Re: [DIYbio] Re: Biosecurity

On 6/14/19, David Murphy <murphy.david@gmail.com> wrote:

> There should absolutely be safety trials but they should be the same
> standards for novel "organic" varieties, random new mushrooms someone found
> in a forest somewhere and GM crops.
>
> You seem to want a special standard of 180 years for " bioengineered
> products" " highly processed " foods but my point is that your entire
> worldview is bollox. If they need 180 years then that random new version of
> banana's that some farmer found in his field with some unknown biochemical
> changes within it should be held to exactly the same standard.
>
> if the standard is insane for the latter then it's insane for the former.
>

You agree with my point that synthetic products need long term
testing. You have added to this thread that all new products should
be tested regardless of origin and that it is a mistake to
artificially trust new products created from environmental mutation.

I will again add that all products should be labeled for traceability.

Medical studies generally indicate that the raw quantity (sometimes
rate) of cancers etc over the past sixty years have significantly
increased. Whether this is due to improvements in detection,
increases in human longevity, or due to exposure to products of our
own design, is hotly debated. Such curves in the graphs go up steeply
to the right. Your point that "nothing has happened" after the market
begins using new products from environmental mutation is not proven.
New products are pushed into the market and begin consumer use at
faster timescales than at any point in human history. Consumers
accept the products of presumably natural origin without testing, that
is true, and questionable. That acceptance does not imply that lack
of testing is safe on those products, nor does it imply that lack of
testing of synthetic products should be artificially accepted either.
You insist "See, nothing has happened," which is questionable in
relation to the hypothetical rising rates of cancers and other
illnesses.

There are a variety of new activities which are pressed into the k-12
and hobbyist environments by organizations with huge marketing
budgets, none of those tested either. k-12 is now mandated to use
"core" teaching materials, all of which have not been tested or
vetted, and many dissenters claim the material is improper and in some
cases harmful to the psyche of children. More testing is called for
and all such calls are ignored.

The hypothetical academic paper from the original poster won't get
published in any respected science journal without data and he has
presented no data here. Although in science journals there are junk
papers published with questionable data, these papers themselves are
not the concern. The concern is when a miseducated celebrity takes up
the unproven position as a cause, and this cause mirrors deep seated
fears in the uneducated population, such as what happened in the
anti-vax movement. A social movement against DIYbio is unlikely
since rising up against it is not a theme which will stick in the
minds of the general population. Even if that occurs, there won't be
a successful movement against biotech incubators, since financial
forces will continue to steamroll any dissenters.


Since this thread's start, there has been a very strong attempt to
regulate and completely halt a specific type of biotech research,
specifically because that research is perceived to be incredibly
harmful to society, by a particularly vocal segment of the uneducated
U.S. population, related to their uneducated religious beliefs. This
sudden attempt at regulation is a better example of the end result of
the original poster's claim, that he deliberately sets out to "ban
biotech experiments in k-12". I wager that every scientist surveyed
at any biotech conference would be strongly in favor of this type of
research continuing, to improve medical science, and these scientists
would also state that the risks from such research are incredibly low,
especially in comparison to the potential benefits.

Scientific American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/faq-how-does-new-trump-fetal-policy-impact-medical-research/
By Michelle Andrews, Kaiser Health News on June 7, 2019

-- QUOTE --

The announcement this week that the federal government is changing its
policy on the use of human fetal tissue in medical research is
designed to please anti-abortion groups that have strongly supported
President Donald Trump.

But it could jeopardize promising medical research and set back
attempts to make inroads in devastating diseases such as HIV,
Parkinson's and diabetes, U.S. scientists said.
Under the new policy, employees at the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) will no longer conduct research with human fetal tissue obtained
from elective abortions, after using up any material they have on
hand. Officials also immediately stopped funding a multiyear contract
at the University of California-San Francisco using human fetal tissue
in mice to research HIV therapies.

Federally funded projects at other research institutions using fetal
tissue can continue until their grants expire. But renewal for these
projects and future proposals will have to go through a newly
established ethics review process to receive funding. It's not clear
yet what standards that process will entail or whether such
experiments will be able to proceed under government sponsorship.

The change was enthusiastically welcomed by abortion opponents, who
have long had fetal tissue research in their sights. Many scientists
had a very different view.
Here are a few answers to questions about the issue.

