Chewed

The woman in the reflection knew life on a first name basis. They had dinner together, had slept together for fifty-odd years. But it was more than that. The affair had stood on the shoulders of her soul alone. She had borne more children to a father of emotion than she cared to remember, or even could remember. Ungrateful sons and daughters of introspection had taken her for everything she was worth. Her face was etched with the markings of every birth. With eyes closed, like every good mother, she bore the pain. Her short afro hair and Velcro shoelaces gave her counted control through avoidance. Five-hour-old gum kept her awake for now. Its flavor and color had long ago cooled but its purpose remained constant. I wondered what flavor and color she once was, if there was some of it still there hidden between wrinkles and teeth marks, if color could still exist in the dark. I wanted to tell her she was beautiful and then wondered when she had last heard those words spoken together and to her.

The train punctured the light of a platform and I was me again. Leaving the comfort of light, or entering the comfort of darkness (I forget which now), we ghosts picked up speed. We are beautiful, aren't we?

20/20 Hindsight

http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/enter-the-cybrids/index.html

Bad news, human race: your foresight is short-sighted. But the good news is that your hindsight remains 20/20!

I just want to say right off the bat that I am not against this type of research. I am a research scientist myself, and I believe the more we can learn about ourselves the better -- that is as long as it is for our betterment, a concept of which there are at least two parts, neither equally exclusive nor one more important than the other. On one side we have helping ourselves. This entails curing diseases, learning about ourselves and the world we live in, making a better quality of life, and the general righting of wrongs among other things. On the other side there exists a world containing oceans of complications deeper and darker than we could ever know. That is, until we procure the technology to reach such depths...

No, I am not against this research. The ability to culture cells that have the potential to save lives in this way is simply put, a way of finding a cure for a fallible biology which ails us. This is not bad or wrong albeit untraditional. We are used to 'curing' diseases and biological abnormalities through therapeutic medicine and the slaughter of seemingly parasitic diseases. But why not just replace damaged cells? Many of them cannot be recuperated. We have no need for dead or damaged cells which may aide in the creation or spread of disease, so why keep them? Why die when you can live?

I realize that that last question brings up controversy from pro-life advocates concerning stem cell research, which I'm not going to get into or try to convince you of one way or another. As far as I am aware, we are all pro-life and our differing opinions and perspectives are what makes us human.

The problem that I have with this article/opinion that I have made link to above is not an issue of protocol, research, or ethics. It just upsets me that in all of the efforts to convince people that this kind of unique and brilliant research has our best interests in mind and that in the end all will be OK, there is absolutely no attempt to convince us that there is true understanding of the risks and concern enough to act or speak accordingly. Some risks are mentioned, but they are "remote" and therefore discarded. However what I read is, 'Don't worry about it. You wouldn't understand anyway.' This is not always the case. Sometimes we do understand, and when we don't, sometimes we may even have the ability to. We are being told nothing that we do not already believe: this research has our best interest in mind and there will of course be risks. At a breaking point for even Ned Flanders he exclaims, "My family and I can't live in good intentions!" There is no substitute for good intentions, but there is for a bad outcome. Intentions must not just be good, but also calculated, well-rounded and contain a foresight as close to 20/20 as humanly possible. The latter of which is where I see us falling short of our abilities - abilities which are already designed to fall short of God's (or our respective imaginings of what is 'perfect'). So where does that leave us?

I do not necessarily consider myself to be very religious, but rather more spiritual in nature. However I mean it both literally and as a figure of speech when I say that I pray that I am not alone in my fear of our power. It is not a fear that causes me to run at the first sign of new technology or ability. It is an awed fear. It is one which I believe we should all have and acts as cement blocks on our feet. It is the fear we should exercise for ourselves in as much as we are to attribute our capabilities to that of a god-like status. I would also like to note the irony that goes along with the blind support of ourselves as gods (or creators of the unique and unforeseen, if you wish to tone it down a bit): I am assuming (and yes, I'm aware of what assuming does) that the majority of supporters of things such as stem cell research are atheists, agnostics, and apathetics. Many who fall into these categories might think that evolution is the be-all end-all, while others may see human creation as the deplorable mistake of a fallible being. Are we not fallible? We cannot know where our ability to create will take us.

