Stem Cell Research

[Annie]

Oh believe me I am looking at it rationally..

You're right, the pharmaceuticals can well afford to invest, however when you look at the big picture it's a moot point. We are a capitalist society, that's fine, but there are
Counties conducting this research. Now how can we expect a pharmaceutical company to compete
with that?

This will be major, as you say, like the discovery of anti-biotics, do we as a Country pursue that,
or just leave it to business? I say no..supplement them and go for the GOLD!

And if one of the 'countries' does manage to hit, our pharmaceutical companies will pick any up, after the patents run out.

Now on one hand, other than France, what other country has the wherewithal to compete with Lily or Pfizer?

On the other, you have as much as a right, as those that think the embryonic research should not be funded, to make your views known. I would say that you would have zero problem getting a letter to the editor published. I've yet to see an editorial or cartoon that wasn't calling 'this debate' the 'Far Rights Attempt to shut down research'. The lede is buried that it's about funding...

 

[Mr. P]

....I've yet to see an editorial or cartoon that wasn't calling 'this debate' the 'Far Rights Attempt to shut down research'. The lede is buried that it's about funding...

I think we all know this is just an attempt to shut down the research. I was just addressing tyour post.

 

[onedomino]

I don't disagree with your premise, however would point out that all of these had possible military applications and most of the 'entertainment' and other areas that would turn over profits, were quite quickly assimilated and developed by private corporations, after being a 'incidental development' off of another r & d program.

Many innovations have both civilian and military applications. For example, penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928. Did pharmaceutical companies go on to develop and mass produce penicillin to make profit? No, because the rate of return on investment was not known. ROI is the critical variable. It was not until 1941, when there was a military application for penicillin that the Feds provided the R&D money necessary for mass production. A similar situation exists with current research into fusion power. Certainly this new technology will have both civilian and military applications. Some theoretical approaches promise to produce viable fusion reactors for the generation of electric power. Is private industry pursuing these approaches? No, because the rate of return on investment is not known.

http://www.iter.org/index.htm

 

[Annie]

Many innovations have both civilian and military applications. For example, penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928. Did pharmaceutical companies go on to develop and mass produce penicillin to make profit? No, because the rate of return on investment was not known. ROI is the critical variable. It was not until 1941, when there was a military application for penicillin that the Feds provided the R&D money necessary for mass production. A similar situation exists with current research into fusion power. Certainly this new technology will have both civilian and military applications. Some theoretical approaches promise to produce viable fusion reactors for the generation of electric power. Is private industry pursuing these approaches? No, because the rate of return on investment is not known.

http://www.iter.org/index.htm

Hey, I have absolutely no problem with the government being involved in financing R & D for energy, our national security and economy depends upon it.

I just do NOT see the same need with embryonic stem cells. There should be enough for universities with placental and there has never been a problem with adult.

 

[onedomino]

Hey, I have absolutely no problem with the government being involved in financing R & D for energy, our national security and economy depends upon it.

I just do NOT see the same need with embryonic stem cells. There should be enough for universities with placental and there has never been a problem with adult.

The point is that there will be no multi-billion dollar ESC research program unless it is funded by government. Private companies will not do it because the rate of return on investment is not known. Quarterly profit statements designed to impress Wall Street are not conducive to the huge multi-year investments that will be necessary to develop ESC research based therapies. If the issue is funding ESC research, do not expect big money to come from private industry when the ROI is unknown. As in the example cited above, Penecillin was known to be theraputic, yet private investment was absent because of unknown ROI.

 

[Annie]

The point is that there will be no multi-billion dollar ESC research program unless it is funded by government. Private companies will not do it because the rate of return on investment is not known. Quarterly profit statements designed to impress Wall Street are not conducive to the huge multi-year investments that will be necessary to develop ESC research based therapies. If the issue is funding ESC research, do not expect big money to come from private industry when the ROI is unknown. As in the example cited above, Penecillin was known to be theraputic, yet private investment was absent because of unknown ROI.

Again, you may be right. I just feel that it's heading down a slippery slope where the possible ethics have not been worked out-same slope that worries me about cloning-where private funds have been at work.

 

[nakedemperor]

In reference to the right to life argument, I don't really think an egg fertilized in a lab will yield an embryo that ever had the possibility of yielding a human. Hence, embryonic stem cells extracted from such an embryo are alright to use.

