Tag: human experimentation

Elon Musk’s Neuralink Gets FDA Approval to Study Brain Implants in Humans

Elon Musks’s neurotechnology company Neuralink announced on Thursday it has obtained approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to carry out a clinical study of brain implants in humans.

It marks the first in-human clinical study for the company.

“This is the result of incredible work by the Neuralink team in close collaboration with the FDA and represents an important first step that will one day allow our technology to help many people,” the company said in a statement.

“Recruitment is not yet open for our clinical trial. We’ll announce more information on this soon!” it added, without providing further details about the trial.

Musk, in response, wrote on Twitter: “Congratulations Neuralink team!”

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Human-induced stem cells from Seattle now in space

Scientists are taking a deeper dive into the impacts of micro-gravity on the human body. Seattle’s Allen Institute is playing a key role in this experiment.

This particular mission,” Allen Institute for Cell Science scientist Brock Roberts said, “will provide yet another test for the fundamental capability of these stem cells.”

On Monday morning, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the Dragon Spacecraft with four Axiom-2 crewmembers inside, docked at the International Space Station (ISS). Also on that flight are human-induced pluripotent stem cells produced by scientists at the Allen Institute. This is the first time cells from the Allen Institute have traveled to space.

The Axiom-2 crew members will spend eight days at the ISS. The four astronauts will conduct scientific experiments, which include observing the effects of micro-gravity on cell growth and development.

The stem cells are capable of many amazing things they can differentiate into many different tissues,” Roberts said. “They can proliferate indefinitely without changing their fundamental character, but we don’t know a lot about their ability to exist and preform all of those fascinating phenomenon in space, we we will find out about that.”

The stem-cell study is part of a series of NASA-funded experiments led by researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

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Babies who have DNA from 3 different people born in the U.K.

Britain’s fertility regulator on Wednesday confirmed the births of the U.K.’s first babies created using an experimental technique combining DNA from three people, an effort to prevent the children from inheriting rare genetic diseases.

The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority said fewer than five babies have been born this way in the U.K. but did not provide further details to protect the families’ identities. The news was first reported by the Guardian newspaper.

In 2015, the U.K. became the first country to adopt legislation regulating methods to help prevent women with faulty mitochondria — the energy source in a cell — from passing defects on to their babies. The world’s first baby born using the technique was reported in the U.S. in 2016.

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U.S. argues for immunity in MK-ULTRA mind control case before Quebec Court of Appeal

A proposed class-action lawsuit over infamous brainwashing experiments at a Montreal psychiatric hospital was before Quebec’s highest court Thursday, as victims attempted to remove immunity granted to the United States government.

The U.S. government successfully argued in Quebec Superior Court last August that the country couldn’t be sued for the project known as MK-ULTRA, allegedly funded by the Canadian government and the CIA.

U.S. lawyers argued that foreign states had absolute immunity from lawsuits in Canada between the 1940s and 1960s, when the program took place.

But survivors (and their families) of the experiments at Montreal’s Allan Memorial Institute — which included experimental drugs, rounds of electroshocks and sleep deprivation — appealed that decision.

On Thursday, a lawyer representing the United States government told the Quebec Court of Appeal that the country should be immune from prosecution and that any lawsuit against the U.S. government should be filed in that country.

The court case stems from a class-action lawsuit filed against McGill University — which was affiliated to the psychiatric hospital — Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital and the Canadian and U.S. governments after Montrealers allegedly had their memories erased and were reduced to childlike states.

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Scientist who edited babies’ genes says he acted ‘too quickly’

The scientist at the heart of the scandal involving the world’s first gene-edited babies has said he moved “too quickly” by pressing ahead with the procedure.

He Jiankui sent shock waves across the world of science when he announced in 2018 that he had edited the genes of twin girls, Lulu and Nana, before birth. He was subsequently sacked by his university in Shenzhen, received a three-year prison sentence, and was broadly condemned for having gone ahead with the risky, ethically contentious and medically unjustified procedure with inadequate consent from the families involved.

Speaking to the Guardian in one of his first interviews since his public re-emergence last year, He said: “I’ve been thinking about what I’ve done in the past for a long time. To summarise it up in one sentence: I did it too quickly.”

However, he stopped short of expressing regret or apologising, saying “I need more time to think about that” and “that’s a complicated question”.

He declined to elaborate on what he believed ought to have been in place before proceeding with gene editing, but said he would give further details at an invited talk he is scheduled to give at the University of Oxford next month.

He studied physics in China before moving to the US to study for a PhD at Rice University and a post-doctorate in genome sequencing at Stanford University. He returned to China in 2012 to pursue Crispr-Cas9 gene-editing research, launching a variety of biotechnology business ventures.

Gene-edited cells were already beginning to be used in clinical treatments for adults. But genetically modifying embryos was – and is – far more ethically contentious, because changes are made to every cell in the body and are passed down to subsequent generations. Some question whether such a step could ever be medically justified.

