As a professor, educational issues are of course especially important to me. So when I was recently contacted by an earnest and amiable member of a local school board who was concerned about the questionable manner in which the issue of "stem cell" research - both human embryonic and adult - was presented to the high school students in his district in a currently-used science textbook, I agreed to evaluate that section in the text for him. The conscientious school board member is Mr. James Caulfield, a member of the Board of Education for the Naperville Community Unit School District 203 in Illinois. Since my analysis was submitted by him to the local school board and is now part of the public record, he has agreed to have it more broadly disseminated as a general example of why others involved in such critical educational decisions need to look more carefully at the contents of the textbooks they approve for their students.
The author of the science textbook involved is David Krogh, and the title of the textbook is: Biology: A Guide to the Natural World (3rd ed.) (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005). The author, Mr. Krogh, who has no academic degrees in science, received his B.A. degree in journalism and history from the University of Missouri. His "Book Team" consists of two consultants who do have degrees in science, but not in the relevant scientific field required to provide reliable scientific information on the complex scientific details and issues surrounding human embryonic "stem cell" research (which now includes "stem cells" derived from cloned human embryos) and adult stem cell research: Kim Quill in has a B.A. in biology from Oberlin College, and a Ph.D. in "Integrative Biology" from the University of California at Berkeley. She apparently specializes in bird biology and monkey behavior. Marguerite Brickman has a B.A. in genetics from Columbia College, and a Ph.D. in genetics (not specifically "human genetics"), also from the University of California at Berkeley. She apparently specializes in plants, and uses electronic media in her lectures. There is also a long list of university reviewers and advisors of the book. Mr. Caulfield noted that this science textbook is also currently used in 250 colleges and 8 school districts.
My edited analysis of the section on "stem cell research" in this science textbook is copied below. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to discover most of the major scientific errors in this presentation, which raises the question of whether or not this section, at least, was written with perhaps a political slant of the "facts" presented to the students. Perhaps this brief analysis can be helpful to others as concerned with the standards and excellence of our students' education as is Mr. Caulfield.
Dianne N. Irving, M.A., Ph.D.
Former bench research biochemist/biologist
(career appointment) at NIH (NCI),
philosopher, bioethics
[My 400-page doctoral dissertation was titled, A Philosophical and Scientific Analysis of the Nature of the Early Human Embryo (Georgetown University 1991). Full professor; taught science, philosophy, and bioethics at several universities. Over 100 of my articles (including those posted on Plumbed and peer-reviewed) on these related issues are posted at: lifeissues.net].
October 12, 2005
In my opinion there is no question but that the scientific information on stem cell research included in this science text book being used in Illinois schools incorporates some inaccurate scientific facts, and seems to be very partial to the use of human embryonic "stem cell" research. Scientific text books used in schools should be as scientifically accurate as possible, regardless of where the objective scientific facts lead. Politics belongs in the legislature, not in the classroom.
Below I have identified some of the scientific concerns I have with these pages, and included scientific references you might find helpful. For longer scientific references, please contact me.
*** (page 643) 29.5 The Promise of Stem Cells Having reviewed a couple of examples of wings or legs being induced to grow where they normally wouldn't, you may have the impression that groups of cells are infinitely adaptable in what they can become; that given the right morphogenesis or transcription factor, a cell could be induced to become anything at any point. For most cells, however, this is not the case. As you'll see, most cells are fated to become a given kind of cell, and they cannot become any other kind of cell. A relatively small number of cells, however, do have the capacity to give rise to different kinds of cells. These cells are called stem cells, and only in recent years have scientists begun to learn how adaptable some of them can be.
