Paralyzed Woman Walks Again

mgv writes "It's been promised for years, but it's just become a reality. Stem cells taken from cord blood have enabled a paralysed woman in South Korea to walk again for the first time in 20 years. The details are on the Sydney Morning Herald Site which requires registration, but can also be seen on the World Peace Herald. Too late for Christopher Reeve, but not for the thousands of new injuries worldwide each year or the millions of paralysed people from other diseases in the world."

Comments

Adult stem cells

[Anonymous Coward]

Cord blood stem cells are considered to be adult stem cells, not embryonic stem cells. Just wanted to get that out before all the Bush bashing starts.

Re:Adult stem cells

[Anonymous Coward]

That won't help. The raging knee jerkism doesn't stop for silly things like facts.

Re:Adult stem cells

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, this is only an issue because many of the religious types who want embryonic stem cells banned tend to leave the "embryonic" word off when they start ranting, leaving one to wonder if they really are against just embryonic cells or the whole thing.

Re:Adult stem cells

[bombadillo]

However, embryonic stem cells are the cells which hold the real promise for research. This modern debate on embryonic stem cells is similar to the ban on using corpses for medical training and analysis in 16th century Europe. Sure you could learn some things by cutting open a dog. However, the real learning and advancement began once Human corpses were allowed for Medical research. History will view the ban on stem cells the same way. Think of all the good medicine we would not have today if some brave people did not push the issue of using corpses for medical research. Let the Bush Bashing resume.

Re:Adult stem cells

[GigsVT]

Is it really surprising that most of the advancement has come from research that hasn't been effectively banned?

That's like saying there hasn't been any advance in the theraputic use of cocaine or heroin.

Re:Adult stem cells

[magefile]

How about this then: they're not dead yet, but they will be. Why not allow federal funding for research on "surplus" embryos taken from IVF facilities (i.e., embryos that are not going to be implanted, but that are going to be flushed down the drain?)

Re:Adult stem cells

[Reality Master 101]

How do you define dead or alive? Is an embryo any more alive than a corpse?

Uh, an embryo can continue growing, a corpse can't.

Are either of them anything more than a collection of cells that cannot think or feel?

A newborn can't think (its brain is still undeveloped). It can sort-of feel, but can't really process what it means to feel anything.

Is an embryo more alive because you consider it to have some mythical soul or because under the right conditions it may become alive?

Religion is irrelevent to these issues. The only question is whether we assign value to human life.

Re:Adult stem cells

[TykeClone]

Why not allow federal funding

Which is the big deal about it. Why not let the states fund it - California is doing so already and other states may soon follow.

Re:Adult stem cells

[bombadillo]

Stem Cells are not the same as embryo's. A stem cell is called a cell for a reason. The human body sloughs off millions of cells a day. Also, stem cells are often left over from invitro fertilization. Are you against invitro fertillization? Whats wrong with using any left over cells which cannot continue to exist and using them for research?

Re:Adult stem cells

[PhoenixFlare]

but Are we playing god. I dont think so personally.

Of course, this assumes that there's a god (or gods) in the first place. Which, as someone already said, there is no scientifically provable evidence for.

Isnt it true that there is so much medical science today that is ethically questionable?

Well, leading from your "playing god" mention...Are people objecting to some of these things because it really conflicts with their personal ethics, or because it conflicts with what their religion mandates and they're afraid of being sent to *insert place of eternal suffering here*?

Re:Adult stem cells

[Reality Master 101]

How about this then: they're not dead yet, but they will be.

The problem is that you can make that argument about any human. Someone's in a coma, they're never going to come out, why not do some experiments on them? They're going to die anyway, why let a perfectly good body go to waste?

Or even a newborn that's not wanted. A newborn isn't sentient (that takes another few months); if the parents don't want it, why not allow post-birth abortions?

Now, I recognize that a lot of embryos are going to be "flushed down the drain", and that it's not quite the same as the above, but that doesn't mean there aren't ethical considerations. If embryos are OK, what about two cells? 1024 cells? One week gestation? One month? Eight months, when the mother wants a late-term abortion?

I'm uncomfortable with drawing arbitrary lines on this. It just seems intrinsically wrong to experiment on a living cell with human potential.

Re:Adult stem cells

[Orne]

That's funny, because every scientifically minded religious person such as myself always points out that it is only the "embryonic" stem cells that have the moral qualms surrounding them. It has been known for some time that (1) stem cells can be cultured from adult hosts through hormonal treatments, (2) they have none of the rejection issues that embryonic stem cells do (recall, you will be implanting cells from another individual with different genetic makeup; your body will reject the new cells just like any other organ donation) and (3) you avoid all of the discussion over whether you are destroying a life or not.

In my experience, it is that secular mass media often assumes that the religious want to ban all stem cells, because they fail to differentiate between cellular sources.

Simple google search shows the "major" media outlets routinely leave off the word embryonic when discussing the topic. Drawing a distinction between the two would better inform the public.

Catholic news letters define the difference, and promote more research into adult stem cells as the intelligent alternative.

Re:Adult stem cells

[Liselle]

I will worry about playing God as soon as you can prove scientifically that there is a god. At no point should scientific research be affected by any religious beliefs and surely not the religious beliefs of one particular religion.

Alright, that's completely unfair to the OP. I am not a religious person, I understand what "playing God" means, and it has nothing to with a all-powerful diety. If you don't like that cliché because it sounds religious, here's another one for you: too often scientists will ask themselves "can I do this", instead of "should I do this?"

Unless you beleive that all non-religious people are morally bankrupt anarchists, I think you can grant that scientists are bound by ethics that have nothing to do with a god of any kind.

Re:Adult stem cells

[bloo9298]

Fortunately, religious != ethical. Inclusions between the two sides are left as an exercise.

Re:Adult stem cells

[VivianC]

When my daughter was born, we donated her umbilical cord for research just like this. It was a huge hassle. Maybe break-throughs like this will help to make the process simpler so more people can participate. You can read more about it here.

Re:Adult stem cells

[Auckerman]

A person has every right to be fundamentally motived by religion. They have every right to act according to the morals of that religion. The problem with cutting funding of stem cell research is NOT that it's based of religious values, it's that a SINGLE person in the United States has the authority to do it without a review of congress or the courts. It's outside the spirit of the US constitution which clearly outlines a "balance of power" which prevents any part of the government from having too much power.

This coming from a pro-life deistic humanist (read: not christian). Yes, those exist.

Re:Adult stem cells

[RazzleFrog]

Oh yes. That's right because not believing in God automatically makes me an unethical human being. Religion is often used to defend an unethical behavior. How often do you hear of atheists killing or bombing because of their beliefs (or lack thereof)?

Re:Adult stem cells

[megarich]

With or without religion man has biased beliefs. It's just human nature.

I don't have to worry about man playing God because I know God will intervine before we get to that critical mass point. Think I'm wrong? Cure one disease, watch another one pop up in the wings baffling mankind yet again........

Re:Adult stem cells

[megarich]

I do believe in God. I'm just writing to say with or without religion, ALL mankind has some biased beliefs. Just human nature. In other words, you shouldn't rule out religous biases when a scientist can hold another, more dangerous bias..... As far as mankind trying to play God, I'm not concerned because I know God will confuse mankind when He feels were close to that point. Just wait and see.....

Re:Adult stem cells

[DarkBlackFox]

I'd argue an embryo becomes a human when a recognizable brain forms, and detectable brain activity occurs. Prior to that point, the embryo is a clump of cells indistinguishable from any other mamal's embryo. Humans are still animals- the only thing separating us is brain functionality/capability. It's alright to kill off frogs, or sheep, or cattle at any point to disect and use for research, so what is the difference from a human embryo, provided it hasn't developed a brain yet?

The big issue is not whether killing a fetus is morally right or wrong (I myself am pro-choice, but only up to a certain point of development. I do think killing off a fetus is wrong, but ejecting an embryo is fine), but at what point the embryos become a Human fetus. I've heard every argument from conception, to the development of a heart, to the development of a brain/brain activity. The later makes the most sense to me.

Re:Adult stem cells

[cayenne8]

But,the thing I look at is this. An egg that is fertilized outside the womb is nothing more than potential life. Unless it is implanted, it is only potential life, at this point in science, there is not way on earth it will live and develop into a functioning human being.

So, at this point, we are banning research on things that 'potentially' under the correct circumstances become life? If that's they case...we could take it to ridiculous length. Why not ban male masturbation? Potentially, this lost sperm ("every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great..") under the correct circumstances, could be come human life. Obviously, gay people are really withholding their contribution to potential life...etc. Ridiculous stretch there grant it, but, just to illustrate my point. Embryos that are created outside the body...unless implated are not life...they will not live without scientific intervention. So, I have a hard time calling it destruction of a human life for science.

I consider myself to have fairly deep religious feelings and beliefs, but, embryonic stem cell research doesn't bother me...

Re:Adult stem cells

[shawn(at)fsu]

I've thought about this for a long time. With my heart condition at birth I myself would not be alive if it wasn't for modern medicine and surgery. I find my self wondering if it's fair for me to have a child with my genes...

I sometimes think that were ruining countless gerenerations of evolution and mucking it all up.

Re:Adult stem cells

[TopShelf]

My wife and I have 8 embryos in cryogenic storage, left over from when we did IVF (our twins are now 2.5, and it was worth every penny that's still on our charge cards). We pay a yearly fee to maintain that storage, but after a period of time, once we're sure we don't want to have any more kids, we'd love to donate those embryos for research rather than have them destroyed.

There are indeed ethical considerations, but I think those are on the part of the parents involved and are a private matter.

Re:Adult stem cells

[rrkap]

How about this then: they're not dead yet, but they will be

Should medical experiments also be performed on condemmed prisoners? They will be killed shortly too? For that matter, the above statement applies to all of us. Both you and I will somday be dead, so should we be medical test subjects? There are better arguments for allowing experiments on human embryos (or for that matter killing them outright). I think there are two good routes to this. One is to claim that embryos in an early stage of development aren't people (say, because of no brain activity (no brain at this stage)), but this kind of argument is dangerous. It was this sort of argument that was used to justify the "final solution" to the Jewish "problem" in the 1940's. The other kind of argument is to claim that killing people is OK under some circumstances, and that these circumstances apply in this case (for example, from a greater good perspective)

I think that the best argument in favor of early term abortion or embryonic stem cell research is that without a brain you aren't a person, because the cessation of brain activity is what we often call death. But I'm leary of other arguments such as arguing that it serves the greater good or arguing that it they're going to die anyway because that same logic can lead to things that most of us would consider very bad./P

Re:Adult stem cells

[RealProgrammer]

• However, embryonic stem cells are the cells which hold the real promise for research.

Embryonic cells are growing too fast, and are too unstable. They end up growing into a mess, since they can't be told what to grow into.

Adult cells are by definition those that are stable, having already grown into whatever their "children" will be. Embryonic cells (found in embryos with 1024 or fewer cells) can still grow into any type of cell, which we can't yet control.

It's true that embryonic cells hold "promise", but it comes at a cost. While we're trying to figure out (through the research you want) how to keep a group of embryonic stem cells from growing into an amorphous blob of cells for a discordant mixture body parts, how much effort and money are we spending on it that could be better spent on adult cell research, or even more efficiently by developing a cholesterol-enhancing french fry?

There's only so much money to go around. It's a balance between the far-off possibility of taming the embryonic cells versus the reality of using adult cells to fix broken bodies today.

See:http://www.stemcellresearch.org/stemcellreport

Re:Adult stem cells

[Ieshan]

I think it ought to be noted that as a scientifically minded religious person, you ought to realize that a) The federal government funds most of the scientific research that goes on in the country and b) that the federal government provides tax relief and funding for religious organizations. You also know (I imagine) that the federal funding ban prohibits stem cell research in any lab which recieves government funding at all, which basically rules out any institutions of higher learning, such as research universities, as well as most hospitals.

You seem to be extremely educated, so I was wondering if you could comment on the strange dichotomy which you seem to support: The idea that your moral values are correct and ought to be supported by the government, and the idea that the moral values inherent in embryonic stem-cell research ought to be cast aside.

Justification with something so simple as "my morals happen to be correct" isn't acceptable. The government either needs to stop making moral issues legal issues. Doing so would have the potential to save thousands of lives.

Re:Adult stem cells

[Daniel Dvorkin]

too often scientists will ask themselves "can I do this", instead of "should I do this?"

In Hollywood, that's true. In the real world, most scientists are very concerned about the ethical implications of their work -- more so, in fact, than people in just about any other field.

Re:Adult stem cells

[bombadillo]

(1) stem cells can be cultured from adult hosts through hormonal treatments,

What type of hormonal treatments? Would these treatments harm the host? Are they as viable as the cord cells or even the controversial stem cells? Do you have a link that I can read regarding your claims?

