Stem Cell Smoke and Mirrors

[Adam's Apple]

Stem Cell Smoke and Mirrors
By Steven Milloy, Fox News
July 26, 2005

The debate over federal funding of embryonic stem cell research has heated up again. A recent exchange of views in the Washington Post exposes the smoke and mirrors on both sides. Dr. Leon Kass, the chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics, wrote an op-ed in the Post on July 12 proposing an ostensible win-win solution for both sides.

Rather than destroying viable embryos to conduct research on potential new medical therapies for diseases like cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer's, Dr. Kass suggested four alternatives for obtaining embryonic stem cells, including: getting cells from already dead embryos that might have viable cells; extracting cells from living embryos in a nondestructive manner; bioengineering cells from embryo-like tissue; and reprogramming mature body cells into embryonic stem cells.

The downside to this proposal is that all these ideas are unproven — a point seized on by researchers in the opposing camp — including Stanford University's Paul Berg, Harvard Medical School's George Q. Daley and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's S.B. Goldstein (collectively referred to as "Berg") — in a follow-up Washington Post op-ed on July 19.

But while Kass' proposal attempts to sidestep the crux of the controversy — whether or not taxpayers should fund the morally questionable destruction of viable embryos in the name of expensive, speculative medical research — the criticism offered by Berg is downright disingenuous.

"Research on [Kass'] proposed alternatives is already legal and can be funded by existing mechanisms," wrote Berg. But the same could be said of embryonic stem cell research using viable embryos. There is no law that prohibits embryonic stem cell research; the only question is whether federal funds should be used. Such research could be funded by existing mechanisms — that is, private investment. More on the latter point later.

for full article: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,163272,00.html

 

[sitarro]

just reported Sunday. . . Obviously our President knew what he was doing once again!

/www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/21/AR2005082101180_pf.html

"Scientists for the first time have turned ordinary skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells -- without having to use human eggs or make new human embryos in the process, as has always been required in the past, a Harvard research team announced yesterday.

The technique uses laboratory-grown human embryonic stem cells -- such as the ones that President Bush has already approved for use by federally funded researchers -- to "reprogram" the genes in a person's skin cell, turning that skin cell into an embryonic stem cell itself.

The approach -- details of which are to be published this week in the journal Science but were made public on the journal's Web site yesterday -- is still in an early stage of development. But if further studies confirm its usefulness, it could offer an end run around the heated social and religious debate that has for years overshadowed the field of human embryonic stem cell research.

Since the new stem cells in this technique are essentially rejuvenated versions of a person's own skin cells, the DNA in those new stem cells matches the DNA of the person who provided the skin cells. In theory at least, that means that any tissues grown from those newly minted stem cells could be transplanted into the person to treat a disease without much risk that they would be rejected, because they would constitute an exact genetic match."

Don't you just love this. Real scientist have found a way to not only use a living person's own cells to create an embryonic stem cell, the chances are much better for less rejection because it comes from the same DNA. All of the idiot crap from the left and now I am sure that they will be lining up to appologize to President Bush for the awful things that they called him. . . sure, hold your breath. You leftist are on the wrong side, period. :

 

[Adam's Apple]

And the published report comes from the Washington Post, no less. What is this world coming to?

 

[Gunny]

And the published report comes from the Washington Post, no less. What is this world coming to?

Smoke and mirrors of a different sort!

 

[Powerman]

just reported Sunday. . . Obviously our President knew what he was doing once again!

/www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/21/AR2005082101180_pf.html

I like Bush but I don't know how much credit we should give him for a scientific breakthrough. Sounds more like luck to me.

 

[sitarro]

I like Bush but I don't know how much credit we should give him for a scientific breakthrough. Sounds more like luck to me.

Or maybe he is more well read on the real possibilities that exist in the research community. He is privy to volumes of information that we will never see or hear about and bases decisions on that rather than what some biased reporter writes in a newspaper. I think he has been underestimated for so long it is just assumed that he doesn't know what he is speaking about. Look at how the media portrayed his decision not to fund embryonic stem cell research, they turned it into the lie that he was banning this research, now it looks like it was never needed in the first place. Like I said before, if the private sector saw that there was a real possibility for the ground breaking scientific discoveries that politicos have been screaming about, they wouldn't need government funding.

 

[no1tovote4]

Excellent.

The left gets into an argument it cannot back up when they attempt to say that Bush made Stem Cell research illegal. It simply isn't true. He simply has made it so Federal Tax money cannot be spent on such controversial research and that it would need to be funded at the State level or by Private means.

That being stated, the creation of embryonic stem cells would allow an adult to give them cells to further the research thus taking away the moral issue with this research. I would bet that research conducted in this way will be funded at a Federal level, while research that uses fetal tissue will continue to not be supported by federal funding.