Against this backdrop, He dropped the bombshell at an international conference in Hong Kong four years ago that he had modified two embryos before they were placed in their mother’s womb. It later emerged that a third gene-edited baby had been born.

The edit, of a gene called CCR5, targeted a pathway used by the HIV virus to enter cells, and was claimed to give the babies immunity to HIV.

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Flying saucers to mind control: 24 declassified military & CIA secrets

Government and military secrets can range from terrifying to amusing to downright absurd, but most are nothing short of intriguing. From a secret U.S. Air Force project to build a supersonic flying saucer to a now-famous World War II-era research program that produced the first atomic bombs to a plan to train domesticated cats to spy on the Soviet Union, here are 24 declassified military and CIA secrets.

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FDA Will No Longer Require Animal Tests Before Human Trials for All Drugs

Animal testing will no longer be a mandated part of the Food and Drug Administration’s approval process for all new drugs. Since 1938, pharmaceutical makers seeking FDA approval have had to successfully put their medications through multiple animals trials before proceeding to human tests.

Now, though, drug companies will have the option of either animal or non-animal tests—in a shift that animal rights groups and some pharma companies have long advocated for. Meanwhile, researchers’ reactions are mixed: Some say the move is unlikely to trigger immediate change, others are excited by the possibilities, while others still have safety concerns.

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Pfizer has a shockingly long history of engaging in illegal activities and human experimentation

Big Pharma company Pfizer has repeatedly engaged in inhumane and illegal activities in its history, including acts of fraud, corruption and even human experimentation disguised as vaccine trials.

An investigative journalist writing about censored subjects under the pseudonym “Kanekoa the Great” noted on his Substack blog that one of the greatest cultural transformations to occur in the past nearly three years is the complete rehabilitation of the image of Big Pharma companies and their newfound glorification for supposedly being responsible for saving humanity from the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

“An industry plagued by decades of fraud, corruption and criminality managed to quickly rebrand itself as the savior of humanity during the COVID-19 crisis. But nothing inherently changed. Big Pharma still values shareholders’ profits more than people’s lives,” Kanekoa the Great wrote. (Related: Pfizer’s business model is to create the sickness and sell the “cure.”)

For evidence of Pfizer’s history of engaging in illegal activity that leads to the deaths of hundreds, Kanekoa the Great said to look no further than Nigeria.

In the northern Nigerian city of Kano, Pfizer in 1996 administered an experimental drug to 200 children whose parents never knew that their kids were subjected to a clinical trial. Pfizer did not obtain consent or inform any of the children or their parents that they were the subjects of an experiment. The pharma company did not even inform the recipients that the drug has not been approved for wider use.

Eleven of the children died. Dozens more of the children suffered severe adverse effects, including brain damage and organ failure.

As a result of criminal and civil suits, Pfizer agreed to pay $75 million to the families harmed. Now, Kano’s residents are reasonably hesitant of any vaccinations.

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The “Psychonauts” Training to Explore Another Dimension

Kevin Thorbahn found himself in a hotel lobby without quite remembering how he got there. There were flashes of brilliant light, indescribable geometric patterns, and the feeling of being blasted through a gigantic stained glass window. And then he was standing in the lobby, as if checking in for a long-planned vacation. All he knew was that he was enamored with the woman behind the counter. Although “woman” wasn’t quite right—it was more like an outline of energy, a feminine purple hue.

Just as he was getting his bearings, ready to make contact with “her,” he was sucked away, the hotel lobby and entity zooming outward down an infinite hallway, until he was back to reality, staring at his prosaic furniture. N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, the molecule coursing through his body, more popularly known as DMT, was already losing its effect. It had peaked for around six minutes, although his journey felt like hours. The memories of the hotel and the being behind the counter were quickly fading like a dream soon after waking.

Thorbahn wanted more time. He wanted to stay and speak with the purple being and map the hallways of that psychedelic lodge.

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Babies put at risk, even killed, in ‘reputable’ studies over the years

Public health officials and other medical professionals have helped untold millions over the years. But the hard truth is that some have hurt many.

This was a difficult lesson I learned many times when I was assigned to investigate FDA, CDC, NIH and pharmaceutical industry scandals at CBS News.

One of the most heartbreaking early stories I investigated in 2000 was the death of a baby who was given an experimental heartburn drug called Propulsid as part of a study. His death had been ruled a mysterious SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) death.

Little Gage Stevens’ parents didn’t know that the drug he took, Propulsid, had been linked to dozens of deaths, including at least one other baby, before Gage even got his first dose. Shortly after Gage died, Propulsid was pulled from the market — linked to more than 300 deaths.

Read the death certificate on Gage.

My investigation revealed that the study consent form falsely stated Propulsid, made by Johnson and Johnson, was “approved by the FDA” for children. In fact, the Food and Drug Administration had repeatedly rejected it for pediatric use.

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