Race for the Kill

Yesterday my entire newspaper was pink. No, it wasn't licked by a yink. It was to notify people about breast cancer awareness month. Eliminating breast cancer is a noble goal, and one which I support. But it was also to encourage people to donate to one organization, which was mentioned over and over; the Susan G. Komen foundation for breast cancer.

Sadly, Susan G. Komen donates between $600K to $1M each year to Planned Parenthood. According to their web site http://ww5.komen.org/Content.aspx?id=16162 the money is only used for breast cancer screening and mammograms, and no money funds abortions. However, there are two thing wrong with that.

First off, money is fungible, meaning if I give PP money to fund breast cancer screening, I am freeing up the money PP would have spent on that to subsidize abortion. Please follow the link above to my earlier post to read my thoughts on fungibility.

Secondly, Komen claims that PP is the only recourse women in certain areas have for getting mammograms, etc. The problem is PP doesn't offer mammograms, and refers women to their primary care physicians for those services. Live Action called every PP clinic in the country and asked to schedule a breast exam and mammogram, and in every case was told they don't do that and referred elsewhere.

So, where is this money really going? Why do we have "meta" fundraising organizations at all? Why can't cancer organizations keep themselves clean from controversy and just address cancer directly through their own programs instead of getting involved in organizations that are not primarily involved in cancer work?

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Number 5 is pro-life!

The new non-invasive genetic testing for down syndrome and other genetic anomalies are wonderful in that they can be performed with less risk to the child than current tests. However, some are rightfully worried that it will lead to aborting more down syndrome children, and lead to abortion for other "defects." Today a "defect" can be anything the parents don't desire, including various diseases, girls and even intelligence. Take this article, for example: "Oxford Ethicist says keep clever embryos, destroy the Rest".

Human embryos should be screened for their potential intelligence and only the smartest allowed to live, an Oxford University ethicist has argued.

In shocking remarks, Prof Julian Savulescu says embryos that do not pass the intelligence test should be destroyed for the good of society.

Shocking yes, but it is already routinely done in IVF procedures, where doctors choose which embryos will be implanted and which will be killed based on their genetic characteristics. It's only a short step from there to "the master race."

I had this on my mind the other night while I watched the movie "Short Circuit" with the kids. If you haven't seen it, it is the story of an experimental military robot named "Number 5" that gets struck by lightning, becomes alive, and goes out into the world to make its way. Its makers pursue Number 5 to destroy it before the "malfunction" can put the company in a bad light. I hadn't seen the movie in years (I was never a big fan, but my wife loves it), but as I watched it I realized it has a profound pro-life message. Yes, beneath all the kitsch, and shouting "no disassemble", Number 5 actually has something to say. He repeats the message over and over - "Life is not a malfunction."

I think it's something we all need to remember, especially in cases like down syndrome, Leigh syndrome, or any other "malfunction." Life is not a malfunction. Destroying it is not the cure.

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Fukushima in perspective

Worried about the claims that radiation levels are thousands or even millions of times normal at the Fukushima reactors? Do pray for the people of Japan (and not just those living by the reactors, but all those affected by the disaster), but don't be too alarmist. This XKCD chart shows the numbers in perspective. Click on the chart for a version you can actually read.

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You win a few

Two pieces of good news today:

Baby Joseph, whom I blogged about earlier is now at SSM Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center in St. Louis, Mo. Kudos to Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life for working with authorities and health care providers in Canada and the US to help save this boy from being euthanized. The new hospital is willing to perform the tracheotomy that will allow baby Joseph to go home and be with his family.

In a similar story, the feeding tube has been restored for Rachel Nyirahabiyambere, a refugee to the US from Rwanda, who has been denied food and water by a US hospital for three weeks. Kudos here go to the Alliance Defense Fund and the Terri Schiavo Life and Hope Network for providing legal and other assistance to Mrs. Nyirahabiyambere and her family.

