My Monday 9am lecture: a video of foetal dissection.

To know about foetal stem cell “treatments” for Parkinson’s patients in one thing; to have a glowingly positive video about it foisted upon one at 9am on a Monday by a previously respected Neuroscience lecturer is quite another.

The video: BBC Horizon Awakening the Frozen Addicts (1993).  It concerns a group of relatively young heroin addicts who contracted sudden over-night Parkinson’s after taking what they thought was their drug.

Dr. C asks if after a weekend where the clocks went forward if watching a video during which we don’t have to take notes would be more pleasant that taking notes from a PowerPoint presentation; he is greeted with resounding affirmation.

The video begins in 1990, with a patient being wheeled into surgery; the narrator informs us he is having the brain cells of an aborted foetus transplanted into his brain.

I look around, wondering at the perfectly calm, at least outwardly, reactions of my classmates.

We were then treated to 50 mins of the belittlement of the Pro-Life movement, the erroneous claim that foetal stem-cell research is a completely separate issue to the Abortion debate.  It’s very obviously condoning Abortion, i.e. murder. Later, the dissection of an 6-8 week old foetus.

To make matters worse for me at this moment, my grandmother died of Parkinson’s 5 years ago & my aunt currently suffers from the disease.

I repeatedly counted down the minutes & soothingly repeated in my mind the arguments against such treatments, including the fact that embryonic stem-cells are causing tumours to develop in lab mice.

The treatment worked in these patients, at least up to 1993.

My lecturer was good enough to explain that “unfortunately” this treatment hasn’t been as successful since as they’d hoped as older patients who usually develop Parkinson’s tend to reject the foetal cells.

I went into the ladies’ and cried. I’m still shaking.