(2) they have none of the rejection issues that embryonic stem cells do (recall, you will be implanting cells from another individual with different genetic makeup; your body will reject the new cells just like any other organ donation)

Correct me if I am wrong. However, I believe the South Korean woman was treated by a stem cell from an umbilical cord. This cell was not from her body. So I do not think I can agree with your rejection hypothesis.

I really don't see anything informative or citing of research in your post. The only thing I can agree with you on is your 3rd point.

Re:Adult stem cells

[rzbx]

"...promote more research into adult stem cells as the intelligent alternative."

Considering the argument at hand, it would be the ethical alternative.

Re:Adult stem cells

[DunbarTheInept]

It's hard to separate because it's been going on for so long now. Religions mirror the culture in which they were formed and altered over the years. So too do ethics. Thus the ethics of a people, and the religion of a people, tend to match up one to one. I tend to blame the culture, not the religion, but I also *credit* the culture, not the religion. That means religion doesn't get the blame for the inquisition, but religion doesn't get the credit for abolitionist movements in the US, even though it was part of the rhetoric of both. People tend to decide right and wrong first, and then try to force their religion to fit that. That's how you can have both Christian abolitionists and Christian slavers, and how you can have both Muslim's saying their religion is all about peace, and Muslims who fly passenger airplanes into buildings.

People decide ethics first, and then force their religion to fit what they've already decided. I'd feel more comfortable without that extra unneccesary step, so at least a person's rationale is laid bare for all to see, without masking it by religion. So, I too would trust an atheist more than a religious person, but not because atheists are inherently more ethical - but because they are inherently more open about our motivations. If an atheist is evil, I'm more likely to be able to detect it openly.

Re:Adult stem cells

[flyingsquid]

promote more research into adult stem cells as the intelligent alternative.

This is great that cord blood cells work here. However, I'm still left with two questions:

(1) are cord blood cells capable of doing everything that embryonic stem cells can do?

(2) if not, then haven't we sort of sidestepped the issue of whether ethical objections to destroying small clumps of human cells (which could potentially, but will not, produce babies) trump the research benefits of embryonic stem cell research.

Re:Adult stem cells

[asoap]

I have a different perspective, but I agree with you. This is my perspective.

I am kinda pro-life/pro-choice. I've had the issue of abortion very close to me. If my mother wasn't so dead against it, she would probably have taken the doctors recommendation to abort me.

Although, I've learnt to admit that what a woman does with her body is ultimately her decision, even if it includes murder. No sarcasm intended. When it comes to your body, you have the only choice.

Anyway, let's get back on topic. The way that the church works is that they believe that God created things a certain way. So if God made things a certain way, then that must be holy. The Church is against gay marrige, because they think that a man and a man can not procreate, so it goes against God. Abortion stops Gods miricale of birth right in it's tracks.

This is where I totally disagree with the Church, and I think that it should take a back seat to logic. If it is proven that people are born homosexual, then the church should be FORCED to accept them, because that's how God created them.

As for medicine, the church believes it's ok, because God gave us the gift of our minds, and the ability to defend ourselves to live longer. This is argueable to, because God also creates death.

Anyway, I think I'm finally getting to my point. With embryonic stem cells there is no sperm involved. So the "natural" course of life has been diverted. So this is not something that is naturally happening. Also what you are left with is a bunch of cells, that don't make up life. They may have the potential for life, but there is none. So as long as we don't let those cells turn into life, I don't see a problem at all. I also don't see how the Church and Chrstian extremists can possibly have a problem.

I for sure have no problem with any form of stem cell research, as long as the cells in the petri dish are not allowed to mature into life.

-Derek

Re:Adult stem cells

[Tackhead]

> That won't help. The raging knee jerkism doesn't stop for silly things like facts.

But at least the knees can jerk!

Re:Adult stem cells

[Khashishi]

For relief you would need a tax in the first place to relieve them of, which there has never been.

that's riduculous. tax exemption--tax relief, what is the difference?

Re:Adult stem cells

[Steve525]

Thank you for a good post explaining why you feel the way you do. You demonstrate good and consistant morals.

Since we do, it is my opinion (based on my religious beliefs) that we should bring it to term, not destroy it.

You point out that your opinion is based on your religious beliefs. There's nothing wrong with that, but our society compromises many religions (including the absense thereof), and our country believes in a separation of church and state. Therefore, deciding right and wrong for the whole society is very different. We cannot transfer the morals of one religion on to our society as a whole.

Are you accepting of the fact that it's legal to do invitro fertillization. I understand that you don't think it's ethical, but do you think it should be banned? If you don't think it should be banned, then what do you think about embryonic stem cells? Either way, embryos are being created and later destroyed.

Re:Adult stem cells

[Rich0]

haven't we sort of sidestepped the issue of whether ethical objections to destroying small clumps of human cells (which could potentially, but will not, produce babies) trump the research benefits of embryonic stem cell research.

Well, the problem isn't whether those clumps of cells can potentially produce babies, but whether those clumps of cells are in fact already babies. This is a very heated area of dispute.

If embryos are human beings, then it is immoral to manipulate or destroy them for personal benefit. It would clearly be wrong to kill a one-month old (that is, one month after birth) even if the tissue you harvested from them could save 100 people. Now we're debating over where the line gets drawn. Is it OK to kill a fetus just before it is born in order to harvest tissue to benefit those same 100 people? Is it OK to do it one month after conception? A week?

It really isn't as simple an issue as the rhetoric would have you believe...

Re:Adult stem cells

[DavidTC]

Religions often have confusing ethical positions. For example, Christian ethics can be summed up in two rules 'Love God completely' and 'Love everyone else as much as yourself'. (Note you don't have to love everyone else unconditionally, just God.)

As love for God is fairly hard for society to even notice, that rule is not that important when relating to others. And the second basically boils down to 'treat everyone as your brother' or 'be excellent to each other', or any one of a million ways that concept has been stated since the dawn of mankind.

But there are literally hundreds of tiny rules that have nothing to do with either of these rules, and I'm not even talking about rules Christians can't agree with, like the homosexuality prohibition. Even things that pretty much all denomications (At least, all the big ones popular in the US) agree on, like the prohibition on consensual 'wife swapping', don't fit.

Whis is interpeted as being against the 7th commandment: Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread.

Wait, wrong 7th commandment. Here we go: You shall not commit adultery.

It's a rule that no denomination thinks twice about, yet it has nothing whatsoever to do with the 'ethical base' of Christianity.

It's like if Kant had tacked onto his categorical imperative 'Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. Also don't wear white after labor day, it's unethical.'.

Now, not wearing white after labor day is a fine guideline, but it's not an position on ethical behavior. Likewise, various people in the US use the myrid rules in the Old Testement, and even the New, to attempt to enumerate a list of ethical actions, completely disregarding the fact that the Bible presents an general purpose ethical standard that applies in all circumstances. By ignoring the fact there's a general rule, they can interpet specific rules without following the guidelines of the general rule.

There really are only about a half a dozen basical ethical positions in this world. Kant has the 'What if everyone did that' position, millions of people have 'Whatever I can get I deserve' position, some people do 'I treat people how they treat me', almost every religion says 'You should treat people with compassion, not as a means to an end.', doctors and some buddhists 'do no harm' under any circumstances (At least, medically, for doctors), etc.

The problem is that people wander around 'organizing' religions, aka, codifying explicit examples into the base ethical behavior, and then refuse to change them when they no longer apply. Or, even worse, codifying secular laws or even politicial positions as ethical positions. And currently, instead of codifying new rules, we've gotten such confusing and conflictory texts that we just have people reading whatever they want into them.

Re:Adult stem cells

[|/|/|||]

Your morals are what you make them. Murder is illegal because it is beneficial to society for it to be so. It's also categorized as "immoral" by almost everyone for the same reason.

Other issues don't line up so well. Believing that it's immoral to wear hats isn't likely to spread to others, since there's probably no benfit to such a belief. It's also unlikely to become a law in the US, since the law does nothing to benefit society, and in fact only takes away the rights of non-believers.

This is why murder is illegal, swearing is legal, stealing is illegal, praying is legal, abortions are legal, and the uprising against "gay marriage" will fail. Our laws are based on what is fair to everyone - or at least that's what we're trying to aim for. Laws sometimes align with the majority's idea of "morality," but I like to think that this is the result of common goals (fairness) rather than drawing on arbitrary rules about what's right and wrong.

Re:Adult stem cells

[Gulthek]

Man, I need to write an include file for this evolution misperception. I blame Star Trek.

Evolution is not a progression, it is a reaction.

Diversity equals security.

The more diverse humanity's gene pool is, the better it can react to environmental stresses.

You and others like you just might be the people carrying a genetic makeup that allows you to survive the next global change thus securing the viability of our species.

Your genes are not weakening the species but diversifying it. If you don't think diversity is good, read up on wheat.

Re:Adult stem cells

[You Been Rob-ed!]

Hey there Anonymous Coward, I think you have it reversed. When you hear "stem cell research" on the 6 o'clock news, they're invariably talking about embryonic stem cell research as though it's the only kind. You never ever hear of successes in adult stem cell research on network news. All you ever hear is how the crazy religous right is holding back "stem cell research".

Re:Adult stem cells

[mcg1969]

You seem to be extremely educated, so I was wondering if you could comment on the strange dichotomy which you seem to support: The idea that your moral values are correct and ought to be supported by the government, and the idea that the moral values inherent in embryonic stem-cell research ought to be cast aside.

You seem to be extremely educated, so I was wondering why you don't understand that it's not a matter of if government legislates morality, but what morality it legislates.

Murder is a moral issue. Rape is a moral issue. Theft is a moral issue. Slavery is a moral issue. I could go on.

The point being, that like it or not, the government legislates morality; and we decide by consensus what moral codes ought to be within the jurisdiction of the government, and which should not. Even libertarians, who love to claim the high ground in situations like this, fail to escape this basic truth.

Re:Adult stem cells

[Wescotte]

My wife and I have 8 embryos in cryogenic storage, left over from when we did IVF (our twins are now 2.5, and it was worth every penny that's still on our charge cards). We pay a yearly fee to maintain that storage, but after a period of time, once we're sure we don't want to have any more kids, we'd love to donate those embryos for research rather than have them destroyed.

Interesting.. if the process of IVF is "ok" and generally there is left over embryos that are just destroyed after the parents decide they've had enough children why not give the option of allowing the parents to decide?

I don't know any numbers off hand but would the number of embryos in storage that are not used be enough to keep the stem cell research going?

Re:Adult stem cells

[meringuoid]

OK, well then let's put it this way.

If we don't play God, who will?

Re:Adult stem cells

[foooo]

It is often impossible to separate "moral" issues from "legal" issues. For example... why is murder illegal?? Because it's immoral to murder someone.

This is why abortion and embryonic stem cell research are such touchy issues. The issue at hand is not "is murder wrong" it is instead "is this considered a person? and therefore ceasing it's existance is considered murder??"

Statements such as:

"Justification with something so simple as "my morals happen to be correct" isn't acceptable. The government either needs to stop making moral issues legal issues. Doing so would have the potential to save thousands of lives."

are childish, in that they completely ignore that law is entirely based on moral issues. We define what constitutes life, liberty and property entirely based on morals. Law simply codifies our societal morals.

Re:Adult stem cells

[Orne]

The federal ban is basically federal government research dollars shouldn't go towards research into the non-approved stem cell lines. The National Science Foundation has a chart that shows how much federal money is spent in the US by year, compared with a study by AAAS on R&D funding by state. 2002 totals come in at $84.9 billion by federal and $88.3 billion by states, in 2002 dollars. So, money could very well come from the state levels of governments, where the states that approve of the process can push their own money towards their goals... One could argue that that is the preferred path, to reduce the dependence on federal government, but I digress.

The core issue for most people is "should the government fund projects that I am morally opposed to?" It's a tricky argument, one used for and against the National Endowment of the Arts for years... Whether its Maplethorpe (S&M photos), Ofili's Madonna (elephant dung on the Virgin Mary), or any other controvercial art, these are just personal expressions of speech ... while it may offend, noone is harmed at the end of the day.

But when it comes to embryonic research, there are people that believe that the fetus is viable from the moment of conception, and that the process of extracting the cells is in effect "killing" a potential human. For them, it ranks as an abortion. Whether or not you believe that a life is being taken, many religious people do, and thus they want the practice to stop.

I would also counter that we are arguing two slightly different points. We both agree that there are two tracks that are available for research, embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. Your argument appears to be that the government should not abandon the embryonic path simply because a minority are opposed to it on (their) ethical grounds, that there are many sick people who can benefit from the results of this research. My argument is that the government should be pushing its resources towards adult stem cell research, given that both technologies are on equal footing with this one being free of any stigma, and at the end of the day they are benefitting just as many people.

