.”

“It is our belief that perceiving pregnancy and childbirth for another couple or individual solely as a financial business transaction is inappropriate and unthinkable. The fact that surrogacy is a complex relationship which might be fertile ground for harm and exploitation must be recognized, especially when private organizations with financial interests are allowed to become involved. We believe, that surrogacy in Israel should be prohibited. In the least, surrogacy must not be allowed to becomes an accepted, routine procedure, and should provide a solution only in rare, very extreme cases.”

The report warns that surrogacy could easily become baby farming:

“Objective utilization of identity-related aspects of the human body contradicts basic ethical values, and by nature, has high potential for exploitation and degradation. Surrogacy is an experimental procedure with great potential for harm, especially if it will become prevalent and accepted. The distance between heroically presenting a unique human gift to a childless couple and time spent on a ‘fertility farm,’ which uses human machines, is not large, and the ability to preserve this distance will diminish as surrogacy becomes more widespread and routine.” ~ Isha L’Isha, June 1

The newsletter from which this came, Isha L'Isha, listrs similar concerns about the egg donation side. Although the articles warn that surrogacy and egg donation "encourage" the commoditization of human life, the Church recognizes that surrogacy and egg donation in fact is the commoditization of human life, and contrary to the dignity of human beings.

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Between a rock and a hard place (Part III - double trouble)

This is part 3 of a series of posts on whether abortion is justified "to save the life of the mother" (here are part I and part II). In the first two posts we covered some popular cases involving pulmonary hypertension and cancer. I introduced "double effect" in the second post. I'd like to explain that in more detail, and then get into some philosophical questions.

Just to recap, despite claims in the media and government that abortion has to have a special exception in law "to save the life of the mother" this is simply not true. The goal of medicine is to save lives, and in the case of a pregnant woman there are two lives at stake. In performing an abortion the doctor is destroying one life to make treatment simpler - the abortion is not part of the treatment of the condition.

At the end of the previous post I talked about uterine cancer, where there are cases where the mother and child cannot both be saved. Pro-abortion propaganda would have you believe that Catholics and other pro-lifers would leave the mother to die, but that simply is not true. The fact is, the pro-life position is just that - pro-life. Do everything possible to save both lives, but if that can't be done, at least try to save one. The only thing that's not acceptable is intentionally killing.

Ectopic pregnancy is one of those conditions under which the mother and child cannot both survive. In an ectopic pregnancy, instead of the embryo implanting in the uterine wall it implants in the fallopian tube. As the child grows the tube is stretched to the point at which it ruptures. If untreated the mother and child will both die. The treatments are to remove the affected part of the fallopian tube, or to abort the baby chemically or surgically. Any of these three methods will save the life of the mother. The removal of the affected part of the fallopian tube is morally acceptable, the abortion is not.

What's the difference, you may ask, if all three procedures have the same results (a live mother and a dead child)? The difference is in actions and intent. To put it simply, it's the difference between someone dying in an automobile accident and running someone down with your car. The outcome is the same, but your actions and intentions were different. The "technical term" is "double effect".

The double effect principle was proposed by Thomas Aquinas, in dealing with self defense. Suppose someone is attacking you, and in trying to stop them you kill them. Is it wrong to kill an attacker in order to save your life? Aquinas says that it is not, and worked out the moral principles of why it is not. The principle is called "double effect" because Aquinas notes that a single action can have more than one consequence. One consequence can be good while the other is bad. In that case, how do you decide whether the act itself is good or bad?

One way would be to balance "how good" with "how bad". Stealing a loaf of bread to keep your child from starving? OK. Killing someone to get their money? Not OK. But what if the effects are similar (life and death, for instance)?

Aquinas determined four conditions for determining under what circumstances this is justified, and his logic has withstood almost 800 years of critique. Those condition are described as follows (paraphrased from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy):

1. [the nature of the act] The act itself must be morally good or at least indifferent.
2. [the right intention] The agent may not positively will the bad effect but may permit it. If he could attain the good effect without the bad effect he should do so. The bad effect is sometimes said to be indirectly voluntary.
3. [the means to an end] The good effect must be produced directly by the action, not by the bad effect. Otherwise the agent would be using a bad means to a good end, which is never allowed.
4. [proportionality] The good effect must be sufficiently desirable to compensate for the allowing of the bad effect

In the case of fallopian tube removal in an ectopic pregnancy, the conditions of "double effect" are met as follows:

1. The removal of the fallopian tube is morally indifferent. There is nothing inherently good or bad about a surgical procedure.
2. The bad effect (the death of the child) is not the intention of the surgery. If the mother could be saved without the child dying that action would be taken.
3. The mother's life is saved by the removal of the tube, not because of the child's death.
4. Saving the mother's like is sufficiently good to allow for the bad effect.

In the case of abortion for an ectopic pregnancy, conditions 1 and 2 are not met:

1. Intentionally killing an innocent human being is morally evil.
2. The death of the child is the intention of the procedure.

Let's look at some examples of double effect that may make it even clearer. There's a well known (in some circles) ethical dilemma involving a train. In this scenario there are five children playing on the tracks, and a train is coming. The trains brakes have failed, and it cannot be stopped. The children are unaware of the train, and will be killed by it if nothing is done. You cannot get them off the track in time. Fortunately you are near the tracks and there is a switch near you that will put that train onto a side track. Unfortunately there is one child playing on that track. If you throw the switch the child on the side track will be killed. Do you throw the switch? By the principle of double effect, you should, because even though a child will be killed, you are not trying to kill him, you are trying to save the other five. But is this just a case of "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"?

Consider the case of terrorists holding five children hostages. They say they will kill the hostages unless you kill someone (presumably an innocent victim). Should you do it? The outcome is he same, one life to save five, yet it is not moral to do so. Or consider a doctor with five patients, who all need organ transplants. The doctor knows a nurse who would be a tissue match. Should the doctor kill the nurse and cut him up to supply organs for the other five?