1. The scientific references I use are only those in concert with the international nomenclature committee on human embryology. It is unfortunate that most "scientists" involved in stem cell research or others promoting it fail to understand that in the field of human embryology there is such a long-standing international committee:
a) The Carnegie Stages of Early Human Development is the basis for the Nominal Embryological which was part of the larger Nominal Anatomical for decades until 1989. In 1999 the names were changed by the International Associations of Anatomists to Terminologies Embryological and Terminologies Anatomical, which was published in 1999 by the IDA and is available for sale in book or CD-Rom format at: www.thieme.com. For on-line access to information about the international Nominal Embryological Committee and the Carnegie Stages of Early Human Development, see U.S. national website at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Human Developmental Anatomy Center, the Carnegie Collection of Embryology.
b) The scientific quotes on human embryology herein and used in my articles listed in my comments are taken directly from the following internationally recognized human embryology textbooks in concert with the Carnegie Stages and the international nomenclature on human embryology: Ronan O'Rahilly and Fabiola Muller, Human Embryology & Teratology (New York: Wiley-Liss, 2001). [Note: O'Rahilly is one of the originators of The Carnegie Stages of Early Human Embryological Development, and has sat on the international Nomina Embryologica Committee for decades -- DNI]; Bruce M. Carlson, Human Embryology and Developmental Biology (St. Louis, MO: Mosby, 1994); also, Carlson, ibid., (2nd ed., 1999); William Larsen, Human Embryology (2nd ed.) (New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1997); also, Larsen, Essentials of Human Embryology (New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1998); Keith Moore and T. V. N. Persaud, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology (6th and 7th eds. only) (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1998); also, (7th ed., 2003). Human genetics text books used include: Tom Strachan and Andrew P. Read, Human Molecular Genetics 2 (2nd ed.) (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1999); Benjamin Lewin, Genes VII (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
2. The concept of "cell fate" is now quite passe, especially given the breakthroughs in cloning. It is now universally accepted that even in normal human development the body has the ability to "regulate" damaged cells, to demethylate a cell's DNA, and to thus repair many tissues and organs. This involves changing the original "fate" of cells per se:
Carlson (1999): Early mammalian embryogenesis is considered to be a highly regulative process. Regulation is the ability of an embryo or an organ primordium to produce a normal structure if parts have been removed or added. At the cellular level, it means that the fates of cells in a regulative system are not irretrievably fixed and that the cells can still respond to environmental cues. ... Of the experimental techniques used to demonstrate regulative properties of early embryos, the simplest is to separate the blastomeres of early cleavage-stage embryos and determine whether each one can give rise to an entire embryo. This method has been used to demonstrate that single blastomeres, from two- and sometimes four-cell embryos can form normal embryos, ... (p. 44)
But especially because of recent cloning successes we now understand that even the most differentiated cells can have their DNA reprogrammed all the way back to that of a totipotent single-cell zygote - a single-cell human being, a single-cell human embryo. Because of the advances in cloning, students need to understand that the concept of "cell fate" has now been extensively revised in mainstream science:
Strachan and Read (1999): Successful cloning of adult animals has forced us to accept that genome modifications once considered irreversible can be reversed and that the genomes of adult cells can be reprogrammed by factors in the oocyte to make them totipotent once again. (pp. 508-509)
3. Relatedly, today scientists want to derive human embryonic "stem cells" from human embryos that have been cloned - a form of asexual human reproduction -- (especially cloning cells from the diseased patient), so that these cells can be used in "therapies". Unfortunately, a lot of very false science has been promoted by some researchers (e.g., Irving Weissman, Michael West et al) with the truly amazing claim that the immediate product of both sexual and asexual human reproduction is just a "cell" (rather than a single-cell organism, a human being), and that the blastocyst is just a "ball of cells" or a "collection of cells" (rather than a human being at the blastocyst stage of development). I have pointed out several passages in these text book pages which strongly imply such "science", much of it emanating out of the University of California. Since these researchers especially want to derive "stem cells" from cloned human embryos, students should be given the accurate scientific facts: (1) that human embryonic "stem cells" can be derived from both sexually and asexually reproduced human embryos; (2) that the immediate product of both sexual and asexual human reproduction is a human being - not just a "cell"; (3) that the morula stage and blastocyst stage human embryo is a human beings - not just a "ball of cells"; and, (4) that the process of deriving stem cells from cloned human embryos also kills those living human beings. Human molecular geneticists are quite clear on the fact that the immediate product of nuclear transfer is a new single-cell human being:
