Stem Cell Research. The Real Deal and the Hype.

[BAW]

That's Dr. Gibson to you Arun.


And diamond, I'm just curious but do you think its more ethical to destroy the unused embryos that are sitting in fertility clinics once they're no longer needed? Is a frozen embryo considered an innocent life? If an embryo is destined to be destroyed once an infertile couple has completed their family, who is being harmed if that embryo is donated for scientific purposes?

 

[bonosloveslave]

There are people willing to 'adopt' embryos...

 

[BAW]

Embryo adoption is a GREAT idea and could help thousands of couples but convincing them to donate is the first hurdle...the second is getting the fertility clinics to add this option along with the choice to store, destroy or donate to science. I hope it catches on. I think I read there are upwards of 400,000 stored embyos in the US alone.

 

[deep]

W is going to push imigration policy because we need cheap labor


maybe we should grow our own

 

[anitram]

When, somewhere down the road, stem cell research leads to the discovery of new medical therapies or even genetic cures, I want to see whether diamond and Mel Gibson and every other opponent will refuse the treatment in favour of pain and death, because that's the "right" thing to do.

5 bucks says they'll be poppin' them pills right alongside the rest of us.

 

[Hallelujah Here She Comes]

There are people willing to 'adopt' embryos...

That's a great idea. But is this really going to be true for all of the embryos created for in vitro fertalization? What do we do with the ones that don't get "adopted"?

And I still want to hear an answer as to whether those that oppose embryonic stem cell research think destroying embryos created for in vitro fertalization is wrong.

By the way, does anyone know what the actual text of Prop 71 was?

 

[annj]

here is a thought for you

we were all embryos at one stage in our development,
you me and the whole human race

Bono Larry Adam and Edge were embryo's even George Bush and Kerry were embryo's

what if some scientist decided we were just some useful cells and tossed the rest of us away

makes me feel kindda weird now thinking about it

 

[A_Wanderer]

So there have been billions of other embryos that didn't result in that, why mull over the possibilities of what could have been when you can help change things as they are.

 

[Hallelujah Here She Comes]

here is a thought for you

we were all embryos at one stage in our development,
you me and the whole human race

Bono Larry Adam and Edge were embryo's even George Bush and Kerry were embryo's

what if some scientist decided we were just some useful cells and tossed the rest of us away

makes me feel kindda weird now thinking about it

So you oppose creating the embryos for in vitro fertalization in the first place? Or are you proposing that we just keep them indefinitely? That we find willing women who will carry all of them? Seriously...I want to know.

 

[nbcrusader]

When, somewhere down the road, stem cell research leads to the discovery of new medical therapies or even genetic cures, I want to see whether diamond and Mel Gibson and every other opponent will refuse the treatment in favour of pain and death, because that's the "right" thing to do.

Why, because they oppose public funding of such research. There are plenty of wealthy pharmaceutical corporations who are more than capable of conducting stem cell research. Why ask for the public handout?

 

[anitram]

There are people who oppose the research based on the idea it is immoral. I am wondering whether they will continue to be men and women of principle when it's their own hide on the line down the road.

 

[nbcrusader]

Do you want eveyone to live to that degree of "principle" across the board? That is a mighty tall standard you are suggesting.

 

[deep]

So I gather you think there is value in stem cell reserch?

 

[nbcrusader]

From what I've read, there is marginal value.

Certainly nothing that comes close to the hyped promises we saw before the elections.

 

[deep]

Thank you for reading and not going by gut feelings.

or what some call core values.


I have read some, listen to, and watch programs concerning this and believe there are real opportunities for some diseases,

 

[anitram]

Do you want eveyone to live to that degree of "principle" across the board? That is a mighty tall standard you are suggesting.

If people are willing to spend this much energy villifying the research and this much energy preventing funding and this much energy accusing people of killing babies, then I surely expect them to also be people of principle later.

 

[diamond]

If people are willing to spend this much energy villifying the research and this much energy preventing funding and this much energy accusing people of killing babies, then I surely expect them to also be people of principle later.

anitram-
noboby is villifying the work.
23 years of embrionic research have cured no one.
nobody.

if it had cured ppl, all the rich private ppl who support it would throw their own money to look good.


adult stem cells have cured people.
i think we should stick with positive ladened results and not a quater century of
unproven science
and
unethical and questionable medicine found in embrionic stem cell research..

this infamous dr would probably support embrionic stem cell research.

db9

 

[anitram]

Diamond, with due respect, I cannot continue to debate this with you when 98% of your personal opinions have no basis in fact. I'm sorry, it's not an elitist or intellectual thing, it's a matter of you not being in any way a specialist in the field, yet you continue to throw out statements which are completely and utterly false and completely and utterly divorced from science.

