Dead could be brought 'back to life' in groundbreaking project

[Yuwipi Woman]

Presumably they will get lots of people to agree to "volunteer" to be subjects in the event of their deaths and the "lucky" first 20 viable (ie they died in such a way that would accommodate the experiment) candidates are the subjects.

That's a big presumption. There's been a lot of testing done on vulnerable classes of people without their permission. Or, with some vague permission that allowed some pretty some pretty broad interpretation by the testers.

 

[Graymalkin]

I'm usually gung-ho about stuff like this.

But...

I can't help but fret about whether these patients, should it be somewhat successful, be trapped in their comas, more or less brain dead but not quite as parts of their central nervous system comes back 'online' as it were, and they start to be conscious of pain, not to mention the potential for mental and emotional distress that they may or may not be able to understand.

Gawd, I mean the possibilities... this is clearly an area calling out for research, particularly now we're understanding more about stem cell stuff, but... I'm a bit shocked they've been given the go ahead tbh.

Interesting they say the patients will be 'recruited' - how on earth do you recruit someone who is brain dead

 

[twentythreedom]

Stewart Lee's career now that the Beeb isn't propping him up any more.

I don't get it

 

[weltweit]

What an awful thing for you and your family to have to go through.

It was quite difficult, she basically had some kind of heart attack but the ambulance people kept her going and then the intensive care people kept her going as well with their machines. She had spoken years before of a dread of being kept alive by machines so we were in two minds when they said her brain stem had died and that she would not survive without the machines. At the time I was keen for the doctors to try anything to save her, but it seemed that they had exhausted every avenue already.

 

[spanglechick]

From my reading of that article, none of the test subjects will be even remotely expected to regain "life" in the commonly understood sense. Which reassures me about family motives.

 

[mauvais]

Remember Asclepius, he of the staff twined with serpents:, the demi-god, son of Apollo. Taught the arts of medicine by the wise Chiron, he became so proficient that, eventually, he was able to raise people from the dead.

Hades felt cheated and complained to Zeus, who saw that the natural order of things was being imperilled and he killed Asclepius with a thunderbolt!

Were we to spend our lives wondering about casual parallels with Greek mythology, we'd never have developed many of our most important technologies.

Icarus = no aeroplanes
Pandora = no boxcutters
Narcissus = no Snapchat

Admittedly there'd never have been a 9/11, but OTOH, no Snapchat.

 

[Jon-of-arc]

That's a big presumption. There's been a lot of testing done on vulnerable classes of people without their permission. Or, with some vague permission that allowed some pretty some pretty broad interpretation by the testers.

People "donate" their body to medicine/medical research all the time. There's a big thread about it in general, encouraging everyone to do it. This is not that different.

 

[Sirena]

People "donate" their body to medicine/medical research all the time. There's a big thread about it in general, encouraging everyone to do it. This is not that different.

I asked my doctor once what was the process for donating the body to science and she said there was really no call.

Mind you, she might have been thinking I was having suicidal thoughts and decided to reassure me. But it was a genuine question.

 

[Jon-of-arc]

I asked my doctor once what was the process for donating the body to science and she said there was really no call.

Mind you, she might have been thinking I was having suicidal thoughts and decided to reassure me. But it was a genuine question.

Google is quite adamant that there's a process. Something about getting a waiver signed in front of family members. It doesn't seem as well known/used as the donor card process, but I don't see why thinking about either would make you "suicidal".

 

[Sirena]

Google is quite adamant that there's a process. Something about getting a waiver signed in front of family members. It doesn't seem as well known/used as the donor card process, but I don't see why thinking about either would make you "suicidal".

I think she thought I was too young to be having such moody thoughts....

 

[weltweit]

I think these things should be investigated, progress calls.

And I noticed this on twitter today, not closely related, but if they knew how this happened and could do it at will .. could be good: