Prayer Alert: First "Hybrid" Embryos Created in UK
"Scientists at Newcastle University have created part-human, part-animal hybrid embryos for the first time in the UK…" –BBC News
EDITOR'S NOTE: This article almost sounds like the premise to a bad horror flick, but it's reality, and it warrants prayer for such unethical and dangerous experimentation to be abandoned. One certainly has to wonder why research hasn't shifted to what has been successful in revealing new treatments for diseases; namely adult stem cells. As a scientist in another story—recently posted on BCN—wondered, "A vast amount of money in the UK from the government has gone into embryonic stem-cell research with not one patient having being treated, to the detriment of (research into) adult stem cells, which has been severely underfunded." Let's pray that there will be a shift to back research that has been proven both successful and ethical. –Aimee Herd, BCN.
(United Kingdom)—A month before MPs in the UK are scheduled to debate the future of "hybrid" embryonic research, scientists have managed to put together a part-human, part-animal embryo. (Photo: BBC News)
Professors from Newcastle, where the research was conducted, insist the work is necessary to produce treatments for diseases, and that the hybrid "embryos would never be implanted into anyone."
But, the Catholic Church is leading a stern warning that the experimentation is "monstrous," and of "Frankenstein proportion."
Cardinal Keith O'Brien, archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, noted, "It is difficult to imagine a single piece of legislation which more comprehensively attacks the sanctity and dignity of human life than this particular bill."
Dr. David King, of Human Genetics Alert agreed, saying, "The public has been grossly misled by the hype that this is vital medical research. Even if stem cells were ever to be produced, like cloned animals, they would have so many errors of their metabolism that they would produce completely misleading data."