That makes two people in two countries that were going to be murdered by hospitals that now have a chance to live the remainder of their lives in peace. If you are looking for ways to perform your Lenten almsgiving, these three are worthy causes.

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Good for women and men

According to an article in Smart Money, a method has been successfully trialed in Switzerland to regenerate breasts that have been damaged or removed by breast cancer surgery. Other details are found here. From the Smart Money article:

ZUG, Switzerland -(Dow Jones)- A longterm study looking at Cytori Therapeutics Inc's (CYTX) tissue regeneration method--which uses stem cells from a person's own fat to reconstruct breasts--shows the procedure to be safe when used on former breast cancer patients who suffered from scars or had part of their breast removed, the U.S.-based company said Wednesday.

Cytori's system includes the extraction of stem cells from the fat tissue of a patient, which are then injected in the affected area such as the breast, where tissue needs to be regenerated.

Unlike other stem cell companies such as Stemcells Inc (STEM), Cytori doesn't use embryonic cells, a method which is facing opposition as it is considered unethical. Scientists, however, hope the use of stem cells can help cure complex diseases such as cancer as stem cells have a long life and can develop into other cells.

...and from the Sys-Com article:

The trial, referred to as RESTORE-2, was a 71 patient prospective long-term breast reconstruction study. Specifically, 12 month physician satisfaction was 85% and patient satisfaction 75%, which is consistent with reported six month results. Physician and patient satisfaction criteria encompassed functional and cosmetic outcomes, namely breast deformity, breast symmetry, appearance of scarring, and skin pigmentation. With no generally accepted standard of care, there was no defined control for this trial. The comprehensive data are being prepared for peer-review and are expected to be publicly available later this year.

"We believe cancer treatment is incomplete without reconstruction," said Marc H. Hedrick, M.D., president of Cytori Therapeutics. "The RESTORE procedure has the potential to become the gold standard for lumpectomy defect repair, even in the context of radiation scarring, for which there is no accepted standard-of-care. The data from the study strengthens the long-term safety profile of this treatment and soundly shows efficacy in breast cancer patients."

During the RESTORE procedure, fat is taken from the patient's stomach, hips, thighs, or other areas, by liposuction. Some of the tissue is used to extract the patient's own stem and regenerative cells which occur naturally inside the tissue, using Cytori's Celution® 800/CRS System. The extracted cells are then combined with some of the patient's own fat tissue, which forms a cell-enriched fat graft that is injected into the breast to restore its natural look and feel. In addition to providing an entirely natural option, the impact of post-operative scarring is greatly reduced due to the minimally invasive nature of this procedure.

More information on the procedure can be found at http://www.cellreconstruct.eu/CellReconstruct.aspx.

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Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Remember Seinfeld? That was his mantra when discussing homosexuality. There was a whole episode, "The Outing" that featured the line over and over. Today I came across this article in the Washington Times on a new pill which can help lower the risk of a gay man contracting HIV from an HIV-positive partner. The numbers are interesting. the article states

Research subjects who took a pill called Truvada every day — plus used other AIDS-prevention strategies — lowered their risk of getting HIV by about 73 percent.
Men who failed to take the pill every day had only a 21 percent lower risk of getting HIV
It also was only effective with men who are confirmed as HIV-negative and who practiced additional prevention strategies such as consistently using condoms, getting treatment for other sexually transmitted diseases and reducing the number of sex partners.

Only 21% lowered risk? Compared to what? One would assume lower than not using the pill. But why then do they say that the effectiveness requires consistently using condoms, etc. Just what is the reduction in risk afforded by condoms?

I recall reading somewhere that condoms reduced the risk of contracting AIDS by 60%, but I didn't have a source. So I went googling. I visited literally dozens of sites that claims that condoms were "highly effective" but didn't give numbers and didn't quote a source that gave numbers. I finally found Worksop Summary: Scientific Evidence on Condom Effectiveness for Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) Prevention from the National Institutes of Health. The results are not promising.

