Human-rabbit hybrids plannedBritish scientists are seeking permission to press ahead with controversial plans to create hybrid human and rabbit embryos.
Three teams in London, Newcastle and Edinburgh are due to make applications this month for permission to carry out the work as part of their stem cell research programmes.
They are seeking licences from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority allowing them to create embryos that are 99.9 per cent human and 0.1 per cent rabbit.
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Has FOX News Channel Lost Its Mind? Guest Proposes Sterilizing "Bad" Parents!In its quest to pander to the lowest of the low, this morning FOX & Friends First took its viewers back to the 1920s as it gave national air time to a South Carolina politician who has proposed that "bad" parents with a history of raising "bad" kids should be subjected to mandatory sterilization for "the benefit of society". I kid you not! Larry Shirley, a City Councilman in Charleston, SC, got three minutes of valuable national airtime this morning to propose an idea that he himself admitted ha... (more)
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Official calls for 'poor crackhead parents' to be sterilized: "We pick up stray animals and spay them. These mothers need to be spayed if they can't take care of theirs."Charleston City Councilman Larry Shirley says the robbery of a downtown video store - allegedly by a band of kids, including one too young to be charged - is a sure sign society has gone awry, and it's time to start a "dialogue."
And one of the things he says needs to be talked about is whether bad parents should be sterilized.
"What we've got is a failure in society, whether it's in Mount Pleasant with yuppie parents or whether it's on the East Side with poor crack... (more)
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400,000 children are given 'good behaviour' drug Zac Goldsmith, one of David Cameron's key policy advisers, yesterday backed the Hold on to Childhood coverage in The Daily Telegraph and said he was worried at the ease with which doctors prescribed pills to tackle children's emotional upsets.
The multi-millionaire environmental campaigner said that a proper investigation would "almost certainly" reveal a link between pollutants in children's food and the surge in childhood depress... (more)
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The costly appliance of scienceThe advance of knowledge is often a mixed blessing. Over the past 60 years, nuclear physics has been one obvious example of this truth. Over the next 60 years, genetics may be another.
Today, enterprising firms offer, for a fee, to tell you about your genes. They claim that this knowledge will help you live longer and better. You might, for example, have extra checkups to detect early signs of the diseases that you are most at risk of contracting, or you could alter your diet to r... (more)
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Ritalin Prescription Fears Raised: "I think in 10 years time ... we will ask ourselves what we were thinking giving these children amphetamines."Children with the behavioural condition ADHD are continuing to be prescribed drugs such as Ritalin, despite an ongoing investigation.
BBC Scotland has learned a review of the medical guidelines used by doctors to diagnose and treat ADHD will not be available until March 2008.
Parents groups and education experts have claimed children could be prescribed the medication needlessly.
They have called for the review to be urgently accelerated.
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Experimental drug given to British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan· Troops could launch lawsuits, warns expert
· Veterans' groups criticise 'guinea pig' decision
Soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq are being treated with an experimental blood-clotting drug that has not been fully tested.
Because randomised controlled trials have not yet been carried out into the drug's effectiveness, it is impossible to know whether it is doing more harm than good to patients.
Veterans' support groups have critici... (more)
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'Bioethicist': OK to kill babies after they're bornAn internationally known Princeton "bioethicist" and animal-rights activist says he'd kill disabled babies if it were in the "best interests" of the family, because he sees no distinction in the child's life whether it is born or not, and the world already allows abortion.
The comments come from Peter Singer, a controversial bioethics professor, who responded to a series of questions in the UK Independent this week.
Earlier, WND reported that Singer believ... (more)
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Designer Babies: What Would You Do For A 'Healthy' Baby?The well-educated are significantly more open to the idea of "designing" babies than the poorly educated, according to a new study by psychologists at the University of East Anglia.
The findings will be presented by Dr. Simon Hampton at the BA Festival of Science on Setpember 5.
Dr. Hampton and his team at UEA's School of Social Work and Psychosocial Studies examined what different groups of people in the UK would "design into" their children given the opportunity.<... (more)
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'Mengele Lives!' if FDA rule approvedMedical experiments could be carried out in the United States on uninformed patients under a rule change proposed by the Food & Drug Administration, and a California pro-family group is raising the red flag.
