😠 😡
Trump quietly shuts down HIV cure research to appease the religious right
"This effectively stops all of our research to discover a cure for HIV," one researcher says
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2018/12/trump-quietly-shuts-hiv-cure-research-appease-religious-right
@tyghebright W.T.A.F?
I just can't some days anymore.
@tyghebright eh... this has less to do with HIV than it does ethics regarding use of fetal tissue. The writers are portraying this as an assault on HIV research or the LGBTQ community when that is a byproduct of a decision based solely on using human tissue transferred in to mice. This probably wouldn’t have flown under Obama either tbh.
Yes, use of fetal tissue has been controversial for a long time and it's a major impediment to many areas of research.
Just recently, the first paralyzed person treated with stem cells regained some use of their arms and hands -- and that's something Christopher Reeve fought for, but stem cell research was impeded
@tyghebright right, and the desire to slow that research because of growing ethical concerns (outside of the religious right) has reached a fever pitch. The last two or three years a lot of scientists have started asking to slow certain research topics down until we have a firmer understanding of the bioethics regarding things like chimeras and genome editing. The CRISPR twins in China are the perfect example. We are inventing things faster than we are considering the ramifications right now.
@tyghebright stem cells have also been impeded, but only in certain categories. Stem cells not derived from embryos, for example, don’t face many of the restrictions embryo-derived cells do. This has forced biology to discover a lot of new things-including how to “de-differentiate” cells back to a stem cell-type. While much less effective, it has forced us to invent things we didnt originally think possible. So it all boils down to sourcing. TLDR; Use existing alternatives, or face a huge fight.
@tyghebright I have no words. 😟
@tyghebright
"Earlier this year, [DHHS] announced a new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division that would handle complaints from health care providers who did not want to take part in an abortion or treat transgender people."
WTAF? OK, I kind of understand objecting to actually participating in an abortion, if you think that's murder, but *treating* a transgender person?
Which religion *is* it, exactly, that says "Thou shalt withhold aid and comfort from anyone who makes you feel icky"?
It happened all the time; now the gov't is legitimizing it.
It could be as obvious as paramedics stopping treatment in an ambulance when they realized the genitals weren't what they expected from the patient's appearance. Or more subtle, doctors saying they don't treat trans people because they don't have the training -- sometimes when the issue being treated has NOTHING to do with being trans... and sometimes when they really SHOULD know (as in, they're an endocrinologist).
I'm not doubting that it happens.
I'm wondering how anyone who's both taken the Hippocratic Oath *and* purporting to be a member of any mainstream religion can possibly justify it to themselves *on the basis of that religion*.
But basically I know it's a rhetorical question. Some people are just plain fucked up.
I just wish they weren't.
Yeah, agreed.
@tyghebright
Again ..... Grrrrrr....
Angry ..... Stupid....