Let's say you are pro-life, and you know an abortionist kills 10 children a day. Should you murder the abortionist to save the children? Despite the claims of pro-abortion propaganda, such an act would be contrary to pro-life principles, on the following grounds, as per the double effect:

1. Murder is an evil act.
2. It is possible to obtain the good effect (saving the children) by another means (such as protests, education, voting, etc.).
3. It would be using a bad act (murder) as the means to a good end (saving children).

I hope these posts have helped clear up some of the misinformation regarding Catholic and pro-life principles and abortion "to save the life of the mother". To sum up

• Abortion by itself never saves a life, it destroys one.
• Abortion is never necessary for other medical treatments to take place.
• Pro-lifers do not advocate "letting the mother die", but rather trying to save both patients, mother and child.
• In cases where a doctor cannot save both patients, abortion is still not the answer. Other medical procedures are always an option even if they have the double effect of killing the child so the mother can live.
• The double effect principle helps us rationally choose between good and evil acts.
• The pro-life position does not condone violence against anyone. To do so would be contrary to the very principles that make abortion wrong.

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Between a rock and a hard place (Part II - cancer)

This is part two of a series about whether there are any case where abortion needs to be performed to save the life of the mother. In the first post on this topic we covered the case of Sr. Margaret McBride who approved of an abortion to save the life of a woman with pulmonary hypertension. As we saw, the abortion wasn't necessary.

Next I'd like to consider the case of women who are diagnosed with cancer during pregnancy. Again, certainly there is an increased risk (especially for the baby) in some forms of cancer treatment, but is abortion ever necessary?

One way to side step the issue is to wait until the child is old enough and deliver it. This is typically about 32 weeks or later. If the cancer is detected later in the pregnancy, or it is not a particularly aggressive form of cancer, this is a viable alternative to abortion. But what if the cancer needs to be treated before the baby can be delivered safely?

The major methods for cancer treatment are surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. Depending on where the cancer is located, radiation may not be recommended. However, radiation is usually used as a follow up, after surgery and chemotherapy, and it can be used after delivery. Surgery does not carry any significantly greater risk during pregnancy.

Which leaves chemotherapy. Women are routines told they have to have an abortion before chemotherapy begins. This is simply nit true.

According to Pregnancy and Cancer patient guidelines at the M D Anderson Cancer Center:

First trimester – The fetal effects of chemotherapy drugs during the first trimester of pregnancy are unclear. In certain circumstances it may be necessary to start chemotherapy as soon as the diagnosis of cancer is made. An example would be acute leukemia. Even if the diagnosis is in the first trimester and the use of chemotherapy becomes necessary most of a baby’s major organ systems are already formed by 8 weeks of pregnancy.

Second and third trimesters - Many chemotherapy drugs can be used during the second and third trimester of pregnancy without harming the fetus, since major organ formation has been completed.

The Journal of Clinical Oncology published the results of a study "Chemotherapy for Breast Cancer During Pregnancy: An 18-Year Experience From Five London Teaching Hospitals":

All but one of the women were treated after the first trimester. One spontaneous abortion occurred in the woman treated during her first trimester; otherwise, there were no serious adverse consequences for the mothers or neonates.

CONCLUSION: These data provide evidence that in terms of peripartum complications and immediate fetal outcome, chemotherapy can be safely administered to women during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy.

Note that in 18 years of treating cancer, only one woman lost her baby. Had they aborted, all of them would have lost their babies. The National Institute of Heath published "Children exposed to chemotherapy in utero":

...fetuses exposed to chemotherapy in utero in the second and third trimesters can be carried to term, be born without evidence of congenital abnormalities, and develop normally.

Of course there are cases where the baby can't be saved. For instance, there are cases where the uterus is cancerous, and needs to be surgically removed. This is truly the case where the the mother and child cannot both be saved. In treating the disease, the child will not survive. But note that these are not abortions. Killing and removing the baby does nothing for the mother. Removing the uterus is what saves her. Removing the uterus will result in the death of the child, but it is not the death of the child that is the object of the operation. This is called "double effect", and the legality of abortion would not affect these procedures from being performed. Such procedures are considered moral and are not prohibited by the Catholic church. I'll get into the double effect in the next post, talking about ectopic pregnancy, but I wanted to mention it here because in the case of some cancers it is applicable.

Now, cancer and heart disease aren't the only two conditions which can happen during pregnancy, they are merely the "popular" ones used to justify abortion to "save" the mother. The fact is, as several doctors have stated, there is no medical condition that requires abortion.

You can find part III here.

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Between a rock and a hard place

Margo's comments on my post "Whenever you find yourself" got me to thinking. How can someone consider themselves pro-life and say on a poll that they think abortion should be legal in some circumstances? Believe it or not I can see it. In fact I've been there.

It happens because of false choices and false information. For instance, what if the mother's life was in danger and the choice was either abort the baby to save her life, or both would die. This is a false choice, because it doesn't actually happen. Certainly women are faced with medical problems during pregnancy, but do any of them require abortion? Let's look at some cases.

Consider St. Margaret McBride, who was excommunicated for approving of an abortion at St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix. A number of articles, in places from NPR to the National Catholic Distorter Reporter trounced on the issue of the big mean Catholic church condemning a woman to death. But these stories (and others) overlook the facts of the case. First, off, the mean old Catholic church did not excommunicate Sr. McBride, she did so herself, when she participated in the abortion decision. But was it moral? Wikipedia, of all places, quotes:

In explanation of how McBride excommunicated herself through her actions, Father John Ehrich, medical ethics director for the diocese, issued a statement that stated "The unborn child can never be thought of as a pathology or an illness. That is, the child is not that which threatens the life of the mother, rather it is the pathology or illness (cancer, premature rupture of membranes, hypertension, preeclampsia, etc.) which threatens the mother's life." Since "no physician can predict what will happen with 100 percent accuracy," Ehrich wrote, "What we should not do ... is lower risks associated with pregnancy by aborting children."

