Re: <nettime> stem cells

[ben moretti <bmoretti {AT} chariot.net.au>]

On Friday, May 10, 2002, at 07:42  AM, Bill Spornitz wrote:

>   -> that this research will continue is a given <-

indeed. within the life sciences molecular geneticists are not so much 
the high priests, rather more the corporate  executives who stand to 
make their universities fat royalty cheques from pharmaceutical 
licencing from discoveries.

let us cut through the pr surrounding molecular genetics - the three 
main reasons for this research to continue are, in descending order of 
importance:

a. keeping scientists employed
b. researching cool stuff, aka 'pure' science
c. creating revenue streams for universities based on patents

all of this propaganda about molecular genetics being able to cure so 
many rare genetic diseases is a fetishistic stalking horse that makes 
the fat rich white west drool at the prospect of immortality - because, 
it will be the west that reaps the benefit from this technology, not 
'the rest'. within the west it will be - surprise - the wealthy who will 
be able to afford such treatments as therapeutic cloning and gene 
therapy.  the west's have-nots and non-west countries have hardly 
benefited equally as the wests rich in the current pharmacological 
revolution, such as the case of hiv drugs in south africa, so why should 
this be any different.

this future is very familiar to us, think the film gattaca or brave new 
world. but what about the things that might happen in the next five to 
ten years?  - here are a few scenarios.

imagine that the medical-insurance complex determines that it will cost 
$200k per annum to treat a person with an inherited genetic disease such 
as cystic fybrosis by conventional means, but only $20k once off to 
treat the person by therapeutic cloning, based on a recent discovery. to 
make cost savings they pressure the government into legislating a set of 
fines to encourage people with cf into therapeutic cloning. and why not? 
cf is a debilitating disease that reduces peoples lifespan, so this must 
make perfect sense. the public arguments are made in the media, and 
governments keen to reduce public spending on health push though the 
legislation. now what about other such expensive genetically based 
diseases, such as certain depressions, cancers, and schizophrenia. 
surely rational people must agree the people suffering this would prefer 
not to have it? and such easy treatment too. of course the rest of this 
is predictable enough - deafness, homosexuality, nonconformity, dark 
hair.

in order to perform therapeutic cloning, a human egg is needed, so that 
the somatic nucleus aka genome of the patient can be implanted into it. 
this has the effect of fooling the egg into creating a blastocyst with 
identical genome of the patient, not the egg's donor. stem cells can be 
harvested from the blastocyst after further development, and these used 
to develop other cells or in the future tissues and whole organs such as 
livers. so the plan is doubtless to be able to grow replacement organs 
and tissues for people on a bespoke basis after they have had an 
accident or organs damaged by disease.

all very good, but where do the donor eggs come from? at the moment 
women willing to take part are treated with fertility drugs to make 
their body release more than the one per month naturally released, and 
these ova (eggs) are harvested for use in the laboratory. imagine that 
the techniques of therapeutic cloning are sufficiently developed in 
three to five years that growing replacement livers is possible, and 
that this becomes  very popular with cirrhosis ridden corporate 
executives, say that there is a demand for 5000 livers per year. lets 
assume that 30 ova are needed, with attrition and cell death, to produce 
one healthy liver, meaning a total of 150,000 ova per year. if a woman's 
system can be stimulated with fertility drugs to release five extra ova 
each per month, this means there would need to be 30,000 donations per 
year. say that a woman could donate twice per year for health reasons, 
so that means 15,000 women per year at a minimum would need to donate 
ova.

how much would women be paid per donation?  i am sure western women 
would be unwilling to supply the vast volumes of eggs and would be too 
expensive, so what about women from other countries, surely they could 
do with earning extra hard foreign currency? their genome is by and 
large irrelevant anyway. so multinational pharmaceutical companies, that 
have by now developed a huge therapeutic cloning sector, set up ovum 
harvesting facilities in india, china and wherever else there are lots 
of disenfranchised women. a little bit like nike and its shoe factories 
in the phillipines. do westerners prefer their organs grown from an 
indian ovum or an italian one? so by now the west has fucked over the 
poor of the world by exploiting them down to their dna, and even that is 
not wanted, just the empty ovum.

molecular geneticist/executive boosters are saying that this generation 
can look forward to living to 150 quite easily - if you are rich male 
and white of course. and who are the richest, whitest and most male? 
politicians and executives, of course. so i imagine that as this 
genetically purified class will reign for double the time they do now, 
especially with their new livers. so john howard could look forward to a 
50 year prime-ministership from 58 to 108. the poor, homeless and 
aborigines of course cannot afford the treatment, so they have the usual 
lifespan - between 10 and 20 years less than the australian average as 
it is anyway.

ben

--
ben moretti
mailto:bmoretti {AT} chariot.net.au
http://www.chariot.net.au/~bmoretti

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