Personally, I'm about 50% against / 50% for embryonic stem cell research, but 100% towards adult stem cell research. I'm discouraged (yet not surprised) that there are just as many discoveries being made every day in adult stem cells (with more successes), yet the uninformed public only hears that embryonic stem cells are the only method.

I agree that the government should stop legislating moral statements, but then the constitutionalist in me also thinks that the government has no business putting any limits on first amdendment activity anywhere... This does not mean Freedom From Religion, that means Freedom Of Religion (like it reads), that the government needs to stop telling people that they cannot bring their symbols into schools and work, that the schools need to teach an objectively balanced education (as opposed to atheist) when it comes to religion. But that's an issue for another day.

Re:Adult stem cells

[Thomas Miconi]

How do you define dead or alive?

That's a bloody good question. No one really knows what it means to be alive, although we do have a good criterion for death - i.e. thermodynamic equilibrium. Living systems, bacteria, man, or embryo, take matter and energy from their environment and use it to dynamically maintain their own order in the face of the second law of thermodynamics. When dead, they just decompose and entropy wins.

An embryo is biochemically alive, just as a bacteria or any other microorganism: its genes are being expressed, its metabolic pathways run full speed ahead, all the enzymatic machinery is fully functional. But this is not the problem here: bacteria are alive as well, yet most of us don't have ethical problems about killing bacteria. The problem is to know whether they are living human beings and should be regarded as equivalent to babies or children.

Europe solved the problem in a rather pragmatic way: you can have abortion before X weeks of pregnancy, after that, you can't. The time varies between 10 and 22 weeks (22 for Belgium and the UK). Religious beliefs aside (and we all know that the US are the largest theocracy on earth), this is quite a reasonable solution.

Thomas-

Re:Adult stem cells

[EspressoMachine]

My understanding is that one of the major benefits of adult stem cells over embryonic stem cells is this:

Embryonic stem cells have a problem with knowing when to "shut off", when reproducing to recreate tissue (isn't that cancer?), while adult stem cells do not seem to have this problem (and provide the same functionality as embryonic stem cells).

That's what I heard on NPR.

Re:Adult stem cells

[caudron]

You demonstrate good and consistant morals.

Thanks. :)

We cannot transfer the morals of one religion on to our society as a whole.

I totally agree. It's worth pointing out that we, as a society, do legislate morality all the time. In Religious Studies, you'll hear the term "Civil Religion" used to denote that body of beliefs and morals that we as a society have chosen to accept as core to our collective well-being. Murder and theft, for example, are against our shared civic morality, and we treat those acts thusly.

I would argue that including even the earliest forms of human life (embyos, fetuses, etc...) in the list of rights-protected entities would benefit us more than hinder us on the whole. I'd also argue that it is not the same as requiring, say, a Buddhist to respect the Sabbath or a Jew to pray to a cross. It's a hard line to define, and it hasn't ever been made clear legislatively, which is a shame. It'd make all this a great deal easier.

All that said, I don't harbor any illusions that my views will be made law. Even if Roe-v-Wade were overturned tomorrow, the outcry for formal legislation would be immediate and the right to an abortion would be reinstated in a New York minute. That is, to me, sad, but I respect the process enough not to step outside of it to accomplish my goals. Just as with the last election, while I did not vote for Bush, nor did I want him to be President for four more years, I concede that many people did want him as President, so I will tolerate that and wait til the next vote, where I will decide who should follow him in the Oval Office. Voting is all I can do.

Are you accepting of the fact that it's legal to do invitro fertillization.

I'd use the term 'tolerant' rather than 'accepting' but, yes. I'm not looking to go out and shoot anyone over it, if that's what you mean. That would be adding suffering to tragedy in my opinion. I would also never get in someone's face about IVF (unless they first got in mine). If asked, I offer my opinion, if the opportunity arises to do so politely, I offer it. Other than that, I'd rather lead by example. People learn far more from our actions than from our words. My wife taught me that.

I'm adopting a girl from China right now (Documents went to China less than an hour ago! W00t!). I could have kids on my own, so IVF wasn't needed, but were it, I'd do the same thing. Adoption is just a great choice, I think. The world has plenty of kids that need parents, and I was looking to be a parent, so the efficient programmer side of me was drawn to that solution. :)

do you think it should be banned?

Yes, but it won't be, so I'll just have to deal with the situation as it is rather than as I want it to be. I can do that. The world rarely bends to my will, much to my dismay. ;-)

then what do you think about embryonic stem cells? Either way, embryos are being created and later destroyed.

Well, going under the realistic assumption that it won't be banned, I'd say that we still should bring them to term if possible. I am against any sort of destruction of human life (yes, that would include the death penalty, even if perfectly applied). I seriously doubt I'll ever get my way on this though. I truly wish there were a way to do this research without embryonic destruction, and I'd be all for if we could, but that isn't a choice we're given. :( I wish it were. Sometimes Progress steps on the Rights of Man and sometimes the Rights of Man step on Progress. Though I think this is a case where the latter should be true, the community as a whole thinks the former is the way to go. It won't be the first time I and the community have disagreed. It won't be the last. Despite disagreements, I think the community that governs itself progresses over time in most every way (morally, technologically, civily, etc...). So, while I don't agree with the decision, I support it's right to decide how it will govern itself.

Re:Adult stem cells

[winwar]

"If embryos are human beings, then it is immoral to manipulate or destroy them for personal benefit. It would clearly be wrong to kill a one-month old (that is, one month after birth) even if the tissue you harvested from them could save 100 people."

But would it be immoral? I mean we regularly execute people for killing one person (or not even killing someone but being an accomplice) in the hopes that this will convince others not to commit murder (best case-in reality it is closer to revenge...) I mean if it is moral to kill a murderer, something that will not save anybody's life, why would the death of a baby (or fetus) that could save 100 people be considered immoral?

We place a value on human life all the time (aka cost benefit analyis)-is this immoral? Government/ private enterprise/people regularly make decisions that cost peoples lives for the sake of money, yet we don't hear the same outcry? Why exactly? These apparent contradictions have always interested me.

"It really isn't as simple an issue as the rhetoric would have you believe..."

You certainly got that right!

Re:Adult stem cells

[lukesl]

IAAB, and I find this post extremely interesting because it demonstrates the lack of information/understanding /. readers have on the issue.

(1) stem cells can be cultured from adult hosts through hormonal treatments

Some stem cells can be taken from adult hosts, such as the ones they use to do a bone marrow transplant. However, these cells are already partially differentiated, and they can't be redifferentiated into any arbitrary tissue (studies showing that they could were later found to be incorrect).

(2) they have none of the rejection issues that embryonic stem cells do

This is not true. The issues are the same. If you take adult stem cells (e.g. bone marrow) from someone else, there will be rejection issues.

The whole point of all this research is that ES cells are the least differentiated, while stem cells taken from an adult are partially differentiated. There is a lot of work going on that attempts to de-differentiate adult stem cells (or other cells) into ES cells, which could be re-differentiated into any arbitrary tissue. For example, to take blood and differentiate it into liver cells. If one could perform this de-differentiation, one could take cells from a person and make them into 100% compatible organ tissue for reimplantation.

This process of cellular de-differentiation has been falsely labeled "cloning" by GOP spinmeisters, despite scientists' best efforts to get people to understand that it is not cloning, merely a process which enables many things, including cloning.

Anyway, to get back to the point, the goal is to de-differentiate cells from a patient into ES cells, then use those ES cells to treat the patient. Because the de-differentiation process is very inefficient at this point, it's easier to get started doing research with ES cells that are lying around waiting to be thrown away. This is why we need to get unused ES cells from fertility clinics, because the in vitro de-differentiation procedures are currently very low efficiency.


As a second point, the two opinions that

1. destroying ES cells is destroying human life, and
2. adult stem cells are as good as ES cells without the drawbacks

are mutually exclusive. If ES cells were human life (which they simply are not, but I can understand the confusion), then you're defining human life as a population of cells with the capacity to differentiate into any tissue. If I don't have any of those in my body, then I guess I'm not alive. Alternatively, if a population of adult stem cells were found to possess this capacity, then using those would be murder. When the original paper came out incorrectly showing that there were blood cells that could differentiate into any cell type, that would have implied that every blood transfusion every performed would have been a mass murder of thousands and thousands of innocent people! I could go on and on, but basically, the opinion that ES cells represent human life simply doesn't make sense.

Re:Adult stem cells

[Fishstick]

>at what point the embryos become a Human fetus

when does it attain a soul?

I'm not being sarcastic or serious, but that seems to be that non-scientific aspect that causes so much difference of opinion on this type of issue.

What you say makes sense to me. At some point, the living tissue becomes recognizable as human (by one standard or another).

>I've heard every argument from conception, to the development of a heart, to the development of a brain/brain activity

that's the sticky bit, isn't it -- who decides where to draw the line, based on science, morality, religious belief?

Re:Adult stem cells

[Mordanthanus]

I agree with your statement of a conflict of morals. The fact that the goverment concerns itself with moral (religious) issues aside, I do not understand how one can condone ending an unborn baby's life in an abortion (which yields another full plastic ziplock bag in the trash) and condemns ending an unborn baby's life to help mankind progress in science.

This may end up being flamebait instead of interesting and thought-provokative, but if you are going to end a life, there should at least be a "good" reason.

Re:Adult stem cells

[neuroticia]

Murder is illegal because it deprives another of the rights and property that they've worked to obtain by depriving them of their life.

Marriage is a contract between two individuals. Unless a 10 year old can enter into a legally binding contract, I don't see why a 10 year old should be permitted to enter into a marriage.

Rape of all sorts is an assault.

and the list goes on.

All "moral" legislation insofar as murder etc. has other non-moral reasons for existing. The acts that they ban damage someone's rights, deprives them of property, etc. and basically damages the capitalistic/democratic ideal that we've agreed to live by.

"Moral" legislation ala a homosexual marriage ban, a ban on pornography, the inability to abort a non-viable (ie: WILL NOT LIVE outside of womb-fetuses without brains, or other necessary organs) fetus in a way that does not endanger your life or future fertility, the laws against suicide or physician assisted suicide with appropriate documentation stating that it is our will, etc. is just an assault on our freedoms and the right to choose what works for us, as consenting adult individuals. It also forces us to abide by the rules of a religion that is not ours, and that flies in the face of our religion, with no justification for the existance of the law other than religious/morality justifications.

Re:Adult stem cells

[mcg1969]

The only reason that you don't have a natural right to murder, rape, steal from or enslave me, is because I have a natural right NOT to be killed, raped, burgled or enslaved. No other reason.

Why not? Other animals kill other animals all the time. Even their own species. Heck some animals eat their own young. What makes us different? Why do we have a natural right to life, and those other species do not?

Natural rights come from God if we're religious, and are a figment of our imagination if we are not. And we know this for the very pragmatic reason that they must be enforced by society, usually through government, if they are to have any value.

There is no morality inherent in that statement,

Don't be absurd, of course there is. Even if I were to accept this ficticious notion of natural rights, the fact that we must respect them is itself a moral issue.

Re:Adult stem cells

[Noofus]

The thing about embryonic stem cells is that they havent become differentiated yet. Its easier to tell an embryonic stem cell to become a liver cell or a stomach cell or a brain cell or a spinal cord neuron or whatever. Adult stem cells are easy to obtain but they dont as readily become whatever you want them to become.

The umbilical cord blood appears to contain stem cells that are somewhat half way between embryonic and adult. They arent as easy to coax into doing your wishes as pure embryonic cells are but they are also not as stubborn as adult cells.

Re:Adult stem cells

[Jherico]

You cannot start doing a cost-benefit analysis on human life without opening the door to some very ugly scenarios. If we can kill one baby to save 100 people, well what about killing one baby to improve the standard of living for 1000 people? Can we kill one poor baby for one rich baby? Can we start harvesting bums' organs for rich people? There are many unspoken bargains in the world that assume human life is sacrosanct. Its an interpretation of the golden rule. That's why people don't really blink when they hear a story about 3 people dying trying to save 1 person from danger.

Basically, you can want to promote the idea that its OK to trade one life for another or many others, but only if the life being traded is your own. Anything else is unethical.

Re:Adult stem cells

[NanoGator]

"The U.S. Federal government is not providing tax relief to religious organizations, it has made them exempt from having to pay taxes."

Well that really shot his point down.

Re:Adult stem cells

[mcg1969]

Quite simple. If you posit that you have any rights whatsoever (and that is a simple, deep structures within the brain assumption), then it must be inferred that I have the same rights.

No it mustn't.

First of all, What if I determined you to be mentally defective, or otherwise inferior to me in some way? I can just as easily put forth a Darwinian defense that you do not deserve to live, because you risk spreading your genes.