And that's really what this case is about. The mother's life was not in immediate danger in this case, she merely had an "increased risk of complications" as the pregnancy continued. Additionally, her life was not being threatened by the child, but by the disease. From what I have read there was no attempt to treat the disease before recommending abortion. From LifeSite News:

...Dr. Paul A. Byrne, Director of Neonatology and Pediatrics at St. Charles Mercy Hospital in Toledo, Ohio, disputes the claim that an abortion is ever a procedure necessary to save the life of the mother, or carries less risk than birth.

In an interview with LifeSiteNews, Dr. Byrne said, “I don’t know of any [situation where abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother].

“I know that a lot of people talk about these things, but I don’t know of any. The principle always is preserve and protect the life of the mother and the baby.”

Byrne has the distinction of being a pioneer in the field of neonatology, beginning his work in the field in 1963 and becoming a board-certified neonatologist in 1975. He invented one of the first oxygen masks for babies, an incubator monitor, and a blood-pressure tester for premature babies, which he and a colleague adapted from the finger blood pressure checkers used for astronauts.

Byrne emphasized that he was not commentating on what the woman’s particular treatment should have been under the circumstances, given that she is not his patient.
“But given just pulmonary hypertension, the answer is no” to abortion, said Byrne.

Byrne emphasized that the unborn child at 11 weeks gestation would have a negligible impact on the woman’s cardiovascular system. He said that pregnancy in the first and second trimesters would not expose a woman with even severe pulmonary hypertension – which puts stress on the heart and the lungs – to any serious danger.

A pregnant mother’s cardiovascular system does have “major increases,” but they only happen “in the last three months of pregnancy,” Byrne explained.

The point of fetal viability is estimated at anywhere between 21 - 24 weeks, at which point he speculated the baby could have been artificially be delivered and had a good shot at surviving. In the meantime the mother’s pulmonary hypertension could be treated, even by such simple things as eliminating salt from her diet, exercising, or losing weight.

...“The only reason to kill the baby at 11 weeks is because it is smaller,” which makes the abortion easier to perform, he said, not because the mother’s life is in immediate danger.

Without being involved in the pro-life movement, just from reading news sources like the Huffington Post, ABC News, NPR, or as noted, even NCR, I would get false information about the events (c'mon, the Nation Catholic Reporter doesn't even know how excommunication works!) as well as false information about the decision made. I could easily reach the opinion that abortion should be kept legal for cases like this.

I have pro-abort friends who scoff at stories like this saying that they refuse to read news from places like LifeSite News because of their pro-life bias. But in refusing to read multiple sources they are accepting the pro-abortion bias of the one source they do read. And while I will gladly read Scientific American for new discoveries, or CNN for headline stories, I'm certainly not going to trust them for information about ethics and morality.

And in this case the LifeSite News article is spot on. If you read the original statement from the hospital (which I read at the time but can't seem to find online now) it states that the mother would have a serious risk of complications if the pregnancy were carried to term, not that the mother was in immediate danger. All the statements about "certain death" were added by reporters or other health agencies. I can accept that the mother had less risk after the abortion, but abortion wasn't the only option.

In fact, according to the paper "Perinatal management and pregnancy outcome in pregnant women with pulmonary hypertension complicating cardiac disease" from the National Institute of Health (hardy a pro-life source of information), the mortality rate for pregnant women who carry to term with this condition is 2%, even in severe cases. The mortality rate for children of women who undergo abortion is close to 100%. What was the less risky decision, considering both patients?

I have several other cases and an interesting question, but since this post is getting long I'm going to split it up into several parts. Part II is posted here. Part III is here.

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Do No Harm

The following is the oath that all doctors would swear when they entered the medical profession, from the time of Hippocrates around  400 BC (emphasis mine).

• I swear by Apollo the Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods, and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfill according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:
• To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this art–if they desire to learn it–without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken the oath according to medical law, but to no one else.
• I will apply dietic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.
• I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.
• I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work.
• Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves.
• What I may see or hear in the course of treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep myself holding such things shameful to be spoken about.
• If I fulfill this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.

It was changed over the years to be more in line with the culture (for instance, the Greek gods had to go), but was generally the same. The parts I have emphasized are things that were removed in the next version. The Declaration of Geneva in 1948 amended the oath as follows:

• I solemnly pledge to consecrate my life to the service of humanity
• I will give to my teachers the respect and gratitude which is their due;
• I will practise my profession with conscience and dignity;
• The health and life of my patient will be my first consideration;
• I will respect the secrets which are confided in me;
• I will maintain by all means in my power, the honour and the noble traditions of the medical profession;
• My colleagues will be my brothers
• I will not permit considerations of religion, nationality, race, party politics or social standing to intervene between my duty and my patient;
• I will maintain the utmost respect for human life, from the time of its conception, even under threat, I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity;
• I make these promises solemnly, freely and upon my honour.

Note that the injunction against euthanasia is gone as is that against injustice, mischief and sexual relations with patients or their families. In 2005 it was changed again. Once again I have highlighted sections that changed or were removed.

• I solemnly pledge to consecrate my life to the service of humanity;
• I will give to my teachers the respect and gratitude that is their due;
• I will practise my profession with conscience and dignity;
• The health of my patient will be my first consideration;
• I will respect the secrets that are confided in me, even after the patient has died;
• I will maintain by all the means in my power, the honour and the noble traditions of the medical profession;
• My colleagues will be my sisters and brothers;
• I will not permit considerations of age, disease or disability, creed, ethnic origin, gender, nationality, political affiliation, race, sexual orientation, social standing or any other factor to intervene between my duty and my patient;
• I will maintain the utmost respect for human life;
• I will not use my medical knowledge to violate human rights and civil liberties, even under threat;
• I make these promises solemnly, freely and upon my honour.

