{"id":121881,"date":"2019-05-01T07:08:15","date_gmt":"2019-05-01T11:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=121881"},"modified":"2019-05-01T07:08:15","modified_gmt":"2019-05-01T11:08:15","slug":"uc-san-diego-professor-compares-unborn-children-to-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=121881","title":{"rendered":"UC San Diego Professor Compares Unborn Children to Cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--more--><div id=\"attachment_121882\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/8-week-fetus-in-womb-YouTube-640x480.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-121882\" class=\"size-full wp-image-121882\" src=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/8-week-fetus-in-womb-YouTube-640x480.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/8-week-fetus-in-womb-YouTube-640x480.jpg 640w, https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/8-week-fetus-in-womb-YouTube-640x480-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-121882\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">YouTube<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n<p>Alana Mastrangelo<br \/>\nBreitbart.com<\/p>\n<h3>A professor at the University of California San Diego compared unborn children to cancer in a slide presentation for an upper-level biology course on the \u201cevolution of human disease.\u201d In a slide presentation shared by a Stanford Medical student, the professor appears to describe a fetus as a \u201clegitimate parasite\u201d that \u201crapidly grows\u201d and \u201cinvades\u201d the mother.<\/h3>\n<p>The course, entitled \u201cEvolution of Human Disease,\u201d is taught by professor Pascal Gagneux at the UC San Diego School of Medicine,\u00a0<a class=\"x5l\" href=\"https:\/\/courses.ucsd.edu\/syllabi\/SP18\/935295.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external noreferrer\">aiming<\/a>\u00a0to \u201cexplore the major epidemiological transitions from ape-like ancestors to foraging tribes, farmers and pastoralists, to the global metropolitan primate we now are. We will focus on how diseases have shaped humans and how humans have shaped disease over time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The professor\u2019s class presentation went viral on social media after one Stanford Medical student, Dylan Griswold,\u00a0<a class=\"x5l\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DylanPGriswold\/status\/1121506690644365312\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external noreferrer\">tweeted<\/a> an image of the slide appearing to compare unborn children to cancer. \u201cNo joke, a friend just sent me this slide from her upper-level biology course,\u201d said Griswold, \u201cI\u2019m speechless.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Upper-level UCSD biology course says that a baby in the womb is &quot;a legitimate parasite&quot; that &quot;invades&quot; his\/her mother, compares the baby to cancer.<\/p>\n<p>Pregnancy is NOT a disease and a baby is not a parasite. This is dehumanizing &amp; false. Is this the best CA public education can do? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/OdXPWogBdq\">https:\/\/t.co\/OdXPWogBdq<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Lila Rose (@LilaGraceRose) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LilaGraceRose\/status\/1121542308451639297?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 25, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>\u201cUpper-level UCSD biology course says that a baby in the womb is \u2018a legitimate parasite\u2019 that \u2018invades\u2019 his\/her mother, compares the baby to cancer,\u201d said founder and president of Live Action Lisa Rose on\u00a0<a class=\"x5l\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LilaGraceRose\/status\/1121542308451639297\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external noreferrer\">Twitter<\/a>, \u201cPregnancy is NOT a disease and a baby is not a parasite. This is dehumanizing &amp; false. Is this the best CA public education can do?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The slide in question shows an image of a fetus in the womb alongside the words, \u201cThe fetus: a legitimate parasite: rapidly grows, invades, manipulates immunity of mother, reshapes blood vessels.\u201d Below that, is an image of cancer cells alongside the words, \u201cThe cancer: crashes the party!!! rapidly grows, invades, manipulates immunity, reshapes blood vessels.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery human rights atrocity starts with dehumanization, with those in power refusing to acknowledge the humanity of others,\u201d\u00a0<a class=\"x5l\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LilaGraceRose\/status\/1121608790053228544\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external noreferrer\">said<\/a>\u00a0Rose in a second tweet regarding the matter, \u201cCA\u2019s public university system TEACHES here that a helpless child in the womb is like \u2018cancer\u2019 that \u2018invades,\u2019 a \u2018parasite.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to a report by\u00a0<a class=\"x5l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.campusreform.org\/?ID=12165\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external noreferrer\">Campus Reform<\/a>, the slide was supposedly meant to be an attempt to explain the tendency of humans and other mammals to develop cancer. The report adds that notes on the slide deck portray the comparison as a \u201cpractice question.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Professor\u00a0Pascal Gagneux did not immediately respond to Breitbart News\u2019 request for comment and clarification.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Update \u2014\u00a0<\/strong>UC San Diego provided Breitbart News with the following statement:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This is a slide from \u2018Evolution of Human Disease,\u2019 an upper-level undergraduate Anthropology course at UC San Diego. It is from a lecture about cancer from an evolutionary perspective. The slide makes the point that mammals are especially prone to invasive cancers, in part because mammals evolved the ability to host fetuses and placentas.<\/p>\n<p>Like all other cells in our bodies, cancer cells descend from fetal cells and share the same genome. This means that cancer cells can make use of the same genetic and molecular mechanisms that a fetus employs to grow, survive and avoid the human immune system.<\/p>\n<p>A fetus shares only half of its genome with the mother, which opens the possibility of conflicts, immunologically and nutritionally. Therefore, a fetus requires unusual immune tolerance by the mother and may attempt to obtain more resources than is optimal for a mother to provide.<\/p>\n<p>The slide presents common, widely accepted scientific concepts and in no way represents a political statement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tech\/2019\/04\/30\/uc-san-diego-professor-compares-unborn-children-to-cancer\/\">https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tech\/2019\/04\/30\/uc-san-diego-professor-compares-unborn-children-to-cancer\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=121881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=121881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=121881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=121881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}