Genetically modified cow’s milk for babies?
“It’s good,” said worker Jiang Yao. “It’s better for you because it’s genetically modified.”
….The director of the research project, Prof. Li Ning, said Western concerns about the ethics of genetic modification are misplaced.
“There are 1.5 billion people in the world who don’t get enough to eat,” he said. “It’s our duty to develop science and technology, not to hold it back. We need to feed people first, before we consider ideals and convictions.”
~ Statements from those involved in China’s experiments that genetically modify cows to produce human breast milk, MyFoxNY, June 8
[Photo via 4by6.in]
Jun.09, 2011 8:48 am |
Bioethics |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Oh my gosh. we are all going to die.
Wait….what?
“It’s our duty to develop science and technology, not to hold it back. We need to feed people first, before we consider ideals and convictions”
Isn’t the idea that “It’s our duty to develop science and technology, not to hold it back. We need to feed people first before we consider ideals and convictions” an ideal and conviction? This scientist upholds feeding people as a good which, apparently, is the highest good which all other concerns are secondary to. So he has clearly stated his ideal and then promptly told everyone to forget about ideals,
conveniently leaving them with HIS ideal as the last ideal they hear before being told not to worry about ideals. This is one of the numerous examples why scientists absolutely, bare none, the worst philosophers. This statement is another fine example of junk philosophy.
And I don’t even have an opinion about what he is trying to do. All I know is that his reasoning in favor of his position is atrocious.
Isn’t the idea that “It’s our duty to develop science and technology, not to hold it back. We need to feed people first before we consider ideals and convictions” an ideal and conviction?
Darn it, Bobby, you beat me to it. :D
Hmmmmmmm……………there is a reason a cow produces COW milk and women have HUMAN milk. It’s not ideals and convictions. It’s good old fashioned common sense.
I linked this story to my facebook yesterday. This is beyond sickening. THEY ARE CHIMERAS! Human/cow chimeras! This is what embryonic research leads to! We said so when this started, we warned of the slippery slope and were called fear-mongers, trouble makers, off our rockers, BUT HERE IT IS. Does no one understand what these “scientists” have done??? It’s not simply the milk they have genetically modified, IT’S THE COWS THEMSELVES! They implanted human DNA into the cloned embryo of an animal and created a human/animal chimera! How many sci-fi movies have been made about this kind of experimentation? How many novels? How many decades did we as humanity explore the complicated ethics of this in fiction and how many of these explorations had “happy” endings? They’re half human! Now is it concidered slavery to have these animals penned up and milked against thier will? Do they have a will? Now we truly do have a dangerous situation where we once again are faced with the evil task of deciding “how much of a person” makes a “person”? Assigning percentages to worth. These chimeras are 1/2 human, but they won’t be concidered a person….. so what will it take? A creature must be 1/3 human to have personhood? They must be 3/5th??? Cordwainer Smith’s underpeople? Splice???
“We need to feed people first, before we consider ideals and convictions.”
This is pretty common thinking nowadays in the biological community. That’s because ethics is rarely taught in graduate school, and when it is, it’s usually presented as a list of do’s and don’ts. Where Prof. Li Ning goes wrong is that ethics is treated in that statement as nothing more than aesthetics; do the curtains go with the carpets? Ethics deals with the dignity due humans and other animals based upon the kind of beings they are respectively. The first rule in ethics is that the ends never justify the means.
Yes, we need to feed 1.5 billion hungry people (a noble end). But how we get there matters (the means). If Ning’s country didn’t have restrictions on the numbers of children couples could have, there would be plenty of workers on their farms and in their factories to produce soy for formula. As it is in China, the farms have been raided for young workers to staff the factories on the coast, leaving their bread basket empty. The solution to all of this is an authentic human ethic that respects human dignity. Abundant motherhood would mean humans to wet nurse, instead of genetically modified cattle to wet nurse. It is nothing short of horrifying that the most intimate of functions of a human mother must be bred into a cow as the solution to politically created catastrophes.
The first and most sacred obligation of my community is the safeguarding of human dignity in all of our manipulations. Professor Ning looks at human mothers and cattle and blurs the lines of distinction. That’s not only bad ethics, that’s bad science. I’m sure Ning’s mother would not approve.
This is really creepy! I had no idea they were doing this in China… or rather that genetic engineering had come to this point.
ChristianHippie, I agree on the point about how scary it is that we now have to try to determine how much “personhood” a “person” gets. Where do we draw the line? And yes, the trend in fiction seems to be coming true.
It makes movies like “the Island” seem like more of a prediction than a work of fiction.
Yes, genetic modification like this is a step toward “The Island of Dr. Moreau”. It’s way beyound genetically guiding maize to corn.
I wonder if they were trying to bypass the lactose intolerance that many Asians have? In that case fresh raw cow milk helps most of them, since it has the lactase enzyme to digest lactose.
In this country, problems with bacteria have greatly disappeared since steel holding containers became widely available over 60 years ago. I no longer drink pasteurized milk. While I’m not able to detect the health benefits, it sure tastes better!
