Not “human” enough to be human but not “animal” enough to be animal – the case of the HFEA, cybrids and xenotransplantation in the UK

Haddow, Gill; Bruce, Ann; Calvert, Jane; Harmon, Shawn; Marsden, Wendy

doi:10.1080/14636770903561182

Cited by 18 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 18 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Our empirical work is restricted to the UK, and we recognise that the emergence of regulatory practice is culturally and nationally defined (cf. Zarzeczny et al 2009, Haddow et al 2010, Jasanoff 2005). Therefore, the extent to which our analysis is translatable to other countries is unclear.…”

Section: Discussion: Headlab the Uk Stem Cell Bank And Regulatory Rementioning

confidence: 95%

Closing the regulatory regress: GMP accreditation in stem cell laboratories

Stephens

Lewis

Atkinson

2012

Sociology Health & Illness

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Contemporary biomedical research is conducted amidst regimes of national and transnational regulation. Regulation, like rules generally, cannot specify all the practicalities of their application. Regulations for biomedical research impose considerable constraints on laboratories and others. In principle, there is a neverending regress whereby scientists have to provide increasingly more guarantees that protocols have been followed, standards reached and maintained, and rules adhered to. In practice, regulatory regress is not the actual outcome, as actors find ways of establishing closure for all practical purposes. Based on ethnographic case studies of two sites of biomedical work -the UK Stem Cell Bank and an anonymous laboratory working with primary human foetal material -this article documents the possibility of regulatory regress and strategies aimed at its closure.

show abstract

Section: Discussion: Headlab the Uk Stem Cell Bank And Regulatory Rementioning

confidence: 95%

Closing the regulatory regress: GMP accreditation in stem cell laboratories

Stephens

Lewis

Atkinson

2012

Sociology Health & Illness

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the United Kingdom, potentially disruptive developments were channeled into policy not necessarily more quickly but markedly more smoothly than in other Western nations. One by one, the HFEA approved an array of practices and entities: derivation of hESCs from surplus IVF embryos (Gottweis, Salter, and Waldby 2009), production of embryos for research through somatic cell nuclear transfer (Parry 2003;Testa 2011), genetic testing of in vitro embryos to ensure compatibility for treating a sick sibling (producing "savior siblings"; Franklin and Roberts 2006), "human admixed embryos" in which animal egg cells are used to reprogram human somatic cells (Haddow et al 2010), and "mitochondrial donation," or what some refer to as the "three-parent embryo," composed of the fertilized nucleus from an IVF embryo and the enucleated egg cell of another woman to prevent the transmission of diseased mitochondrial DNA from the original egg donor (Torjesen 2013). All of these innovations were subjected to extensive public consultation.…”

Section: Contestations and Reaffirmationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Borderlands of Life: IVF Embryos and the Law in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany

Jasanoff

Metzler

2018

Science, Technology, & Human Values

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Human embryos produced in labs since the 1970s have generated layers of uncertainty for law and policy: ontological, moral, and administrative. Ontologically, these lab-made entities fall into a gray zone between life and not-yet-life. Should in vitro embryos be treated as inanimate matter, like abandoned postsurgical tissue, or as private property? Morally, should they exist largely outside of state control in the zone of free reproductive choice or should they be regarded as autonomous human lives and thus entitled to constitutional protection like full-fledged citizens? Administratively, if they deserve protection, what institutional and policy mechanisms are best suited to carrying out the necessary oversight? Using a method termed comparative problematization, this article traces divergent answers to these questions produced in three countries—the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany—across the last twenty-five years. Comparison reveals distinct bioconstitutional foundations that give rise to systematically different understandings of each state’s responsibilities toward human life and hence its particular treatment of claims on behalf of embryonic lives.

show abstract

“…Newspapers picked up the story running headlines including “Frankenbunnies,” “Moo-tants,” and “Cowgirls” (Williams et al 2009), tapping into concerns around an instinctive “yuk factor,” the unnaturalness of crossing species boundaries and the challenge this research posed to the meaning of “humanness” (see Robert and Baylis 2003, Haddow et al 2010, Parry 2010). Legislation at that time – the Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) Act 1990 – forbade the creation of “true hybrids,” where human and non-human gametes are fertilized.…”

Section: Background: the Uk Interspecies Embryo Debatementioning

confidence: 99%

On being a (modern) scientist: risks of public engagement in the UK interspecies embryo debate

Porter

Williams

Wainwright

et al. 2012

New Genetics and Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In 2006, a small group of UK academic scientists made headlines when they proposed the creation of interspecies embryos – mixing human and animal genetic material. A public campaign was fought to mobilize support for the research. Drawing on interviews with the key scientists involved, this paper argues that engaging the public through communicating their ideas via the media can result in tensions between the necessity of, and inherent dangers in, scientists campaigning on controversial issues. Some scientists believed that communicating science had damaged their professional standing in the eyes of their peers, who, in turn, policed the boundaries around what they believed constituted a “good” scientist. Tensions between promoting “science” versus promotion of the “scientist;” engaging the public versus publishing peer-reviewed articles and winning grants; and building expectations versus overhyping the science reveal the difficult choices scientists in the modern world have to make over the potential gains and risks of communicating science. We conclude that although scientists' participation in public debates is often encouraged, the rewards of such engagement remain. Moreover, this participation can detrimentally affect scientists' careers.

show abstract

Not “human” enough to be human but not “animal” enough to be animal – the case of the HFEA, cybrids and xenotransplantation in the UK

Abstract: Innovations in scientific and medical technologies,

Cited by 18 publications

References 18 publications

Closing the regulatory regress: GMP accreditation in stem cell laboratories

Closing the regulatory regress: GMP accreditation in stem cell laboratories

Borderlands of Life: IVF Embryos and the Law in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany

On being a (modern) scientist: risks of public engagement in the UK interspecies embryo debate

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About