Aside from a multitude of considerations that are not to intervene, we have some interesting changes. Confidentiality now extends beyond the patients life, women are now explicitly included in the text, and religion is no longer mentioned. It has morphed into "creed". I can't find a good reason for the change. "Creed" is a more vague term, but certainly not broader or narrower. Perhaps someone was upset by the mention of the word "religion."

The main point is that the 2200 year old, prohibitions against euthanasia and abortion have both been removed, as well as the prohibition against injustice and sexual misconduct, all in the matter of a few years.

It's all a moot point, since no oath is required of doctors today. How far we have come.

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Kill Bill

Yes, more health care. As expected, al of the concessions of the house bill have been removed and then some! The senate bill is an abomination of death. There has been, of course, a lot of press about the abortion language in the bill, less so about euthanasia, so I thought I'd talk a bit about that. Of course, some people will immediately say “but the bill doesn't say we'll have euthanasia”, make a joke about “death panels” and start chanting “Sarah Palin” while rocking back and forth.

Yes, the bill doesn't say it will cover euthanasia explicitly. Then again it doesn't say it will cover cancer treatment, but we all expect it will. That's a silly argument, as the bill doesn't actually say what will be covered and what will not. But in fact, this bill does mention euthanasia, and in a very troubling way:

SEC. 1553. PROHIBITION AGAINST DISCRIMINATION ON ASSISTED SUICIDE.

(a) IN GENERAL.—The Federal Government, and any State or local government or health care provider that receives Federal financial assistance under this Act (or under an amendment made by this Act) or any health plan created under this Act (or under an amendment made by this Act), may not subject an individual or institutional health care entity to discrimination on the basis that the entity does not provide any health care item or service furnished for the purpose of causing, or for the purpose of assisting in causing, the death of any individual, such as by assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing.

This is a conscience clause for those who do not “provide any health care item or service” for the purpose of “causing the death of any individual”. So, there's no language saying that euthanasia won't be covered under the plan, and language that says but not every doctor has to offer it. As troubling (or more) to me is the terminology. A health care item or health care service is something to heal or promote life. Here it is explicitly stated that we are redefining as a health care item or health care service something that is intended to kill the patient.

But that's not all. In section 1323 of the bill, on page 186 it reads:

(F) PROTECTING ACCESS TO END OF LIFE CARE.—A community health insurance option offered under this section shall be prohibited from limiting access to end of life care."

So while an individual doctor might not offer euthanasia, all insurance plans must cover it, and therefore you and I must pay for it. This is pretty telling language for a bill that is supposed to not support euthanasia. If the bill is not going to support it, this language would be unnecessary.

Terminal-ogy

Before continuing on the topic, I'd like to clarify the terms I am going to use. There are different types of care: ordinary, palliative, proportionate and disproportionate. Ordinary care is, well, ordinary. It's the basic care we would give any human being at any time. It includes food, water, shelter from the elements, a reasonable room temperature. You are (hopefully) receiving ordinary care every day. Palliative care means relieving pain or other symptoms. When you take an ibuprophen or some cough medicine for a cold you are getting palliative care.

The Catholic Church requires that all people be given ordinary and palliative care. That means you are not to starve someone to death, leave them out in a blizzard, or withhold pain medication. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches:

2279 Even if death is thought imminent, the ordinary care owed to a sick person cannot be legitimately interrupted. The use of painkillers to alleviate the sufferings of the dying, even at the risk of shortening their days, can be morally in conformity with human dignity if death is not willed as either an end or a means, but only foreseen and tolerated as inevitable Palliative care is a special form of disinterested charity. As such it should be encouraged.

The rest of health care is further divided into two categories: proportionate and disproportionate. Proportionate health care must meet all of the following conditions. It must have a reasonable chance of curing or contributing to the cure of the patient. It does not carry a significant risk of death, and it must not be excessively burdensome. Setting a broken leg, for instance, is proportionate health care. Care that does not meet these three criteria is called disproportionate. The Catholic Church considers offering proportionate care to be mandatory, although the patient does not have to accept it. Disproportionate care is not considered mandatory.

2278 Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of "over-zealous" treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one's inability to impede it is merely accepted. The decisions should be made by the patient if he is competent and able or, if not, by those legally entitled to act for the patient, whose reasonable will and legitimate interests must always be respected.

There is considerable room for debating whether a procedure is proportionate. A pacemaker might be considered proportionate, but in the case of a patient with a terminal illness or other serious health conditions the risks and burden might put it in the realm of disproportionate care. Every case must be examined on its own merits.

“Mercy” Killing

According to a report by the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law titled When Death Is Sought: Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the Medical Context (emphasis added by me):

“American society has never sanctioned assisted suicide or mercy killing. We believe that the practices would be profoundly dangerous for large segments of the population, especially in light of the widespread failure of American medicine to treat pain adequately or to diagnose and treat depression in many cases. The risks would extend to all individuals who are ill. They would be most severe for those whose autonomy and well-being are already compromised by poverty, lack of access to good medical care, or membership in a stigmatized social group. The risks of legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia for these individuals, in a health care system and society that cannot effectively protect against the impact of inadequate resources and ingrained social disadvantage, are likely to be extraordinary.

The distinction between the refusal of medical treatment and assisted suicide or euthanasia has not been well-articulated in the broader public debate. In fact, the often-used rubric of the 'right to die' obscures the distinction. The media's coverage of individual cases as a way of presenting the issues to the public also blurs the difference between a private act and public policy; between what individuals might find desirable or feasible in a particular case and what would actually occur in doctors' offices, clinics, and hospitals, if assisted suicide and euthanasia became a standard part of medical practice. Public opinion polls, focusing on whether individuals think they might want these options for themselves one day, also offer little insight about what it would mean for society to make assisted suicide or direct killing practices sanctioned and regulated by the state or supervised by the medical profession itself.”

