Hybrid Stem Cells

Listening to the Radio 5 morning phone-in, makes me realise how confused people are over the debate surrounding the possibility of human/non human hybrids. We are constantly told that there are so many potential benefits, however everything I've seen in print seems to point to a single fact.

We just don't know if there will be any benefits.

Is this science for science's sake? Where do we progress from here?

Comments from people on the 5 Live show included some quite vicious comments to a man who had 4 daughters who made a very cogent comment that there are too many people on the planet. Irrespective of how many children he has, he was correct, there are too many of us. I fully appreciate that there are many people that have relatives with diseases like Alzheimers, Parkinsons and other genetically inherited problems, but there seems to be a culture of "I need to live forever". I for one want to have a degree of dignity in my life, if I become too ill to have that dignity, I would prefer to leave this mortal coil.

I have a scientific background and have very few problems with the search to answers for problems, but when we move to mixing different types of DNA, that, as far as we are aware, is impossible in nature, we should beware. Just because the law says that these cells should be destroyed at 20 days doesn't mean that they always will be, there are rogue scientists just as there are rogue traders. And if a hybrid is viable, and is capable of reproducing, where do we go from there??