Bush Uses First Veto To Restrict Scientific Research

[Avatar4321]

It's kind of like letting a baby eat but not giving it any food. Sure, you're not forbiding it from eating, but the kid's still going to die of starvation.

Since when does research die unless government spends money on it?

Most of the time the government wastes money on research.

Your analogy fails.

 

[dilloduck]

What's that thing called when you prohibit someone or some group from doing something? I forget the word.

an injunction

 

[Mr.Conley]

Since when does research die unless government spends money on it?

Well it doesn't nessicarily die, but only the government has the funds and rules that allow for the optimal rate of research and distribution of the results. So I guess it's more like keeping the baby on the edge of starvation.

Most of the time the government wastes money on research.

Really?!?!?! I didn't realize you thought the internet and fire alarms, among other things, are a waste.

Your analogy fails.

Wrong answer! Try again. Yes or No. Three guesses. First two don't count!

 

[Mr.Conley]

an injunction

No, that generally involves a court. It's when you prohibit something from happening. Well, not prohibit, but place barriers on the number of legal possibilities under which something may occur. You are placing (form of the word that I forget) on it.

 

[Mr. P]

My 2 cents..

The opposition to this research/funding all stems from abortion opponents.
Whether we agree with abortion or not, it is legal. Why not put what many feel is bad thing to good? W says,

"It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect, so I vetoed it."

I think it’s immoral not to fund this research. Hell, we fund the arts that suck, we can’t fund something that will save thousands?

 

[dilloduck]

My 2 cents..

The opposition to this research/funding all stems from abortion opponents.
Whether we agree with abortion or not, it is legal. Why not put what many feel is bad thing to good? W says, I think it’s immoral not to fund this research. Hell, we fund the arts that suck, we can’t fund something that will save thousands?

You may be right but he stood up for his principals. Presidents get to do that. Anyone who can garner enough votes is free to change it.

 

[Mr.Conley]

When White House political adviser Karl Rove signaled last week that President Bush planned to veto the stem cell bill being considered by the Senate, the reasons he gave went beyond the president's moral qualms with research on human embryos.

In fact, Rove waded into deeply contentious scientific territory, telling the Denver Post's editorial board that researchers have found "far more promise from adult stem cells than from embryonic stem cells."

The administration's assessment of stem cell science has extra meaning in the wake of the Senate's 63-37 vote Tuesday to expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. The measure, which passed the House last year, will now head to Bush, who has vowed to veto it.

But Rove's negative appraisal of embryonic stem cell research--echoed by many opponents of funding for such research--is inaccurate, according to most stem cell research scientists, including a dozen contacted for this story.

The field of stem cell medicine is too young and unproven to make such judgments, experts say. Many of those researchers either specialize in adult stem cells or share Bush's moral reservations about embryonic stem cells.

"[Rove's] statement is just not true," said Dr. Michael Clarke, associate director of the stem cell institute at Stanford University, who in 2003 published the first study showing how adult stem cells replenish themselves.

If opponents of embryonic stem cell research object on moral grounds, "I'm willing to live with that," Clarke said, though he disagrees. But, he said, "I'm not willing to live with statements that are misleading."

Dr. Markus Grompe, director of the stem cell center at the Oregon Health and Science University, is a Catholic who objects to research involving the destruction of embryos and is seeking alternative ways of making stem cells. But Grompe said there is "no factual basis to compare the promise" of adult stem cells and cells taken from embryos.

Grompe said, "I think it's a problem when [opponents of embryonic research] make a scientific argument as opposed to stating the real reason they are opposed--which is [that] it's a moral, ethical problem."

Last week, the journal Science published a letter from three researchers criticizing the claim that adult stem cells are preferable to embryonic stem cells. The authors included Dr. Steven Teitelbaum of Washington University in St. Louis, who has used adult stem cells to treat bone diseases in children. The authors wrote that the exaggerated claims for adult stem cells "mislead laypeople and cruelly deceive patients."