Some people refer to euthanasia as “mercy” killing. The implication is that these people are “better off dead” because they are in pain or because they are suffering. The danger with this type of thinking is that instead of providing palliative care, our response to suffering is to kill. But killing is not palliative care. As Dr. Gregory Hamilton, the chair of Physicians for Compassionate Care, stated in an article in the Oregonian: "Comfort care results in a comfortable patient; assisted suicide results in a corpse.

I think it is important to recognize that the suffering “mercy” killing strives to end is that of those who don't want to watch, or care for, or bear the financial burden for those who are in need. As John Paul II wrote in Evangelium Vitae, "True 'compassion' leads to sharing another person's pain; it does not kill the person whose suffering we cannot bear."

When “mercy” killing is considered a viable option for health care, it becomes the preferred option by those who would seek to reduce costs. You can “mercy” kill someone for $35, while it is hard to find any reasonable medical treatment today that is cheaper. Legalized euthanasia will result in discrimination against the “undesirables” of society; the poor, the immigrant, the weak and elderly, and ultimately, their murder. As reported in Inside Catholic:

“Dr. Diane Meier, a former advocate of assisted suicide, said in a 1998 New York Times article, 'Legalizing assisted suicide would become a cheap and easy way to avoid the costly and time-intensive care needed by the terminally ill.'

Substantiating this claim is the fact that Oregon's Medical Assistance Program (OMAP) for the poor moved to provide physician-assisted suicide to its recipients as soon as the Death with Dignity Act was passed in 1997. Only 18 months later, the OMAP announced plans to cut back on pain medication coverage for the same population. Hospice care has also suffered -- the International Task Force reports that one Oregon insurance company has a paltry $1,000 cap on in-home hospice care. With the cost of a lethal overdose running about $35, there would be little motivation to pay any more for palliative treatment.”

Also, as noted, the issue is presented to the public by the media in a way which lumps all the issues into a single mass. The implication is that if any part is acceptable, the whole thing should be. Thus, many people equate euthanasia with refusal of treatment, when they are two radically different ideas. The difference is like the difference between a fireman being unable to save a life and the arsonist who set the fire. One is recognizing an inability to cure, the other is murder.

But Everything's Great in Europe!

Let's take a look at what has happened in a country that has euthanasia. According to the International Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia Task Force there are widespread abuses in countries that have euthanasia (bold is mine, italics are in original).

“The data indicate that, despite long-standing, court-approved euthanasia guidelines developed to protect patients, abuse has become an accepted norm. According to the Remmelink Report, in 1990:

• 2,300 people died as the result of doctors killing them upon request (active, voluntary euthanasia).(7)
  
• 400 people died as a result of doctors providing them with the means to kill themselves (physician-assisted suicide).(8)
  
• 1,040 people (an average of 3 per day) died from involuntary euthanasia, meaning that doctors actively killed these patients without the patients' knowledge or consent.(9)
  
  
  
  • 14% of these patients were fully competent. (10)
    
  • 72% had never given any indication that they would want their lives terminated. (11)
    
  • In 8% of the cases, doctors performed involuntary euthanasia despite the fact that they believed alternative options were still possible. (12)
    
  
  
  
• In addition, 8,100 patients died as a result of doctors deliberately giving them overdoses of pain medication, not for the primary purpose of controlling pain, but to hasten the patient's death. (13) In 61% of these cases (4,941 patients), the intentional overdose was given without the patient's consent.(14)
  
• According to the Remmelink Report, Dutch physicians deliberately and intentionally ended the lives of 11,840 people by lethal overdoses or injections--a figure which accounts for 9.1% of the annual overall death rate of 130,000 per year. The majority of all euthanasia deaths in Holland are involuntary deaths.
  
• The Remmelink Report figures cited here do not include thousands of other cases, also reported in the study, in which life-sustaining treatment was withheld or withdrawn without the patient's consent and with the intention of causing the patient's death. (15) Nor do the figures include cases of involuntary euthanasia performed on disabled newborns, children with life-threatening conditions, or psychiatric patients. (16)
  
• The most frequently cited reasons given for ending the lives of patients without their knowledge or consent were: 'low quality of life,' 'no prospect for improvement,' and 'the family couldn't take it anymore.'(17)
  
• In 45% of cases involving hospitalized patients who were involuntarily euthanized, the patients' families had no knowledge that their loved ones' lives were deliberately terminated by doctors. (18)
  
• According to the 1990 census, the population of Holland is approximately 15 million. That is only half the population of California. To get some idea of how the Remmelink Report statistics would apply to the U.S., those figures would have to be multiplied 16.6 times (based on the 1990 U.S. census population of approximately 250 million).
  

Falsified Death Certificates ---In the overwhelming majority of Dutch euthanasia cases, doctors--in order to avoid additional paperwork and scrutiny from local authorities--deliberately falsify patients' death certificates, stating that the deaths occurred from natural causes. (19) In reference to Dutch euthanasia guidelines and the requirement that physicians report all euthanasia and assisted-suicide deaths to local prosecutors, a government health inspector recently told the New York Times: 'In the end the system depends on the integrity of the physician, of what and how he reports. If the family doctor does not report a case of voluntary euthanasia or an assisted suicide, there is nothing to control.' (20)

Inadequate Pain Control and Comfort Care -- In 1988, the British Medical Association released the findings of a study on Dutch euthanasia conducted at the request of British right-to-die advocates. The study found that, in spite of the fact that medical care is provided to everyone in Holland, palliative care (comfort care) programs, with adequate pain control techniques and knowledge, were poorly developed. (21) Where euthanasia is an accepted medical solution to patients' pain and suffering, there is little incentive to develop programs which provide modern, available, and effective pain control for patients. As of mid-1990, only two hospice programs were in operation in all of Holland, and the services they provided were very limited. (22)”

Consider more recent cases in the UK. According to the latest volume of the IAETF patients in the UK are being put in euthanasia protocols mistakenly or due to negligence or poor care. In the interests of brevity I will only cite two short passages:

