Good! For once a small smattering of sanity has managed to break through all the FUD and anti-terror this and creationist that...

Doubtless we'll have to wait a while for the next one to come along though :(

I want a people-cow

<IANAL>

The Saviour Siblings part of the legislation is tantamount to slavery, as the moment that the "Saviour" is born they are obligated in servitude to the sick child, their own human rights of choice in donation, forsaken for the sick sibling.

How would you feel if you had been born out of a need for your tissue, spare parts supply.

I understand the emotional need as a parent, but at societal level this is morally wrong, and possibly unlawful under the Human Rights Act.

</IANAL>

My MP will hear of my displeasure!

Um, I'm no geneticist, but isn't all this "hoo-ha" just about putting some human DNA into a non-human egg cell which has had the nucleus (i.e. its own DNA) removed? How can this *ever* create a "hybrid"? Surely it's just human DNA, isn't it??

Is anyone else a bit concerned by the fact that the media has largely spun this issue as a battle between religion and science?

Certainly religious groups have opposed this measure on moral grounds, but the scientific benefits and validity of this research has also been questioned from within the scientific community itself.

but it's far to rude....

a woman who looks hot but doesnt whine or moan?:P

No really? The media simplifying a complex issue down to the mentality of a lynch mob? Shirley not.

The many boffins involved are also highly moral too, but with the ability to get past the "yuck" factor.

Paris is already a (sub-)human hybrid.

Having just had a chat with a friend who is the mother of two baby girls, we decided that Squirrel Tails would be useful for dusting.

However we would like to see the research done to allow every new born to come with an extra arm for the mother. That way they would have enough arms to deal with folding the buggy, holding the child and getting on the bus and paying the driver without need to learn to juggle large objects.

Mines the coat with the extra arm.

"I want a people cow"

I married one.

When this new fangled science involving 'growth hormone' was developed back in the 60s it was to be a wonder cure, and apparently no thought was given to the risk of cross species disease spread. Then several decades later along comes CJD and slowly killed many people in horrible ways. What have we learned from this? Nothing - we've (well, ok, the arseholes in London) have just given the ok to dabble further in bio-medical areas that they think they are all-knowing in, but in reality are just playing around with. Pure stupidity.

And whats this about saviour siblings? That is just obscene. I thought we were a civilised society. My mistake.

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts1998/ukpga_19980042_en_3#sch1-pt1

"No one shall be held in slavery or servitude."

Enshrined from the European Convention of Human Rights:-

http://www.hri.org/docs/ECHR50.html Article 4.

Which comes from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 4

http://www.hri.org/docs/UDHR48.html

"Article 4

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms."

Farming people for body parts is not something a decent society should be allowing, for that is slavery. The Sibling angle, to a degree just personalises the issue.

Way to go Commons, lets just hope the Lords see sense.

I've never heard of any links between CJD and growth hormones. Could you elborate?

Dead vulture, because it doesn't react well to drugs in livestock, just like AC.

Just to clear things up a bit, regarding there being some leftover bits of DNA - there are no "ifs" about it, no "chances" of some DNA remaining. The mitochondrial DNA from the host (animal) egg cell will still be present. Human DNA + animal DNA is a pretty good example of "hybrid"

@AC

There's a difference between "saying" someone shouldn't breed and someone not being capable of breeding - the latter does occur in nature, the former only among humans.

www.godhatesfurries.com

should hang their heads in shame. this whole area could lead to treatments of serious diseases and they use a religious belief to try and stop that - disgraceful.

I think we are going to see a real spiderman soon :D

I want to be mixed with a pig cause they have half-an-hour orgasms..

In 1990 the public were told that allowing experimentation on IVF-generated embryos would lead to cures for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, etc. In 2001 we were told we had to legalise human cloning before these cures would be possible: now we're being told we can't do it without hybrids. The fact is that eighteen years of legalised human embryo research in the UK have not produced any significant medical advances. This legislation will not change that.

