Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Stem Cells Treat Spinal Injuries and Brain Tumors

Posted by michael on from the weapons-of-mass-healing dept.

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."

1 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. Stem cell debate by adachan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ok here it is. I hope this can influence some voters in the coming election. The debate over human stem cell usage is not a debate over stem cells, it is a debate over where the stem cells are derived from. This is the debate. Here is what is being argued. President bush says that adult derived stem cells can be used in place of embryonic stem cells. Senator Kerry says that this is not the case and embryonic stem cells have greater potential. Here is a bit of research i have done from reading papers found on medline. Noone to date has shown that adult derived stem cells are capable of producing neurons in an injured spinal cord. It has been shown that embroyonic derived stem cells can however. This is the problem. I have very much oversimplfied this as I am not sure that most of you want to read the details, but the fact is that if you listen to President Bush, you might think that adult cells can be used to cure spinal injury. There is no current evidence for this. There is evidence that embryonic cells can be used to do it. President Bush is not telling the public the whole truth. I do not know the ins and outs of war and I do not want to pretend to be an expert on the subject of war so I do not know how much he is lying to us or not, but I do know that he has not told us the truth on this subject (I am currently doing some of these studies in rats) and I find myself having quite a bit of distrust for anything he says becasue of it and the way he presents himself. Please, if you are American and want to further advance science, do not let him get re-elected. He is hindering the advance of a field and many people may benefit from the research if it can be conducted. Go and vote!!!