Secondly, I do NOT posit that I have any rights. I want them, because they are in my best personal, selfish interest; I'm glad that my government enforces them, and would they not I would seek to secure them. But I have no illusion that I'm naturally entitled to them just because I exist. If I decided it was in my self-interest to kill you, I would. But of course for a whole host of reasons it is not, including the fact that we as a society punish murderers.

Your entire argument seems to be that we have rights that the rest of the animal kingdom does not have---simply by virtue of the fact that we can conceive of them and they cannot. I'm quite content in letting that sit in evidence of my claim that natural rights are entirely man-made. So please keep on making your arguments; by their very complexity you are proving my point.

Walking is nice and all....

[gunmenrock]

But can they use stem cells to make my wife put out again?

Mundus vult decipi decipiatur ergo.
-Xaviera Hollander

Re:Walking is nice and all....

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, she did yesterday.

Re:Walking is nice and all....

[cayenne8]

" But can they use stem cells to make my wife put out again?"

That's why you NEVER ever marry them. When they get to the point to where they don't want to put out...you can put them to the curb, and upgrade to a newer model that does....without losing half your stuff.

There's plenty of them out there dude...

:-)

Yay! Cord blood!

[Masque]

Perhaps this will help cool the American debate over embryonic stem cells.

Yes, Karen, you can get stem cells without harvesting embryos. No, really!

--
Every six seconds, another American hates Milkman Dan.

Lets get this out of the way

[stecoop]

Ok George Bush didn't outlaw Steam Cell Research; He ceased giving federal funding for new steam cell lines. And remember he was the first president to start giving money to this kind of research. At least read his statment first and then search google to get the facts

Even after that before you start bashing, ask who should be in charge of developing medicine - the government or industry?

Re:Lets get this out of the way

[Pxtl]

Ahh, meanwhile you use the "talking points" style terminology and proudly display your brainwashing. Embryonic - not fetal. Different things. Calling it a fetal stem cell makes it sound dirtier, and shows that your source material is stupid fundies.

Re:Lets get this out of the way

[Oxy the moron]

Perhaps I'm just not seeing the logic... but how is adding a $1,000 per ounce tax to tobacco equivalent to cutting federal funding for stem cell research? We aren't taxing scientists for stem cell research...

I agree with the parent. He didn't outlaw it, practically or otherwise. There are many research opportunities not funded by the federal government that are successful. Cutting funding may slow down research, but it isn't outlawing it or killing it off.

Re:Lets get this out of the way

[Profane MuthaFucka]

The government should be in the business for sure. The choice you give is a false-dichotomy. Is anyone really sugesting that those are the only two choices?

The difference between Republican presidents and a hypothetical liberal president (we haven't had a liberal president in many many years) is that the Republicans would give companies research money ("corporate welfare") and then allow the companies to patent their discoveries for the purpose of making the most profit from every person who needs that medicine. At some level, there's going to be someone who is too poor to get cured.

The hypothetical liberal president would also fund research, but publicly funded research would belong to the people who paid for it: the taxpayers. Everyone would have access to the new medicines, and even the poorest would be treated with them.

Of course, you're thinking "that's not fair to the companies, and they'll go out of business". Note that I never said that. If companies want to make money, they can fund their own research with their own money, and sell their drugs themselves. Liberals aren't opposed to business and people getting rich. Liberals are just opposed to them getting rich at the expense of the taxpayers, or in an unfair/unethical manner.

Re:Lets get this out of the way

[Roxton]

As a libertarian, you might argue that if the Federal government weren't funding research, the private sector would do a terrific job. I don't agree, but for the sake of the discussion, let's say I conceed the point.

But as it stands, the existing infrastructure for getting funding is *not* privatized. The presence of such a public infrastructure inhibits the development of any such privatized infrastruture. Within the current, federally funded system, getting solid funding for fundamental stem cell research is a virtual impossibility. If you tried to convince any scientist otherwise, he'd fall on his ass laughing.

Re:Lets get this out of the way

[SunPin]

ask who should be in charge of developing medicine - the government or industry?

Be real for a second and review industry's track record. Drugs for phantom depression. Drugs for sex enhancement. Drugs for obesity. None of these result from real societal problems and the greatest tragedy is that they aren't funding smaller problems with the major profits. They are just inventing more problems.

Perhaps a better question is "who do you want to define research priorities--government or industry?"

A government of the people should

Re:Lets get this out of the way

[geoffspear]

Also, no significant medical research will take place in the year 2005, because by ALL accounts no research done in 2005 has ever helped anyone, while lots of research done before 2005 has.

Re:Lets get this out of the way

[acidrain69]

Hmmm. "Never been successully used in any therapies". Maybe that is BECAUSE there is no federal funding for this. It's a self fulfilling prohpecy. Brought to use by the self-fulfilling prophecy president.

He said Iraq was dangerous, and harborred terrorists. Sure enough, we attack them and they start bombing us! Yeehaw!

Re:Lets get this out of the way

[American AC in Paris]

That's true, but make no mistake that Bush's policies have done more to hinder progress than accelerate it.

For starters, it's a bureaucratic nightmare for labs--if so much as a single "bad" sample makes its way into an experiment, they can lose all government funding in a heartbeat. Labs end up having to spend a surprising and frustrating amount of time and money simply to meet the ever-growing list of compliance demands for federal funding. Angling for private funding is all well and good, but there's a severe lack of funding for pure science; corporate sponsors are far more interested in applied science. Applied science is important, but pure science is equally important and would suffer badly if it weren't for federal funding.

Second, the stem cells in question are coming from discarded embryos from in-vitro fertilization clinics which are already slated for destruction. To ban these stem cells from research is hypocritical, at root--if the issue at hand is the destruction of a human life, they should be fighting just as hard to outlaw the practice of freezing embryos in the first place. That they're attacking the scientific link in this chain suggests that they're more against using these wasted embryos for scientific study (which, for various banal reasons, is seen as the arch-enemy of religion by many,) than they are upset about the wasting of embryos in the first place.

It's a shame that the debate such that the scientific community is being made out to be the villian here. The real villian is the IVF industry; science is simply stepping in and trying to conduct incredibly promising research with something that'd otherwise be flushed down the drain without so much as a second thought.

Re:Lets get this out of the way

[VivianC]

Hmmm. "Never been successully used in any therapies". Maybe that is BECAUSE there is no federal funding for this. It's a self fulfilling prohpecy. Brought to use by the self-fulfilling prophecy president.

There is no funding for creating new lines. Why haven't all the old lines that were created come up with any results? If there are such miracle cures available, why aren't the drug companies funding the research so they can get rich? There is a huge profit potential.

Re:Lets get this out of the way

[Trailer Trash]

Drugs for obesity. None of these result from real societal problems...

My wife talks to diabetics all day on the phone as her job. Most of them are 200+ pounds, many in the 400+ range.

Obesity is one of the biggest problems facing our society today. People lose their eye site, limbs, mobility, and quality of life. All for a cheeseburger.

This problem isn't invented by the pharmaceutical industry, it's invented by gluttons.

Re:Lets get this out of the way

[American AC in Paris]

You're arguing a point I'm not making, though--my point is that the embryos in question are going to be destroyed regardless of whether or not we use them for research. These embryos are done for, plain and simple.

If the argument against using these embryos in research is an ethical one, it strikes me that the target should be the people who are actually responsible for killing the embryos, not the people who want to use these doomed embryos to try and improve humankind's lot.

I don't see the ethics of "what is a human" as cut-and-dried by any stretch of the imagination. That said, if given a choice between throwing an embryo into the rubbish bin or using it in scientific research, I see little question as to which option is better. This does not mean I relish the destruction of embryos. This means simply that I'd much rather use embryos in an effort to cure cancer than simply throw those embryos away.

Re:Lets get this out of the way

[Tim]

for people who hold your viewpoint, there's no ethical dilemma here....For people who do not hold your viewpoint, knowing whether or not a treatment is based on research done on embryonic or fetal stem cells is quite important, regardless of whether the embryo in question would have been taken to term or not. It means they are profiting from the death of a sentient being if they accept a treatment that did come from embryonic/fetal stem cell research.

If you have an ethical concern regarding stem-cell therapies, don't use the treatments. Those of us who have adopted a non-medieval viewpoint on the issue (one supported by scientific evidence, if not proven by our knowledge) can utilize the results from this research. Ethics are individual.

The problem is not a matter of ethics -- the problem is that a significant portion of our society consists of backwards-thinking neo-luddites, who will attempt to suppress virtually any scientific advance on the grounds that it possibly violates their "beliefs". Indeed, nobody cares if you, personally, have a problem with fetal stem cell therapy, or genetically modified foods, or eating meat, or the idea that the earth orbits about the sun. But when you attempt to outlaw research into an idea, you prevent the rest of society from believing that idea. That's an imposition of your (goofy sense of) ethics on our way of life, and that has a slew of ethical concerns of its own.

(footnote: all use of "your" is considered royal -- if you were just playing devil's advocate, don't take it personally. If you were sersious, well, there's not much I can do for you....)

Re:Lets get this out of the way

[Profane MuthaFucka]

We live in a capitalist society, which is a big step above the feudalistic society. Feudalism was a society based on the use of lands owned by a lord in exchange for service, usually military service and support to the lord.Most importantly that relationship was hereditary. The lands (which always belonged to the lord) would pass to my descendants, and they would also be bound by their obligation to serve the lord, in exchange for the rights to use the land. This the basis for the hereditary nobility, a class of empowered (i.e. landed) people that enjoy the privelige and benefits of society at the expense of the unempowered (i.e. everyone else).

I see it as a big step backwards when public monies can be given to companies as capital. The concentration of wealth is well documented, and that concentration is only increasing. When the GDP grows, most of that additional wealth generated goes right to the pockets of less than 1% of people, and most people get just a little bit. There's nothing wrong with this, as investors should get rewarded for their investment. And I say that if the PEOPLE/TAXPAYERS are the ones doing the investing, than the PEOPLE/TAXPAYERS should reap the big rewards.

Now to address your argument directly:

1) Companies employ people, this is true. And your argument is that when the government funds research, then that money puts people to work.
2) Companies that accept taxpayer money to do research that is required to be put into the public domain will STILL be employing people. Their funding for employing people comes from public monies, rather than private monies. I believe that this is the same result that you suggested was the main benefit of public monies funding research that would be proprietary.

Now, I will make the further case:

3) Instead of paying their dividends to a small number of people, the benefits of the research would be more directly distributed to the people who funded the research. i.e. the taxpayers. It cuts out the "middleman" who may or may not decide to circulate his wealth out to the rest of the population.

Other Links

[lamz]

No subscription required for the story here, either.

Waiting for Verification

[brandonp]

This is absolutely exciting, stem cell research potentially producing real results. And even better, by use of umbilical cord stem cells. Results without the ethical issues.

I just can't wait to see this research be verified. Seems like too many scientific research teams release their results early and without complete verification, hoping to get more funding from the buzz created.

In the end, this is really exciting. Can't wait to see how this develops.

Brandon Petersen
Get Firefox!

Re:Waiting for Verification

[Otter]

I just can't wait to see this research be verified. Seems like too many scientific research teams release their results early and without complete verification, hoping to get more funding from the buzz created.

And this South Korean group has a track record of making at least as much noise as progress. (Check for the previous articles linked here about them.)

It would be fantastic if it works, and Chosun University isn't a fly-by-night institution but I'm having trouble working up much optimism. We'll see.

BTW, you may want to lay off the line breaks a bit...;-)

Good Science

[rdc_uk]

How much better science is this than rubber tails for dolphins?!?

Sounds like good work to me.

There's a much simpler cure for that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Take out the trash, pick up around the house, make dinner, put the kids to bed, and she's all yours, dude.

Re:There's a much simpler cure for that...

[LDoggg_]

I tried that, but after all that work I was tired and went to bed with a headache.

Re:Not for the US

[brandonp]

You're wrong.

This was done by using umbilical cord stem cells. This has far fewer ethical problems and George Bush said on many occassions he fully supports the use of umbilical cord stem cells.

This is a huge advance, getting results without the ethical issues that many people struggle with.

Brandon Petersen
Get Firefox!

Cord blood vs. embryonic?

[manifestobot]

Considering this real, practical success using cord blood-derived stem cells, I honestly wonder why there's such a push for using embryonic stem cells. Can anyone enlighten me as to why we can't just use cord blood cells (instead of embryonic) and make the whole stem cell controversy go away?

Re:Cord blood vs. embryonic?

[MagicM]

From here:

So-called "multipotent" stem cells -- those found in cord blood -- are capable of forming a limited number of specialised cell types, unlike the more versatile "undifferentiated" cells that are derived from embroyos.

Re:paralySed?

[General Wesc]

It's in Cambridge. Trim the suffix. (And perhaps get a better dictionary.)

Enough Stem Cells for Adult?