In general, the Panel found the published epidemiology literature to be inadequate to definitively answer the question posed to the workshop participants. Most studies reviewed did not employ a prospective design, which is the optimal method to assess the effectiveness of condoms in preventing infection.

The "highly effective" numbers seem to come from a laboratory study of condoms, which was then assumed to apply to actual use. The first assumption was that since the FDA specifies that no more than 1/400 condoms fail a water leak test that 399/400 condoms will not leak in actual use. Then they assessed virus passage through a "perfect" condom using a liquid with a high concentration of virus. assuming that the chosen liquid behaved like semen and that a high concentration behaved like a low concentration of viral particles (which is a known false assumption - I can't find the paper, but at higher concentrations, multiple particles jam small holes and so they are less likely to pass through than at low concentrations).

That information was used to form a hypothetical risk model. The results appear to be nonsense. There are too many obvious things wrong with this model to go into here (I have to wonder who approved the "research"), but suffice it to say that if this model were true, then condoms would be nearly 99.399196% effective at preventing pregnancy (yes, that's the level of accuracy claimed by the model), and they are not. Real world studies show that about 16-20% of couples who use condoms regularly experience pregnancy within their first year of use (the paper uses the number 14%).

When a model doesn't predict real world data, the model is wrong.

There were several studies done on actual people for HIV, however. They considered only passing HIV between men and women during vaginal intercourse, not transmission among gay males, but one would hope the results were similar, or at least it's less of a stretch than the hypothetical model. The results look more realistic.

Overall, Davis and Weller estimated that condoms provided an 85% reduction in HIV/AIDS transmission risk when infection rates were compared in always versus never users.

This means that condoms are as effective against HIV as they are against pregnancy, which is still not very effective, considering the number of unintended pregnancies for condom users. A 1-in-6 chance of contracting a deadly disease for which there is no cure doesn't seem "highly effective" to me.

So condoms are not the answer they are claimed to be. Let's hope this new pill is not only effective as effective as claimed, and that it doesn't lead to more resistant strains of HIV if it is used as prophylaxis.

However, that's not what I intended to blog about. The thing that struck me most about the article was the rate of infection.

Men who have sex with men (MSM) represent "nearly half of all people living with HIV in the U.S., and the rate of new HIV diagnoses among MSM is more than 44 times that of other men," the CDC said.

We are living in a country that's considering regulating eating habits because overweight people have a 40% higher chance of contracting cardiovascular disease. Why don't we consider lifestyle choices that result in a 4300% higher chance of contracting HIV? We just repeat the mantra "not that there's anything wrong with that" and ignore the suffering of these people.

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IVF is...

Sometimes I'm slow. A friend sent me a link to a CNN report on military wives supplementing their income by becoming surrogate mothers for couples using IVF. It suddenly struck me. That's prostitution! Think about it. I'll let a stranger have the use of my reproductive organs for money.  What's the difference between that and prostitution? The ends? The intention? Haven't you heard that "the end does not justify the means"? Ever wonder where that came from? The catechism of the Catholic Church teaches:

1750 The morality of human acts depends on:
- the object chosen;
- the end in view or the intention;
- the circumstances of the action.
The object, the intention, and the circumstances make up the "sources," or constitutive elements, of the morality of human acts.
1753 A good intention (for example, that of helping one's neighbor) does not make behavior that is intrinsically disordered, such as lying and calumny, good or just. The end does not justify the means. Thus the condemnation of an innocent person cannot be justified as a legitimate means of saving the nation.

Of course, I'm going to hear the usual flak about how the Catholic church doesn't know everything (or anything) and that I am a mindless robot to read this crap. Thank you. Now open your eyes and your mind and consider the rest of this post.

My realization of this aspect of IVF isn't new or original, nor is it the only problem with IVF. A recent interview with a doctor I heard mentioned that including pre-implantation "selection" and post-implantation "selection" (aka eugenic abortion) ten babies are killed for every one delivered using IVF. So we have parents who want a baby so badly they will kill ten of their own children to have one. As a society we are shifting to a mentality where a baby is not a person for whose life you are responsible, but a possession whose purpose is to give you pleasure. IVF is slavery.

