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Stem Cells Treat Spinal Injuries and Brain Tumors
Neil Halelamien writes "At the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting this past weekend, some very exciting results (from experiments on rats and mice) were discussed regarding the potential for human embryonic stem cells to treat injured spinal cords, brain tumors, and Parkinson's. Besides the possible health benefits, this adds fuel to the discussions leading up to the US election and the US's current attempts to have the UN ban therapeutic cloning worldwide."
Actually, this is the first thing I've seen reports that embryonic stem cells can do something that adult stem cells cannot. In fact, it's the first report that I've seen where we've manage to coax embryonic stem cells to do things - up to now, all successful stem cell research I've been able to find has been from adult stem cells.
Links here:
Olfactory Bulb Stem Cells And Lou Gehrig's Disease
Jefferson Scientists Find New Way To Convert Adult Human Stem Cells To Dopamine Neurons
These are studies published in the last two weeks that successfully demonstrate that adult stem cells can be used for treatment of diseases such as Lou Gehrig's and Parkinsons. What is significant is that they are non-destructive techniques that do not require the destruction of the host provider... AND they will not be rejected by the person being treated or require the extensive anti-rejection treatments that using foreign stem cells to treat an individual would require.
In fact the study using mice can be directly compared to a similar study using embryonic stem cells:
Human Spinal Cord Cells Help Rats With Lou Gehrig's Disease
The embryonic stem cell study only allowed the mice to survive an additional 11 days... while the adult stem cell study allowed the mice to live an additional two months! In mouse years that is a huge difference... 11 days or 60 days? which treatment was more successful?
The real point is that valid and successful research is being carried out that does not require the destruction of embryos... this is not to say that there isn't something to be learned from embryonic stem cell research, there is BUT and this is a big BUT... IT SIMPLY ISN'T THE ONLY VALID RESEARCH OPTION AVAILABLE.
That point made, you can no longer claim that stopping federal funding for embryonic stem cell research is giving up on treatment or cures for said degenerative diseases.. in fact IMHO without the ban some of these approaches may not have been considered due to the perceived superiority of using embryonic stem cells.
'nuff said.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I would love stem cell research!
Just as long as I am not/was not the fetus, or mass of cells whatever you destroy to extract them.
I came pretty close to being that fetus/clump of cells, as my mom was 40 when she had me and she almost decided she just couldn't handle a kid at 40 years old.
Now I am a clump of cells that went to college, and employ people with family supporting jobs.
My other problem with this has to do with the ever so slippery slope of eugenics, and human experimentation, and why we are doing it. (i.e. CASH)
It reminds me of a favorite Bablyon 5 episode. A brilliant scientist discovers a way to allow humans to live forever, from the extract of the brain fluids in another human being. The procedure kills the person, but it allows immortality.
This scientist was an outcast because she would not accept ANY limits to where or how her research would proceed. In the end, when she was caught and judged to be executed for her crimes. She proclaimed: "My ultimate triumph will be after I die. You will all kill each other to live forever and that will be my revenge."
After verifying the results of her experiments, the government authority sent a ship to pick up the research. Unfortunately, the Vorlons sent a ship to destroy the vessel before the research could be sent back to earth.
When asked why the Vorlon said: "Humanity is not ready for immortality..."
As it is, we cannot agree if the fetus is a clump of cells or something more...
It USE to be that everyone argued is was just a clump of cells. After all it was very tiny, and we couldn't do much about it.
But now, now as we advance, this definition, if there is one keeps changing. As we advance our perception of what it means to be ultimately human continues to get smaller, and smaller.
We are now fast approaching an understanding of genetics and biology that is leading us to conclude that DNA sequences are actually what define us to be human.
Even now, we can take steps before the fetus or clump of cells is born, to do corrective surgery, or genetic therapy.
Yet, it still can be aborted on demand.
Now, if a life is worth saving at this stage to be considered a human being which we can perform huma medical techniques on, is that what the definition of a human being is at the moment?
I am all for advancement of medical research, but we need to seriously think about what it means to be a human being.
I don't know what it means to be stuck in a chair, or paralyzed. But, I am not willing to trade my humanity for government approved breeding programs in factories for spare parts taken from human or not human potential that will never be, or whatever we decide at the moment to rationalize or justify what we do.
How far are we willing to go to correct our own personal hells?
I think what I am getting at is who is going to ultimately play God when this research allows us to grow hearts, organs...etc? Who gets a new heart and who doesn't?
If you have a great answer to this, I would like to here at what point does a clump of cells become a human being with rights.
The other problem I have with this is, health care in general.
I use to work in a Biotech company. If you would here some of the pretty frank discussions in private, leather covered board rooms about drugs and research directives, I think many here would be shocked and awed.
Some of the directives I have heard around a pretty popular drug was, "We do not want or are interested in a cure for heart disease, it would kill our market. We need a ball and chain a person needs to take on a daily basis or else they die to correct disease. Lets keep focused people."
We now have lipitor as a direct result of this sort of research directive.
I hope everyone here doesn't think this (CURES for diseases or ailments vs TREATMENTS) will be widely applied to anybody but the very rich and powerful.
Medical
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.