The bill heading for Bush's desk would expand federal funding of work on stem cells taken from embryos. Such cells come from extra embryos originally created for in-vitro fertilization. Many experts believe embryonic stem cells could one day help regenerate damaged tissue for patients with conditions such as diabetes, spinal cord injury or Parkinson's disease, though embryonic cells have not yet been tested in humans.

Adult stem cells, which usually come from bone marrow transplants or umbilical cord blood, are widely considered less flexible than embryonic stem cells in forming many types of tissue. Yet adult stem cells already are in common use for certain conditions, such as replenishing immune cells after cancer treatment and treating some bone and blood disorders.

Bush allowed limited funding of embryonic stem cell work in August 2001, but he banned funding of cells taken from embryos after that date. However, private foundations and companies have continued to fund new embryonic research.

Many scientists and lawmakers argue that the federal funding limitation has hindered progress.

White House spokesman Ken Lisaius on Tuesday could not provide the name of a stem cell researcher who shares Rove's views on the superior promise of adult stem cells.

One of the only published scientists arguing that adult stem cells are better is David Prentice, a former professor of life sciences at Indiana State University and now a fellow at the Family Research Council, a conservative advocacy group.

The letter to Science last week was critical of a list Prentice compiled of 72 diseases that have been treated with adult stem cells.

Yet most of the treatments on the list "remain unproven," wrote Teitelbaum of Washington University and his co-authors, who claimed that Prentice "misrepresents existing adult stem cell treatments."

Prentice said in an interview that the Science authors "put words in our mouths"--he never claimed that the adult stem cell therapies were proven, only that they had benefited some patients. But he said some of his citations were unwarranted..

"We've cleaned up that list now," he said. Asked how the errors occurred, he said, "I think things just got stuck in."

One of the scientists on Prentice's list is Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg, a pediatric hematologist at Duke University Medical Center who has used umbilical cord blood to treat Tay-Sachs disease and other rare disorders. Kurtzberg said it's wrong to see stem cell science as a competition with only one winner.

"We don't know enough about the potential of either kind of cell," Kurtzberg said. "I don't think one type is going to be the answer to everything."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...90211jul19,1,2440889.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

 

[Mr. P]

You may be right but he stood up for his principals. Presidents get to do that. Anyone who can garner enough votes is free to change it.

That’s true, but I don’t think he should be “standing up for HIS principals” as an elected official. He should be standing up for what is best for the Country he represents, which I think we can agree he is not doing.

 

[Bonnie]

I think we should use the money that pays for abstinence only research and government-funded studies on the power of prayer to save lives.

Notice a pattern here?

Gee...no one complains about the money spent on that stuff. Why only about something that saves lives? Hmmmmmm....

Because farming babies for parts is not really life saving.

 

[Bonnie]

What's that thing called when you prohibit someone or some group from doing something? I forget the word.

You mean laws against murder?? It's called morals and restraint, or even secular humanism if you like that term better.

 

[jillian]

You mean laws against murder?? It's called morals and restraint, or even secular humanism if you like that term better.

"Murder" is a legal term of art. And your judgment that it is "murder" is a religious one not pertinent to most of the country. And while I respect that view, i don't agree with keeping the rest of us from availing ourselves of lifesaving research because of it.

 

[Mr.Conley]

You mean laws against murder?? It's called morals and restraint, or even secular humanism if you like that term better.

No, that has nothing to do with the term I'm looking for.

 

[Bonnie]

"Murder" is a legal term of art. And your judgment that it is "murder" is a religious one not pertinent to most of the country. And while I respect that view, i don't agree with keeping the rest of us from availing ourselves of lifesaving research because of it.

Actually my opinion that it is murder is a secualr humanistic one. You and I both know the real agenda behind stem cell research is another way to legitamize abortion. Im curious Jillian if 2/3 of the country decided we should as a society kill off old people over 80 as a way to lighten the load on health care costs for everyone else would you go along with that as well???

Bloody rotten timing," as the Brits might say.

On July 24, researchers in Rostock, Germany, announced that two weeks before they had successfully transplanted stem cells into the heart of a man whom, they report, is now doing well.