Some other things I found out about IVF. Outsourcing Baby-making in India (HT SHS) speaks of the suffering caused by "biological colonialism" or "reproductive tourism".  Another term for that is human trafficking.

There are also numerous IVF "errors", the worst of which we sometimes hear of in the media. In the case mentioned the couple decided to keep the baby (possibly because the only known difference was the blood type). Many do not, adding to the killing. IVF is eugenics.

Finally, I came across this article on research demonstrating that IVF is a factor in cerebral palsy (not associated with, but a cause). From the article:

IVF could more than double the rate of cerebral palsy, according to research from Denmark. In an article in the journal Human Reproduction, epidemiologist Jin Lieang Zhu says that the association between IVF and the disorder is well-known. But it was not clear whether the real cause was the underlying infertility or IVF procedures. His research, based on 90,000 children born between 1997 and 2003, demonstrates that something about IVF itself must be the reason. [emphasis mine]

IVF is dangerous.

I would hope that if you are considering IVF or know someone who is and you got this far you will actually read the articles above first, and consider whether it is worth so many lives and risks to have a baby that's (partly) "yours" instead of adopting a baby that needs them. For that matter, if you do not want to try adoption, consider NFP fertility methods rather than IVF. NFP is 100% natural (no drugs or surgery), can be extremely effective and has no side effects. Why doesn't your doctor suggest it? Why does she disparage it when it can help you? Because she doesn't make any money from it.

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Mummies and cancer

Halloween is coming up, and so today's topic is.... MUMMIES!

I found an article today "Cancer is caused by modern man as it was virtually no-nexistent in the ancient world". In typical media fashion the article is sensationalized and the conclusions don't fit the facts. According to the article:

Researchers looking at almost a thousand mummies from ancient Egypt and South America found only a handful suffered from cancer when now it accounts for nearly one in three deaths.

The findings suggest that it is modern lifestyles and pollution levels caused by industry that are the main cause of the disease and that it is not a naturally occurring condition. 

Yes, it goes into how they accounted for the fact that people live longer now. But the point that I'd like to make is that the findings don't "suggest that is it modern lifestyles and pollution levels caused by industry that are the main cause of the disease and that it is not a naturally occurring condition." All the findings can possibly tell us is that in ancient Egypt and South America in those regions where bodies were mummified the cancer rate was low at that time in history. Anything else is pure speculation.

Consider that these cultures were ethnically more homogeneous than today. Perhaps there was a group that developed genes for cancer that then spread throughout the world's population. Perhaps cancer is caused by a virus or other organism that did not exist in humans in that time. Perhaps they were subjected to some substance that prevented cancer. We know the ancient Egyptians, in particular, had antibiotics, what else might they have had? Perhaps the characteristics of solar radiation have changed over the years.

It's possible to find dozens of hypotheses that explain the data, but none are as sensational as the one the paper decided to go with. I can't blame them for wanting to sell more papers, but I do think it points to the lack of critical reasoning in the population in general. Kinda scares you, what with elections coming up and all.

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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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Vegetative? I dont think so.

The BBC reports that using a new brain scan technology, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), researchers can detect patients' thoughts in real time. No, they can't tell whether you are a Republican or Democrat (and of course, the research is being carried out in the UK and Belgium so it doesn't matter) but they can detect the difference between thinking about motor activities and spatial images.

They used this technology to allow people to answer questions with their mind only. To do so, they ask a yes/no question and ask the person to think about an activity for "yes" or an image for "no". Depending on the area of the brain which shows activity on the fMRI, they can determine the person's answer.

A nice parlor trick, until they turned the technology on patients in a so called "vegetative state". Out of 60 patients examined, 43% could respond to questions asked verbally. This is a significant find, and challenges whether patients are being diagnosed incorrectly, or whether we even understand what a "vegetative state" is.