Strachan and Read (1999): Animal clones occur naturally as a result of sexual reproduction. For example, genetically identical twins are clones who happened to have received exactly the same set of genetic instructions from two donor individuals, a mother and a father. A form of animal cloning can also occur as a result of artificial manipulation to bring about a type of asexual reproduction. The genetic manipulation in this case uses nuclear transfer technology: a nucleus is removed from a donor cell then transplanted into an oocyte whose own nucleus has previously been removed. .. The individual providing the donor nucleus and the individual that develops from the 'renucleated' oocyte are usually described as "clones", but it should be noted that they share only the same nuclear DNA; they do not share the same mitochondrial DNA, unlike genetically identical twins. [And hence the use of "stem cells" derived from human embryos cloned from patients' own cells would cause rejection reactions in those patients. - DNI] ... Nuclear transfer technology was first employed in embryo cloning, in which the donor cell is derived from an early embryo, and has been long established in the case of amphibia. ... Wilmut et al (1997) reported successful cloning of an adult sheep. For the first time, an adult nucleus had been reprogrammed to become totipotent once more, just like the genetic material in the fertilized oocyte from which the donor cell had ultimately developed. (pp. 508-509)
For quite extensive scientific references on this point about the erroneous "science" being used in the cloning and stem cell debates, see my article, "What Human Embryo? Funniest Mental Gymnastics from Medicine and Research" (Oct. 14, 2004). For extensive scientific references on normal sexual human reproduction, see my article, "When does a human being [normally] begin? 'Scientific' myths and scientific facts" at International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy (Feb.1999), 19:3/4:22-47 (subscription); also at Libertarians for Life.
4. There are vague implications in these pages that there is such a thing as a "pre-embryo" (or one of its various "substitutes", e.g., the "science" of Weissman and West), or that the old "biogenetic law" is still valid. To that end, here are direct quotes from O'Rahilly (2001) in which he follows the international nomenclature committee in formally rejecting both concepts:
The term 'pre-embryo' is not used here for the following reasons: (1) it is ill-defined because it is said to end with the appearance of the primitive streak or to include neurulation; (2) it is inaccurate because purely embryonic cells can already be distinguished after a few days, as can also the embryonic (not pre-embryonic!) disc; (3) it is unjustified because the accepted meaning of the word embryo includes all of the first 8 weeks; (4) it is equivocal because it may convey the erroneous idea that a new human organism is formed at only some considerable time after fertilization; and (5) it was introduced in 1986 'largely for public policy reasons' (Biggers). ... Just as postnatal age begins at birth, prenatal age begins at fertilization." (p. 88)
Recapitulation, the So-Called Biogenetic Law. The theory that successive stages of individual development (ontogeny) correspond with ({recapitulate") successive adult ancestors in the line of evolutionary descent (phylogeny) became popular in the nineteenth century as the so-called biogenetic law. This theory of recapitulation, however, has had a "regrettable influence on the progress of embryology" (G. de Beer). ... According to the "laws" of von Baer, general characters (e.g., brain, notochord) appear in development earlier than special characters (e.g., limbs, hair). Furthermore, during its development an animal departs more and more from the form of other animals. Indeed, the early stages in the development of an animal are not like the adult stages of other forms but resemble only the early stages of those animals. The pharyngeal clefts of vertebrate embryos, for example, are neither gills nor slits. Although a fish elaborates this region into gill slits, in reptiles, birds, and mammals it is converted into such structures as the tonsils and the thymus. (p. 16)
*** (page 644) The Breakthrough in Embryonic Stem Cells Remember that the very early embryo is a fertilized egg that has begun to undergo cell division. In humans, up to the seventh day after fertilization, any one of these cells can give rise to a whole separate organism.
1. The very early embryo is not just a "fertilized egg" (see large chart of nomenclature errors in O'Rahilly 2001). It is an already existing very real living single-cell human being, a single-cell human embryo. To imply to students that it is still in any fashion an "egg" is very misleading, especially since it must be later destroyed in order to derive its "stem cells".
2. It is exceptionally accurate for this text to acknowledge that most of these early embryonic cells can give rise to a "whole separate organism". This is because they are "totipotent" - not "pluripotent". Each totipotent cell (blastomere) is capable of giving rise to a whole separate organism - a new human embryo - IF IF IF the totipotent cell is separated from the whole intact embryo and IF IF IF the natural biological process of "regulation" (which reprograms the cell's DNA) takes place and is successful. Indeed, this is precisely what happens in natural human monozygotic twinning in utero, and is used almost routinely now in IVF clinics to artificially produce more embryos for women who have few viable oocytes remaining. This method of cloning is called "twinning" - and students considering these debates should also be made aware of the fact that there are many such methods of cloning human embryos for research purposes, not just the method of "nuclear transfer'. All such cloning techniques produce living human embryos that can be mined for their "stem cells".
