A new biomedical abbreviation debuted July 22, ACHM (for Animals Containing Human Material) in a report of the same name from the UK Academy of Medical Sciences. ACHM will soon replace, I hope, the phrase “humans and animals,” which implies to the taxonomically inclined that we are instead fungus, plant, or microbe. Even the editorial in Nature on the report notes “the distinction between humans and animals.”

Perhaps because I write college biology textbooks that treat Homo sapiens as any other animal species, I’ve long thought a new term necessary. “Non-human animal” is cumbersome. And so I was thrilled at the UK’s acknowledgement of our Kingdom membership, joining us to the others distinguished by our lack of cell walls. But I fear ACHM isn’t catchy enough, and may head straight into the abbreviation graveyard of RFLPs, SNPs, and iPS cells, none of which really caught on beyond the scientific community. Neither will ACHM work as an acronym; it sounds like a clearing of the throat.

Semantics aside, the report is important. It prepares the biomedical community for future use of animals in research that will increasingly include human material. Said Professor Martin Bobrow, chair of the working group, “Our report recommends … a national expert body, within the existing stringent system of animal research regulations, to provide specific advice on sensitive types of ACHM research.”

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers graduate online masters in bioethics programs. For more information on the AMBI master of bioethics online program, please visit the AMBI site.

Opponents of reproductive cloning fear that the resulting children will not be able to live fully independent lives. Opponents fear that these children’s choices will be constrained in numerous ways and assert that an open future — which is a right of every child — will never be possible for a child who is a clone. Reproductive cloning naysayers believe that the human rights of these children will be violated and therefore the process should be banned.

Various premises provide the background to these beliefs. Various mental constructs may significantly constrain the child's choices and development in ways that mitigate the possibility of an open future. In this regard, being a clone violates the child's rights as a human being.

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers graduate online masters in bioethics programs. For more information on the AMBI master of bioethics online program, please visit the AMBI site.

Like Alvy Singer, Woody Allen’s character in Annie Hall, I’m obsessed with books about the end of humanity, which sometimes involves the end of the world, and sometimes just that of Homo sapiens. Midsummer is a good time to contemplate how bioethics would come into play in such unlikely scenarios, which raise issues of utilitarianism, justice, paternalism, death and dying, and misuse of technology. 

I prefer the human-wrought disasters to the more celestial imagined ends, such as the film “Asteroid”, which was so bad that my husband dubbed it “Hemorrhoid”. My favorite, after many years of wallowing in these depressing depictions, is "Swan Song," by Robert McCammon, in which survivors of a nuclear holocaust stagger about, drinking wolf’s blood to avert starvation. I can still picture, practically smell, when 6-year-old Swan picks the first apple to grow after a nuclear winter. Another favorite is “The Road,” in which Cormac McCarthy recounts the journey of a father and son as they traverse post-apocalyptic terrain, searching for others. What led to the destruction of society? How does it rebuild? Is a messiah, like Swan, essential?

I also savor novels that alter the human life cycle, tweaking age cohorts. “The Children of Men,” an excellent book by P.D. James and a terrible film, envisions a world with no more children. Time ticks down to the inevitable end of our species, with the drama centering around a pregnant woman. That’s a scenario that would welcome reproductive cloning!

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers graduate online masters in bioethics programs. For more information on the AMBI master of bioethics online program, please visit the AMBI site.

The various flavors of stem cell research continue to be in the news and continue to be featured in peer-reviewed literature and leading scientific publications. Recent reports describe the immunogenic rejection of transplanted induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) even when they have been immunologically matched with the intended recipient

Research involving iPSCs has made remarkably rapid advances since their introduction in 2006. But research using embryonic stem cells (ESCs) remains of critical importantance. Reprogramming adult cells using a cocktail of transcription factors restores a primitive pluripotent state. However, reprogrammed cells are significantly different from the pluripotent cells of the embryo’s inner cell mass. Many of these differences have yet to be determined. It would be a grave mistake at present to believe that reprogrammed cells can substitute for pluripotent cells derived from embryos. Both lines of work need to go forward.

Human cloning has long been demonized in popular culture. In cinema and literature, with few exceptions, clones are represented as mindless drones who serve their masters without question for good or evil. Cloning could also cause a great deal of damage for living, breathing human beings. From an individual perspective and from the broader perspective of society, the availability of cloning could lead to violations of the bioethical principle of nonmaleficence.

Cloning would make it possible for interested parties to have children for purely self-centered reasons. Also, cloning has substantial potential for harming society via alterations to the human genome and human physiology.

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers graduate online masters in bioethics programs. For more information on the AMBI master of bioethics online program, please visit the AMBI site.

Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley in 1818, is as compelling and thought-provoking in 2011 as when the novel appeared almost 200 years ago. Shelley subtitled her opus The Modern Prometheus. Dr. Victor Frankenstein, although certainly no god, was a brilliant scientist who paid bitterly for the fruits of his genius. His loved ones were tragically murdered by his inhuman creation and he was doomed to suffer relentlessly for his deeds, as was Prometheus.

One possible conclusion from Shelley’s cautionary tale is that science should never proceed unchecked. Science always needs to be constrained by moral principles and its activities need to be referenced against potential harms. Frankenstein’s hubris blinded him to the likely untoward outcomes of his research. He was only focused on the task he had set himself. He gave no thought to what such a creature would think or how it would act. He certainly never considered potential consequences to others that would flow from the existence of such a creation.

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers graduate online masters in bioethics programs. For more information on the AMBI master of bioethics online program, please visit the AMBI site.

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Philip Ball is the author of the new book, Unnatural: The Heretical Idea of Making People. Unnatural is published by The Bodley Head, a division of Random House. Philip Ball is a freelance writer. He previously worked for over 20 years as an editor for the international science journal Nature. His book Critical Mass won the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books. Philip’s other books include Bright Earth: The Invention of Colour and The Music Instinct.

In our 5-3-2011 BIOETHICS TODAY conversation, Philip Ball discusses

• The relevance of the idea of artificlal procreation for society today
• In vitro fertilization, embryonic stem cell research, cloning
• The intrusions of myth and legend in policy discussions involving research in the fields of reproductive medicine and regenerative medicine
• Our fears and assumptions about making people using artificial means – "anthropoiesis"
• How the term "unnatural" may be a moral judgment, involving both metaphysics and a "perpetually uneasy relationship with techne"
• Should limits be imposed on technology?
• Considerations of human uniqueness and the context for the emergence of new technologies

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers graduate online masters in bioethics programs.  For more information on the AMBI master of bioethics online program, please visit the AMBI site.

In a discourse between bioethicists Arthur Caplan and Robert P. George, they expound upon the false duality of “normativity” versus “scientism”. This exchange is quoted in Public Discourse under the title “Stem Cells: The Scientists Knew They Were Lying?” by Sherif Girgis, which can be found at this link and further discussed in Bioedge found here.

Wikipedia states “scientism is the idea that natural science is the most authoritative worldview or aspect of human education, and that it is superior to all other interpretations of life.”  The distinct impression one obtains from this discourse is that “scientism”, generally used as a pejorative term, is a widespread belief among scientists. In fact, scientism is a term used primarily by philosophers of science to criticize scientists.

Caplan, a generally liberal bioethicist from the University of Pennsylvania, and George, a conservative bioethicist from Princeton University rarely agree. But they seem to find common ground in agreeing that scientists, relying on scientism, are limited in making ethical determinations. They therefore need normativity imposed on them presumably by bioethicists (I admit I draw some of these conclusions which are implied rather than stated explicitly). They single out equally renowned bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel, who Caplan identifies as an “an exemplar of scientism”.