[sepluv]

The article doesn't explain the important thing which is how they managed to inject enough stem cells into adult (for the adult to not reject them) from the small amount of blood available in an umbillical cord. There has only traditionally been enough (that the body's normal blood's anti-body won't attack) for a child's blood. Unless, they are talking about injecting it into the actually spine or something...I'm confused...

Re:Time for political will to change???

[danheskett]

That's not interesting:

1. There is no ban on stem cell research in the US.

2. There has never been proposed or discussed a ban on stem cell research in the US.

3. Cord blood is just that: cord blood. Not embroynic stem cells. Unless someone can point me to something that suggests otherwise, this is not covered by the Federal ban on stem-cell research funding.

4. This treatment could have been derived in the US at various research universities. The fact that South Koreans made the breakthrough at this time does not detract from the US but rather should be an item of pride for the ingenuity and dedication of the South Koreans involved.

Snippy, snide, child-like comments aside, this development bolsters the claim that we do not need embroynic steam cells for the type of treatments and remedies that would help so many people. This was achieved withour US federal funding, without embroynic stem cells. The otherwise of the issue would have you believe that banning Federal funding of embroynic stem research on new lines is akin to calling the earth flat.

Re:Time for political will to change???

[nine-times]

Cord Blood Stem cells are NOT embryonic stem cells. ONLY embryonic stem cells are opposed by President Bush.

It's not even that Bush is against embryonic stem cells. His policy is that he doesn't think it's appropriate for government funding should go to harvesting new stem cell lines. So, the material that they already have, they can continue to do research with. Privately funded studies can still develop new lines. It's really not as radical a stance as people make it out to be.

Re:Take that, Bushies!

[corbettw]

and show the Bushies that they are dumb (at least as far as science goes).

At least we know how to RTFA. The stem cells used were umbilical stem cells. You know, the type Bush wants to encourage people to use? As opposed to fetal stem cells, which are just covered in ethical and moral dilemmas.

Hold on

[Auckerman]

A press conference is not a peer reviewed journal. A woman walking in from of a camera does not mean a single stem cell helped her. Wait for journal publication, review, and commentary from experts before going around talking about how great this is.

Re:Hold on

[hackstraw]

A press conference is not a peer reviewed journal. A woman walking in from of a camera does not mean a single stem cell helped her. Wait for journal publication, review, and commentary from experts before going around talking about how great this is.

The guys at Scaled Composites collected $10,000,000 without a peer reviewed journal of their scientific achievement.

Re:Hmmm

[Perl-Pusher]

Not at all. These are not created by aborting a fetus. In fact most attempts at using embryonic stem cells have met with tumors and rejection. But cord stem cells have been used successfully used to treat 75 illnesses. And to set the record straight, Bush didn't ban stem cell research in the US. He only increased government funding but limited it to those embryonic stem cells already harvested. Big difference, he didn't say you could not donate your money to the research. Just that the estimated 60 million people who find it morally apprensible to abort babies to harvest cells don't have to pay for it too.

Umbillical Cord Use Actually WORSE

[syntap]

Because now you have to grow the fetus into an embryo, kill it, and harvest the cord to get the cells. How is this better ?!?

Why can't we just get the stem cells from plants? Stems are abundant with them!

Re:Umbillical Cord Use Actually WORSE

[Zapdos]

Cords are provided at birth

Re:Yay! Cord blood!

[foniksonik]

There was never any debate over adult stem cells... there's still a debate over embryonic stem cells...

This news just gives more fuel for anti-embryonic stem cell groups to point at and say:

"Chalk up another victory for adult stem cell research... what is that now 79 to 0? Why are we studying embryonic stem cells?"

I tend to agree with that sentiment.. seems like the embryonic research is turning into a big waste of money... but then again it has about 10 years of work to catch up on so it may yet prove itself.

Re:Not for the US

[dmusicstud]

Agreed.

From the Korea Times: http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200411/kt200411261 7575710440.htm

Kang added that since cord blood stem cells are later than embryonic stem cells, they have little chance of causing the fatal teratoma. ``Embryonic stem cells are omni-potent in that they can divide into any thing even including a tumor cell. But cord blood stem cells are developed enough not to cause such troubles while retaining as powerful a differentiation capacity at the same time,'' he claimed.

Let's forget about the moral/ethical reasons for not pursuing embryonic stem cell research - let's look at it from a scientific (*gasp* - a conservative Christian talking about science!) point of view. Less capacity to cause cancer = a good thing, no?

- Another Brandon (my last name is Danner)

Yes, the gov't should fund it, and here's why...

[Arkhan]

Okay, I'll bite on the last part, at least.

Your question is misleading. The government should be in charge of funding basic scientific research that drives forward our understanding of physics, biology, chemistry, etc, and creates the platform on which industry can develop specific products.

Why should the government do this? Because the results of fundamental research must be completely open and available to all scientists and entrepeneurs who would do something useful with it. Industry will *never* do that.

Government-funded researchers invented the calculus, the mechanical (and electronic) computer, and the internal combustion engine, and gave that research to the public, so that commercial and charitable use could be made of them. Industry, on the other hand, is busy trying to patent your *genes*!

"Stem cell research", as you can tell from the name, is not medicine, nor is it a commercial product. It is a fundamental piece of scientific research that advances our entire base of technology.

So yes, the government should fund it.

Re:Time for political will to change???

[Tanktalus]

Sounds like as good of a reason as any to firmly establish what adult stem cells can do before entering the moral/ethical quagmire that is embryonic stem cell studying. Look at it this way: If adult stem cells can do everything, then no one can complain. If there are specific diseases that cannot be helped by adult stem cells, then we can have the whole moral/ethical debate specifically about those. But, it will be a much better educated debate because we'll have a better understanding about the limitations of adult stem cells - and isn't a well-educated moral debate better than a knee-jerk moral debate?

This ball was never in Bush's court to begin with

[mark-t]

The Bush administration only outlawed funding for _fetal_ stem cell research. This was from the umbilical cord and is sanctioned by the US's current government.

Why is it that when some people hear the term "stem cells" the same sort of knee jerk reaction happens just like when some people hear the term "nuclear power"?

Re:Poor Chrisopher Reeve

[Rik Sweeney]

But would this really have prevented his death? Maybe I'm just incredibly sceptical...

Re:How?

[CarbonJackson]

It's simple really. You eat a placenta and you regain the ability to walk.

Great if true

[shrapnull]

The sound you just heard is that of a million scientists calibrating their bullshit meters. Seriously, if this is true it presents a moral and ethical alternative to those problems that have limited embryonic research, but bear in mind: Adult stem cells are not the same as ebryonic. They are more finicky (they are matched like organ donors), they create a limited number of cell types within the body and they are difficult to extract from an umbilical or placenta (which must be frozen immediately after birth). I would be more interested in stem cell warehouses for DNA types. Once you're born they save your umbilical stem cells like medical records (huge warehouses) free for one to use as needed throughout their life. The cash cow for the medical industry will be doing anything with embryonic stem cells, which are more easily ported across gene pools, and can replicate any cell within the human body. Don't make it a Bush/Kerry or USA thing. It's really not. That whole beef was about using government money to fund new embryonic strains.

Journal Publication?

[dead sun]

Anybody have a link to a respected medical journal that's running the findings of this research?

I really, really hope that what's being reported is true, but I'd really like to see it in a peer reviewed journal and have the findings reproduced before getting too excited. Because things like cold fusion have been announced via press release before, with no journal paper forthcoming. Without it being reproducable it's just another faith healing.

That said, please, please be good, reproducable research.

The Paralyzed Will Walk Again

[TimeTraveler1884]

I for one welcome our walking undead overlords.

Healthy skepticism is warranted

[euthman]

In lieu of any detailed description of this case in peer-reviewed scientific literature, this news item should be taken under advisement with appropriate skepticism.

The spinal cord is an enormously complex structure, the exact neural connections of which are formed in early embryonic life. That you could simply inject multipotential cells into a damaged cord and expect them to differentiate and grow into mature neurons, complete with appropriate connections, is asking an awful lot. In addition, in this patient, "paralyzed" for two decades, you have the issue of muscles, bones, and joints that haven't been in use all that time.

It would be wonderful if this account is true, but I'm not getting my hopes up until I see more of the fine print.

Re:Healthy skepticism is warranted

[pz]

Agreed. IAAN (I am a neuroscientist) and at the Society for Neuroscience meeting a few weeks ago, there was a substantial amount of work being presented on spinal chord repair using stem cells. One researcher's results were scary: while the subject (rats if I recall correctly) were able to recover from SRI (Spinal Chord Injury) with the injection of stem cells, they developed allodynia, the condition where normal touch sensation of the skin is painful. This was because stem cells were not selective enough when making connections to existing fibers, and many of the new connections were incorrect. While this research does not mean the Korean team hasn't managed a substantial advance, it does mean that things aren't as simple as we might hope, and one should definitely view the Korean results carefully.

Re:Healthy skepticism is warranted

[lukesl]

I agree, I'm waiting for the paper to come out, but you're making the problem sound harder than it actually is. In a spinal cord injury, the neurons themselves are intact, they just get their axons clipped. If you can re-stimulate neuron growth, you should be able to get the circuit to wire up again. Even though the wiring wouldn't even necessarily be exactly correct, with lots of training, the person would probably regain some function. There have been papers in big journals demonstrating that these kinds of injuries can be cured in mice, and I'm pretty sure the claim was never made that new neurons were created.

In certain ways, it's analogous to reattaching an amputated arm. If the surgeons line up and resew the nerve sheath, the axons will grow back out from the spinal cord and reinnervate the muscle. Of course, the spinal cord is more complicated, but if external intervention can make the right conditions, I bet the same process can occur.

All over the world

[kaos.geo]

Success stories like this have popped up all over the world lately (although none as wonderful as this last one).
A couple of weeks ago, a brazilian woman who had recently had a stroke was helped by a stem cell transplant.
Although doctors claim the healing could have happened naturally, they also report that "there is biological activity (in the area affected by the stroke)... "
Interesting, let's hope all these stories help build a united front.
The link here http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3 1&art_id=qw1100886480700B243

Excellent point

[artemis67]

My sentiments, exactly; I wish I had mod points.

I had a friend who broke his neck from a fall, so I've researched the topic a little bit. It is possible, in a very small number of cases, that people will spontaneously regrow the damaged nerves. This could be one of those cases.

One isolated incident does not make for a medical breakthrough. They need to demonstrate that this is repeatable.

Re:Rise, and WALK!

[jrumney]

It looks like people like Christopher Reeve are walking again despite the fact that John Kerry isn't President of the United States.

Why would the president of the United States influence what medical research is carried out in South Korea?

Re:Rise, and WALK!

[nizo]

It looks like people like Christopher Reeve are walking again

Wow, not only fixing paralysis but raising the dead too? Will the wonders of modern science never cease! Then again, I have seen enough zombie movies to know this can't turn out good in the end...

Re:Yes, the gov't should fund it, and here's why..

[mforbes]

Government-funded researchers invented the calculus

Um... Isaac Newton invented calculus when he was still a student at Trinity College. The school was on break for two years as a result of disease sweeping the area, and having little else to do, he spent his idle time thinking very productively.

There was no government funding involved in his inventing calculus, sorry. He invented it out of curiosity, not because he was paid to do so.

Get the facts straight

[nwbvt]

Embryonic stem cell research was not banned. Federal funding was given for embryonic stem cell research but limited to pre-existing lines.

There is a huge difference between the two.

Re:Get the facts straight

[magefile]

Pre-existing lines that are contaminated with pathogens and mouse cells, many of which have reached the end of their useful lifespans. It's effectively a ban on federal funding, period.

Re:Get the facts straight

[gad_zuki!]

>There is a huge difference between the two

Yet in practice there isn't. A lot of these lines have been ruined by mouse DNA and other issues. The best stem cell research, predictically, isnt from these lines but from others and most notably from foreign nations.

Bush could have left the Clinton-era laws alone, but chose to give this as a handout to his religious right base. Its dirty politics any way you slice it. The moral issue is as manufactured as the PC you're using to browse this site.

Re:Get the facts straight

[Tiroth]

Regardless, it is more than no funding at all (like how it was before Bush)

This comes up a lot, and I think it is a very disingenuous argument. There was no funding before Bush because stem cell research as we contemplate it today is essentially an entirely new field of research; there wasn't significant work being done on human embryoes before Bush, hence no funding.

Reference below. It was not until 1999/2000 that scientists proved that these cells could be forced to differentiate into things like nerve cells that were previously thought to be impossible to regenerate.
http://www.laskerfoundation.org/news/ stemcell/hist ory.html

Re:Get the facts straight

[Tiroth]

1. There was no existing work, due to this being a new discovery
2. Bush prevented work from being funded for embryonic cells (with usual caveats)

Whether or not this is "halting work" is purely a matter of sematics.

