California Stem Cell Prop 71 Is Favored In The Polls

[wade]

Just as I advocate private health care, I would advocate private control of such matters. The State doesn't need to get its nose into it although they would probably find some way to tax it.

To have a organ bank system that is fair, prevents people from selling their organs, and can respond quickly enough to be effective, it must be state run.

 

[ScreamingEagle]

To have a organ bank system that is fair, prevents people from selling their organs, and can respond quickly enough to be effective, it must be state run.

Not necessarily. It could wind up being just the opposite if state-run.

 

[Bonnie]

www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-golden28oct28,1,4649826,print.column

Potential of Stem Cells Relentlessly Oversold

Proposition 71 would require that the state float a 3-billion bond (6 billion with interest) to finance California-based research intoembryonic stem cells, whihc has been ahmstrung by ill-considered Bush administration funding restrictions.. Promoters of the measure say that this money would be returned possibly in spades--by economic growth,patent royalties, and healthcare savings derived from new therapies for a host of devastating diseases.

But they can support those claims only through assumptions about the imminence of such achievements that few responsible scientists would endorse

Its marketing, meanwhile, has become more cynical, sinking to the airing of a TV as posthumously featruing Christopher Reeve, and trotting out the noted and fiscal expert Brad Pitt to extol the measure for the "Today" show's slavish Katie Couric

"personal empathy is not the proper basis for public policy"

.....................................

Adult stem cells have had much more success, and the best part is you don't have to manufacture and kill helpless babies for it!!!!!!!!!

 

[hylandrdet]

www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-golden28oct28,1,4649826,print.column

Potential of Stem Cells Relentlessly Oversold

Proposition 71 would require that the state float a 3-billion bond (6 billion with interest) to finance California-based research intoembryonic stem cells, whihc has been ahmstrung by ill-considered Bush administration funding restrictions.. Promoters of the measure say that this money would be returned possibly in spades--by economic growth,patent royalties, and healthcare savings derived from new therapies for a host of devastating diseases.

But they can support those claims only through assumptions about the imminence of such achievements that few responsible scientists would endorse

Its marketing, meanwhile, has become more cynical, sinking to the airing of a TV as posthumously featruing Christopher Reeve, and trotting out the noted and fiscal expert Brad Pitt to extol the measure for the "Today" show's slavish Katie Couric

"personal empathy is not the proper basis for public policy"

.....................................

Adult stem cells have had much more success, and the best part is you don't have to manufacture and kill helpless babies for it!!!!!!!!!

No. Every known member of the scientific community had agreed that embryonic stem cells are better than the adult stems cells in terms of finding cures for ailments. The real issue lies within the process itself.

The demand for stem cells, for treatment of ailments, may ultimately lead to stem cell cloning; can you say 1984?

Objections to stem cell cell research is nothing more than a combination of Paranoid Politics and the medical community seeking more dollars!

"That's why they'll not coming up with a cure for AIDS; they're getting back what they'd lost from Polio" - Chris Rock

 

[wade]

Not necessarily. It could wind up being just the opposite if state-run.

It's state run (funded) now and it results in many successful transplants. The only change I'm suggesting has to do with who gets priority for recieving organs - I believe those who choose to make their own organs available should get first crack at available organs if they need them.

 

[ScreamingEagle]

Mel Gibson has come out against Prop 71.

Gibson, who is Catholic, said he initially supported the amendment but changed his mind.

"I found that the cloning of human embryos will be used in the process and that, for me, I have an ethical problem with that," he said, according to the Associated Press. "Why do I, as a taxpayer, have to fund something I believe is unethical?"

http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/bpnews.asp?ID=19425

"Using human beings at any stage of development for research -- to slice and dice, to clone and kill -- dehumanizes all of us," Randy Thomasson, executive director of Campaign for California Families, told Baptist Press. "It teaches us that human life is cheap and [that] if you aren't otherwise useful, you are targeted to become a slave of society who can be experimented upon and whose cells and organs can be harvested."

"We've got to clearly distinguish between good stem cell research and bad stem cell research," he said. "The good stem cell research doesn't clone or kill anyone. … Embryo research -- whether from humans or from mice -- has not produced any medical cures and is not likely to do so in the future became embryonic research is producing tumors that render the experiment completely unsuccessful. Playing God has consequences, and using the youngest human beings for research is something Hitler's doctors would endorse, but compassionate Americans never should."