Stem cells discovered 23 years ago? Are you just that misinformed or are you shitting me? When were MAPCs discovered? Please look it up, thanks.

As for the implication tying this type of research to mass extermination, you could not be more offensive if you tried. I'm appalled.

ETA: As for the comment re: research on stem cells.

Please give me a protocol to grow them successfully without mouse cell contamination. Have you ANY idea how difficult it is to culture these things? It's just insanity to even suggest there have been 23 years of "research". First, because 23 is wrong and second, because if you know anything about laboratory work, simply maintaining and optimizing a cell culture is NOT research! And that's essentially what's been done thus far, just try to optimize growth and subculturing. Jeez, I swear it really riles me up to read this stuff.

 

[diamond]

The Nazi's were keen on cloning, as are proponents of embrionic stem cell research.
Thats the correlation.

db9

 

[The_Sweetest_Thing]

diamond, what did you do? read one article and assume you were an expert on the topic? i think anitram already shut you up further back in this thread.

actually, adult stem cells have 'cured' no one. If they had, wouldn't there be line ups of people out the doors of hospitals waiting to have their Parkinson's cured? They've been used for therapies and generally, preventing additional damage, or perhaps retarding some existing damage. Get the facts right.

So--if embryonic stem cell research is all THAT bad, as you say--why would they continue it if there is no money it whatsoever, or a dead end? Why would hundreds of educated scientists worldwide continue an endeavour that was futile? Who are we going to trust...this reporter guy or men wnad women who have dedicated their lives to the persuit of education and science?

 

[V Nura]

The Nazi's were keen on cloning, as are proponents of embrionic stem cell research.
Thats the correlation.

db9

??????????....what does embrionic stem cell research have to do with cloning exactly?


btw I asked george clooney about it...and he told me it was all good....at least he played a dr on tv.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Goodwins Law, Diamond forfeits the debate automatically, end of story.

 

[anitram]

??????????....what does embrionic stem cell research have to do with cloning exactly?

He would tell you that if he actually knew what cloning was.

And BTW, diamond, who has been "cured" by adult stem cells, please tell me. The people who get bone marrow transplants? You know, the ones we refer to as being in remission, but not cured? Them?

 

[diamond]

diamond, what did you do? read one article and assume you were an expert on the topic? i think anitram already shut you up further back in this thread.

actually, adult stem cells have 'cured' no one. If they had, wouldn't there be line ups of people out the doors of hospitals waiting to have their Parkinson's cured? They've been used for therapies and generally, preventing additional damage, or perhaps retarding some existing damage. Get the facts right.

So--if embryonic stem cell research is all THAT bad, as you say--why would they continue it if there is no money it whatsoever, or a dead end? Why would hundreds of educated scientists worldwide continue an endeavour that was futile? Who are we going to trust...this reporter guy or men wnad women who have dedicated their lives to the persuit of education and science?

adult stem cells are the real deal and have bettered ppl's lives.
e-cells have not.

the reason the support is there is a link to a pro abortion lobby and the money is govt sponsored.

it's a losing deal on all fronts.

gw has had more success in iraq than e cell scientists have had in their field.

db9

db9

 

[The_Sweetest_Thing]

The Nazi's were keen on cloning, as are proponents of embrionic stem cell research.
Thats the correlation.

db9

diamond,

the nazis, and mengele particularly, were keen on eugenics and twin studies. As most of their experiments were carried out in tiny labs in concentration camps, they had neither the equipment, the facilities, nor the knowledge to carry out these so called cloning experiments that you speak of. In fact, rarely any of their research had any scientific basis, as most of it was based on observation with no control groups or experimental method.

please get your facts straight.

 

[The_Sweetest_Thing]

the reason the support is there is a link to a pro abortion lobby and the money is govt sponsored.

and doctors in other countries whre abortion is legal--doctors there would be working making little pay, no recognition, in dead end alleys, for so called 'wasted work', because. . .

 

[anitram]

The Nazi's were keen on cloning, as are proponents of embrionic stem cell research.
Thats the correlation.

ROTFLMAO!!!!

Diamond, you're just embarrassing yourself here.

When was DNA discovered by Watson and Crick? In the 1950s? AFTER the Nazis were dead and buried with their "keenness on cloning."

I'm sorry, how do you clone without DNA?

LMAO!

 

[diamond]

ROTFLMAO!!!!

Diamond, you're just embarrassing yourself here.

When was DNA discovered by Watson and Crick? In the 1950s? AFTER the Nazis were dead and buried with their "keenness on cloning."