The ideas were NOT around much prior to the Bush Administration: it was not until 1998 that embryonic cloning was possible and 1999/2000 that the first breakthroughs in differentiation were made. Please see the link, which has an obvious slashcode-inserted space.

Re:Get the facts straight

[Paradise Pete]

None of that changes the fact Bush did not halt existing work

Well then how about instead he actually do something to encourage more research? Stem cells are an extraordinarily promising medical tool. Anyone under the age of 40 now is likely sacrificing years off their lives by encumbering research. It may well be that if you can survive another 30 or 40 years that you will then survive another few hundred years beyond that. Oh, and your children too, and everyone around you that you care about. Opposing stem cell research is, frankly, medieval.

Re:Get the facts straight

[tabrnaker]

HOw naive are you? Why cure somebody when you can sell them medication for the rest of their life??? A corporation exists to make money for it's shareholders. I hope you don't believe drug companies exist for the good of the people. If they did, they wouldn't charge americans more than they do canadians.

Re:Get the facts straight

[MoebiusStreet]

No, I think you ignore the fact that there still exists a market (however much the government might try to suppress it), and this will cause the price to level. In the optimal case, those paying less would resell to those willing to pay more, making the profit themselves rather than the pharma companies. Thus the price level stabilizes itself.

Of course, the government HAS broken the above-ground market. This creates a black, underground market. The result is
1) Above-ground, there is effectively a dual currency system, in which customers must pay (a) regular dollars; and (b) what might be considered ration coupons, which is what they can get their insurance provider or Medicare/Medicaid to approve.
2) Rampant crime in smuggling. Consider the case last week where the Dept of Homeland Security raided a house in NJ because they were trying to import flu vaccine. Note that the vaccine was produced by a perfectly reputable manufacturer, and the shortage itself was caused by gov't single-source supply (and why is it the gov't that takes charge of procuring vaccines, anyway?)
3) Guess what the source of the product behind all of those v.i.a.g.r.a. spams that we get? It's the broken market that creates the marketing opportunity the spammers are exploiting.

In conclusion, there really is more to economics than just a supply/demand curve, and you shouldn't enter into arguments on the subject without understanding how the entire market functions as a whole.

Adult Stem Cells :)

[bluefoxlucid]

Now the controversy will start, so I'll try to pre-empt this with a few things from myb log on this.

First, notice these are adult stem cells. This likely couldn't have been done with embreyonic stem cells; every test with embreyonic stem cells has failed, or has caused tumors. I'm not a biologist, but I'm going to guess that since embreyonic stem cells are totipotent and regrow entire bodies, that they "try" (*cough*) to regrow something other than just surorunding tissue (when they actually graft), and thus simply turn into blobs of useless, random tissue (tumors). Adult stem cells have treated over a hundred diseases already. :)

That should be sufficient to undercut any "OMFG EMBREYONIC ONES R BETTAR" arguments. Let's try political arguments. Before bashing politicians, think about how they bat embreyonic stem cell research around as a political hand grenade, without mentioning adult stem cell research. There's something wrong with a bunch of blood thirsty, power hungry mongrals who are willing to draw attention to something that has so far been proven in 100% of laboratory tests to be totally useless, while ignoring the other component which has displayed genuine results and greater future promise, just for their own political agenda. I'll hold one party at fault more than the other for this; but when your opponents lie, you should take up myth busting and put them back in their place for it. It's still a fault that conservatives don't come out and lay down the low down like I have on my blog.

So I've bounced technical and political arguments here now. Anything I missed?

Re:Adult Stem Cells :)

[tgibbs]

There's something wrong with a bunch of blood thirsty, power hungry mongrals who are willing to draw attention to something that has so far been proven in 100% of laboratory tests to be totally useless

Do you really feel that your argument is so weak that it is necessary to lie? If you go to PubMed and type in "embryonic stem cells," you will see a long list of laboratory studies supporting their value.

Re:But as far as the Right is concerned...

[theparanoidcynic]

Good thing for her hell's as fictional as those WMDs the monkeys are always insisting exist . . . .

Hey fundies: mod me troll if you want, but with karma like mine it doesn't much matter. You can try to piss me off, but I'll probably laugh at you. :)

Re:Dictionary.com

[32bitwonder]

Try looking in a non U.S. centric dictionary.

Korean times article with a picture

[Wm_K]

Korean Times

Nonsense!!!!

[brian0918]

I demand that we redefine pi as 3 according to 1 Kings 7:23:

1 Kings 7:23
Now he made the sea of cast metal ten cubits from brim to brim, circular in form, and its height was five cubits, and thirty cubits in circumference.

Re:Nonsense!!!!

[stanmann]

Q: In 1 Ki 7:23 and 2 Chr 4:2-5, does the Bible say the value of pi is 3? A: No. The skeptical Asimov's Guide to the Bible p.328 claims, "The explanation is, of course, that the Biblical writers were not mathematicians or even interested in mathematics and were merely giving approximate figures. Still, to those who are obsessed with the notion that every word in the Bible is infallible (and who know a little mathematics) it is bound to come as a shock to be told that the Bible says that the value of pi is 3." Asimov had a Ph.D. in chemistry, so he should have known better. There are three different possibilities. Rounding with significant digits: Assume the circumference was exactly 30.0 cubits. Since they only gave the dimensions in whole numbers, which number would Asimov have them use? A perfectly round basin with no rim would give a value of 9.55, and that is closer to 10 than to any other number. A rim: Assume either the inner circumference was exactly 30.0 cubits, or that the thickness of the basin made the inner and outer circumference almost the same. A diameter that included a rim of 4 inces (0.22535 cubits) would give a ratio of exactly 3 to 1. A flare: Nothing says the walls of the basin were perfectly vertical. If the basin had a very slight flare of 0.75% at the top, then the outer circumference at the narrow part and the outer or inner diameter at the top would give a ratio of exactly 3 to 1.

11/10/03 "Sir-In the News story about scientists' response to creationists, the scientists `comment that the Bible says that PI is 3, not 3.14' (Nature 398, 453; 1999). The biblical verse quoted (1 Kings 7:23) reads in part: `...measuring 10 cubits from rim to rim... It took a line of 30 cubits to measure around it". Indeed, 30/10 equals 3, but further on in verse 26 it says: `It was a handbreadth in thickness...' Assuming that a cubit measured 18 inches and a hand breadth 3 inches, the inner diameter of the bowl would be 174 inches (10 x 18 - 2 x 3), and the inner circumference would be 540 inches (30 x 18). This yields a value for PI of 540/174 or 3.10. This is about a 1 per cent error from the typical value for PI of 3.14. Although we do not know the exact length of a cubit or a handbreadth, this result is very close to the actual value of PI." (Peil K., "Biblical answer to cooking up pi," Nature, Vol 399, 10 June 1999, p.522)

Re:Nonsense!!!!

[Total_Wimp]

I think the point is that literal interpretation of the Bible is problematic. Christians, being human themselves, should understand that, but too often they just don't.

If I had a dime for every time I've heard a Christian say "I only read the King James version of the Bible because it's a word for word interpretation" I'd have a pretty big handful of dimes. You and I know that the KJ bible has a history that rejects literal interpretation on translation grounds alone, but what about other literary techniques like alegory, simily and metaphor? Are Christians so blind to the capabilities of the written word?

Please, If you believe in what the Bible says then I urge you to be a thinking person and believe God gave the gift of literature to the writers of the Bible. Please believe that there is the capability that things don't mean exactly what they say. Heck I've heard all kinds of fun interpretations of the meaning of Revelations, why must you fail to believe the same possibilities of the rest of the book?

I think a Slashdot quote is pretty appropriate when it comes to literally interpreteed Bible math: "If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane."

TW

Re:i only hope...

[bluefoxlucid]

This is a reproducable advance. Many diseases have been cured in this method. In one experiment now, bone marrow stem cells are being grafted onto hearts. The patient's heart is stopped for 2 minutes to allow the cells to graft. After that, it's restarted. Any scar tissue from heart attacks is healed and becomes healthy, strong heart muscle tissue.

Talk of curing diabetese with this has also floated around; and over a hundred diseases have already been treated successfully.

Re:They already do

[Trailwalker]

Prior to Roe v. Wade this was the case. The wealthy have always had access to safe abortions, either in the US or overseas.

Lesser members of the human race had coathanger abortions in alleys, or just had kids. All Roe v. Wade really did was to allow poorer people the same access to abortion as the wealthy.

.

The responses so far

[HarveyBirdman]

- "Hah! Take that redneck Bushies! Nyah nyah nyah neener neener neener" --- 25%

- "Uh, this is the sort of stem cells the Bush Administration supports, you ignorant dumbass." --- 25%

- "Well, yeah, but, Dumbya cut funding! And this is you: duh doo duh doo duh doo" --- 25%

- "Uh, Bush was the first to federally fund ANY stem cell research. And this is you: bibblebibblebibble pppbbbffffttttt!" --- 25%

And then the same people wonder why nothing works right anymore.

The debate rages on

[erroneus]

While this is without a doubt something amazing and even blessed (I use the term loosely since I am atheist) it is only a glimpse into the potential for stem cells. Personally, I am very very moved by this event.

But as one article discusses, the whole point of using embryonic stem cells is that they are undifferentiated. The use of the cells used in the treatment of paralysis were supposedly cord stem cells and are more limited in which ways the body can put them to use. Embryonic stem cells, on the other hand, can in theory, be used to create ANY cell type in the human body. That is a tremendous difference.

Ethical debates will persist from now until whenever but the moment people outgrow their need to believe in mythology, we'll make some better progress. I'm hopeful that there should be an ethically acceptable method for collecting embryonic stem cells so that we can make the real medical miracles happen.

Re:The debate rages on

[zanderredux]

While I agree that embyonic stem cells are undifferentiated, I must point that, being undifferentiated as they are, embryonic stem cells can change into anything, including a nasty teratoma, which seems to occur quite frequently.

In a different subject, I think that the problem with embryonic stem cell research is its potential to undermine human dignity. What would the world look like if we knowingly bred people just to harvest their organs/cells/meat(?) out?

I'll be the first to acknowledge that this seems to be an ab absurdum attack, but can someone (governments, corporations, individuals) make sure that ethical limits are not compromised in the process of collecting such cells? Any system that relies in individual judgment will be subject to fraud and a plethora of other kind of abuses and, given that everything has a price, I have no doubt it will be.

Original Korea Times Article (in English)

[dokebi]

with some additional details here

Peer review?

[schodackwm]

not at these papers/wireservices, I think.

May be worth all these words if/when the claim is supported by detail in a peer-reviewed journal, as opposed to a News Corp (read: "tabloid publication, regardless of the actual paper size) and/or Agence France Press, which, like AP, UPI, and others, frequently distributes stories printed by others without factchecking.

Re:Rise, and WALK!

[lifeblender]

Not quite true. Science, religion, and superstition have been at three opposite poles since civilization began. Each has had long periods of popular belief, and during each of those the other two were lumped together, as religion and superstition are now. Catch-phrases used for attack include "heretic" for religious zealouts, "irrational" for science devotees, and "ignorance" for those who hold superstitious beliefs. Currently, science has held the scene and lumped together religion and magic, although an undercurrent of superstition exists now that wasn't present fourty years ago.

Modern fundamentalist religions, like those that oppose abortion, stem cell research, or equality for women, are headed for a direct confrontation with people that want to believe in a wider range of spirituality. The issue of stem cell research highlights this, because many people now respond to it in terms of the soul, whereas that was not at issue when abortion was originally made illegal in the US in the the middle and late 1800s. This concern for the soul and the sanctity of life shows a trend towards more holistic and 'superstitious' views of the world.

This view has actually been encouraged by the emerge of recent sciences including chaos theory and quantum dynamics. The cycle will continue, but if you want to know what's coming, asking high school and college students their opinions. Not the ones that are eager to answer, but the ones that are reserved about their opinions. They're the ones that are still considering the issue, and their opinions will shape decision on the subject thirty years from now. Since I think that there are a lot of undecideds on this issue, I see a big fight coming once a large number of them have made up their minds and raised children with those views.

WWLBSN?

[microcars]

What Would Laura Bush Say Now?

"We don't even know that stem cell research will provide cures for anything -- much less that it's very close" to yielding major advances"

reference link

Re:WWLBSN?

[arudloff]

She would be just as amazed as the rest of the world, and just as quick to point out that it was not accomplished using embryonic stem cells.

Re:Umbillical Cord Use Actually WORSE -ot

[syntap]

The comedy is in the people posting to correct me on point #1 but not on point #2.

No surprise this is in North Korea.

[Helpadingoatemybaby]

Too many people think that "Bush is the first president to fund stem cell research" and "these were umbilical stem cells, and, uh, have nothing to do with embryonic stem cells!"

The fact is, California alone gave $3 billion for research into this. Bush claims to have donated $25 million -- translated, California gave 120 times the amount that the Bush talkingpointists trumpet.