3. The significance of the fact that these individual cells of the early human embryo are totipotent is precisely that they can be "twinned" and provide a constant source of new human embryos and "biological materials" for strictly research purposes.
*** (page 644) A cell that can give rise to every kind of cell in an organism - and hence to a whole new organism - is said to be a totipotent cell.
Now go forward in development a little to the embryonic structure you looked at earlier called the blastula - the hollowed-out ball of cells with a fluid-filled center. In mammals, the blastula is known as the blastocyst, but it is very similar to the blastula you looked at earlier. It turns out that some of the cells in the human blastocyst are pluripotent cells; they are cells capable of giving rise to almost all of the specialized cells or tissues in the body. They do not have the flexibility of totipotent cells - they can't develop into a whole new embryo - but they are very flexible indeed. The 200-cell human blastocyst fits into a particular stage of human reproduction. One section of its cells becomes the placenta that will help nurture a growing embryo, while another section of cells, called the inner cell mass, constitutes the embryo itself. It is these latter blastocyst cells that are pluripotent (see Figure 29.10).
1. Another scientific error that is very misleading in the above passage is to refer to the human blastocyst as just a "hollowed-out ball of cells". The implication, again, is that it is not a human organism, a human being. Further, the whole blastocyst is the human being, the human organism, the human embryo - not just the cells from the inner cell mass:
Carlson (1999): This process, which occurs about 4 days after fertilization, is called cavitation, and the fluid-filled space is known as the blastocoele. At this stage, the embryo as a whole is known as a blastocyst. (p. 38)
This "language" used in this text book is precisely that used by researchers like Weissman and West to detract from the fact that this "ball of cells" is really an early-stage human being who is going to be destroyed in order to derive its "stem cells".
2. One of the on-going scientific errors in these discussions has to do with the (purposeful) confusion between "totipotent" and "pluripotent" stem cells. Although there is a "range" of totipotency in the cells of the early human embryo, most of them are "totipotent", not "pluripotent". This includes the cells (blastomeres) of the morula-stage human embryo, the cells of the free human blastocyst, the primitive germ line cells, and the cells of the inner cell mass (ICM) of the implanting human blastocyst -- that group of cells which most researchers insist on calling "pluripotent".
(O'Rahilly 2001): "The appearance of the blastocyst demonstrates the differentiation into (1) trophoblast (or trophectoderm), the peripherally situated cells and (under the influence of E-cadherin) in first epithelium formed, and (2) embryonic cells proper. The latter, at first few in number, form the inner cell mass (ICM). The trophoblast at the future site of attachment is sometimes termed polar, the remainder being called mural. The cells of the ICM (inner cell mass) are considered to be totipotent initially. (p. 39) ...Cells of early free blastocyst (stage 3) are totipotent: The embryo enters the uterine cavity after about half a week, when probably at least 8-12 cells are present and the endometrium is early in its secretory phase. Each cell (blastomere) is considered to be still totipotent (capable. on isolation, of forming a complete embryo), and separation of these early cells is believed to account for one-third of cases of monozygotic twinning." (p. 37) ... Stem cells comprise a small subpopulation of multipotent or pluripotent, ultrastructurally unspecialized, slow-cycling cells that possess the ability of self-renewal and can produce cells that are destined to differentiate. (In contrast, primordial germ cells and those of a morula are totipotent: i.e., they can develop into any type of embryonic tissues and can even form an entirely new embryo). (p. 136-137)
But if the public were to understand that these cells from the human blastocyst were really totipotent rather than pluripotent, there could be negative reactions about such research, so they are led to believe that these "stem cells" are just "pluripotent". I have compiled a research article on this issue with over 30 pages of references from multiple sources, all acknowledging that these early embryonic cells are totipotent, not pluripotent: See, "Framing the Debates on Human Cloning and Human Embryonic Stem Cells: Pluripotent vs. TOTIPOTENT" (July 23, 2005).