"Informed consent is a touchstone in regards to human freedom in medical issues," Richard D. Ackerman, of the Pro-Family Law Center, told WorldNetDaily yesterday. "It's been held in common law for hundreds of years.
"The minute you allow a doctor to cross that... (more)
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Sterile victims stand up, decry legacy of eugenicsRALEIGH, N.C. -- It is hard for Elaine Riddick to talk about how the state of North Carolina sterilized her without her knowledge at the age of 14, changing her life forever. But she manages to wipe away the tears and garner the strength to tell her story to anyone who will listen.
After Riddick became pregnant from a rape, doctors on the Eugenics Board of North Carolina decided in 1968 that she was too "feeble-minded" to ever be a good mother and wanted to ensure that she never w... (more)
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New government rule may allow medical experiments on humans without their consentIn 1996, a regulation (21CFR50.24) was approved that contained a loophole allowing experimental testing of a blood substitute product -- HemAssist -- on emergency trauma patients without their knowledge or consent, but the experiment was terminated when more HemAssist patients died than patients under standard care.
Ten years later, after the development of HemAssist has been abandoned, a similar experiment using blood substitute Polyheme was being conducted in 27 cities across th... (more)
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Government to Review Rules Allowing Human Testing Without ConsentThe federal government said it will now reconsider a controversial loophole that allows human medical experiments without the subjects' consent.
The decision comes in the wake of a highly-criticized experiment involving a blood substitute product, Polyheme, which was given to trauma patients in 27 U.S. cities without their knowledge. Our 20/20 report on the Polyheme trials detailed how the FDA had come under fire for allowing the experiment to proceed despite heavy criticism fro... (more)
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Seeking straight A's, parents push for pills: Pediatricians report increasing requests for 'academic doping'A 15-year-old girl and her parents recently came in for a chat with Dr. James Perrin, a Boston pediatrician, because they were concerned about the girl's grades. Previously an A student, she was slipping to B's, and the family was convinced attention deficit hyperactivity disorder was at fault — and that a prescription for Ritalin would boost her brainpower.
After examining the girl, Perrin determined she didn't have ADHD. The parents, who had come in demanding a prescriptio... (more)
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"Permanently Cheerful" Mice Offer Hope For Clinical DepressionWashington, DC (AHN) - Researchers at the University of Nice, in France say they have made a depression-resistant strain of mice by breeding them without the TREK-1 gene. TREK-1 is a gene commonly known to affect the transmission of seritonin, which plays an important part in sleep, mood and sexuality.
The so-called "permanently cheerful" mice are offering hope for a new treatment against clinical depression. This research is significant since it is the first time depression has b... (more)
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Live foreverA Harley St plastic surgeon plans to sell an anti-ageing drug. But do you want to live forever, or perhaps to the ripe old age of 1,000? There was a time when beating biology to become immortal was the stuff of dreams.
Dr Jeya Prakash claims he has reversed the ageing process by injecting himself and his wife with a human growth hormone which has improved their memories and removed wrinkles. He now plans to open a clinic offering the anti-ageing treatment.
For stayi... (more)
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Blair to tackle problem kids "pre-birth"Tony Blair has unveiled a provocative campaign to crack down on future problem children before they are even born.
He set out plans for massively increased state intervention in the homes of 'nuisance' families to tackle anti-social behaviour.
In a desperate attempt to show that his premiership has not run out of steam despite increasing demands from Labour MPs for him to step down, he said 'pre-birth' action would be taken if necessary.
The pl... (more)
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We can clamp down on antisocial children before birth, says Blair · Intervention 'could prevent later problems'
· Package of proposals courts controversy
Tony Blair has said it is possible to identify problem children who could grow up to be a potential "menace to society" even before they are born.
Setting out plans for state intervention to prevent babies born into high-risk families becoming problem teenagers of the future, the prime minister said teenage mothers could be forced to accept state help before... (more)
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Scientists Erase Memories in Rat BrainsScientists have for the first time erased long-term memories in rats and also directly seen how the brain is changed by learning.
