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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."
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.
But can they use stem cells to make my wife put out again?
Mundus vult decipi decipiatur ergo.
-Xaviera Hollander
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.
No subscription required for the story here, either.
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.
How much better science is this than rubber tails for dolphins?!?
Sounds like good work to me.
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!
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...
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
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.
I tried that, but after all that work I was tired and went to bed with a headache.
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
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.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
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.
Burn Hollywood Burn
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.
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!
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.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
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.
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"?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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.
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.
If not now, when?
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
Laws are for people with no friends.
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.
Ed Uthman, MD
Pathologist, Houston/Richmond, TX, USA
Success stories like this have popped up all over the world lately (although none as wonderful as this last one).3 1&art_id=qw1100886480700B243
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=
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.
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...
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
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.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
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.
Allegedly real newspaper headline from 1998:
Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge
There is a huge difference between the two.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
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.
.
- "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.
--- Ban humanity.
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.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
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.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
A wart is alive and has human genes... is it a human?
/bleh
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.
You can still cut your hair and nails.
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
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
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.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?