Baumblog EST 1968 - A blog for the Baumbachs who originated in Syracuse, NY

Seems there is some legislation pending in Lousiana that bans the human-animal hybrids (whatever that means, since humans ARE animals). Apparently, Archbishop Alfred Hughes read The Island of Dr. Moreau and it freaked him out--I mean, God spoke to him--and this legislation is the result.

Yes, I'm being snarky--but this bill is the real deal, and the sheep are being told that, while nothing of this sort is going on today, they want to head off future mistakes with genetics.

Oh boy. Class, anyone want to tell me where insulin comes from, for those people who suffer from diabetes? What's that? Cattle? Well, it used to. In the 1980s, a way was found to make human insulin, and make it far more efficiently than cattle or pig insulin. Know how? Hint: they don't use human pancreases. Instead, they use recombinant DNA to create human insulin by injecting human DNA into baker's yeast--egads! An animal!

Stem cell research? Yup, stem cells are often grown on mouse feeder cells. Uhoh, again, human-animal hybrid.

So, what do you think? Think the authors of this bill are just stupid? Or ignorant? Or do they have some alterior motive in mind, never mind the collateral damage? I'm not entirely sure, myself.

Marc said about 1 hour later

Ignorance is usually the case with stupidity. People in power are often confused with being intelligent. Hopefully there's some intelligent people in there to stop such a generic bill. Do you have a link to the pending legislation? I'd be interested in seeing how it's all worded.

Oh, and if you have the cliff notes, that would be better, because I hate reading really long things. :)
GJ said about 3 hours later

Crap, I mean to add a link to the story I came across.

The story. No wording there, and I may be jumping the gun since I haven't reviewed the actual bill. Good catch, Marc.

Now, it's possible it has wording similar to this defeated bill from the US Congress. If so, it's specific to embryos and theoretically cannot be applied to the insulin item above, but it could quite possibly be brought to bear on the stem cell angle, which really doesn't surprise me much at all.

I'll see if I can find the LA bill later when I have some time.
GJ said 1 day later

Gee, nobody called my on calling a bacteria an "animal." Technically, they aren't one, they have their own classification, but suffice to say, they're definitely "non-human." Or, are they? Scientists are beginning to look at humans as really a symbiotic kind of animal, as cells of bacteria outnumber what we consider to be "human" cells in any one human by a 10 to 1 ratio. Still, they take up little space, since bacteria cells are far smaller than typical animal cells (that'd be our human cells). They're beginning to look at treating a lot of disease in terms of both animal cell and bacterial cell response--since either one going out of whack spells doom for Mr. Human.

See the fun topics you dig up when getting all hot and bothered? :)