The problem? The cells came from the man's own marrow. No embryos were harmed in the making of this miracle.

What bloody awful news. It does nothing to help the full-court press to force the Bush administration to lift the funding ban on embryonic stem cell experimentation.

Which is why you've probably heard about the German experiment for the first and last time.

You see, over the last few months there has been a desperate effort to convince us that either (A), the ban covers all stem cell research, (B) the only type of stem cell is from embryos, or (C) if you have heard about non-embryonic cells, trust us, they're not worth spit.

What the Ban-Lift Bunch has on its side is celebrities like Christopher Reeve and Nancy Reagan, nice people who either have or live with persons with severe physical problems. But they don't exactly have medical backgrounds.




The Ban-Lift Bunch also has full media support.

Consider a recent issue of Newsweek, putting what it wants you to think is the entire argument right on the cover. "The Stem Cell Wars," declare the boldest words. "Embryo Research vs. Pro-Life Politics: There's Hope for Alzheimer's, Heart Disease, Parkinson's and Diabetes. But Will Bush Cut Off the Money?"

Get it? It's pro-life fanatics vs. science, pro-life fanatics versus the sick.
But actually it's science, not abortion opponents, making the case for non-embryonic cells. Overwhelmingly, the incredible breakthroughs in stem cell research have involved NON-embryonic stem cells.

A recent report in New Scientist described the successful use of stem cells from adult human hair follicles to create skin grafts.
Two studies in Nature Medicine reported that nonembryonic stem cells injected into rodents can transform themselves naturally into neurons and insert themselves into the brain, giving hope to persons with Parkinson's and other disorders. A third study found that injecting a chemical into damaged areas of rats' brains stimulated stem cells to grow and differentiate into a massive number of normal, fully developed nerves. The cells were able to repair damage and restore mobility to the rodents.
At least four rodent studies and one pig study have shown that nonembryonic stem cells can be injected into animals with damaged hearts and repair heart tissue.
As reported in Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, rats with degraded retinas were injected with nonembryonic stem cells that traveled to the site of damage, which then showed signs of making connections with the optic nerve and hence improve or even restore vision.
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine researchers injected nonembryonic stem cells into the spinal fluid of paralyzed mice and rats, half of which partially or fully recovered.
Cells from liposuctioned fat (North America's most plentiful resource) have been transformed into bone, muscle, cartilage and mature fat cells, according to the journal Tissue Engineering.



"Next up: Everything we've decided you need to know about stem cells."
Time and again, scientists involved in non-embryonic stem cell work, including even some who say they support lifting the funding ban, have commented that one of the important results of their and others' findings is that they would bypass the emotion-charged embryonic tissue debate. Among them:
Dr. Donald Orlic of the National Genome Research Institute told NBC News in late March that, "We are currently finding that these adult stem cells can function as well, perhaps even better than, embryonic stem cells."
Eric Olson, chair of the Department of Molecular Biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center say that almost "every other week there's another interesting finding of adult cells turning into neurons or blood cells or heart muscle cells. Apparently our traditional views need to be re-evaluated."
Markus C. Grompe, a professor of molecular medical genetics at Oregon Health Sciences University said of one study: "This would suggest that maybe you don't need any type of fetal stem cell at all . . . that our adult bodies continue to have stem cells that can do this stuff."
One of the richest sources of cells that are not adult, but more importantly are nonembyronic, are umbilical cords and placentas from live births. Each year, more than 4 million umbilical cords are simply discarded. Connected end-to-end, they would stretch further than from New York to Houston.



"Mommy, Mommy, Grandpa is trying to get my stem cells."
Stem cells from newborns are not only available in unlimited amounts, there's also reason to think they may be far more versatile than the other nonembryonic cells used in the aforementioned studies.

But it's not just that embryonic cells are unneeded; pragmatism counsels that they should be shunned.

Much of the current fear over therapeutic human biotechnology comes from angst over embryonic stem cell research, expressed across the spectrum of the abortion debate. Rightly or wrongly, use of embryonic cells invokes visions of Dr. Josef Mengele and a spooky slippery slope toward playing around with human life.