Opponents charge that the text of the initiative is misleading. For instance, the words "embryo" are "embryonic" are not used. Instead, embryonic stem cell research is called by its scientific name, "pluripotent stem cell research." Embryos from fertility clinics are dubbed "surplus products of in vitro fertilization." Additionally, therapeutic cloning is called "somatic cell nuclear transfer," also a scientific term

 

[ScreamingEagle]

www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-golden28oct28,1,4649826,print.column

Potential of Stem Cells Relentlessly Oversold

Proposition 71 would require that the state float a 3-billion bond (6 billion with interest) to finance California-based research intoembryonic stem cells, whihc has been ahmstrung by ill-considered Bush administration funding restrictions.. Promoters of the measure say that this money would be returned possibly in spades--by economic growth,patent royalties, and healthcare savings derived from new therapies for a host of devastating diseases.

But they can support those claims only through assumptions about the imminence of such achievements that few responsible scientists would endorse

Its marketing, meanwhile, has become more cynical, sinking to the airing of a TV as posthumously featruing Christopher Reeve, and trotting out the noted and fiscal expert Brad Pitt to extol the measure for the "Today" show's slavish Katie Couric

"personal empathy is not the proper basis for public policy"

.....................................

Adult stem cells have had much more success, and the best part is you don't have to manufacture and kill helpless babies for it!!!!!!!!!

Exactly! If embryonic stem cell research was so "promising", where are the investors? Instead, Prop 71 is forcing the taxpayers to make "welfare" payments for questionable scientific research.

 

[wade]

Exactly! If embryonic stem cell research was so "promising", where are the investors? Instead, Prop 71 is forcing the taxpayers to make "welfare" payments for questionable scientific research.

It's too big a nut for any private group to invest in. Politics could make such investment fruitless - at least here in the USA.

The thing you have to understand is that before any cures can be had from stem-cells the hows of working with them must first be developed, and that is not going to be cheap. And when they are developed, unless the developers are very careful and secretive, the fruits may go to someone else. This is the Bush plan - Federally fund the "how to" of it using a handful of stem-cell lines, but leave the cures to be patented by private firms so they can reap huge profits and the public will have limited access to them.

The fact is that if we do not do it, Europe or Asia will and we will then be buying the results from them anyway. All your ethical arguments will go out the window when your child is born with CF and their is a stem-cell based cure available. All you are doing by opposing this research is gifting it to foreign countries and delaying it a few years in the process.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

It's too big a nut for any private group to invest in. Politics could make such investment fruitless - at least here in the USA.

The thing you have to understand is that before any cures can be had from stem-cells the hows of working with them must first be developed, and that is not going to be cheap. And when they are developed, unless the developers are very careful and secretive, the fruits may go to someone else. This is the Bush plan - Federally fund the "how to" of it using a handful of stem-cell lines, but leave the cures to be patented by private firms so they can reap huge profits and the public will have limited access to them.

The fact is that if we do not do it, Europe or Asia will and we will then be buying the results from them anyway. All your ethical arguments will go out the window when your child is born with CF and their is a stem-cell based cure available. All you are doing by opposing this research is gifting it to foreign countries and delaying it a few years in the process.

This is similar to the pro outsourcing argument: "If we don't use cheap international labor, other countries will, and will surpass us developmentally". I agree with this.

Do you defend the practice of outsourcing?

 

[alien21010]

I am referring to the liberals that have the goal of a State-run world. Conservatives believe in the rights of the individual. Liberals do not. An unborn child is an individual human being so I support its individual rights. Liberals think it has no rights and so figure they can dismissively kill it. I also support the right of an individual to donate his/her own body to help others if they so choose. I do not support the State making that decision for anybody. btw is a pro-lifer your definition of a "right-wing extremist"?

An unborn child is not an individual, as it relies soley on its mother for survival. It is not capable of living outside the womb unassisted.

Liberals support the choice of the actual individual (the mother) to either keep the child or abort the child.

Pro-life is not my definition of right-wing extremist. I'm talking about the "gay hating, ultra religious, pseudo Nazis." Essentially fundamentalist Christians.

I agree completely that the ultimate decision should be left to the individual, and as such we have no say in this matter. To leave the matter completely open, the individual should have complete and unrestricted access to whatever medical facilities they so desire. The government is not, and should not ever be involved in the process of regulating what an individual can or cannot do with their body.

If you ask me: The whole abortion debate is pointless. Let it be legal, and let the individual people decide whether or not the fetus is a human life. The child is their responsibility either way, let them decide what to do with it.