An 80-year-old grandmother who doctors identified as terminally ill and left to starve to death has recovered after her outraged daughter intervened. Hazel Fenton, from East Sussex, is alive nine months after medics ruled she had only days to live, withdrew her antibiotics and denied her artificial feeding. The former school matron had been placed on a controversial care plan intended to ease the last days of dying patients. Doctors say Fenton is an example of patients who have been condemned to death on the Liverpool care pathway plan. They argue that while it is suitable for patients who do have only days to live, it is being used more widely in the NHS, denying treatment to elderly patients who are not dying. [Sunday Times, 10/11/09]

Fenton lived to tell the tale. Not so for 76-year-old Jack Jones. Jones was hospitalized in the belief that his previous cancer had recurred and was now terminal. The family claimed he was soon denied food and water and put into deep sedation. But his autopsy showed that he did not have cancer at all, but actually had a treatable infection. The hospice denied wrongdoing but paid £18,000 to Jones’s widow. [Daily Mail, 10/14/09]

It Can't Happen Here

You might think doctors here in the US would certainly not be part of starving someone to death or withholding medication, but it happens. Consider the case of Terri Schiavo. According to media reports she was allowed to die “naturally”. The fact is she was allowed to die slowly of starvation and dehydration, while her parents sat and watched for 13 days, not being allowed to give her food or water. I can only imaging what it would be like to watch my child die, knowing that I could prevent it except the state forbade me from doing so.

Then there's the case of baby Gabriel.  The East Tennessee Children's Hospital (ETCH) “ethics” panel decided not to treat baby Gabriel, specifically the hospital was going to stop feeding him milk and giving him his medications. According to an Alliance Defense Fund press release:

“After doctors decided that Baby Gabriel was not worth treating, ETCH started discriminating against him by denying his basic care. Staff stopped bathing him, ceased applying cream to alleviate his chapped skin, reduced his diaper changes, and have not allowed his physical therapy. ETCH doctors have also discouraged Palmer's attempts to have her son transferred to other medical facilities where he could receive treatment.”

Consider the case of Barbara Wagner. Barbara was diagnosed with lung cancer and was hen told that the treatment prescribed by her oncologist would not be covered by insurance. Instead she was told the “health” plan would cover an alternative treatment, doctor-assisted suicide.

"'Treatment of advanced cancer that is meant to prolong life, or change the course of this disease, is not a covered benefit of the Oregon Health Plan,' read the letter notifying Wagner of the health plan's decision.

Wagner says she was shocked by the decision. 'To say to someone, we'll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it's cruel,' she told the Register-Guard. 'I get angry. Who do they think they are?'"

So these things do happen, today, and they happen against the wishes of patients and their families in our “free” country. Do we really want to make this the norm, rather than the exception?

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Things I Wish I'd Thought Of

Sometimes I see news stories about someone becoming rich off an idea and someone inevitably says “I wish I'd thought of that!” Things like the iBeer iPhone app. This is an essential application for any iPhone or iPod touch owner. It simulates actual beer that sloshes around and "pours" according to the movement of the phone. Here's a guy who spends some time writing a program and it goes viral and he sells a million copies of it. Or maybe something like Ruth Wakefield's story. She put pieces of chocolate in her cookies, expecting them to melt, and invented the tool house cookie (aka chocolate chip). She didn't become rich, but did get a lifetime supply of chocolate. Yum!

The people of whom I am most envious, however, are not the “viral video” types, but a class of people I call “ethical entrepreneurs”. These are people who come up with an idea or product that not only benefits them, but also the poor or neglected members of society. How good would it feel to go to work every day knowing that the world was a better place because of what you do? we all like to think we do our small part, but sometimes it would be nice to see something concrete.

Suzanne Sadler thinks so too. Her blog "The Entrepreneurial Catholic" is all about family enterprise. Working for yourself and your family, while serving others is a truly Catholic way to work and live. Only a few posts, so far, but she has some great advice and ideas for starting a business that will change your life and other lives as well.

So what kinds of things do I admire? One of the inventions I like is the “Q drum”. This is a donut shaped plastic container that enables someone to easily transport up to 50 liters of water from a water source by pulling it along the ground. This is a big help for people living in areas without a safe water source in their home. Another is this human powered irrigation pump. It can help poor farmers in undeveloped areas grow more crops and be less dependent on weather. Suzanne Sadler called to my attention the safe bottle lamp. This is a simple kerosene lamp that won't cause a fire if it tips, helping to save third world children and families from burns or death.

Then there's the "Freedom Leg" from Forward Mobility. This is a lightweight brace that replaces crutches by redistributing force to the upper leg. It's more comfortable and helps strengthen the upper leg muscles. The company uses Kids First Enterprise to manufacture its devices in Vietnam. Twenty percent of that Kids First's workforce is disabled, and all of its profits go to projects that support the disabled and disadvantaged. How cool is that?

Of course, my area of expertise is computers, and you don't find many poor impoverished people needing software. However, the other day I came across this cool invention. With a few cheap parts and some software this inventor has found a way to turn a cell phone into a holographic microscope. In many places in the world, access to a medical lab or hospital may be difficult or impossible, but cell phones are everywhere. A doctor even in a remote area could use this invention to diagnose certain diseases.

So, got any good ideas you're willing to share? I'm interested.

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God Spelled

Seems like I've been thinking too much about health care lately, so let's get onto a different topic.

How many times have you heard “God spelled backward is dog?” This is true in an orthographic sense, but also in other ways (more on that blow). Dogs have been on my mind lately. They seem to be popping up all over. As a kid we had (at various times) gold fish, tropical fish, gerbils, a cat and a rabbit, but no dogs. I'm not sure why not, but I always had enough friends with dogs to satisfy any dog cravings I had.