Maintaining the ban on embryonic stem cell research while we continue to watch the fantastic results pour in from nonembryonic stem cell work will leap right over this moral chasm. This action will not just promote stem cell research, but prove invaluable to all future therapeutic genetic research and the vast promise it holds.


Read Michael Fumento's additional work on biotechnology.

Michael Fumento is the author of the numerous books, including Science Under Siege. He’s also completing a book tentatively entitled BioEvolution: How Biotechnology Is Changing Our World.

http://www.fumento.com/washtimesstemcell.html



“

Researchers in Boston have isolated a kind of cell from human bone marrow that they say has all the medical potential of human embryonic stem cells....

“Tufts University researchers used specialized cell-sorting machines to pluck the peculiar cells from samples of bone marrow obtained from different donors. Tests suggested the cells are capable of morphing into many, and perhaps all, of the various kinds of cells that make up the human body. ...

“When a batch of the newly identified marrow cells were injected into the hearts of rats that had experienced heart attacks, some of the cells turned into new heart muscle while others became new blood vessels to support the ailing hearts. ...

“‘I think embryonic stem cells are going to fade in the rearview mirror of adult stem cells,’ said Douglas W. Losordo, the Tufts cardiologist who left the effort.... Bone marrow, he said, ‘is like a repair kit. Nature provided us with these tools to repair organ damage.’”

-Rick Weiss, “Marrow Has Cells Like Stem Cells, Tests Show,” Washington Post, Feburary 2, 2005, p. A3, at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55369-2005Feb1.html.

“[Erica] Nader, 26, of Farmington Hills, Mich., was the first American to travel to Portugal, in March 2003, for experimental sugery for spinal cord injury. She was injured in July 2001 in an auto accident... She was paralyzed from the top of her arms down.

“In the procedure...a team of doctors opened Nader’s spinal cord to clear out any scar tissue.... Then, using a long tube, they took a sample of olfactory mucosal cells from the ridge of her nose.... These cells are among the body’s richest supply of adult stem cells and are capable of becoming any type of cell, depending on where they are implanted. In this case, these adult stem cells were to take on the job of neurons, or nerve cells, once implanted in the spinal cord at the site of an injury. ...

“And after three years, magnetic imaging resonance tests show that the cells indeed promote the development of new blood cells and synapses, or connections between nerve cells, says Dr. Carlos Lima, chief of the Lisbon team. ...

“Dr. Pratas Vital, one of two neurosurgeons on the team, calls the transplanted cells spinal cord autografts, a term that indicates the cells come from a person’s own body, not fetal or embryonic stem cells. ...

“[Erica] is much stronger and much more capable of lifting her arms, bending her knees on a slanted exercise board and standing erect. ... Once, she was paralyzed from her biceps down. Now, she can push herself off an exercise ball, do arm lifts and help raise herself off a floor mat. ... In the past six weeks, she’s started to walk in leg braces with a walker or on a treadmill.”

-Patricia Anstett, “Paraplegic improving after stem-cell implant,” The Indianapolis Star, January 16, 2005, at www.indystar.com/articles/5/209449-5235-047.html.


* * *
“PharmaFrontiers has an exclusive contract to develop stem cells that are created from monocyte white blood cells taken from adult blood donations....

“Stem cell treatment for diabetes and heart failure should be commercially available in five to six years, company CEO Dave McWilliams said. ‘The technology actually allows us to change the cells to stem cells and then change them into any type of cell we want,’ he said.’ ...

“There is no one in the United States currently working on any treatment studies using embryonic stem cells, McWilliams said.”

-Burton Speakman, “Woodlands firm develops adult stem cells,” The Courier Online (Montgomery County; Houston, TX), December 26, 2004, at www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1574&dept_id=532218&newsid=13627357&PAG=461&rfi=9.


* * *
“[E]vidence from three different labs – the University of Minnesota, the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey, and Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago – have found three different ASCs [adult stem cells] that may be completely plastic. ... As the team leader at the Robert Wood Johnson School, Ira Black, told me, ‘In aggregate, our study and various others do support the idea that one [adult stem cell] can give rise to all types of tissue.’ ...

