JACKSON — “The research relied heavily on ‘genomic’ technologies, such as ‘transcriptomics,’ which measure gene activity by sequencing RNA molecules in different cell types. Researchers also employed ‘epigenomic’ techniques that look at how gene activity is influenced without altering the underlying genetic code.”
Understand that?
Me neither. And that’s a growing problem nearing crisis proportions.
Our inability, and for some unwillingness, to comprehend the ever-more-complex scientific techniques that produce new treatments, medicines and interventions makes us highly susceptible to quackery, where people pretend to knowledge they do not possess to influence others.
Such behavior has been rampant on social media, where false information regarding the COVID-19 vaccines has stirred protests and violence across the world. Regrettably, uninformed politicians often jump in and make the problem worse.
Take Mississippi Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Andy Gipson, for example. At a recent “medical freedom” rally, he said he believes COVID vaccines are made out of aborted baby tissue, as reported by WLBT.
Medical article after medical article affirm that COVID vaccines do not contain any aborted fetal cells. “Dishonest sensationalism” is what the University of Nebraska Medical Center called statements such as Gipson’s.
Lack of understanding of research processes has led to this.
Modern researchers use lab-grown fetal cell lines for research and testing, not cells from aborted fetuses. Both Pfizer and Moderna used lab-grown fetal cell lines to test whether the vaccines worked but included none in their vaccines. According to UCLAhealth.org, “Johnson and Johnson did use fetal cell lines — not fetal tissue — when developing and producing their vaccine.”
What is true is that the cell lines now grown in labs are clones of cells taken from abortive fetal tissue back in the 1970s and 1980s.
Despite his statement, Gipson said he encouraged his mother to get vaccinated. He also said he is not against vaccinations, but for freedom. Oh Andy, “the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).
The opening paragraph in this column comes from an article in Scientific American about breakthrough research to identify and map brain cells by type. “Measuring gene activity, and regulation, is important, because all cells contain the same DNA, but different cell types implement it differently,” the article stated. “There’s maybe a hundred different cell types in a small patch of your cortex, and we need to understand how each type deploys its genome differently,” said Fenna Krienen of Harvard Medical School.
It’s early yet, but such research can lead to techniques to manipulate brain cells. The goal will be to overcome brain disease and mental illness such as schizophrenia, but who knows what other applications might be possible.
Kinda scary if you don’t understand how it works, huh?
Given our growing proclivities not to trust anything, what to do, what to do?
The first thing should be to poo-poo politicians and media sources that promulgate bad and false science. Science has enough issues without that. Then, as RealClearPolicy.com suggests, scientists must require “standards of openness, transparency, and reproducibility for the work they publish” and avoid single source research funding.
We depend more and more on science. We must be able to trust it, too.
- Bill Crawford, of Jackson, is a Republican former state lawmaker.