Last week I had lunch with my friend Mike. Mike is an EMT and was telling me about a call he had gone on. A woman saw a dog in the road and, rather than hit the dog, swerved into an oncoming car and put a whole family in serious condition in the hospital. Mike said in frustration, “Car full of kids...dog...hit the damn dog!” Mike, I will note, is a dog owner and dog lover, but as much as he cares for dogs he cares for people more. And as much as I would hate to hit an animal, I have to agree that a carful of kids should take precedent.

Another friend of mine, Tina (aka Snup) has a basset named Jake who is ill (that's Jake at the top of this post, by the way). Tina, being poor and a student, has spent countless hours not only tending to Jake, but researching his ailment and how best to treat him. The latest news is that Jake needs surgery to take care of a mass in his ear (which is pictured at right) so she has started a blog for Jake and is selling homemade doggie treats to raise the money for Jake's surgery. Please help her out by going to http://jaketakes.blogspot.com/2009/10/cookies-by-jake.html

The third story is about the “Crush Act”. It seems there is a relatively recent law, (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c106:H.R.1887.ENR:) prohibiting the sale of material “in which a living animal is intentionally maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded, or killed”. First off, I would think that ti would be a no-brainer that selling material depicting illegal activities would itself be illegal, so I don't know why this is a special case, but it certainly sounds like a reasonable law.

It seems one Robert J. Stevens was convicted in 2005 for marketing three dog fighting videos. The amazing (and disturbing thing) is the following (http://www.aspca.org/news/national/10-16-09.html#3)

In July 2008, a United States Court of Appeals overturned Stevens’s conviction, ruling that the Crush Act was “an unconstitutional infringement on free speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.” Due to this ruling, the Crush Act is no longer in effect. Internet trafficking in crush videos, which had slowed significantly since 1999, has reportedly surged—and in April of this year, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review U.S. v. Stevens to determine the future of the Act.
“This is only the second time in history that the Supreme Court has taken on a case directly related to animal cruelty,” says Dr. Randall Lockwood, ASPCA Senior Vice President of Anti-Cruelty Field Services. “It represents a difficult conflict between two traditionally ‘liberal’ values—freedom of expression and animal protection—so it is unclear how and if the court may be divided.”

Difficult conflict? I see no conflict. Aside from the fact that this is “commercial” speech, which is (and should be) under a stricter standard than “free” speech, these videos are evidence of a crime. Any supreme court justice who finds this decision "difficult" should be disbarred.

I'll throw in a bonus fourth, non-dog story. GE Healthcare has formed a biotech partnership to develop products based on human embryonic stem cells in hopes that their use will replace lab rats in drug development and toxic drug tests (http://www.cnsnews.com/PUBLIC/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=5074)

GE Healthcare, the medical research subsidiary of General Electric, has formed a partnership with a leading U.S. biotech company to develop products based on human embryonic stem cells that can be used to develop new drugs.

On June 30, GE Healthcare and Geron Corporation announced a multi-year alliance where Geron will provide GE scientists with an undisclosed amount of human embryonic stem cells.

The human cells will be used “to develop and commercialize cellular assay products derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) for use in drug discovery, development and toxicity screening,” according to a news release.

GE Healthcare, which is based in Britain, hopes that human embryonic testing will spare lab rats from having potentially toxic drugs in or on the animals.

So let's save the poor lab rats by killing human beings to use in these experiments. You have to be seriously ignorant not to see the irony of GE's attempt at “more ethical” drug testing.

As usual, the church worked out the ethics of all these situations long ago. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us (http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a7.htm):

Respect for the integrity of creation
2415 The seventh commandment enjoins respect for the integrity of creation. Animals, like plants and inanimate beings, are by nature destined for the common good of past, present, and future humanity.¹⁹⁴ Use of the mineral, vegetable, and animal resources of the universe cannot be divorced from respect for moral imperatives. Man's dominion over inanimate and other living beings granted by the Creator is not absolute; it is limited by concern for the quality of life of his neighbor, including generations to come; it requires a religious respect for the integrity of creation.¹⁹⁵
2416 Animals are God's creatures. He surrounds them with his providential care. By their mere existence they bless him and give him glory.¹⁹⁶ Thus men owe them kindness. We should recall the gentleness with which saints like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Philip Neri treated animals.
2417 God entrusted animals to the stewardship of those whom he created in his own image.¹⁹⁷ Hence it is legitimate to use animals for food and clothing. They may be domesticated to help man in his work and leisure. Medical and scientific experimentation on animals is a morally acceptable practice if it remains within reasonable limits and contributes to caring for or saving human lives.
2418 It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly. It is likewise unworthy to spend money on them that should as a priority go to the relief of human misery. One can love animals; one should not direct to them the affection due only to persons.

In other words you should not love animals instead of people, or place them above the needs of people. On the other hand, one should love and protect them and give them the respect due them as God's creatures. Causing an animal to suffer needlessly is contrary to human dignity, not just the animal's dignity. Likewise ignoring human suffering for an animal is to reject human dignity. We should love our dogs, but not put diamonds on them while children starve.

One of the reasons why I love the Catholic Church is that Her positions are middle of the road. Rather than taking a biblical passage out of context and using that to support a position that is popular or convenient (or unpopular or inconvenient), the whole of sacred scripture is considered, as well as tradition, science, and other factors.

I'll leave you with this video that was posted by another friend, Barb.

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Declaration of Dependence

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind the party in power requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation and be content they can speak freely.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men human beings persons¹ are created born² equal, that they are endowed by their Ccreator³ with certain unalienable Rrights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness health care, taxes and sex⁴. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men persons, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed party in power, — That whenever any Form of Government person or persons becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People Government to alter or to abolish it ignore or ridicule them, and to institute new Government Laws, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established persons¹ should not be changed repressed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind persons are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off find common ground with such Government, and to provide new Guards taxes for their future security⁵.

---

1. "person" refers to every member of the human race who is (a) already born (see footnote 2), (b) has no genetic defects that would require excessive health care costs or be unpleasant to look at, (c) has a life expectancy of at least 8 years from the current date, according to government statistics, and (d) meets any other requirements as defined by federal or state law.

