Island of Doctor Moraeu? Furry Fetish Fantasy? Or just saving some damn lives?

Following up from my Technorati "Jobs in Science" RSS Feed, I managed to get my "biomedical science" feed working, and to my surprise it to was littered with the one single repeated link.

In particular this quote:

"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," - Irv Weissman, director of Stanford University's Institute of Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine in California

Now like most people I'm not happy with a total lack of ethics, but people were all up in arms about the idea of pigs with human blood, mice with human neurons etc.

This is stupid.

Because this is the same conservative right that is against

• Stem cell research of aborted foetuses
• Mandatory organ donation by the dead
• Almost any human experimental research
• Xeno-transplantation
  

How the fuck do these people expect us scientists to heal people? We can't use human parts from humans to fix humans, we can't use animal parts from animals to fix humans, and now we can't use human parts from animals to fix people?

Medical technologists of all sorts are in part bound by some ode to the Hippocratic oath. Healing people and improving the average status of helath and wellbeing of man (and woman) is what we do. And in part I do agree with Dr Weissman, morals about human/animal boundaries really doesn't stand in the way of that.

We wouldn't be in this stupid position of stealing monkey hearts, mouse sperm and pigs blood if you selfish people out there would go to the blood bank and donate blood once in a while, be charitable with that spare kidney you carry around, fill out a freakin donor card, look after your own bodies by not smoking, drinking and eating crap so you don't end up needing a new heart/kidney/lung. But face it noone reading this is really going to go out and do that, especially when I admit the only thing I've got is the "donate organs" box checked on my driver's liscence (what can I say I hate needles). But that's my point that's not going to change, so we have to think - how are we going to heal people? How are we going to learn how to heal people?

If you can't put the idea of getting the cure for your patient above other things, you aren't for the allied health industry.

Moral Dilemna: If you could save 100 by killing yourself - WWJD? (what about 1,000 or 1,000,000, what about 1?)

PS - ZEN OF ZIM