Dubya, Hybrids, Xenotransplants, Oh My!

Last week's State of the Union address continues to chafe. Wolfman discussions and t-shirts are fun, but let's get blinded with some science!

Bless his iggnerunt li'l heart, based on his wailing and gnashing of teeth about "human-animal hybrids," Dubya-Boy don't seem to know that human genes have been imported into bacteria, pigs and other domestic livestock for lo, these many years done gone in hopes of producing better insulin compounds, and better tissue grafts for the folks who use heart valves from swine (xenotransplants, which may eventually go a lot further than heart parts).

If Dubya decides that the pharmaceutical industry's "big vats of bacteria [which] now make tons of human insulin" are full of eeny-teeny human-animal hybrids which must therefore be outlawed, we're back to using bovine & porcine insulin, both of which create rejection issues (and both of which create religious issues for very large segments of the world population). Yes, we can twiddle bovine & porcine DNA (porcine being easier than bovine), but then we're back in recombinant DNA territory, which is where Dubya's giddy fit seems to have begun.

But wait, there's more! Way down at the bottom of this 2004 WIRED article, they note:

...previous studies [used xenotransplants of] pig fetal neurons to try to treat the brains of Parkinson's disease and stroke victims...(Unfortunately the studies also didn't help the patients' symptoms.)

So it's not just diabetics and people with heart issues. Parkinson's is the start of the Congressional wedge. The grumpy old men who make up the majority of Congress (and the newly 89% male Supreme Court) become marvelously pliable about xeno-, fetal, and embryonic research when it comes to diseases they think they may get soon, such as Alzheimer's. Even Utah's senior creep, Orrin Hatch, plays along then. And let's not forget how swiftly they forced insurance companies to start paying for Viagra. Hit 'em where they live, and they'll make Dubya dance to their tune, and not the siren call of the Luddite Right.