-Michael Fumento, “The Adult Answer,” National Review Online, December 20, 2004, at www.nationalreview.com/comment/fumento200412200902.asp.


* * *
“Scientists have transplanted adult stem cells from the bone marrow of rats into the brains of rat embryos and found that thousands of the cells survive into adulthood, raising the possibility that someday developmental abnormalities could be prevented or treated in the womb.

“Dr. Ira Black, chairman of the department of neuroscience at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, said the cells took on the properties of brain cells, migrating to specific regions and taking up characteristics of neighboring cells. …

“Black and his colleagues used a specific type of bone marrow cell called a stromal cell, taken from the leg bones of adult rats. ‘We see this potentially as an appropriate treatment for prenatal disease, mental retardation and congenital conditions,’ Black said. The hope is that a patient’s own bone barrow might someday be the source for replacing brain cells lost to illness and brain trauma, experts say, eliminating the need to use human embryonic stem cells.

“In a separate study, Dr. Alexander Storch of the University of Ulm, Germany, recently took bone marrow and stromal cells from six healthy people and converted the cells into immature neural stem cells. ... ‘A single cell culture could grow all major brain cell types,’ said Storch, who used specific growth factors to help them differentiate. …Storch is now transplanting the cells into mice with multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease and stroke symptoms. In the stroke study, the labeled adult stromal cells migrated to the area surrounding the stroke damage, he said. They had all of the chemical, electrical and functional properties of brain cells.”

-Jamie Talan, “Stem cell transplant a success,” Newsday, May 12, 2004, at http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/news/May2004/SuccessfulRatStemCellTransplant.html.


* * *



“‘Cord blood stem cells have the same capacity to cure disease as do embryonic stem cells, as they can become any cell in the body…,’ said Dr. William Schmidt, Jr., an oncologist with the Charleston Cancer Center in N. Charleston, SC.

“‘The use of umbilical cord blood stem cells in the treatment of disease is one of the most prominent advancements in medicine today. Developments in this field will revolutionize medicine and disease treatment,’ said Dr. [Roger] Markwald [Professor and Chair of the Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy at the Medical University of South Carolina].”

-Press Release, “CureSource Issues Statement on Umbilical Cord Blood Stem Cells vs. Embryonic Stem Cells,” May 12, 2004, at http://home.businesswire.com/portal...d=news_view&newsId=20040512005909&newsLang=en.



BioE, a biotechnology company that develops antibody-based technology platforms used in the development of therapeutics and diagnostics, announced…it has isolated and defined a unique population of stem cells….

“During the past year, BioE confirmed the existence of these new multilineage progenitor cells (MLPCs) by demonstrating repeatedly their ability to self-renew, expand exponentially and differentiate into a wide variety of tissue types – including bone, nerve and muscle. …

“The discovery of these MLPCs in umbilical cord blood opens up a huge untapped source of stem cells for potential use in regenerative medicine.”

-Press Release, “BioE Defines New Population of Multilineage Stem Cells in Umbilical Cord Blood,” May 11, 2004, at http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040511/115796_1.html.


* * *
“California scientists have found that neural stem cells can target and track deadly brain tumor cells. …The discovery by researchers at Cedars-Sinai’s Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute in Los Angeles means that neural stem cells may someday be effective ‘delivery systems’ to transport cancer-killing gene and immune products. …

“‘We have previously demonstrated the uncanny ability of neural stem cells to seek out and destroy satellites of tumor cells in the brain,’ said John S. Yu, senior author of the study and co-director of the Comprehensive Brain Tumor Program a Cedars-Sinai. ‘…With this knowledge, we hope to expedite the translation of this powerful and novel strategy for the clinical benefit of patients with brain tumors.’”

-Press release, “Neural stem cells may help fight cancer,” May 5, 2004, at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_17570.html.