As such an intelligent species we are capable of so much. The amount and extent of which we are capable of, both good and bad, is sometimes overwhelming to me. We are amazing in our own respect and for the most part have prospered as a result. With such abilities backing research so experimental in nature, it would be nice to know that as our knowledge, abilities, and as a result, our power increases, that our level of responsibility also increases to a degree that allows little to be left desired. I want to know that a scientist is not simply attaching his/her name to something because they intend it to work (of course they do), but that they are also willing to attach their name to whatever outcome. Such is the risk of experimental power. If a credible researcher is not comfortable putting their name on or cannot live with the possibility of being responsible for creating a new strain of disease now transferable from animal to human, one which is no longer dormant within humans or is unique to anything we have ever seen before, then I am not so sure it is worth doing. I want to know that a list with two columns titled 'Pros' and 'Cons' has been created. I want to really see that there is no way the pros will not outweigh the cons. I just want to know that these kinds of questions are being thought about asked face-to-face with our demons and not from behind a glittering shroud of good intentions.

Many accidental creations have drastically changed the world we live in. Things like saccharin (artificial sweetener), microwaves, the curation method for rubber (so it can be formed into different shapes such as car tires), pace makers, and penicillin (to name just a few) were all accidental. However, many changes have occurred or come about throughout our history and evolution that lend these things to questioning. For example the existence of certain diseases cannot be pinpointed to a certain event or human action and we are therefore left ultimately blameless (It is interesting to note that as we creep into the historical period on our time line that we seek out those at fault for such diseases (e.g., syphilis). To what goal I am unsure, but it can't be anything good.). Did other hominins or even prehistoric populations of humans experience asthma, COPD, depression or suicidality among many other diseases? Why do the rates of these diseases and many others that at one point did not exist increase? Are their cures or respective therapies without risk? No, of course not, but these risks are typically treatable in the event that they occur and it is generally accepted among the scientific and medical community that the benefits of treatment far outweigh the risks.

Other human creations were not as accidental, but their uses and outcomes can be viewed as such (e.g., the atom bomb). These creations are single events in history. They inhabit a place and time and they share their fame along with the example they set with the names of their creators - some of the most brilliant people in history. I do not believe that the chance of human endogenous retroviruses waking up upon "finding themselves in a new cellular surrounding" is a remote possibility, nor do I think we can play its possible occurrence off as something which can be easily "monitored." How could possibly know such a thing? We know where HIV/AIDS came from and we have no idea where cancer came from. Both of these diseases were 'accidental,' have a huge impact on how we perceive our quality of life, and neither is 100% curable in the traditional sense of the word. Are these researchers willing to put there name on a new disease that could have a similar or unforeseen impact?

On a more scientific note, the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of the nonhuman donor is not/cannot be fully removed. It is correct that cells containing mtDNA "play several crucial roles in the cell, and faulty mitochondria are linked to a large number of human diseases. Worse, mitochondria exist in many copies." mtDNA was an accidental (the type of accident beyond our control) contribution to humans from a bacterium and is now passed down maternally (through the mother) from generation to generation. The reason that mtDNA is linked to large numbers of human diseases is its ability to replicate and therefore have more of a chance than nuclear DNA to undergo mutations. These mutations can in fact lead to disease, but could also be the key catalyst of many of our important adaptations and evolutionary changes. "But more than that, the fact that it’s possible at all to put one creature’s DNA into another creature’s cell and have the two work together at all is amazing — and another sign of the common evolutionary heritage of ourselves and the other beings on the planet." We got the amazing part. Now all we have to do is remember that whatever we create will have the same evolutionary heritage as well, but possibly a new or different ability to adapt.