Sir Richard Branson is an excellent example of the pitfalls of branding, and how reputational risk is not as disastrous as some consultants would make out in search of their paycheque. Public relations is important, and Branson is a past master at exploiting the attraction of novelty. One of his most risky and perhaps adroit moves is the extension of the Virgin to new potentailly radical technologies that will have a visible impact. Trains are not included within this structure, though it is interesting how the poor performance of Virgin trains has not yet impacted on the wider reputation of the name.
Now Branson wishes to capitalise on the potential of stem cells and is providing a vital service, by storing the umbilical stem cells of newborn babies. This is a nascent and growing industry:
Public cord storage is becoming more common, particularly in the U.S., but there is also a growing private industry taking advantage of the promise of these cures. However, the industry is extremely controversial because the chances of developing a disease that stem cells can cure, such as leukemia, is small while the new cures may never materialize. Some anti-abortion groups believe that any use of stem cells will lead to human cloning.
Private storage of stem cells is unlawful in France and Italy and is opposed by the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies, which is a European Commission body.
This has not stopped more than 11,000 families in the UK using stem-cell storage facilities. The services typically cost about £1,500 for collection of the blood and about £100 a year for cold storage. A number of celebrity parents are reported to have used these services including Thierry Henry, the Arsenal footballer, and Darcey Bussell, the dancer.
Trust the European Commission to recommend banning something which has the potential to do some good and possibly liberate individuals from a date with disease.
If getting involved in State controlled Trains was an error of judgement on his part this latest venture into the dark and sinister world of eugenics suggests he has truly gone off the rails.
You know, one of the problems with the birth certificate as an identity document is that there is no provable link between the document and the person. Anyone can get hold of someone else’s birth certificate. But if, along with the record of births, there was some central repositary of unchangeable biometric information on every person born, then you could prove who you were by requesting a sample of your birth blood to be compared against your own DNA. So long as the custodians of the database can’t be bribed into switching samples, of course. Maybe you ought to also give your DNA to several rival companies to reduce the risk?
Biotech is potentially as dramatic a leap into the unknown as the industrial revolution. And while that had its opponents then, who were taken so seriously that they indeed faced the death penalty if they acted on their beliefs, even they could not imagine the eventual consequences of the new technology. And was Jerusalem builded here among those dark satanic mills?
Welcome Ned Ludd, your case is good,
Make perceval your aim;
For by this bill, ’tis understood
It’s death to break a frame –
With dexterous skill, the hosiers kill
For they are quite as bad;
And die you must, by the late bill –
Go on my Bonny lad.
You might as well be hung to death
As breaking a machine
So now my lad, your sword unsheath
And make it sharp and keen.
We are now ready your cause to join
Whenever you may call;
So make foul blood run clear and fine
Of tyrants great and small!
Yes, the New Jerusalem was builded here amongst those dark satanic mills. The industrial revolution was a good thing. No ifs, buts or maybes. Without it most of the Samizdata commentariat would be illiterate dung-munchers.
I came within an ace of doing Biology at university because I wanted to part of the IR3 and I thought biotech was the way forward.
Well, it’s slightly more complicated than that. IR1 wasn’t just steam engines and IR2 wasn’t just electricity. IR3 isn’t just biotech, it’s also computers, telecoms, materials and just around the corner all sorts of cool stuff like nanotech.
I exalt every technological advance*. The idea of human cloning is currently seen as some ultimate abomination yet it isn’t even a particularly interesting application of the technology. How long can a rational world remain in awe of what pretty much amounts to being two identical twins with an age gap? Big sodding deal. Having said that I just love it when tech winds up greens/ “pro-life”ers/ ALFers /religious nutcases /luddites.
Alas, the anti-science, anti-progress bandwagon seems to be gaining momentum. Weirdos of every shade seem to be gaining strength. Their basic line would appear to be “We’re happy with what we’ve got”. Well, I’m not and I won’t be until cancer can be cured and I can get to Sydney in 45 minutes and “long-haul” means the Centauri colonies. Even then I’ll want more. C’mon Homo sapiens get with it! Plus ultra.
Of course things will go horribly pear-shaped at times but life is a punt against incredible odds. We simply wouldn’t be human if we didn’t try and the greenie “precautionary principle” is utter hogwash.
If we don’t even try to be more then we will regress and it’ll be dung for lunch (again).
We’ve got complacent (and fat) and too many of us only appreciate how much more we have left to figure out when we’re put in extreme situations. Show me someone who is a long-term carer for a relative with Alzheimers who is against stem-cell research and… Well, maybe not, human perversity knows no bounds.
There is a big myth of the C20th that needs slaying. It is that scientific advances are always double-edged swords and that the doors to heaven and hell are adjacent and identical. Well, that’s bollocks. As a state-educated prole I had that shite pedalled to me by an assortment of GROLIES who always insisted that there be a debate which had to come to a socialistic consensus. Yeah, right. Whatever. Moral relativism and complacency follow from this discourse.
Our complacency can be seen in the total failure of the War on Terror (or whatever W currently brands it as). I recently had a bit of a discussion with Mid about generation 4-5 fighter planes. We got ’em and yet we can’t beat a bunch of ragged-assed renegades with a C7th mindset who think the AK-47 is the zenith of weapons design. Oy Vey Gewalt! Or, as I’m a Geordie, not a Jew, for fuck’s sake!
If we weren’t so sodding weak in the head, if we weren’t prepared to Nike it we wouldn’t even have got into this fight with the disciples of Mohammed. Much ink has been spilled over why Islamism has become resurgent recently and it’s all been about the state of affairs that exists in the ME. Maybe there is a grain of truth in the leftist idea that it is our fault. Not because we’ve been beastly towards them but because we have shown weakness and they’re exploiting it. We’re vacillating so they scented an opportunity.
Sorry for this diatribe. I’ve said about a tenth of what I feel and I’ve said it about a quarter as well as I wished.
*Apart from the Toyota Prius. The current UK TV campaign for it is not just gut-wrenching it’s rectal-prolapse inducing.
That’s funny, because I literally can’t think of any ethical objections at all to storing your kid’s umbilical cells, provided it’s clear that the storing agency is just a service provider, you’re just holding the cells in trust, and control over the cells goes to the child upon reaching majority.
OTOH, I can see major ethical objections to giving the government control over their cells.
Explanation is, in effect, that they regard it as a con trick, like freezing someone’s head after death in the hopes of future revival. Charging lots for something with no current medical value and very dubious prospects they regard as tantamount to theft. However, their opposition only goes so far as asking that customers be informed of this – as a whole they do not support it being banned, on the grounds of freedom of enterprise and freedom of choice.
As it happens, I can think of all sorts of ethical questions, but that applies to pretty much any technology. If you want progress, you take your chances.
Amen, Brother!
Nick M’s comments are excellent. I strongly recommend “Liberation Biology” by Ronald Bailey – who is a nice guy as well – for a systematic shellacking of modern luddism and a robust defence of the sort of biological advances mentioned.
There has got to be some way of naming this venture “Virgin Birth”…