Experiments on the theory of photochemical formation of carcinogens from skin fats.
Irradiation products of skin surface fats, including digitonin-precipitable sterols, isocholesterols, and total unsaponifiable fractions, were painted on the ears of white mice for periods of from 15 to 18 months, but failed to produce precancerous or cancerous changes that could be noted histologically. Therefore, the theory of photochemical formation of carcinogenic compounds on the surface of the skin by ultraviolet irradiation could not be substantiated by this method.
Does Cholesterol Stimulate Tumor Development
Certain tumors are known to be relatively rich in cholesterol (1–4) as well as in other lipoids (5–8). The cholesterol content of human cancers is said to increase with the degree of malignancy (3, 9), with such regularity that the life expectancy of cancer patients is inversely proportional to the cholesterol content of the neoplasm (10). v. Christiani and co-workers have pointed out the abnormal behavior of cancerous serum toward cholesterol butyrate (11–13). Borst found that the addition of cholesterol to the diet increased the rate of growth of rabbit tumors (14). Rondoni (IS), Tesauro (16), and Maisin and Pourbaix (17) all regard cholesterol as a growth stimulator. Roffo considers cholesterol of prime importance in the development of tumors due to ultraviolet light and has stressed the fact that cholesterol accumulates in certain precancerous lesions in rats and in man (1, 18–20). The close chemical relationship between the sterols and certain carcinogenic hydrocarbons might favor this hypothesis (21). In fact, tumor formation has been attributed to the application of irradiated ergosterol (22), to the feeding of irradiated cholesterol (23), and to the injection of cholesterol treated with x-rays (24). Auler (25) concludes that doubts as to the growth-stimulating action of cholesterol are no longer justified.
Do Potential People Have Moral Rights?
By a potential person I shall mean an entity which is not now a person but which is capable of developing into a person, given certain biologically and/or technologically possible conditions. This is admittedly a narrower sense than some would attach to the term ‘potential'. After all, people of the twenty-fifth century, if such there will be, are in some sense potential people now, even though the specific biological entities from which they will develop, i.e. the particular gametes or concepti, do not yet exist. For there do exist, in the reproductive capacities of people now living and in the earth's resources, conditions adequate to produce these future people eventually, provided of course that various possible catastrophes are avoided. Indeed, in some sense of ‘potential’ there have been countless billions of potential people from the beginning of time. But I am concerned not with such remote potentialities but with currently existing entities that are capable of developing into people.