* * *
“‘We’re not trying to change the [adult stem] cells in any way before we put them in the body. These are very early precursor cells. They have the potential to become almost anything, and they adapt quickly once they’re inside,’ said [Tulane University Center for Gene Therapy research professor Dr. Brian] Butcher. Tests on rats with damaged spines have shown that cell growth occurs in the spine [after adult stem cell injection] and allows the animals to walk again. …

“Using adult stem cells sidesteps some of the legal and ethical issues involved in using fetal…or embryonic stem cells…. And there may be other benefits as well. ‘We’re not against stem-cell research of any kind,’ said Butcher. ‘But we think there are advantages to using adult stem cells. For example, with embryonic stem cells, a significant number become cancer cells, so the cure could be worse than the disease. And they can be very difficult to grow, while adult stem cells are very easy to grow.’

“But perhaps the biggest advantage to adult stem cells is that they sidestep immunological concerns because the cells used to treat a patient come from his or her own body.”

-Heather Heilman, “Great Transformations,” The Tulanian, Spring 2004, at http://www2.tulane.edu/article_news_details.cfm?ArticleID=5155.

All this and no religous sites in the mix!! Tons more as well all you need do is read.

 

[Redhots]

The veto does not restrict scientific research. It restricts federal funding of research. Private funding has never been proscribed. In fact, President Bush has been the first President to allow stem cell research.

Its amazing how people can twist things.

It really is amazing how people can twist things... since human stem cell research wasn't around for any other president to take a stand on. Except for Bill Clinton, but by time that came up he had maybe a year left in office... he allowed federal funding by the way.

 

[Redhots]

BTW I love the morality shit being thrown about here.

The DoD budget for 2005 was $401.7 billion, with about 55% of that going to R&D. So last year alone we spent a little over $200 billion tax dollars on figureing out better ways to kill people. To which many people respond to with this

Then along comes some scientist and says "Hey, you know all those embryos and junk we've been throwing away all these years? Well I think I might have an idea on how to use those to cure people who up untill now have had diseases and conditions that are incurable. I just need some money for research."

Then some of you people come along and scream "Murderer... MURDERER!" and chase him away to Europe or Asia.

Thanks for that.

 

[dilloduck]

BTW I love the morality shit being thrown about here.

The DoD budget for 2005 was $401.7 billion, with about 55% of that going to R&D. So last year alone we spent a little over $200 billion tax dollars on figureing out better ways to kill people. To which many people respond to with this

Then along comes some scientist and says "Hey, you know all those embryos and junk we've been throwing away all these years? Well I think I might have an idea on how to use those to cure people who up untill now have had diseases and conditions that are incurable. I just need some money for research."

Then some of you people come along and scream "Murderer... MURDERER!" and chase him away to Europe or Asia.

Thanks for that.

please---DoD stands for department of defense---not for the department of running all over the world killing as many people as we can.

 

[Bonnie]

BTW I love the morality shit being thrown about here.

The DoD budget for 2005 was $401.7 billion, with about 55% of that going to R&D. So last year alone we spent a little over $200 billion tax dollars on figureing out better ways to kill people. To which many people respond to with this

Then along comes some scientist and says "Hey, you know all those embryos and junk we've been throwing away all these years? Well I think I might have an idea on how to use those to cure people who up untill now have had diseases and conditions that are incurable. I just need some money for research."

Then some of you people come along and scream "Murderer... MURDERER!" and chase him away to Europe or Asia.

Thanks for that.

"Embryos and JUNK????" WOW

Anyway point is adult stem cells are just as good, readily available and even better is when we run out of embryonic stem cells we don't need to kill more babies to acquire them.... isn't that neeto?????????

 

[Redhots]

You and I both know the real agenda behind stem cell research is another way to legitamize abortion.

Yeah, you go tell that to the kid who suffers with multiple sclerosis or the grandmother thats slowly wasting away because of alzheimer.

 

[dilloduck]

Yeah, you go tell that to the kid who suffers with multiple sclerosis or the grandmother thats slowly wasting away because of alzheimer.

Why aren't private research companies saving these people?

