JOSH'S CONDITIONS & TREATMENTS BLOG

Send in the Clones so We Can Eat Them

After five years, the FDA has announced that is safe to eat clones. (of animals)  They claim that there is no difference between regular meat and cloned meat. It is also safe to drink clone milk, eat clone cheese and chew clone gum.

Yet a debate rages. Some people don't believe the FDA. Others believe that clones are are unhealthy. Some think that science is playing god.

Here are some common concerns about eating cloned food:

"If I eat a clone will I turn into a clone?"

"If I eat a cloned cow and the original cow dies, will the cloned food in my belly disappear?"

"Does my cloned sheep have a soul? I'm not comfortable about eating something without a soul. The soul is where flavor lives."

"Where's the cloned beef?"

This might be a case of taboo getting in the way of science fact. A cloned cow is nothing more than a regular cow with a nearly identical genetic structure as another cow. Twins are clones, and they exist in nature. (Technically, identical twins have individual genetic structures, but so do cloned animals. The DNA of clones changes slightly during the cloning process, making them akin to, but not the same as, identical twins.)I'm sure we've all eaten twin meat at one point or another, and we're all still here. None of us have come down with "twin madness."

The taboos and fears of cloning that are found in old science fiction rags, where clones are born fully grown with murderous intentions, have seeped, it seems, into our national consciousness.

Clones grow up like any other animal. They live their own lives, and no matter what their DNA structure resembles, they are their own creature. Not a replica. Not a pod person. Not a doppleganger. We should accept them with open arms and eat them with open mouths.

Of course, there are some concerns about all those birth defects that baby clones sometimes have. Well, Mother Nature is still better at growing fetuses than science. These flaws are just kinks in the cloning process, a young science.

A cow is a cow. A cloned cow is a cow. It's not made of magic just because it is a clone.

Talk to a geneticist about cloning. He/She'll tell ya. Find a doctor near you.

"Save it for Queen Dopplepopolis!"

In the New York Times, there is an article about a patient with a confounding disorder. The disorder is known as Capgras Delusion. People who suffer from this illness believe that their loved ones, most likely the spouse, are being replaced by nearly-identical replicas. Which, in a perfect world, would be great for spicing up the old marriage. Unfortunately, the experience is usually rather frightening for the sick person, and they may even begin to believe that inanimate objects and pets have been replaced.  Amazingly, even their own reflections are often believed to be impostors.

     Capgras Delusion is thought to be caused by a head trauma or lesions/tumors that break the connections between the facial-recognition area of the brain and the area associated with emotions. The syndrome often accompanies epilepsy, schizophrenia, strokes and malformed lobes.

  This seems like an off-the-wall disorder, absurd and unrelatable, but we all experience a little taste of Capgras Delusion when we have feelings of deja vu or jamais vu. 

Basically, the area of the brain where the idea of the yourself is stored becomes traumatized. You can no longer access your feelings and thoughts about yourself and your relationships to other people. So when you see your friend, your brain knows that he looks like friend but you are unable to access any sort of familiarity with that person. It's a complete breakdown of the "sense of self." 

It doesn't sound so absurd now.

There are treatments for this condition, both pharmaceutical and psychiatric. If someone you think you know suffers from Capgras Syndrome and needs to see an unreplacable doctor, click here.