Family Forum / Parenting / Adoption / January 2005

One of the problems facing many adoptive parents, is the lack of infants for
adoption.

The solution to the problem is one of the most chilling scientific
experiments now going on - mice children - not baby mice, but human children
grown from mice. There will be no need for messy birth parents - adoptive
parents will just have to contact a local scientist who will dial in their
request and have a pair of mouse parents start their adoptive progeny.

Doug Thomas

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/01/0125_050125_chimeras.html

http://tinyurl.com/3kjah

The article concerning the use of animal -human hybrids is as follows:

Animal-Human Hybrids Spark Controversy

Maryann Mott
National Geographic News

January 25, 2005
Scientists have begun blurring the line between human and animal by
producing chimeras-a hybrid creature that's part human, part animal.

Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003
successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The embryos were reportedly
the first human-animal chimeras successfully created. They were allowed to
develop for several days in a laboratory dish before the scientists
destroyed the embryos to harvest their stem cells.

In Minnesota last year researchers at the Mayo Clinic created pigs with
human blood flowing through their bodies.

And at Stanford University in California an experiment might be done later
this year to create mice with human brains.

Scientists feel that, the more humanlike the animal, the better research
model it makes for testing drugs or possibly growing "spare parts," such as
livers, to transplant into humans.

Watching how human cells mature and interact in a living creature may also
lead to the discoveries of new medical treatments.

But creating human-animal chimeras-named after a monster in Greek mythology
that had a lion's head, goat's body, and serpent's tail-has raised troubling
questions: What new subhuman combination should be produced and for what
purpose? At what point would it be considered human? And what rights, if
any, should it have?

There are currently no U.S. federal laws that address these issues.

Ethical Guidelines

The National Academy of Sciences, which advises the U.S. government, has
been studying the issue. In March it plans to present voluntary ethical
guidelines for researchers.

A chimera is a mixture of two or more species in one body. Not all are
considered troubling, though.

For example, faulty human heart valves are routinely replaced with ones
taken from cows and pigs. The surgery-which makes the recipient a
human-animal chimera-is widely accepted. And for years scientists have added
human genes to bacteria and farm animals.

What's caused the uproar is the mixing of human stem cells with embryonic
animals to create new species.

Biotechnology activist Jeremy Rifkin is opposed to crossing species
boundaries, because he believes animals have the right to exist without
being tampered with or crossed with another species.

He concedes that these studies would lead to some medical breakthroughs.
Still, they should not be done.

"There are other ways to advance medicine and human health besides going out
into the strange, brave new world of chimeric animals," Rifkin said, adding
that sophisticated computer models can substitute for experimentation on
live animals.

"One doesn't have to be religious or into animal rights to think this
doesn't make sense," he continued. "It's the scientists who want to do this.
They've now gone over the edge into the pathological domain."

David Magnus, director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics at
Stanford University, believes the real worry is whether or not chimeras will
be put to uses that are problematic, risky, or dangerous.

Human Born to Mice Parents?

For example, an experiment that would raise concerns, he said, is
genetically engineering mice to produce human sperm and eggs, then doing in
vitro fertilization to produce a child whose parents are a pair of mice.

"Most people would find that problematic," Magnus said, "but those uses are
bizarre and not, to the best of my knowledge, anything that anybody is
remotely contemplating. Most uses of chimeras are actually much more
relevant to practical concerns."

Last year Canada passed the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, which bans
chimeras. Specifically, it prohibits transferring a nonhuman cell into a
human embryo and putting human cells into a nonhuman embryo.

Cynthia Cohen is a member of Canada's Stem Cell Oversight Committee, which
oversees research protocols to ensure they are in accordance with the new
guidelines.

She believes a ban should also be put into place in the U.S.

Creating chimeras, she said, by mixing human and animal gametes (sperms and
eggs) or transferring reproductive cells, diminishes human dignity.

"It would deny that there is something distinctive and valuable about human
beings that ought to be honored and protected," said Cohen, who is also the
senior research fellow at Georgetown University's Kennedy Institute of
Ethics in Washington, D.C.

But, she noted, the wording on such a ban needs to be developed carefully.
It shouldn't outlaw ethical and legitimate experiments-such as transferring
a limited number of adult human stem cells into animal embryos in order to
learn how they proliferate and grow during the prenatal period.

Irv Weissman, director of Stanford University's Institute of Cancer/Stem
Cell Biology and Medicine in California, is against a ban in the United
States.

"Anybody who puts their own moral guidance in the way of this biomedical
science, where they want to impose their will-not just be part of an
argument-if that leads to a ban or moratorium. . they are stopping research
that would save human lives," he said.

Mice With Human Brains

Weissman has already created mice with brains that are about one percent
human.

Later this year he may conduct another experiment where the mice have 100
percent human brains. This would be done, he said, by injecting human
neurons into the brains of embryonic mice.

Before being born, the mice would be killed and dissected to see if the
architecture of a human brain had formed. If it did, he'd look for traces of
human cognitive behavior.

Weissman said he's not a mad scientist trying to create a human in an animal
body. He hopes the experiment leads to a better understanding of how the
brain works, which would be useful in treating diseases like Alzheimer's or
Parkinson's disease.

The test has not yet begun. Weissman is waiting to read the National
Academy's report, due out in March.

William Cheshire, associate professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic's
Jacksonville, Florida, branch, feels that combining human and animal neurons
is problematic.

"This is unexplored biologic territory," he said. "Whatever moral threshold
of human neural development we might choose to set as the limit for such an
experiment, there would be a considerable risk of exceeding that limit
before it could be recognized."

Cheshire supports research that combines human and animal cells to study
cellular function. As an undergraduate he participated in research that
fused human and mouse cells.

But where he draws the ethical line is on research that would destroy a
human embryo to obtain cells, or research that would create an organism that
is partly human and partly animal.

"We must be cautious not to violate the integrity of humanity or of animal
life over which we have a stewardship responsibility," said Cheshire, a
member of Christian Medical and Dental Associations. "Research projects that
create human-animal chimeras risk disturbing fragile ecosystems, endanger
health, and affront species integrity."