 

[Bonnie]

Yeah, you go tell that to the kid who suffers with multiple sclerosis or the grandmother thats slowly wasting away because of alzheimer.

Consider a recent issue of Newsweek, putting what it wants you to think is the entire argument right on the cover. "The Stem Cell Wars," declare the boldest words. "Embryo Research vs. Pro-Life Politics: There's Hope for Alzheimer's, Heart Disease, Parkinson's and Diabetes. But Will Bush Cut Off the Money?"

Get it? It's pro-life fanatics vs. science, pro-life fanatics versus the sick.
But actually it's science, not abortion opponents, making the case for non-embryonic cells. Overwhelmingly, the incredible breakthroughs in stem cell research have involved NON-embryonic stem cells.

A recent report in New Scientist described the successful use of stem cells from adult human hair follicles to create skin grafts.
Two studies in Nature Medicine reported that nonembryonic stem cells injected into rodents can transform themselves naturally into neurons and insert themselves into the brain, giving hope to persons with Parkinson's and other disorders. A third study found that injecting a chemical into damaged areas of rats' brains stimulated stem cells to grow and differentiate into a massive number of normal, fully developed nerves. The cells were able to repair damage and restore mobility to the rodents.
At least four rodent studies and one pig study have shown that nonembryonic stem cells can be injected into animals with damaged hearts and repair heart tissue.
As reported in Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, rats with degraded retinas were injected with nonembryonic stem cells that traveled to the site of damage, which then showed signs of making connections with the optic nerve and hence improve or even restore vision.
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine researchers injected nonembryonic stem cells into the spinal fluid of paralyzed mice and rats, half of which partially or fully recovered.
Cells from liposuctioned fat (North America's most plentiful resource) have been transformed into bone, muscle, cartilage and mature fat cells, according to the journal Tissue Engineering.



"Next up: Everything we've decided you need to know about stem cells."
Time and again, scientists involved in non-embryonic stem cell work, including even some who say they support lifting the funding ban, have commented that one of the important results of their and others' findings is that they would bypass the emotion-charged embryonic tissue debate. Among them:
Dr. Donald Orlic of the National Genome Research Institute told NBC News in late March that, "We are currently finding that these adult stem cells can function as well, perhaps even better than, embryonic stem cells."
Eric Olson, chair of the Department of Molecular Biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center say that almost "every other week there's another interesting finding of adult cells turning into neurons or blood cells or heart muscle cells. Apparently our traditional views need to be re-evaluated."
Markus C. Grompe, a professor of molecular medical genetics at Oregon Health Sciences University said of one study: "This would suggest that maybe you don't need any type of fetal stem cell at all . . . that our adult bodies continue to have stem cells that can do this stuff."
One of the richest sources of cells that are not adult, but more importantly are nonembyronic, are umbilical cords and placentas from live births. Each year, more than 4 million umbilical cords are simply discarded. Connected end-to-end, they would stretch further than from New York to Houston.



"Mommy, Mommy, Grandpa is trying to get my stem cells."
Stem cells from newborns are not only available in unlimited amounts, there's also reason to think they may be far more versatile than the other nonembryonic cells used in the aforementioned studies.

But it's not just that embryonic cells are unneeded; pragmatism counsels that they should be shunned.

Much of the current fear over therapeutic human biotechnology comes from angst over embryonic stem cell research, expressed across the spectrum of the abortion debate. Rightly or wrongly, use of embryonic cells invokes visions of Dr. Josef Mengele and a spooky slippery slope toward playing around with human life.

Maintaining the ban on embryonic stem cell research while we continue to watch the fantastic results pour in from nonembryonic stem cell work will leap right over this moral chasm. This action will not just promote stem cell research, but prove invaluable to all future therapeutic genetic research and the vast promise it holds.


Read Michael Fumento's additional work on biotechnology.

Michael Fumento is the author of the numerous books, including Science Under Siege. He’s also completing a book tentatively entitled BioEvolution: How Biotechnology Is Changing .

Since you didnt' bother to read my other post Ill post some of it agian, this answers your question..