I find it very hypocritical for the "far right" (which you are not) to advocate controlling the rights of the individuals (abortion in this instance) in order to impose "morality." Is that not the ultimate definition of big government? You're either with us or you're in jail?

 

[rtwngAvngr]

An unborn child is not an individual, as it relies soley on its mother for survival. It is not capable of living outside the womb unassisted.

This test is assinine. Newborns are wholly dependant as well, are they individuals?

Liberals support the choice of the actual individual (the mother) to either keep the child or abort the child.

Yes. The left has managed to pervert this issue into a woman's rights issue, when actually it's a life/death issue. Like murder.

Pro-life is not my definition of right-wing extremist. I'm talking about the "gay hating, ultra religious, pseudo Nazis." Essentially fundamentalist Christians.

You're an insulting bastard to lump fundamentalis christians in with nazis. That is simply wrong.

I agree completely that the ultimate decision should be left to the individual, and as such we have no say in this matter.

So as an individual I can decide to kill another individual because of my individual right to kill? That's perverse. Your mind is a sewer.

To leave the matter completely open, the individual should have complete and unrestricted access to whatever medical facilities they so desire. The government is not, and should not ever be involved in the process of regulating what an individual can or cannot do with their body.

If you ask me: The whole abortion debate is pointless. Let it be legal, and let the individual people decide whether or not the fetus is a human life. The child is their responsibility either way, let them decide what to do with it.

I find it very hypocritical for the "far right" (which you are not) to advocate controlling the rights of the individuals (abortion in this instance) in order to impose "morality." Is that not the ultimate definition of big government? You're either with us or you're in jail?

Let's abolish all laws against murder and let the individual decide if murder is right or wrong. Doesn't that sound silly to you?

 

[wade]

This is similar to the pro outsourcing argument: "If we don't use cheap international labor, other countries will, and will surpass us developmentally". I agree with this.

Do you defend the practice of outsourcing?

The greatest amount of outsourcing going on right now has to do with customer service related jobs - and foriegn countries cannot export these, only we can.

For other industries, it's a short run profit taking game, the long run cost is loss of an industry. Example:

Huffy bicycles

Huffy recently exported their production facilities to Taiwan. The US produced product was profitable, but they moved them anyway, cutting some 6000 jobs from the USA. The USA workers made an average of $16/hr after figuring in benefits. The chineese workers will make an average of about $1.35 a day, will have no benefits, and will work 16 hours a day 6+ days a week. The results are that a bicycle will drop in price here in the USA from about $250 to about $175.

But, looking at past history here is what will happen. Within less than a decade, right next to the Huffy bicycle plant in Taiwan, another bicycle plant will be opened, lets call it "Hoffy". It will produce a nearly identical bicycle and will employ many of the workers trained in the Huffy plant. It will undersell the Huffy product, as it does not need to pay those fat checks to the bloated management that exported Huffy to Taiwan in the first place. Then supplies of steel and other raw materials will start to become impossible for the Huffy plant to aquire, and after a few years Huffy will go out of business and be bought by Hoffy, who will then take the Huffy name as their own.

We have seen this exact thing happen in many industries already, particularly with electronics. Management thinks the workers are expendible, but does not realize that they too are expendible until it is too late. In the end, all the jobs and all the profits end up in the hands of the other country, and the only role the orginal company has is in marketing the product in the USA, if they're lucky.

 

[ScreamingEagle]

Here's an excellent article that further explains why Mel Gibson is against the "Twilight Zone" [Prop 71] research:

http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/gibson200411010950.asp

Truthfully, I would find it difficult to look at myself in the mirror if I didn't take a stand against this disingenuous proposition, particularly in light of the fact that in 23 years of research with embryonic-stem-cells not one single cure has been obtained.

Not so with adult and umbilical-cord stem cells, which have resulted in more than 300,000 effective cures including spinal-cord injuries, Parkinson's disease, stroke, and multiple sclerosis. That's not what Prop 71 is about.

NRO: Isn't this just a typical Election Day bond issue?

Gibson: Not at all. Bond measures are the most expensive way to finance any governmental activity. Prop 71 is a $300 million annual constitutional entitlement that lasts for ten years even if the research falls flat after three years.

And who will be looking over the shoulders of the political appointees as they hand out the $3 billion of our money?

Not the public. The commission deliberations are exempt from the California Open Meeting Laws.

Not the press. The commission is also exempt from the California Public Records Act under the same terms.

Not the law. The working groups that will score and recommend projects for funding are completely exempt from California's Conflicts of Interest Law.

Do you want to know how your $3 billion is spent? You'll never know under Prop 71.