2. "born" refers to a human being who (a) is wanted by all of its parents (however many there may be) or (b) if no parents are identified (e.g. clone or child of anonymous egg and sperm donors) is wanted by the state, and (b) gestated for at least 23 weeks, (c) has a weight of at least 2.2 pounds, and (d) has a length of at least 12 inches.

3. "creator" shall mean either the state, or, in the case of IVF, cloning, or other methods, the laboratory or corporation which funded or performed the procedure.

4. "sex" refers to any act, alone or with one or more other person of any sexual orientation, that gives immediate sexual gratification.

5. provided they meet the requirements of footnotes 1 and 2 above.

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Oh No! Not More Stem Cells!

I came across two articles yesterday about stem cells, so it's time for another "embryo vs. adult" article. As background, see my earlier blog The Stem Cell Debate is Over? about the difference between adult and embryonic stem cells. So, onto the latest news in stem cell research.

According to Liposuction Leftovers, fat cells, as a byproduct of liposuction can quickly and easily be converted into iPS (induced pluripotent) stem cells, which provides an easy way to to do research with iPS cells, and potentially a faster way to provide treatments derived from those cells. The research isn't "scalpel ready", of course, but the idea would be to do a liposuction-like procedure to remove fat cells form a patient, convert them to iPS cells, and use those cells to treat a variety of diseases on the patient himself. Since the cells are the patient's own tissue there is no risk of tissue rejection or other immune problems. As the article states

“Thirty to 40 percent of adults in this country are obese,” agreed cardiologist Joseph Wu, MD, PhD, the paper’s senior author. “Not only can we start with a lot of cells, we can reprogram them much more efficiently. Fibroblasts, or skin cells, must be grown in the lab for three weeks or more before they can be reprogrammed. But these stem cells from fat are ready to go right away.”

The fact that these cells don't have to be cultured is important, because existing ways to culture human skin cells to make iPS cells involves using mouse-derived "feeder cells", and scientists are concerned about cross-species contamination which could be a barrier to developing treatments using the cells.

At the same time I can across Immune Response in Mice Suggests Limits to Embryonic Stem Cell Therapy. This research was done on mice. Mice are used in a lot of research not because scientists want to kill them, but because their immune systems are very similar to a human's. They are used where the research would be dangerous to humans, or the effects are unknown. As the article states:

"We all want to know what's going to happen if you transplant these stem cells into a person," said Mark Davis, MD, PhD, the Burt and Marion Avery Family Professor and professor of microbiology and immunology. But because unmodified embryonic stem cells can cause cancer, the researchers transplanted the cells into mice rather than people.

Proponents of embryonic stem cell research claim that embryonic stem cells are "given a free pass" by the body's immune system, but that is conjecture. So the researchers studied the mouse immune system's response to embryonic stem cells, and discovered than contrary to the beliefs of embryonic stem cell researchers, the immune system does attack embryonic stem cells, since they are foreign tissue. As the article quotes

"It's getting harder and harder to believe that these cells are immunoprivileged," said Joseph Wu, MD, PhD, assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine and of radiology. "In fact, the rejection of these cells confirms our suspicions that they do cause an immune response."

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Stem Cell News

"So we really ought to look into theories that don't work, and science that isn't science." -- Richard Feynman in Cargo Cult Science

Several Stories have been in the news recently. On the adult stem cell side, we have Adult Bone Marrow Stem Cells Injected Into Skeletal Muscle Can Repair Heart Tissue. According to this article, injecting adult bone marrow stem cells into skeletal muscle can repair cardiac tissue, reversing heart failure. Adult stem cells have been used to repair heart tissue before, but this method is non-invasive, eliminating the risks of heart surgery.

Also in the news is Combined Stem Cell-Gene Therapy Approach Cures Human Genetic Disease In Vitro. According to this article there is proof of a cure in humans of Fanconi anemia, a genetic disorder that impairs the body's ability to fight infection, deliver oxygen, and clot blood. Hair or skin cells are taken from the patient with Fanconi anemia, the defective gene is corrected in the cells, then the cells are transformed into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. The resulting FA-iPS cells were indistinguishable from human embryonic stem cells and iPS cells generated from healthy donors.

Wow! Great news of important cures using research that is ethical and doesn't disregard human rights! Let's take a look at research in the news using embryonic stem cells.

First is Method To Neutralize Tumor Growth In Embryonic Stem Cell Therapy Discovered. This article talks about the dangers of tumor formation using embryonic stems cells, and a theory being looked into at the Hebrew University that would suppress certain genes in the embryonic cells, that might lessen the chance of tumor formation. According to the article the inhibition of genes before or after transplantation could minimize the chances of tumor formation, but the researchers caution that a combination of strategies may be needed to address the major safety concerns regarding tumor formation by human embryonic stem cells.

Next is Case Report Of A Brain And Spinal Tumor Following Human Fetal Stem Cell Therapy. The article describes how doctors (unclear who they are from this article) from the Sheba Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel, report the case of a boy with a rare genetic disease, Ataxia Telangiectasia, who underwent human fetal stem cell therapy at an unrelated clinic in Moscow and who, four years after the therapy began, was shown to have abnormal growths in his brain and spinal cord. The article goes on to say that although this report indicates the need for caution in stem cell therapy, the authors conclude that their findings "do not imply that the research in stem cell therapeutics should be abandoned. They do, however, suggest that extensive research into the biology of stem cells and in-depth preclinical studies, especially of safety, should be pursued in order to maximize the potential benefits of regenerative medicine while minimizing the risks."

Where would you spend your research dollars? On dangerous, ethically and morally reprehensible research that so far has produced suffering instead of cures, or on research that is actually working and harms nobody.

Of course, even if embryonic stem cell research were curing cancer and saving GM, that still wouldn't make it right to be killing human beings.

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