A lot hangs in the balance here. In the UK it is legal to allow a patient in a vegetative state to die by withdrawing all care (including food and drink). However, if these patients are able to respond, are they really in a vegetative state? Of course even a "true" vegetative state does not make a person "not human", laws to the contrary notwithstanding. This research just points out how slippery the slope of euthanasia really is.

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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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What Gets Measured...

Hope you're not all too sick of my health care rants. This time I want to talk about “root causes”. The insurance industry recently published a report that says the health care bill as it is now will increase the cost of insurance dramatically. To that I say “Duh!” Now there is partisan posturing on the report, with all sorts of cr*p flying around (sorry, too tired to think of a wittier and more polite way to put it). So, what does Mike think?

I think none of the proposed legislation addresses the root cause, the cost of health care. Furthermore, I don't know of any political group who wants to address or even discuss the issue. One side wants to keep the status quo and the other wants to throw more money into the (broken) system we have. I think they are both wrong.

50 years ago (well, perhaps 60) the doctor would come to your house and treat you, and you could afford it. Today, the level of care is much lower and it costs a huge pile of cash. What happened? Why is it the $800 TV of yesteryear costs under $100, and the $1,000,000 computer of that era costs less than $5, but the cost of a doctor visit with a cold has gone from $10 to $250? Well, you might say “that's technology, and a Dr. visit is people.” Aside from the fact that a lot of medicine is technology these days, let's do apples to apples. The average income in 1950 was about $25,000 (http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2008/05/04/average-income-in-the-united-states-1913-2006/). Today that number is $45,000. So you would expect the cost of a person's time to about double.So why isn't a Dr. visit $20?

One thing that drives up cost is supply and demand. According to http://social.jrank.org/pages/1186/Medical-Professionals-Number-Doctors-Up-Doctors-Are-More-Diverse.html, in the United States in 1949 there were 127.7 physicians per 100,000 population and 260 physicians per 100,000 in 1996. So how come it's so hard to get an appointment and our doctors are so busy? I honestly don't know. I might guess it has to do with the number of specialists today as opposed to 1950. While it's true most of this growth has been in specialists, there has been a slow but steady growth in the number of primary care physicians per capita over the years.

My theory (and it is only that) is that it has to do with insurance. In 1950 most people didn't have insurance for doctor visits (and yet, they didn't all die horribly, as some people claim happens to the uninsured today). They had what was called “major medical” which would cover only, well, major medical expenses. So you had doctors getting paid cash at the time of service. Now many doctors' offices have full time staff whose job it is to deal with the insurance companies. They have to document and justify to the insurance companies everything they do to treat each patient. The insurance company expects or demands a discount over the “retail” rate, and takes several months to actually pay up.

So now, to pay his staff, the doctor has to charge $30 instead of $20, and in order to get $30 from the insurance company has to charge, say, $50 for a “standard” office visit. I'm making up numbers, of course, but you see where the trend is. But we're not done.

There's a saying, “what gets measured gets done” and it's true in many situations. I heard a story recently about Bel Labs (a place I miss dearly). AT&T, as you know, was at one time a legal monopoly. Typically, in such a situation the profit of such a company is regulated to protect the interests of the public, and things stagnate, because there are no incentives to improve or change the system. But the story of AT&T is a little different. They were allowed a reasonable profit, but they could also keep money made from reducing costs by improving the system.

Thus, the company poured money into Bell Labs' Research, which became not only the way AT&T made money, but one of the most innovative research groups of all time. Things like information theory, the laser, the transistor, fiber optics, and literally hundreds of other world-changing inventions came out of the Labs, until the government disbanded AT&T in 1983. My point is that companies will do whatever they can to make money, or to generate value for the stockholders, as an economist might say.

