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Hybrid Stem Cells - Radio Interview
11 February 2009
Stem cell research offers some wonderful potential breakthroughs in the healing of major diseases. Stem cells are primitive cells that can divide quickly to produce more specialised cells. They can be used to repair any area of cellular damage, even rebuilding entire organs.
Very few people, in the scientific, political or religious communities, will argue against the need to pursue this research at some level. Arguments do rage, however, as to where and how we should harvest these basic cells.
The major contention has been between those who argue for the use of stem cells taken from human embryos - which have been discarded during IVF processes - and those who want to see research restricted to the use of adult stem cells.
In a recent social comment editorial on this site, social commentator Mal Fletcher writes: in "Lately, scientists have found that adult stem cells offer better results - without the same ethical questions. Adult stem cells are found right through our bodies. If you suffered an organ failure - a heart attack, for example - stem cells could be taken from your own body can be removed, then re-injected where they are most needed. Your body would, in a sense, heal itself - with a little help from medical science."
"The argument has raged between these two camps for some time. Now, however, a third element has entered the debate - the use of hybrid technologies."
"It is a dangerous path we tread when we seek to interfere with the natural order at its most basic level. With hybrid technologies we are not simply using 'parts' from one life form to help another; we are essentially trying to create, in the test tube, the basic material for a new life form - and one which is part human."
In an interview on England's Cross Rhythms Radio this week, Mal further explored the issue of whether or not hybrid stem cell research crosses an important moral or ethical line.
You can hear this interview in full, or download it as an MP3 file. Click here.
for more from Cross Rhythms Radio, visit crossrhythms.co.uk.
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