This is exactly what I was thinking - just in the past few years, there have been several instances of apparent negligence by the FDA in pursuit of a new market for a big pharma product (just say "Vioxx"). Unless there is some other body that the writer had in mind, I cannot see how our current system is set up to do anything other than allow for the maximum profits at the minimum ("don't get caught or we'll lose our shorts") cost. Has anyone read a pharma insert lately? Or the two pages of fine print alongside the ads for the latest designer pharmaceuticals? All that fine print serves to cover the backsides of the pharmaceutical companies, "nothing more, nothing less".

I do think the original article made some valid points, not all of them about how "scary" the science is. Most of all, I came away from reading it a little wiser, and just a little bit uneasy, about the breaking down of boundaries that have been thought inviolable for millenia. I don't think jumping to the defense of science is necessary or productive in this case; it's a distraction from the main issue: when is a human not quite human? When is a mouse not a mouse anymore, but a hybrid human/mouse? (Think of the fascinating photo that circulated a few years back, of the mouse with a human ear growing out of it. Okay, don't think about it. Yuck!)

momofone