@ thechristian hippie. I agree with your stance although I was curious if you actually believe that the cow/man picture was real. It is not. No we have not created half men half cows or anything of that sort. That picture you have is actually a well carved art piece that currently is in an art museum. I think the artist said he used some sort of clays or something. And he stated it was a piece inspired by odd thoughts in his head, some pertaining to what the future could hold according to some theories of science, which is creepy LOL.
My problem with this milk is if they call it -human milk- and a baby who CAN have human breastmilk but CANNOT have cow products due to severe allergic reactions… If they take this milk under the false impression it is really humans milk, it can kill them. Just a thought
-J.C.
Yeah J.C. *lol* I knew it was an art piece called “The Young Family” and I thought it was a good illustration for where this is going, if it isn’t already there.
Humans make human milk, cows make cow milk, human/cow chimeras make human/cow chimera milk. This will not solve anything but blur the lines of humanity and create all the horrific ethical and moral problems outlined and explored in fiction.
I agree with Dr Nadal.
case in point: “Food: There’s lots of it”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXrN9HhnCcM&feature=relmfu
Ok hippie just making sure ;) (you never know lol)
yeah… I drink cow’s milk, although I thought deep on it the other day while having a glass of milk with dinner. I looked at it, then looked at my hubby, he looked at me funny like “what?” And I said… “Do you not find it odd that if we were to be sitting here drinking milk from a human boob right now that it would be dubbed ‘gross’ and taboo by most people, despite it’s health benefits. Yet we sit here drinking milk from a COW’s boob, not even a related species, and it’s ‘normal’?” … He then perked a brow at me, I thought MAYBE that I was making him think too, but then he downed his milk and said “mmm cow booob” LOL .. yeah. But in all honesty it is strange how we humans are and what we find taboo and what we don’t find strange at all.
PANIC PANIC PANIC!!!!!! Science is doing something I don’t understand!!!! PANIC!!!
This stuff is only scary if you do not understand how DNA and genetics work. As I tried to explain in an earlier post where I was made fun of… All living things on this planet have the same basic DNA components. Theoretically it is possible to take the DNA of a horse and rearrange it to make human DNA. It is also possible to rearrange the DNA structure of a plant and create a living animal including a human. Even simple organisms with just a few base pairs of DNA can be rearranged and multiplied to make human DNA as every living thing on this planet came from the same first organism. So we all started out with the same DNA that over great periods of time mutated and multiplied into more complex organisms like us.
So, you want to stop abortion world wide but you dont want to feed the children born because you don’t understand the science behind this?!?!? Sure who dosen’t like to see starving babies….
Nice straw man argument… We are all in favor of feeding babies. We are concerned about the methods being used on both scientific and ethical grounds.
As for science doing something that Gerard doesn’t understand? Not to mention the numerous other scientists and medical professionals on this board? Nice try…
LittleZ
Stuff it!! I have two master degrees and a Ph.D. in molecular biology. I’ve genetically engineered more strains of bacterial lab cultures than you can imagine. So don’t tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about—or Jill Stanek for that matter who could lecture on genetics in her sleep. My comments derive from my expertise in the field and extensive training in ethics..
All you have is arrogance.
of course we want to feed the children – but in a natural way – why this? Biggz – before you accuse any pro-lifer of such a fallacy – stop putting your ‘findings’ into our mouths or accuse of such things!
Feed the children – yes – and we have enough food right now IF we can distribute it properly. Just talk to the despots who want to starve some of the ‘unwanted’ populations or the people who they want to control.
And I agree with Elizabeth – why not ask Gerard directly about any scientific point, instead of accusing people of being unscientific. Find logic there…
“It’s our duty to develop science and technology, not to hold it back”
He could have lifted that quote verbatim from supporters of ESCR. Here, as elsewhere, once the line has been crossed, anything goes.
It is nothing short of horrifying that the most intimate of functions of a human mother must be bred into a cow as the solution to politically created catastrophes.
Amen to that.
Ew! Well, no matter what they do, the milk that these GM cows produce will never be what I and other human mothers produce for our children. It’s like the formula companies who try to make formula like human milk, but they will never get there. I guess the cows have one up on the formula companies… at least the cow’s milk is a live substance like human milk (one of my BFing books said milk is most like blood). But we don’t even know everything that there is to know about human milk, so how could they even hope to make COWS produce HUMAN milk? I predict that whatever these GM cows produce will not be good for human babies… regular cow’s milk isn’t (it can kill them) and formula is not that great…
J.C.,
I remember being scolded by my grandfather that milk was meant for calves, not people, When I scaled back my milk drinking some years ago, while not scaling back on soda (I’ve never had more than a few sips of any alcohol, thankfully) I suffered a broken ankle doing nothing more than walking (not tripping) downstairs.
I also, as a kid, boycotted eggs, thinking about the poor little chicks. I wasn’t realizing the vast difference between unfertilized and fertilized eggs.
Would that our trolls here could make that connection!