*** (page 644) This changed in 1998, when a research team led by James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin announced that it had been able to manage this feat. These pluripotent blastocyst cells now figure regularly in news stories, but they are referred to by a different name: embryonic stem cells, defined as cells from the blastocyst stage of a human embryo that are capable of giving rise to all the cells or tissues in the adult body.
1. "Stem cell" research, as well as human embryonic "stem cell" research, is hardly new - as Dr. Kischer's articles demonstrate. As he points out, these earliest cells from the human blastocyst are not true "stem cells". Nor is cloning new; as noted above, early research in the 40's and 50's involved the use of "nuclear transfer" from totipotent cells (blastomeres) of early embryos into enucleated oocytes.
*** (page 644) [Chart of human development from fertilization to the blastocyst stage; only labels used are "fertilization", "days 1-3", "day 5 blastocyst", "inner cell mass (pluripotent cells)]
1. Once again, the fact that the "fertilized egg" - as well as the morula and the blastocyst -- is really a single-cell human organism, a human being, is possibly purposefully "overlooked" in this typical chart. Every one of the five figures above represents a human being in different stages of development, yet nowhere is the term "human being" or "human embryo" used. The students would be hard-put to realize this, given the vague labels applied. Rather, it would appear to be "just a ball of cells", so killing it to derive its "stem cells" would not seem so problematic.
2. The Chart is also scientifically inaccurate in that it depicts the division and multiplication of cells of the embryo after fertilization as being "synchronous" (i.e., multiples of even numbers of cells, e.g., 2, 4, 8, 16, etc.). This is true in lower mammalian embryogenesis (such as mice), but not in human development. Rather, in humans, the embryo divides and multiplies "asynchronously", e.g., first one cell divides resulting in a 2-cell embryo, then one of those cells divides producing a three-cell embryo, then the other cell divides producing a 4-cell embryo, etc. Human embryology text books routinely have electron micrographs of 5-cell, 7-cell, 9-cell human embryos. This error is an indication that data from one species (like mice) cannot automatically be extrapolated to the human species. And in these stem cell debates, much of the erroneous science has derived from just such efforts. The students should be made aware of this problematic practice.
*** (page 645) Adult Stem Cells
The breakthrough with embryonic stem cells led to a flurry of activity regarding stem cells from the other source already noted: adult tissues. Initial research seemed to indicate that, like embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells could be isolated and then give rise to many other kinds of cells. This may still turn out to be the case, but in 2002 doubts began to be raised about the potential of adult cells. Some early, promising results with them could not be reproduced when attempted by other researchers. And the possibility was raised that, at least in some instances, adult stem cells were given a false appearance of differentiation. They only appeared to be differentiating into cells of a given tissue type, when in fact they were just fusing with existing cells of that type. At present, therefore, scientists are unclear about how much ability adult stem cells have to give rise to other kinds of cells.
1. First came the successes in adult stem cell therapies; then came the attempts in embryonic stem cells.
2. To date not a single cure or even improvement with embryonic stem cells has been reliably documented, yet for many years now extensive successes using adult stem cells have been documented in human patients. See, e.g., 250 studies of successful adult stem cells in patients; Over 80 diseases treated.
3. Even the scientific community has come to grips with the failures in human embryonic stem cell research. See especially the articles in The Lancet and the British Medical Journal: The Lancet 2005; 365; 1904; DOI: 10.1016./SO140-6736(05)66634-2: "Stem Cell Research: Hope and Hype". Also, British Medican Journal 2005;330:1285 (4 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7503.1285-a (subscription): "Exaggerated claims of cures threaten stem cell research", by Kaye McIntosh.
4. Dr. David Prentice has worked and testified on this issue for years, and would most probably strongly reject the treatment of both human embryonic "stem cell" research and adult stem cell research presented in these text book pages. He has published hundreds of articles on this issue, and testified before Congress, the President's Council on Bioethics, and dozens of state legislatures. See his power point presentation at: here or here. His book, Stem Cells and Cloning, is available at amazon.com. See also his articles, Science and Ethics: The Intertwined Debate on Stem Cells : An article from: Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences, and, Adult stem cells. : An article from: Issues in Law & Medicine.
