Admit it, you just wanted to write this so I'd have to go look up the word "ameliorate", didn't you?

[looks guilty]

I was wondering why that was BAD news... :-)

I didn't read that the same way you did Dean. It seemed that what they were saying is that part of the normal oxygen metabolism creates the cellular trash. By slowing it down, as they suggest later in the article, they might also reduce the trash.

I wonder if it's the whole hydrogen bonding theory. More time for bonding to the trash cells, properties of water et al...I need to think on this one. More info I think...

Anyone?

The article didn't mention destruction of embryos...so why am I supposed to be upset?

Was it somehow implied and I just didn't catch it cause I'm not a scientist?

huh??

Were you alluding to Puritanism?

Eh, I think I'm gonna stay outa this one... ;-)

Yes. Interesting. Maybe Michael Moore and the other gross slobs of Fat City will suddenly skinny out, meantime eating double cheeseburgers for lunch (with biggie side of fries and a large coke, plus numerous kreme puffs for tweenmeal snacks).

But some time in the uncertain future, presumably.

Meantime, back here on planet Reality2004, all the 25-30 year old 300-350 lb porky pigs have to waddle along the street with aluminum walkers, and pay for multiple seats (one for each half of their asses) on commercial passenger flights.

Oh, the unfairness of it all, the way the world treats the overgrown.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Just why should social conservatives be upset? Gene therapy hardly seems an issue so long as life is not destroyed or damaged in the process. I realize the rest is ironic, but it's kind of shallow. There is a lot of speculation that never works out. False hopes are as destructive as any limits.

The time to do this right is not trivial. No one now suffering from Parkinson's or Alzheimer's is going to be helped by the stem cell or other reseach now happening, even if everything goes better than expected. For those of us that may get those diseases in the future, let the reseach go on. Please don't rush it or cut corners. Do it right. Take the time.

For anyone who promotes "acceptable risk", I can only offer one word. Thalidomide. I saw it. It's not acceptable.

"For anyone who promotes "acceptable risk", I can only offer one word. Thalidomide. I saw it. It's not acceptable."

That depends on what the payoff is. A stay of execution for everyone on Earth is one hell of a payoff.

Not that pregnant women are going to rush out and take version 1.0 of medicines just for the hell of it. Our fearless leaders aren't the only ones capable of learning from experience, much as regulators tend to assume otherwise.

"Just why should social conservatives be upset?"

Beats me. But these social conservatives will probably find a reason.

Thalidomide has been one of the great wonder drugs of the last 20 years, most notably for eliminating symptoms of leprosy.

Well, I'm a social conservative and I have no problem with this. As long as human life isn't being destroyed, I don't see any reason to object.

It's mostly a joke, but we've had some discussions in recent months over whether extending human lifespan would be good or bad (I assert "good," unequivocally) and whether or not treatments for obesity other than "suffer and starve you lazy disgusting pig" would be a good thing.

I may have been too subtle. ;-)

To me, thalidomide is a good example of why our much-maligned FDA is actually a good thing. Proof of "safety and effectiveness" prevented an epidemic of flippered children on these shores.

As triticale pointed out, however, one person's poison is another's miracle drug. Interestingly, it is also a good treatment for AIDS-related retinopathy.

Primum non nocere- First, do no harm. Which is why the randomized double-blinded (preferably crossover) trial is king in my book, and I don't believe in generalizing findings of a specific study to a population as a whole.

See now that's an interesting thing, because I view the Thalidomide incident as being illustrative of the problems with the FDA's approach to things as much as proof of its usefulness.

The problem with the "ban it until sufficient domestic testing has been done" is that it forbids people who might well be willing to take risks on untested drugs from having that option. This rankles my sensibilities. The problem is also practical, however, since it can be shown that by slowing up some drugs from being brought to market, some people die waiting and unnecessarily so. The thalidomide baby is visible, but the dead cancer patient who might have been saved is not so visible, just another backgrond statistic.

I also point to the example of laetril. Some like to point to the fact that laetril is bogus and doesn't do anything as proof that the FDA's a good thing, but I content just the opposite: it's proof that the FDA can be harmful. If the FDA merely stamped the drug "worthless, doesn't do anything" and let people have it if they wanted it anyway, you could probably buy it for a penny a pill and no one would pay it any more attention that the shark cartilage and other cheap herbal remedies. By banning it, the FDA has created an entire black market industry in laetril treatments for cancer sufferers, and people literally spend tens of thousands of dollars flying to Mexico and Carribbean nations to get laetril treatments, which now have the aura of being mystical and "forbidden" rather than as simple junk.

I would be much more comfortable with a system whereby the FDA marked drugs as "experimental" vs. "non-experimental" and give individuals more leeway to make their own health choices.

I'm not all that big a fan of the FDA as a result of things like this. Indeed, though I don't go that far, some call it the Federal Death Administration because, by at least some calculations, they have slowed the pace of medical research so severely that tens of thousands of people die annually for no good reason except their need to add red tape.

Sorry if I took you wrong Dean. Social conservatives are all over the place on the issues here. I have nothing against extending life or limiting pain. I'm 57 and I'd love to live longer and feel better. All I want to suggest is that careful change is better.