The research points to potential human benefits.
These findings could prove key "to understanding how memories can be augmented, for example in diseases that affect memory, like Alzheimer's," said neuroscientist Mark Bear at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT.
The research could also help treat pain that d... (more)
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"The urge to splurge on calories as the evening waxes on can indicate a troubling condition known as Night Eating Syndrome, or NES" -- The Treatment? "Zoloft."It's late and you're exhausted, but you still can't sleep. The refrigerator, that carbohydrate-carrying menace to society, is wafting its siren song of leftover barbecue ribs, Hawaiian rolls and mashed potatoes.
Midnight munchies, snack attacks -- everyone's had them at some point. But for some individuals, the urge to splurge on calories as the evening waxes on can indicate a troubling condition known as Night Eating Syndrome, or NES.
Michael Carroll, 53, owns a su... (more) Related: Big Pharma is developing drugs for the most distressing disease of all: Life |
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Garden State Bioethics: Human cloning creeps toward the N.J. governor’s mansion.Earlier this week, the deputy majority leader of the New Jersey general assembly, Neil Cohen, issued a "Dear Colleague" letter imploring support for a bill currently scheduled for a vote this coming Monday. Cohen wrote: "[T]he stem cell treatment will be needed in time of war, and civil disaster. Experts advise me that in the military context, stem cell treatment will be the method of healing severe wounds in the battlefield. In the context of civil tragedies, stem cell treatment must be availab... (more)
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Footballers use babies for 'repair kits'PREMIERSHIP footballers are storing stem cells from their newborn babies as a potential future treatment for their own career-threatening sports injuries.
They are freezing the cells taken from the umbilical cord blood of their babies as a possible future cure for cartilage and ligament problems. Stem cells can be used to regenerate damaged organs and tissue because they are the earliest form of cells.
One Premier League footballer, playing in the northwest of Engla... (more)
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Futurists foresee human enhancementBy making some hesitant moves with a cursor on a computer screen, Matthew Nagle gave hope to others who, like himself, have lost the use of their limbs.
But by creating movement using only his thoughts, Nagle also inspired researchers, writers and futurists. They project a future where the disabled have their faculties restored and healthy bodies are augmented for heightened performance.
"It's always difficult to predict the future," said science writer Michael Chor... (more)
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The modern make-overScientists and philosophers gathered in Helsinki last week for TransVision, a conference about 'enhancing' humans. Kerri Smith talks to Nick Bostrom, director of the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford, UK, about what's on the table.
What kinds of human enhancement are we capable of now?
There's the obvious example of performance-enhancing drugs for sport, such as anabolic steroids and erythropoietin. We have alertness and wakefuln... (more)
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Fetuses harvested for cosmetic procedures: Repulsive new world of humansacrificeLawyers love to talk about the slippery slope, how you bend the rules a little or do something a little wrong and it leads inevitably to worse. But sometimes the slope turns into a precipice and you find yourself looking into the abyss. Use of fetal tissue for cosmetic purposes - especially fetal tissue conceived only for that purpose - is such precipitous plunge.
The scientific and medical community knew it would happen eventually but didn't know how soon. False hope for stem cel... (more)
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Church Outrage Over Reports that Children Have Been Given Contraceptive ImplantsBy The Universe's Scotland Correspondent Mairi MacDonald: The Catholic Church in Scotland has responded to newspaper reports that girls as young as 13 have been given controversial contraceptive implants that can make them infertile for up to three years.
Figures obtained by Scotland on Sunday revealed that at least 100 under 16-year-olds had been fitted with the matchstick sized hormone implants at NHS family planning clinics in the past year.
Doctors admit the lon... (more)
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TeenScreen - Normal Kids Labeled Mentally IllDespite years of public outcry, based on recommendations by President Bush's New Freedom Commission to screen all school children for mental illness, TeenScreen is now being administered in the nation's public school system and children are being regularly diagnosed with one, or more, disorders chosen from the close to 400 listed in the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV" (DSM), also known as the psychiatric "Billing Bible."
The list of mental disorders to c... (more)
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