Well, the insurance industry is pretty well regulated. In this case, the government has set a cap on profits of 4% (I believe, gotta find a reference). So if you're allowed to make 4% over costs, how do you increase the amount of money you make? By increasing the cost, of course! I'm not saying insurance companies are evil. What I am saying is that there is no incentive for them to reduce the cost of healthcare and every incentive to watch it go up.

How can an insurance company increase its cost/profit without “wasting” money? By making more overhead for the physicians involved, by engaging in spurious legal actions, by increasing marketing costs, by encouraging regulation and legislation which, while it may not affect them directly, affects their overhead. The cost (plus 4%) gets passed along to the consumer. So now you have a doctor who has to pay an insurance company for a malpractice policy to protect himself from being sued by another insurance company. It doesn't matter if the suit is justified or frivolous, the insurance company makes its 4% on both ends.

I've read that something like 50% of what a doctor makes goes to insurance. I have no idea how much that was in 1950, but it couldn't have been much with a $10 office visit. So factoring in the cost of insurance our $50 visit might cost something like $90. But we're not done.

A significant cost is that of all the tests that are performed these days. A doctor can't just look in your nose throat and ears and tell you to take 2 aspirin. You have to have a strep test, and perhaps more. My wife recently had a glass shatter and a piece went into her hand. We went to the emergency room, where she got stitches, but first there were a whole series of X-rays taken. They said they wanted to be sure it didn't “nick the bone.” What would they do if it had? Nothing different, but they wanted to “be sure.” Of course, they couldn't take her word for it that she wasn't pregnant, so they had to draw blood and do a pregnancy test, just to “be sure.” Why? Well, insurance again. If they didn't do these tests, they wouldn't be covered if something went wrong and they were sued (by the insurance company). Another case of insurance driving up the cost. 4% anyone?

Anther significant cost is pharmaceuticals. For that visit she had to be on powerful antibiotics for 2 weeks. First off, why? The cut was clean, made by a glass just coming out of the dishwasher. She had immediately bandaged it, and they cleaned it and applied topical antibiotics and disinfectants at the hospital. Oh yeah, insurance again. Secondly, the antibiotic was expensive ($120, if I recall correctly). Why so expensive? The pharmaceutical industry of course.

Unlike insurance companies pharmaceutical companies can make big profits (28%, if I recall correctly, it was in a Yahoo! Finance report recently). Now, I understand that developing a new drug or medical product is a long process (because of government regulations, most of which are designed to protect the public) and so the company should be entitled to a reasonable return on such a long investment. However, under our intellectual property laws pharmaceutical companies are encouraged to continually replace products with new products, even if the new ones are similar to (or inferior to) the one they replace. This ensures that they are allowed to make maximum profit. Once again, not evil, but what gets measured gets done.

Of course with all those new products, we'd expect marketing costs to be high, and pharmaceutical marketing and distributing companies are way up there in profits as well (20% if I recall correctly). And of course, in addition to the overhead of FDA and DEA regulations and oversight, there's all the insurance the pharmaceutical companies have to keep to protect them from being sued by insurance companies.

Add it all up, and you can see where the cost of that doctor visit is a natural byproduct of forces, mostly having to do with the way the system is regulated by our current laws. Maybe you want to quibble with the numbers a little here or there, or maybe you think this is too simplistic. Maybe you're right, but that's what I think.

So what are some things we could do to fix these trends?

• Make doctors, not insurance companies, the ones who can decide what tests and treatments are required.
  
• Cap consumer insurance costs, not profit margins, and allow insurance companies to increase profits by reducing costs of services.
• Provide disincentives for frivolous lawsuits.
• Change intellectual property laws to allow pharmaceutical companies to make a more reasonable profit, and to discourage “drug turnover”.
• Eliminate the practice of health care “discounts” to insurance companies.
• Eliminate the practice of “bribes” to doctors for prescribing high profit drugs.
• Eliminate the practice of “advertising” new high profit prescription drugs to consumers (and perhaps even to doctors).
• Allow/encourage individuals to make their own heath care choices. There's no reason I should pay an insurance company to pay me for my regular checkup, for instance. I could as easily pay it myself and lower my insurance cost by that amount.