Then Bush said that there were something like 75 stem cell lines, and it turned out that something like 60 were garbage and entirely unusuable, and the last 15 might be useful, or might be contaminated.

As for "Bush was the first one... etc." -- considering that stem cells started to show real promise in 1999 and 2000, it's not too surprising that the previous research funding wasn't broken out separately. It IS offensive to me that the were so many restrictions on research to put us behind the South Koreans and to bury Christopher Reeves.

And to those who claim that "well these were not embryonic stem cells!" No one here can get to stage 2 before starting at stage one, which is embryonic.

Clearly we must give these IVF embryos the respect they deserve -- by throwing them in the garbage rather than saving lives.

You can see that that the "Bush was first" stuff is false here:

In August 2000, HHS, under President Clinton's leadership, published new guidelines for research using human embryos. These guidelines create a loophole that essentially claims if privately funded scientists destroy the embryos and extract their stem cells, government-funded scientists can conduct experiments with those stem cells without violating the federal ban. 9

On August 9, 2001, President Bush announced he would reject the Clinton Administration's guidelines and only allow federal dollars for research on approximately 60 existing embryonic stem cell lines already created in privately funded laboratories.10 The president outlined four conditions for the use of existing cell lines:

* The embryos were destroyed and the cell lines were created before the August 9 speech

* The embryos were among the "excess" frozen embryos stored in fertility clinics created through in vitro fertilization for reproductive purposes

* The parents gave their consent for the embryo to be destroyed

* The parents were not offered any financial incentive in return for donating the embryo 11

Re:Dictionary.com

[cj_goth]

Really? Next you'll be telling me that colour doesn't have a "u" in it ...

Re:Bravo...

[LurkerXXX]

Uhh, right. It's entirely their fault that when:

They put out a food pyramid with such things on it as a 2 ounce muffin as a serving..,
and joe sixpack buys the 10 ounce 'mega-muffin' to eat as his serving.

They put out a 3 ounce burger as a serving on their food chart...,
and joe sixpack buys the 12 ounce triple-burger with the super-duper-size fries.

Americans are getting fatter because they eat HUGE portions of bad things, and don't excercise enough. The food pyramid works fine if you eat the reasonably sized portions they suggest. It also might help if folks would get off the damn couch too.

What is the problem?

[TiggertheMad]

But can they use stem cells to make my wife put out again?

I don't get it. I have no problem getting your wife to put out. All my friends say she is insatiable in bed.

Molecules cannot metabolize, grow, reproduce, or r

[oliverthered]

What the fuck is this then.

What it RNA, and What is DNA what are amino acids.

They can grow, reproduce, and react with their environment.

I should imagine that if you had a diamond and some carbon vapour you could make the diamond grow and not turn into graphite, nono-tubes grow and react.

Don't forget that you've got a lot of viruses and bacteria living off of a corpse too.

You could even argue that the frabirc of the universe is a living system. (well were part of is I suppose!)

Re:Time for political will to change???

[acidrain69]

this development bolsters the claim that we do not need embroynic steam cells for the type of treatments and remedies that would help so many people

No, it does nothing of the sort. Cord cells do not have the same capabilites as embryonic cells. Unless we research them, we won't know what else can be accomplished with embryonic cells.

Also, while your point #1 is correct, a federal ban on FUNDING is essentially a ban. Someone earlier stated that you could put a $1000 tax on a pack of cigarettes, and while it is true that you haven't BANNED cigarettes, they are effectively banned for economic reasons.

"The otherwise of the issue"? What are you talking about?

A more accurate analogy would be to say that banning federal funding of embryonic stem cells is like the king of spain never giving money to Columbus, and thus, Spain never FINDING OUT that the world isn't flat.

Re:Yes, the gov't should fund it, and here's why..

[gokeln]

Actually, the calculus was invented more than a millenia earlier by Archimedes. Google for plimpsest. Who employed Archimedes? Oh, and what about Leibniz?

Re:Just a side note....

[DunbarTheInept]

Do you love your parents?

Prove it.

Whether you love someone or not is a subjective issue, like asking whether or not FDR was a good president.
God existing or not is an objective issue, like asking whether or not
FDR used a wheelchair.

Thus the analogy fails. The inability to prove you love someone is merely a side effect of the fact that it's subjective, and ALL subjective things are inherently unprovable (because it is possible for mutually exclusive positions to be simultaneously correct if it is subjective). It is not possible for god to both exist and not exist, so that is NOT a subjective issue. There IS only one right answer, but we just don't know what it is. That is a completely different situation.

Given the attitudes of Carl Sagan as expressed in his final work, The Demon-Haunted World> , it's a great travesty how they ended up writing that ending to the movie Contact. It expresses a stance in direct contradiction to what Sagan would have expressed.

generational deterioration?

[stupidsocialscientis]

I know that bush did not end stem cell research, but limited it to the existing stem cell lines. I am curious, are these lines sufficient? My impression is that they are not. One of the problems I have heard mentioned is that as cells are reproduced over and over again, transcription errors can occur, yielding inferior cell lines, and thus introducing increase error variance into experiments. Does anyone know if this is true?

It was fun while it lasted

[upsidedown_duck]

With medical costs rising much faster than inflation and wages and with an anti-science agenda in our government, the USA is moving backwards in time with respect to medicine.

For example, medical insurance has become so expensive, that I fear ever going to see a doctor out of fear what will happen to my premiums afterwards. If I ever see a doctor, it'll probably be due to a trip to the emergency room. And I get by cheap. If I was a woman with a child or had any pre-existing condition...holy shit, I know people who were quoted $1000+ per month, and they aren't even 30, yet!

I don't know the answer, but the current system is not it. Not by any measure.

Re:It was fun while it lasted

[east coast]

With medical costs rising much faster than inflation and wages and with an anti-science agenda in our government...

anti-science agenda? I'm afraid you have it wrong, friend. My father was admitted to the hospital 2 years ago for what was thought to be a heart attack. As it turned out he had at some point in his past gotten an infection that had weakened the tissue of his heart. In a relatively short time with therapy and medication he resumes a normal life. 10 or 15 years ago he'd had gotten a "you're SOL, sucker" excuse from the industry. Today he has another chance.

But you mention the government. OK, let me play devils advocate here. Let's take the recent Vioxx incident. If the FDA didn't force companies to fork out millions and million in drug trials (which translated into higher drug costs passed on to you) these incidents would be much more common. Not only that but civil suits would run otherwise well meaning companies out of business. Again this would translate into higher costs for you.

So what will it be? A higher cost of treatments that work, a government heavy health system that would depend on others to make progress because it can't afford serious R&D itself or shoddy treatments that are little more than a band-aid for a shotgun wound to the head?

If I ever see a doctor, it'll probably be due to a trip to the emergency room.

Good job. Pay for insurance but don't use it. Go to the doctors and chances are you won't be lying in ER at 3:30 in the morning with chest pains and a doctor you've never met before treating you. If Americans were more in tune with the idea of preventive medicine we'd probably have fewer in the hospitals and fewer who end up on maintenance drugs for the rest of their lives. But I know the story; eat, smoke, drink yourself into a bad medical position and complain that medical science can do nothing for your life of excess. Perhaps not you in particular, but many live their lives just like that. Maybe things weren't this bad 20 years ago because people had enough common sense to see that you pay to play and now that it's starting to swing around and take down the baby boomers we have too many casualties from fast and easy living at one time. The system is being burdened and our sue-happy society isn't helping matters any.

Re:Yes, the gov't should fund it, and here's why..

[ratamacue]

It is a fundamental piece of scientific research that advances our entire base of technology

As righteous as you consider your agenda, it's not moral to force it on everyone else. The average Joe couldn't give a damn what happens with stem cell research, and that's his right not to give a damn. You are not a saint for trying to force your agenda on the average Joe -- you are an aggressor, and Joe is the victim.

Realize that the "it benefits society as a whole" justification for more government is the oldest trick in the book. Anything and everything government does is justified with that exact rationale.

Why did the US government chose to wage war on Iraq? "Because it benefits society as a whole."

Industry, on the other hand, is busy trying to patent your *genes*!

Industry is only playing by the rules. The fact that the rules are fundamentally broken is a failure of government, not industry.

A wart is a human!

[Anonymous Coward]

A wart is alive and has human genes... is it a human?

What about your appendix and tonsils? Are they not alive? Are they not human?

What about that nasty tumor growing in your brain? Don't get it removed or you'll be killing a human. /bleh

You can still cut your hair and nails.

Re:A wart is a human!

[twomb]

Of course, I was assuming that the reader would understand we were speaking of a distinct being with it's own genetic code - seperate from the mother, but thanks for giving me an opportunity to state the obvious.

Walking away with it.

[gone.fishing]

I'm no expert on Stem cell research or medical ethics, I probably know a lot less about it than most people on Slashdot. What I do know is that my daughter's mother is laying in a nursing home where she will soon die from ALS. I don't think that this kind of thing is too unusual, many people know someone who has some terrible disease. We also have hundreds, perhaps thousands of nerve and brain injured soldiers laying in VA hospitals around the country and many more people with various injuries and diseases in hospitals and nurshing homes all around the country.

All of these people wish to have their health back. Scientists and doctors everywhere are saying that stem cell research holds a great deal of promise and that it deserves a great deal of study. These same experts seem to agree that fetal stem cells have some special properties.

We have a conservitive government who for decades have said "deregulation is the key to success" who have regulated research in this area. I guess they meant "deregulation is the key to success unless we don't agree with it."

Re:Walking away with it.

[multimed]

We have a conservitive government who for decades have said "deregulation is the key to success" who have regulated research in this area. I guess they meant "deregulation is the key to success unless we don't agree with it."

There are two points you're missing. First is something people get confused on all the time--the government not funding something is different than not allowing it. The federal government is not regulating embryonic stem cell research, only limiting federal funding to existing lines. While this may be because the Bush Administration is influenced too much by the reglious right, it is not inconsistent with deregulation or smaller government philosophy. (There are however numerous other examples of where Bush has been inconsistent.) There are no barriers to you, I or any other individual or company preventing us from doing whatever research we want.

Second, and even more importantly, you've missed a critical detail to this story. The stem cells used to treat this woman which led to the amazing recovery were from cord blood and are adult stem cells, not embryonic stem cells. While embryonic stem cells have much potential, adult stem cells are currently providing successful results today. From what I've read, the very quality of embryonic stem cells that gives them so much potential--the ability to change into the most different types of cells--also makes them more difficult to actually use successfully. If anything, the success of the South Korean woman in the article should show that using stem cells from cord blood is providing real breakthroughs where embryonic are still mostly "potential" right now. It certainly doesn't detract from the potential of embryonic cells--but hopefully it will generate more attention to the less controversial form.

What is holy

[anomaly]

I can't speak for all of the Christian world, but I have to take issue with a couple of your points above:

1. If God made things a certain way, then that must be holy.
In fact, the Hebrew scriptures (read Old Testament) and the New testament affirm that the world in which we live is flawed as a result of the sin of Adam. Humans - as they are naturally - are not holy. In fact, humans are not naturally able to relate to God. It is only through the combination of God's reaching out to man and man's response to that call that give people any hope of relating to God. (There are many internal discussions about the nature of that call, and man's ability to respond, but the core belief is that man as he is born, is unholy.)

People are born with a prediliction to reject God in a myriad of ways. Some alcoholism has been shown to have physiological roots, but that does not prevent the church from condemnation of abuse of alcohol. Even if homosexuality is demonstrated to have a physiological cause, it will not mean that the church needs to change its stance.

Homosexual behavior is condemed by the church, as is idolatry, lying, theft, greed, slander, swindling, gluttony, and much else.

Why are these behaviors condemned? Because God made us, and He knows how we work. You can drive nails with a Rolex, but it wasn't made for that. There are many things you can do with and to your body - but it wasn't made for those things.

The maker - designer - knows what is good for you, and what is not. He can set whatever standards He wants. God gives us the free will to follow His direction or reject it. I'm sure that the Rolex folks won't recommend driving nails with your watch. If you do it anyway, there are consequences. It's the same with God.

As it stands, the revealed word of God says that sexual acts outside of marriage, and also with two people of the same gender are not acceptable. In fact, Jesus Himself said that when a man looks at a woman lustfully he has already sinned - and that sin carries the same penalty as homosexual acts do!

2. with embryonic stem cells there is no sper involved
I believe that you misunderstand the definition of embryonic stem cells. An embryo is the joining of sperm and egg. Evangelicals typically believe that life begins at conception, not at a later point. When life begins, it must be protected.

Respectfully,
Anomaly

Re:Rise, and WALK!

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

While I agree with point you are trying to make, I think you have no idea how much of South Korean politics is dependent upon the president of the U.S. South Korea is a U.S. satellite state set in opposition to North Korea, a former U.S.S.R. and Chinese satellite state. North Korea can and may invade at any time, and the presence of a large number of U.S. troops, that Bush has promised to remove, are one of the major things preventing it. When the U.S. says "jump" Korea says "how high??"