Hybrid embryos will contain DNA from animal mitochondria (and possibly from human mitochondria as well, depending on technique). Some mutations in human mitochondrial DNA can cause serious metabolic diseases. However, the sequence changes introduced by these mutations are much smaller than the differences between human and animal mitochondrial DNA. So the idea of deliberately trying to create embryos with mutated mitochondrial DNA is unhelpful and will lead to the study of artefacts.

Will nobody consider the catgirls?

and all I wanted was a real sheeple...

This seems to have been poorly reported. Best as I can make out they don't want to take organs from the sibling, but to use the blood and cells from the placenta and umbilical cord to help the elder child. This is otherwise waste tissue and not likely to be subject to the human rights act.

"I'm not sure if you intended to, but you do sound like a bit of a Nazi!"

No, I'm sure its the arm bands that make him look like a Nazi.

And the little 'tash.

And the side parting & quiff.

And the jack boots.

Invading Poland didn't help either.

Dan - BSE has nothing to do with organophosphates, they can cause brain damage and have in some humans, usually due to their use in sheep dip, but this is not transmitted and certainly not by eating

Dominic - he's refering to the use of growth hormone from infected animals, though there is little/no evidence suggesting that this led to the emergence of vCJD. However the use of human growth human taken from cadavers that had CJD has been shown to have caused CJD in people who used it. This happened at very low levels however and you were more likely to get HIV that CJD from human growth hormone.

AC who Dominic responded to - human growth hormone has been presented as a "wonder drug" though this was largely due to misinterpretation of one paper, as I've said the deaths its use cause were in no way cross-species and as there have only been 26 reported I'm not sure that qualifies as many. The deaths had nothing to do with the growth hormone itself just with not purifying it well enough. Would you stop the use of any drug that's ever killed anyone regardless of how many lives it might save? If so I can't imagine there's anything in your medicine cabinet.

The only reason this has been given the green-light is to make sure that the life-sciences industry in the UK is able to cash in. As always, the driver behind this political decision is purely economic - that's why it doesn't matter if this technique is useful or not, so long as some pharmaceutical company is willing to spend millions on it right here in he UK.

"The second vote will decide whether to cut the upper limit for abortions from 24 weeks. Recent medical advances have meant that very premature babies born before this point have survived."

From yesterday's Grauniad, quote by David Field, professor of neonatology at Leicester University, president of the British Association of Perinatal Medicine: "At 24 and 25 weeks there is no doubt that survival is improved. At 22 and 23 weeks we found no evidence whatsoever. Survival at 23 weeks in the first six years (of my report 1994 to 1999) was 18.48% of those who admitted to a neotnatal unit. In the second period (2000 to 2005) it is 18.52%, which is a .04% difference over 12 years. It was almost as identical as you can get it. There is no change."

Just because your Catholics and similarly religious types are saying survival rates pre-24 weeks have improved, doesn't mean they aren't lying through their teeth and assuming (correctly) that the vast majority of people won't actually check the truth of their statements.

HGH has nothing to do with nvCJD, the human form of BSE, which is what most people think of when mentioning CJD. CJD has been known about since the early 1970s, before the advent of HGH.

As for the "Recent medical advances have meant that very premature babies born before this point have survived", well, sorry, there hasn't been a significant change at 23 weeks or later in the last fifteen years or so: in a recent thorough study, survivability at 23 weeks between 1994 and 1999 was 18.46%; between 2000 and 2005 it was 18.52%. This is not what one might call a step-change, and certainly not enough to restrict the right to elect a termination further. Survivability has incresaed somewhat past 24 weeks. This a classic low-ball tactic to chip away at the availability of terminations, since there are also amendments to reduce the limit to 13, 16 and 18 weeks. Many people don't even realise they are pregnant at 13 weeks, especially if they have a history of dysmennorreah (sp?), or are under certain medications.

These amendments must fail.

If an embryo is selected to be genetically compatible with the older sibling, surely this also means that the younger sibling could benefit from the tissues/organs/stem cells of the older sibling if the younger became ill? It's a reciprocal benefit, not "slavery".