Mom4, you posit that the media has for some reason made us all believe that the medical possibilities of embryonic stem cells are far greater than adult stem cells, yet you contend the opposite; could you provide some documentation in support of this?

 

[Adam's Apple]

Pretty good article about President Bush's stem cell policy.

May 27, 2005
Setting The Record Straight on Bush's Stem Cell Policy
By Peter Wehner, White House Office of Strategic Initiatives

3. While President Bush believes in the tremendous promise of science, he also believes the ethics of medicine are not infinitely adaptable. There is at least one bright line: we should not end some lives for the medical benefit of others. For the President, this is a matter of conviction: a belief that life, including early life, is biologically human, genetically distinct and valuable.

4. Critics of the President have charged that his position on embryonic stem cell research is based on a "purely religious premise." That assertion is false. At conception an embryo is both (a) living and (b) human. That (indisputable) judgment is based not on religion, but on science. What one does ethically in light of those facts is something one's religious convictions may instruct.

5. For those who ridicule the idea that we are dealing with early human life, George Weigel, one of the nation's leading public intellectuals, responds this way: "Absent natural catastrophe or lethal intervention, the distinctive creature formed at the moment of conception will be, indisputably, a human being. It will not be a goldfish or a golden retriever. A human embryo is not merely 'capable of life.' It is human life. That tiny organism is not... 'a microscopic clump of cells.' It is precisely what a human being looks like at that point in its life. It's precisely what [you] looked like at that point in life."

9. Some advocates of embryonic stem cell research exaggerate -- and in some cases vastly exaggerate -- the state of the medical science. Embryonic stem cell science is a very young field -- and while it does show promise, it is far from yielding new cures. It is not known if the therapeutic potential of embryonic stem cells will in fact pan out. It is not known whether embryonic or non-embryonic stem cells will turn out to hold greater promise, and for which diseases. And it is not known whether remedies other than those using stem cells will turn out to be best. Unsupported claims about cures are irresponsible.

for full article
http://realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-5_27_05_PW.html

 

[USViking]

I voted "Yes".

I support adult stem cell research and am opposed to embryonic stem cell research.

There is a lot of hype in the field which is cruelly raising the hopes of people affected with such conditions as ALS and paralysis: the prospects for any cures of any kind in the near future are nil, and may be decades down the road, no matter how much money is raised for R&D.

 

[Adam's Apple]

Stem Cell Advances May Make Moral Issue Moot
By Rick Weiss, Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 6, 2005; Page A07

If only human embryonic stem cells could sprout anew from something other than a human embryo. Researchers could harvest them and perhaps harness their great biomedical potential without destroying what some consider to be a budding human life.

But like a low-calorie banana split or the proverbial free lunch, there is no such thing as an embryo-free embryonic stem cell. Or is there?

In recent months, a number of researchers have begun to assemble intriguing evidence that it is possible to generate embryonic stem cells without having to create or destroy new human embryos.

The research is still young and largely unpublished, and in some cases it is limited to animal cells. Scientists doing the work also emphasize their desire to have continued access to human embryos for now. It is largely by analyzing how nature makes stem cells, deep inside days-old embryos, that these researchers are learning how to make the cells themselves.

Yet the gathering consensus among biologists is that embryonic stem cells are made, not born -- and that embryos are not an essential ingredient. That means that today's heated debates over embryo rights could fade in the aftermath of technical advances allowing scientists to convert ordinary cells into embryonic stem cells.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/05/AR2005060500872...

 

[xandy123]

:bangheads

Oh believe me I am looking at it rationally..

You're right, the pharmaceuticals can well afford to invest, however when you look at the big picture it's a moot point. We are a capitalist society, that's fine, but there are
Counties conducting this research. Now how can we expect a pharmaceutical company to compete
with that?

This will be major, as you say, like the discovery of anti-biotics, do we as a Country pursue that,
or just leave it to business? I say no..supplement them and go for the GOLD!

Do you really think the pharmaceuticals are driven soley by greedy execs? They spend billions of dollars over decades and often get no results. They have to think about potential risk and profit associated with developing however the R and D method that these companies use has begun to change. With the mapping of the human genome scientists are zeroing in on specific causes of disease instead of going the more traditional trial and error route. This plays in to the debate over stem cells because many scientists feel that studying the development of embryonic stem cells from a person with a disease might lead to an understanding of how it is that diseased cells are formed.