Not Inevitable

[SeanDuggan]

Once conception has taken place, it is inevitable that birth will take place.
First, on a technical level, after conception, the egg has to go through implantation. Due to semantic juggling, that's why "contraceptives" like the Pill don't do anything to conception. Rather, they prevent implantation.

Secondly, there's a variety of things that can happen after conception that prevent birth from spontaneous abortions (the body absorbs everything back) to miscarriages and other in-womb deaths. Although, arguably, the baby is still "born" in the latter two cases, just not alive.

Re:Just a side note....

[DunbarTheInept]

1 - A question that contains undefined terms is not the same as a question which contains defined terms that are subjective.

2 - It doesn't matter whether Sagan is right or not. What matters is that he's the author who wrote the novel Contact and they insulted him by writing an ending to the movie with a message directly opposite of the one he gave while still alive. It's a travesty because it's an insult to the author of the work, much like if Peter Jackson had decided to have Sauron win the war of the ring in the movie version of JRR Tolkein's work.

3 - What about Einstien?

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
[Albert Einstein, 1954, from "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press]

When Einstien spoke of god, it was very metephorical, much like when someone refers to a hurricaine as an "act of God".

Re:Time for political will to change???

[lukesl]

Impeding and not funding are different things. An imposition is banning or blocking or imposing harsh regulations.

If they just declined to fund research proposals involving ES cells, you would be right. However, the ban on federal funding of ES cell research is more restrictive than that. Most labs have several sources of funding and multiple projects going on simultaneously, and almost all basic science biology labs get funding from the government. If I were in a lab doing ES cell research, even work that was privately funded, I would essentially have to work in a separate facility from everyone else. I couldn't use the lab centrifuge, geiger counter, refrigerator, incubator, etc., because those were bought with federal dollars. On a practical level, it's extremely difficult, if not possible, to work under those conditions. So in practical terms, it is a ban.

The bottom line is that the issue here is the future development of "factories" of human bits and pieces. It frightens people. Embryonic stem cells are thrown away, but we both know that in short order they would be harvested efficently and clinically with absolutely no regard to their nature: much like antibodies or animal specimens are harvested today.

That's a silly, alarmist view. Or maybe it's true. Maybe ES cells will lead to both matrix-style baby factories AND the cures to terrible diseases. Couldn't we just ban baby factories?

It is hardly disturbing that the government would elect not to fund a practice which is very fairly consider contraversial for a pay-off that is available through other means or highly hypotethical. Bush has said repeatedly that if other avenues are exhausted or the circumstances warrant it a revisitation of the issue can be made.

What you're saying here is partially misguided and partially factually incorrect. I would argue that the only reason it is controversial at all is because politicians decided to make an issue out of it. We've been throwing the cells in the trash for years, and nobody cared! Bush wants to appear somewhat flexible on the ES cell issue because he KNOWS that the ban will be lifted in the future, because it will very quickly become politically unpopular once the Swiss (or whoever) cure diabetes (or whatever). This, really, is what bothers me most. Bush is not an idiot, and he understands the promise of ES cell research. He even knows that his opposition to funding the work is bad for the US (but maybe only a little), but he's willing to do it because he knows it will win him votes among people who don't understand the issue. Unfortunately, only about 2% of the general public understands the issue.

As far as the promise being "available through other means or highly hypothetical," the evidence right now is against that. We can cure some diseases in mice using ES cells, and there are things we can only do with ES cells, etc. I would say that if you can cure a disease in a mouse, it's not "highly hypothetical" to think that you could use the same strategy to treat a human.

fun with bounds (yay for syntactic ambiguity puns)

[feed_me_cereal]

I'm uncomfortable with drawing arbitrary lines on this. It just seems intrinsically wrong to experiment on a living cell with human potential.

Then don't draw *an* arbitrary line, just do what every other computer scientist / mathematician does when they can't find a tight bound on something: draw 2 arbitrary lines!

If you believe that it's obvious that a small hunk of cells is decidedly not human, and if it will be flushed and will thus not become a human, then that's ok for research.

A newborn baby is obviously already human and has the potential to develop further so we'll say no killing newborns.

There. No single arbitrary line. The trick is, to me, to just go with what is definately OK, and leave the more questionable stuff alone. That way you have no absolute declaration of when life/dignity begins/becomes valuable and thus no slippery slope.

Comfy? :)

Re:Selfish Gene Propagation

[asoap]

Wooo.. that was a cool post.

I agree, you would think that if there were a "gay gene" that it would have been removed from natural selection.

I've heard of studies saying that homosexuality can simply be the result of to much of the wrong hormone at the wrong time.

One of the interesting things about this was that if you look a man's hand. The ring finger, is longer then the pointer finger. If you look at a women's hand, then those two fingers are almost the same length. Yet if you look at gay men's hands (apparently some of them), will have those two fingers closer to the same length. Which is more like a women's. Interesting stuff.

I'm not saying that there is a "gay gene" or not. I really don't know. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that there is something in us that causes us to have gay children. I really don't know.

What I do know is that, I'm not going to tell someone how they can run there life. I'm also deffinately not going to do it because some man man behind a podium simply says so.

-Derek

Re:Just a side note....

[Viceman001]

"No good reason? The jews were on that land about two thousand years before the terroris^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h muslims showed up. It's their land. Not supporting israel is supporting terrorism and land theft." Chief Redcloud called, he wants your house back

Re:Better question - Why SHOULD the Feds fund it?

[magefile]

Because much of this research won't happen unless it's government funded (its long-term, not a quick buck). If there was no gov't funding, you'd have 10^6 aspirin knockoffs and no real treatments. A lot of commercial drugs never would've been developed w/o gov't assistance.

Re:Just a side note....

[Blublu]

Yeah, but that argument is flawed. Here's another example: Q: Can god make an object of any shape? A: Yes. Q: Can he make a square triangle? A: Yes, er.. Ummm. Nevermind...

In what way did they regulate the research?

[porkchop_d_clown]

Half the country says abortion is murder; half does not. The president compromised and said that fetal tissue could be used for research, but you couldn't pay for it with taxpayer money. Sounds like a reasonable compromise to me.

Meanwhile, stem cells that are not derived from fetal tissues are being worked with every day to develop new therapies. For example, they were used to help a paralyzed woman walk in South Korea - which you would know if you had read the article.

As for all the promises from all those researchers - sorry, but researchers promise lots of things that never come true. Even the New York Times is reporting that California's $3 billion is looking more like a science slush fund than real science.

Re:In what way did they regulate the research?

[chialea]

What the heck does abortion have to do with using frozen IVF embryos that are never going to become babies and will be destroyed in any case? They're separate issues.

I would much rather give any embryos that I might generate from IVF (if I ever needed it) to research than simply flush em. I'd rather my dead body was used for research or transplantation (and then I'd rather it rot and feed other things) rather than being embalmed.

It's one's choice not to allow transplantation, or to allow these therapies to be used. However, I don't understand how one could possibly call it more respectful of life. Hey, the fetal cell lines are STILL ALIVE, and discarded IVF embryos are not. Can they feel pain? No. Can they help pain? Yes.

So bow your head and thank them for their sacrifice, just as some people thank the plants and animals that become our food. Avoid them, if you choose. But don't fool yourself into thinking you're protecting life.

Lea

Have you read it yourself?

[anomaly]

The old testament, and new testament affirm nothing.

Have you read the Bible yourself? All of it?

While you may believe that it is merely a collection of nice stories that are used to prove a point, I would suggest to you that your belief may not be completely accurate.

The Bible is quite remarkable in terms of ancient literature. There are many many 'holy books' that are revered by religious peoples around the world. None of them have had the impact on Western culture and society that the Bible has.

We know that what is written there has been preserved since its original versions because of the vast number of copies that we have. There are more accurate copies of the Bible than ANY other ancient work. (The alleged discrepancies that many of you want to point out as you read this are completely irrelevant to all major doctrines of the Christian faith.)

To suggest that it's merely a collection of stories on a par with mother goose is a bit...unreasonable.

In terms of disease, the Christian faith teaches that we all are diseased, and are in need of an ultimate physician to heal us. The disease is sin, evidenced by our selfishness and pride. This is what separates us from a Holy God.

God does give us free will. Doing what He says is wrong is, as I mentioned in my last post to you, akin to smashing your gold Rolex on a galvanized nail.

If you do what God says is wrong, you can expect that there will be consequences. That's the way it is. You don't have to like it, but you can't change it, either. The only way to avoid the consequences is to believe that you are imperfect, recognize that perfection is required to have relationship with a holy God, and ask Him to accept you in your imperfection, beacuse of Christ's sacrifice on your behalf.

This is completely unrelated to procreation. Procreation is not at issue if you look lustfully at a woman, and Christ called that sin, too.

WRT your embryonic stem cell point, I believe that you are mistaken. This site states that embryonic stem cells require a fertilized egg.

Re:Bravo...

[LurkerXXX]

Give me a break. Ever look at the average Japanese diet? What's that? A very large percentage of it is rice! Oh my, carbs! Look how obese the average Japanese person is! (ok, Sumo wrestlers are, but they try to bulk up, hard)

Carbs are not bad for you. Just eat a reasonable amount of them. Don't super-size everything. Telling people to eat lots of meat and other fatty foods instead is a LOT worse then telling them to eat carbs.

Forget your friggin Adkins diet and just eat sane size portions of food and get some exercise.

Re:Where are the private funds?

[Steve525]

First, CA just approved a multi-billion dollar fund for this research as a way to attract companies.

Good for CA. Still most basic research (embryotic stem cell research is not advanced enough to be considered applied), is NIH funded, particularly at Universities. The current rules basically kill this traditional source of funding (except for the conditions already noted).

It appears from what you and others say that adult stem cell research is both easier and further along. Therefore it's more likely to give medical treatments first, regardless of funding restrictions. That's fine, but many in the scientific medical community believe that the embryotic stem cells have the potential to be even more useful than adult cells. It would therefore seem logical to explore both methods.

You make a clever analogy about walking before you fly, but I have no idea if it applies. Do you? It is quite likely that researching embryotic stem cells now will give us head start for applying the knowledge from adult cells. I am a scientist, but not in this field. I know enough to know that I don't know a whole lot about this. I don't know your background, but I suspect you don't a whole a lot about the science here either. We are both pulling most of this out of our asses.

But what about prayer???

[Money for Nothin']

What, you mean prayer doesn't actually help the blind to see, the deaf to hear, or the paraplegic to walk again?

You mean the solutions to these problems are found in *science* and *medicine*, not in religious voodoo and mysticism? Incredible! God forbid!

Atrophy?

[Amiga Trombone]

I get the feeling there must be more to the story than meets the eye here. If this woman had been paralyzed for 20 years, wouldn't her muscles be atrophied? Even if you repaired the nerve damage, it seems to me she wouldn't have just been able to get up and walk, at least without a lot of restorative therapy.

Is there something I'm missing here?

Re:Atrophy?

[mgv]

I get the feeling there must be more to the story than meets the eye here. If this woman had been paralyzed for 20 years, wouldn't her muscles be atrophied? Even if you repaired the nerve damage, it seems to me she wouldn't have just been able to get up and walk, at least without a lot of restorative therapy.

Is there something I'm missing here?

Yes, if you read the article she is walking with a frame. Still, she is improving alot faster than the medical staff expected.

Michael

If true, this will magnify the debate

[donheff]

If the claim turns out to be true it will not lower the tensions over embryonic cells, it will exacerbate them. It is well settled that embryonic stem cells are much more flexible and useful than adult stem cells cited in the report. If it turns out such a breakthrough was achieved with limited adult cells, think how much could be done with more capable embryonic cells. The "speculation" that embryonic research may lead to cures for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and paralysis would quickly become a perceived certainty. The pressure to accelerate research with embryonic cells would increase dramatically. Too bad the claim will probably turn out to be false.

Yeah...

[yogikoudou]

Next you'll be telling me some messiah was brougth back from the dead...
Hell don't believe that crap..

So when the bible says...

[brian0918]

"When God says "You shall not...", that seems pretty clear too, doesn't it?"

When the bible says that you should stone a disobedient child, that seems pretty clear, too.

Deuteronomy 21:18 "If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them,

Deuteronomy 21:19 then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown.

Deuteronomy 21:20 "They shall say to the elders of his city, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.'

Deuteronomy 21:21 "Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear of it and fear.


So, believers have two choices. Either they follow all the rules of the bible, and start stoning disobedient children, or they don't follow any of the rules of the bible, and don't try to force those rules on others. You can't pick and choose what rules to follow based on how you feel about certain issues. Well, you can, but then I can call you a hypocritical idiot.