And then there's the big bugaboo of “pre-existing conditions”. Proponents of the health care bill say it's great injustice (which it is) and that the only way to solve it is to require everyone to have insurance. Insurance companies fear that if the government doesn't sufficiently “punish” people for not having insurance, they'll just wait until they're sick, sign up, and be a drain on the system.

Now, think of the absurdity of the situation. The premise is everybody want health care and they can't get it. But we have to punish people to force them to take it? You can't have it both ways. Fortunately, you can have it neither way. Why not require insurance companies to take people with preexisting conditions provided they were already insured recently (by any insurance company) or they are below a certain age (e.g. children). I think that covers the big fear (if I lose my job I can never get insured again) while eliminating the big scam (I'll wait until I am sick before buying insurance).

Why aren't any of these suggestions being considered to help solve the health care “crisis”? None of these increase the wealth of big business or big government, so there's no incentive. After all, “what gets measured gets done.”

***UPDATE***
Since I posted this someone pointed me to http://contractfromamerica.com/IdeaCategory.aspx?categoryId=81fbfb53-0b1d-4c0e-aed7-7e4b1156045d where many other people have posted ideas about solutions for health care. While I don't agree with some of them, there are some that seem to make sense to me but that I missed mentioning in my original post.

• Crack down on Medicare/Medicaid fraud. I hadn't overlooked this, but considered it such an essential prerequisite for any other reform I felt it didn't need mentioning. Perhaps it does. I think it's criminal to implement any solution without first address this.
  
• No special insurance for law makers. This would make increase incentives for law makers to solve the problem. Frankly, I think it's unconstitutional for Congress to enact a law that does not apply to itself. They should not be "above the law" as it applies to citizens of the United States.
  
• Provide a tax credit/deduction for contributions to health care providers or health care insurers for the purpose of covering the poor/uninsured. If we can get a deduction for our own heath care, why not for others'?
• Separate insurance from employment. My place of employment doesn't provide me with auto or home insurance, why health care insurance? Yes, I know it's in the interest of the company to see that I stay healthy to work, but isn't it also in their interest to see I have a place to stay so I can work, and to see that I have transportation to get to work? Where does there interest in my stop. Should they feed me, to ensure I get proper nutrition so I can work? And yes, I know I can refuse health care coverage from my employer, but the cost difference is astronomical, which brings me to... 
• Provide same tax benefits to individuals the employers enjoy. I don't think it's fair to afford a business any rights or opportunities that are not available to individuals.
  
• Allow insurance companies to compete across state lines. Note I'm not saying force them to, but allow them to.
  

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Why I can't support the health care bill part II

I've had some conversations about my award winning blog post Some of the reasons why I can't support the health care bill.

In particular, I've been asked (even by fellow Catholics) “As a Catholic how can you not support health care reform?” After all, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) says:

“2288 Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them, taking into account the needs of others and the common good.

Concern for the health of its citizens requires that society help in the attainment of living-conditions that allow them to grow and reach maturity: food and clothing, housing, health care, basic education, employment, and social assistance.”

What they fail to realize is that I do support health care reform, just not the kind of health care reform being pushed on the American people right now. Why not? Because it will lead to the destruction of human life, and is therefore immoral legislation.

Why do I say it will lead to the destruction of human life? Because it will result in universal funding for abortion (proponents of the bill keep voting down any amendment that would put that in writing that it won't, which tells me that I can't believe them when they say it won't). Even if it did not directly fund direct abortion procedures in a clinic, it will fund abortifacient contraception (aka abortion), in-vitro fertilization (IVF, which involves killing the unborn), embryonic stem cell research (ESCR, which involves killing the unborn, and euthanasia (again, we have verbal claims that “end of life choice” does not mean euthanasia but they will not put that in writing).