Q: What exactly does fetal tissue research refer to?
Fetal tissue is any tissue or organ obtained from a fetus that was
fertilized at least eight weeks earlier. (Anything younger than that
is called an embryo.)
The statement from the Department of Health and Human Services
referred repeatedly to "human fetal tissue from elective abortions."
Researchers generally use fetal tissue from elective abortions rather
than miscarriages because miscarriages often result from chromosomal
or other developmental abnormalities that could make the tissue
unsuitable for research.

Q: What is fetal tissue research used for?

These cells are less specialized than adult tissue cells and can be
grown readily, making them valuable in research. Fetal tissue has been
used in many types of medical research, including the development of
vaccines for polio, measles and other diseases, and therapies to treat
Parkinson's, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and to prevent the
transmission of HIV.
Some researchers graft fetal tissue onto mice, creating "humanized
mice" with human blood-forming and immune systems.
Fetal tissue helps researchers learn about birth defects and human
tissue development. In recent years, it has been instrumental in
understanding how the Zika virus crosses the placenta and affects the
development of the human brain, according to a letter to HHS Secretary
Alex Azar signed by 70 organizations in December in support of
continued fetal tissue research.

Q: Are there rules about using fetal tissue?
Strict federal rules govern the collection and use of human fetal
tissue. It's against the law for anyone to accept payment for human
fetal tissue, except for reasonable amounts associated with
acquisition, storage or other costs. There are also provisions that
require women who are donating fetal tissue for research to provide
informed consent and prohibit physicians from altering the timing or
method of an abortion in order to obtain fetal tissue.

Q: Has it always been as controversial as it is today?
Not really. The level of controversy around fetal tissue research
waxes and wanes. Human fetal tissue research has been done in the
United States since the 1930s, and NIH has been funding this type of
research since the 1950s. There was a ban on such funding, however,
during part of the terms of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W.
Bush. Federal money was restored with bipartisan support in a 1993
bill for the NIH. Among the backers of that effort were some strong
abortion opponents, such as Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), who argued
that the research could help people—like his daughter—with diabetes.
NIH spent $115 million on human fetal tissue research in 2018, a tiny
fraction of the nearly $14 billion it spent on clinical research
overall. NIH currently funds roughly 200 projects that use fetal
tissue, according to HHS.
Fetal tissue once again became a hot-button issue in 2015 with the
release of doctored videos, later discredited, purporting to show
Planned Parenthood officials discussing tissue donation policies and
reimbursement. Last fall, the Trump administration announced it was
conducting a review of all research involving fetal tissue to ensure
it was consistent with statutes and regulations governing it.

Q: Aren't there effective alternatives?
It depends on whom you ask. Opponents of fetal tissue research point
to a number of other possible options, including monkey or hamster
cells for vaccines as well as blood collected after birth from
umbilical cords that are rich in blood-forming stem cells. They also
suggest the use of adult stem cells and "organoids"—artificially grown
cells that somewhat mimic organs.
"Why do we keep focusing on these archaic models when newer, better
alternatives are out there?" asked Tara Sander Lee, a senior fellow
and director of life sciences at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, which
opposes research using fetal tissue from elective abortion.
She suggested that using tissue from a miscarriage could be an
acceptable alternative to using tissue from an aborted fetus because
it's from "a natural death, not an intentional killing of the child."
The letter from researchers to Azar in December called the idea that
other cells could replace fetal tissue "patently incorrect."
"The study of human fetal tissue provides researchers with
incomparable insights into how birth defects arise and how they can be
prevented as well as an unparalleled window into the complexity of
human tissue development," the letter said.
Sally Temple, scientific director of the Neural Stem Cell Institute
who is a past president of the International Society for Stem Cell
Research, said that while these other types of cells hold promise,
they aren't ready for prime time.
"There's a lot of excitement about using stem cells and talk about how
we can use three-dimensional organoids," said Temple. But organoids
don't have the same cellular arrangement or blood vessel network.
"Organoids can't mimic real tissue," she said.
"If we're going to understand how tissues are made in humans, you
really have to have access to human tissue," she added. "It makes you
so nervous that scientists aren't being heard."
This story was originally published by Kaiser Health News on June 7, 2019.


-- END QUOTE --





--
## Jonathan Cline
## jcline@ieee.org
## Mobile: +1-805-617-0223
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