*** (page 645) The Ethical Debate Over Embryonic Stem Cells ... To state the obvious, human embryonic stem cells come from human embryos - from the collection of cells that have the potential to become fully formed human beings. Where do researchers get the embryos that are the source of embryonic stem cells? In most cases from fertility clinics, which each year discard thousands of excess embryos that have been produced for in vitro fertilizations. (A couple undergoing fertility treatments generally will produce many more embryos than they need to bring about a pregnancy.) With the couples' consent, excess embryos that would have been discarded are used instead in scientific research. When scientists extract stem cells from these early-stage embryos, however, the embryos are destroyed, and this is a matter of great concern to many people. For them, the destruction of an embryo is a destruction of human life.
1. The bias toward the erroneous "science" of researchers such as Irving Weissman and Michael West are apparent again in the above passage. Human embryos are depicted simply as "collections of cells", and merely have the "potential to become fully formed human beings" - the term "potential" having a long and confusing history (especially to students) in bioethics debates concerning human embryo research and "personhood" (all of which use erroneous science to make their "arguments"). But human embryos ARE already existing human beings, not "potential" human beings. Without clarification of the use of the term "potential" in this text, the casual student might be misled into thinking that human embryos are just "potential human beings". [See mini-summary of Irving doctoral dissertation in article, "Scientific and philosophical expertise: An evaluation of the arguments on 'personhood'", Linacre Quarterly (February 1993), 60:1:18-46, at: lifeissues.net , and at www.consciencelaws.org/. It scientifically and philosophically analyses 23 bioethics arguments for "delayed personhood".]
2. The student is also presented with the position that these "left-over" embryos are "going to die anyway, might as well get some use out of them". The counter-argument is not addressed at all, i.e., it is wrong to purposefully kill innocent living human beings, regardless of some perceived "good" that might come of it. And especially those students who would become researchers some day should be guided into giving more consideration about the source of their research materials rather than just the final data, and that just because something can be done doesn't mean that it ought to be done. The means a scientist uses are just as important ethically as the goal of the research.
3. That the killing of these early human beings would be of "great concern" because it would be "a destruction of human life" implies that such positions are merely subjective "beliefs" or "religious" positions. But it is an objective scientific fact that these early human embryos ARE human beings. Such slanting of the objective scientific facts does a great disservice to these students, who have the right to know as clearly as possible that these embryos are known scientifically to be real living human beings. This objective scientific fact has been known for over a hundred years - e.g., with the work of Wilhelm His (1883-5). This is not new. And it is not an "opinion".
*** (page 645) Given such objections, you might think one alternative would be to simply stop using embryonic stem cells and instead work solely with adult stem cells. As noted, however, there are serious questions about the potential of adult stem cells. Meanwhile, research done in the last few years has confirmed that human embryonic stem cells can differentiate into any kind of adult ...
1. Again, his presentation of the successes of adult stem cells (or lack thereof) is seriously erroneous.
2. As noted above, the general consensus in the scientific community is exactly the opposite of what he states - see, e.g., the articles in The Lancet and the British Medical Journal (above). His resources are woefully out of date.
*** (page 645) Could such a researcher obtain embryonic stem cells from, for example, a private-sector scientist, and then receive government funding for research on the embryonic stem cells received?
1. Private funding of human embryonic stem cell research has continued unabated for many years now, yet this passage in the text seems to ignore this fact.
*** (page 645) No human disease has yet been cured with stem cells; so far, these cells have demonstrated therapeutic benefits mostly in mice. Nevertheless, all parties seem agreed that stem cells hold out enormous potential. Consider just a partial list of the conditions that stem cells stand to alleviate or cure altogether: Parkinson's disease, heart disease, spinal-cord injuries, severe burn injuries, arthritis, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, and diabetes.
1. Again, such "facts" are grossly inaccurate. Indeed, the opposite is true. See articles on the extensive successes with adult stem cells in human patients noted above.
In sum, I would be concerned with the erroneous science used in this text, as well as with the "slant" favoring human embryonic "stem cell" research. Our science students deserve much better than this.
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