“But we need to give health care to all, even if it means compromising on other issues” is the argument I am given. I don't buy it. Here are some reasons:

“Any politics of human dignity must seriously address issues of racism, poverty, hunger, employment, education, housing, and health care. Therefore, Catholics should eagerly involve themselves as advocates for the weak and marginalized in all these areas. Catholic public officials are obliged to address each of these issues as they seek to build consistent policies which promote respect for the human person at all stages of life. But being 'right' in such matters can never excuse a wrong choice regarding direct attacks on innocent human life. Indeed, the failure to protect and defend life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any claims to the 'rightness' of positions in other matters affecting the poorest and least powerful of the human community.” – USCCB, Political Responsibility: "The application of Gospel values to real situations is an essential work of the Christian community"

“Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights -- for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture -- is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition of all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.” – Pope John Paul II, The Vocation and the Mission of the Lay Faithful in the Church and in the World (Christifideles Laici)

“When American political life becomes an experiment on people rather than for and by them, it will no longer be worth conducting. We are arguably moving closer to that day. Today, when the inviolable rights of the human person are proclaimed and the value of life publicly affirmed, the most basic human right, 'the right to life, is being denied or trampled upon, especially at the more significant moments of existence: the moment of birth and the moment of death'” – USCCB, Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics

“Good people frequently disagree on which problems to address, which policies to adopt and how best to apply them. But for citizens and elected officials alike, the basic principle is simple: We must begin with a commitment never to intentionally kill, or collude in the killing, of any innocent human life, no matter how broken, unformed, disabled or desperate that life may seem.” – USCCB, Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics

I don't think it can be more clearly stated that as Catholics we cannot in good conscience compromise our defense of human life, even to promote social good. Hence I can't support the current health reform legislation.

So, what health care legislation would I support? As Bishop James V. Johnston of Springfield-Cape Girardeau Diocese in Missouri points out

“One might legitimately ask if giving a large, inefficient, but powerful bureaucracy like the federal government control of health care is a wise move. For one, this runs counter to the well-known principle of subsidiarity, so prominent in Catholic social teaching: “a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good."

'The principle of subsidiarity is opposed to all forms of collectivism. It sets limits for state intervention.' (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 1883,1885). One might consider this the principle of social dignity.

How much of a role the government should have is a matter of prudential judgment. However, there are ethical dimensions to this question. Certainly, it has a role to play, but that does not necessarily mean that it should be the sole provider of health care. The government can act to remove abuses, and to regulate the health care industry so that the markets efficiently serve all the people.

Government may also be needed to see that no one, especially the working poor and the most destitute and forgotten, falls through the cracks. But the essential element of the principle of subsidiarity is the protection of individual freedoms from unjust micromanagement and manipulation by the state.” – Rev. James V. Johnston, Skinning the 'Health Care Cat'

As usual, someone else puts it better than I could (then again, I can't compete with a bishop!). Proper health care reform should focus on correcting inequities and inefficiencies of the current system to ensure that it is fair and reasonable. It should not support and perpetuate an admittedly broken system. If all you're looking for is a way to pay for care for people who can't afford it, and you don't care how that is accomplished, we already have that. It's called charity. The funny thing about charity is that it's your responsibility, not your government's. Oh wait! I have to pay my own money for someone else's health care!? Yes. After all, that's what this bill does that you want me to support.

If you feel health care for the poor is a moral imperative (like I do), please write your legislators (as I have) and ask that sensible health care reform be proposed in place of the current bill.

If, however, you are in favor of the current health care bill, there is a way to do things without violating your conscience. Simply take the $3,000 or so a year that I've heard is the estimated health care budget per capita (more, since not every capita pays taxes), and give it to your local parish with a note asking that the money be used to care for the sick. I guarantee the money will be used more efficiently and justly than it would be under the proposed heath care legislation, and it won't go to support abortion, ESRC, IVF, etc.

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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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