Wonderful science has made “life saving” drugs, sure alot of people who take them DIE from complications of the drug, but hey! Some people were saved, so it’s gooood! Wonderful science has made genetically modified organisms to infect plants and make them immune to round up, less weeds-more food, sure those same GMO’s infect the DNA of people and cause them debilitating illnesses and even cancer, but hey! We’re making more food so it’s goooood! Never mind that it’s POISONOUS food! There’s more of it! Now, wonderful science has created chimeras to make “human”-like milk, sure it crosses all ethical lines and won’t solve the political problems that prevent the creation of infrastructures that will actually GET the milk to the starving babies, but hey! There’s more of it so it’s goooood!
It’s not that some of us don’t “understand” what is going on here. We really don’t need to “understand” exactly how human DNA is injected into a cloned cow embryo to create these chimeras. What we do need to understand is the ethical implications of screwing with humanity and the futility of throwing morality to the wind in order to make more food if it will never get to the starving people because of blind power-hungry oppressive regimes that target the weakest members of their society for eradication by starvation, or abortion.
I used to work at an all-you-can-eat buffet. At the end of the day we would fill 2 30gal trash cans with food that could have gone to the homeless starving on the streets. I asked if I could take some food to them. The answer, “That would be against health regulations. We’d get in trouble if someone found out. Sorry.” Regulations. Preventing the feeding of the starving. Not lack of food.
Now for a hundred points, what prevented the starving from being fed?
a. Lack of food
b. Lack of science
c. Regulations (government interference)
While I seldom doubt Gerard’s medical knowledge I do question his point of view in most things. Gerard looks at science and women through a Christian prism, meaning that even though he may have taken all the same classes as his colleges he views things from a Christian point of view or ethics. This type of thought restriction brings his conclusions into question. His very stance on abortion is evidence of this when the majority of his medical colleges would disagree with his anti-choice stance. Also after reading many posts of his on this blog I seriously have to question his opinion of women in general “I refer you to the homeliest hags comment”.
It is my feeling that anyone who views science through bias of religion is by definition not being objective and impartial. Without this impartial objectivity there is no room for discovery or free thought which is what leads to medical breakthroughs.
As far as I can tell he is more of a dissenting doubter than a free thinker and he is still using the same morals and ethics that have held humanity back from evolving to its full potential since before the Dark Ages.
I am not taking cheap shots at Gerard I am just stating my conclusions based on my observations of his comments. I do not believe that a non-Christian could look at the facts and come to the same conclusion as Gerard because his long held beliefs will not let him see past them.
I do not think religion has any place in science as it negates objectivity.
Obviously, Gerard can speak for himself. But this last post about Gerard and his supposed lack of objectivity is truly amazing. Only those who are ideologically pure, those who do not distort their opinions and observations through a religious prism, whose perceptions and assumptions are grounded in cold, hard facts can be seen as objective. In fact every one of the 4 or 5 billion people in the world (or more) that are religious are all suspect and utterly incapable of objectivity. There are only a handful of people who are the anointed ones worthy of rendering objective observations…and we are lucky enough to have one here.
Only those who are ideologically pure, those who do not distort their opinions and observations through a religious prism, whose perceptions and assumptions are grounded in cold, hard facts can be seen as objective.
Everyone’s got a worldview. Some just don’t realize it. To charge that the religious are biased without looking at your own biases is… well, stupid.
LittleZ,
No cheap shot here either, but you are an ignorant man. A very ignorant man.
Science has never been value-free. Value-free is itself a value. Atheism is itself a belief system. Science has never driven belief systems, or moral and ethical codes. It has always been guided in what it can and can’t do by a pre-existing anthropology and/or theology. We limit the manipulations of human beings based upon who and what we believe we are. For over 85% of humanity, that sense of standing in the natural order is informed by religious belief.
My science is not guided by religious dictates, but by reason and the scientific method. My colleagues (not colleges as you wrote) all accept that the human embryo is a new human organism, an animal separate in identity, and form from it’s parents. On this, the field of embryology is unified. Many of my colleagues simply believe that a woman has the right to kill that organism within her. Their belief is not a function of science or medicine, but rather flows from a radicalized autonomy (a belief system).
Your commentary about objectivity is clouded by your own sense of radicalized autonomy (a belief system). Science can never, EVER, give us a sense of worth, or dignity, or beauty. Science tells us that there are only 50 genes that separate us from the chimpanzee. In your worldview, there is little difference between humans and chimpanzees, because science sees little genetic difference, and a high degree of relatedness. But how one ascribes relative degrees of worth arise from an individual’s personal belief system. Such attribution of worth ranges from equal dignity being ascribed by PETA, to the researcher who sees the chimp as just another lower life form. Neither is Christian in its purview.
Your assessment of me drips with anti-christian bigotry, and is reflective of the atheistic secular bias that has taken hold of western civilization over the last century. If that’s your opinion, you are certainly entitled to it, but realize from whence it comes:
IGNORANCE AND BIGOTRY
Jerry,
Thank You!