I'm sorry, how do you clone without DNA?

LMAO!

Anitram-
do the words 'master race' mean anything to you.
the Nazi's wet dream was to clone they were trying to find a way.

heres some more truth i will sprinkle on the masses here

happy reading

Speaker, last week, our Nation mourned the loss of a great leader, Ronald Reagan. He led our Nation through a turbulent period of time. When he came to office, we were struggling with significant problems; with unemployment and inflation, and we were facing a significant threat from our Cold War adversary, the Soviet Union. Ronald Reagan?s policies, as we all know, helped lift us out of depression, tamed inflation, and ultimately led to the breakup of the Soviet Union, the collapse of the Berlin war, and freedom for millions of Eastern Europeans.

By and large, the celebration of the life of Ronald Reagan, I thought, was outstanding, except for what I would describe as one sour note.

Repeatedly, liberals in the press and advocates for embryonic stem cell research were bringing this issue up as it relates to Ronald Reagan?s Alzheimer's disease, indeed, holding out the absurd hope that embryonic stem cells could somehow be used one day to treat Alzheimer's disease.

Indeed, many people were implying by their comments and words that the policies pursued by George Bush limited access to embryonic stem cells out of a desire to avoid destroying human embryos. And that is really the essence of the controversial issue here, because to do human embryonic stem cell research you have to destroy a human embryo, a human life, in order to gather the cells.

One newspaper, The Washington Post, even editorialized that if George Bush were to allow the destruction of human embryos, this would be a fitting tribute to the life of President Reagan. In that same newspaper, the very next day, was an article reporting how embryonic stem cells are unlikely ever to be useful in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.

Indeed, one of the lead researchers in the United States, Dr. Ronald McKay, stem cell researcher at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, told Washington Post reporter Rick Weiss, "People need a fairy tale." And he went on to explain how "Alzheimer's disease is a whole-brain disease. It is not a cellular disease, and it is unlikely that embryonic stem cells would ever be useful for treating such a condition."

Now, what are the facts? What is the truth in this whole controversy? Because it is indeed a very confusing subject and it is very easy for poorly-informed reporters to mislead the public.

Well, the truth is embryonic stem cells have never been used to treat any human being for any disease ever. You will hear people repeatedly say that they hold great promise, supposedly. But as a matter of fact, they have never been used to treat anything. Even in animal models, where you use mouse or rat embryonic stem cells, they do not even have a good animal model to treat an animal disease with embryonic stem cells.

However, adult stem cells, which are the stem cells that we get from our body, as opposed to destroying a human embryo to get the stem cells, our body is full of stem cells. They are in our bone marrow, in our fat, they are even in our nose.

Adult stem cells have been used in humans to treat Parkinson?s Disease, to partially restore vision to someone who is legally blind, relieve systemic lupus, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, cure severe combined immunodeficiency disease, treat several types of cancers, such as leukemias, solid tumors, neuroblastomas, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and renal cell carcinoma.

Adult stem cells have been used to treat multiple sclerosis, treat children with the bubble boy syndrome, and treat heart failure in humans. Indeed, the FDA just recently approved a protocol to use adult stem cells in treating heart failure in humans.

So what is all the hub-bub? Why are all these people running around saying they want the Federal Government to fund all this embryonic stem cell research when it has really never been shown that it will have a clinical application, meanwhile the adult stem cells are showing all this great promise? Why is all this going on?

Well, the truth is that embryonic stem cell research is perfectly legal in the United States. There are no laws preventing it from being done. Every lab in America could do embryonic stem cell research. The issue here is who is going to pay for it, and the facts are that industry does not want to pay for it. They want the Federal Government to pay for it. The Federal government should not. It is unnecessary research and it is unethical.

Well, the truth is that embryonic stem cell research is perfectly legal in the United States. There are no laws preventing it from being done. Every lab in America could do embryonic stem cell research. The issue here is who is going to pay for it, and the facts are that industry does not want to pay for it. They want the Federal Government to pay for it. The Federal government should not. It is unnecessary research and it is unethical

 

[deep]

db9

db9

no

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[The_Sweetest_Thing]

Anitram-
do the words 'master race' mean anything to you.
the Nazi's wet dream was to clone they were trying to find a way.

DB9 - The Nazis were after the "Aryan Race" and purification of the race. You assume they had the capabilities to manipulate DNA at this time. As ani already stated, they didn't as DNA WASN'T EVEN discovered.

Rather, the Nazis were trying to remove the racially impure--the unfit--the jews, the diseased, etc--from the population to create a master race through forced 'natural' selection--or selective breeding. Once the impure had been removed, people could easily procreate the natural way, ensuring the purity of the race.