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US Stem Cells Contaminated
Croaking Toad writes "According to The Register, US-based scientists using stem cells has hit a brick wall. The stem cells apparently have been contaminated for quite a while with animal proteins rendering them useless in the treatment of human illnesses. New stem cell harvesting was outlawed in the USA by a 2001 Executive Order from President Bush." To be precise, stem cell harvesting wasn't outlawed; the usage of federal funding was outlawed. Several states and research institutions have been using their own money to undertake research. The AP coverage is up as well. Update: 01/24 19:40 GMT by J : Carl Zimmer has a fascinating description of the sugars we humans lack that contaminated the stem cell lines. What a curious genetic heritage we have...
That's not true. Federal funding for harvesting embryonic stem cells was cut off. Huge difference.
"As a result of private research, more than 60 genetically diverse stem cell lines already exist" I have concluded that we should allow federal funds to be used for research on these existing stem cell lines " where the life and death decision has already been made", This allows us to explore the promise and potential of stem cell research" without crossing a fundamental moral line by providing taxpayer funding that would sanction or encourage further destruction of human embryos that have at least the potential for life."
-- George W. Bush
Just thought I'd help back up the parent there.
moo
Since the OP didn't seem to bother reading the executive order:
"Federal funds will only be used for research on existing stem cell lines that were derived: (1) with the informed consent of the donors; (2) from excess embryos created solely for reproductive purposes; and (3) without any financial inducements to the donors. In order to ensure that federal funds are used to support only stem cell research that is scientifically sound, legal, and ethical, the NIH will examine the derivation of all existing stem cell lines and create a registry of those lines that satisfy this criteria. More than 60 existing stem cell lines from genetically diverse populations around the world are expected to be available for federally-funded research.
No federal funds will be used for: (1) the derivation or use of stem cell lines derived from newly destroyed embryos; (2) the creation of any human embryos for research purposes; or (3) the cloning of human embryos for any purpose. Today's decision relates only to the use of federal funds for research on existing stem cell lines derived in accordance with the criteria set forth above."
Harvesting of new stem cell lines is not prohibited - a PI merely cannot continue to expect to receive government funding if s/he does so.
You forgot another important word: human.
The research beginning first on humans simultaneously with animal embryonic stem cells is the first time that I can recall in medical research. The normal research process has animal testing prior to human testing. The idea is that we should invest in learning how the cells are able to differentiate and how the lab can use the process to an advantage in animals. Only after this has been turned into a political issue has the reearch process reversed from animal testing first to human testing first.
I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
This was mentioned back in the Presidential debates. Bush said we have X Stem Cell Lines available, while Kerry said that the available lines are contaiminated with mouse DNA and probably other DNA.
Everyone seems to forget that embryos are not the only sorce of stem cells.... bood from the ambylical cord contain stem cells, these cells are already being harvestead and used to treat spinal cord injuries.... as posted in this Slashdot Artical.
Which is itself a bit of a misleading statement, as stem cell research is a very recent thing. It would be like saying "President Britany Spears III was the first president to fund time travel research" in the year 2145.
That's not true. Federal funding for harvesting embryonic stem cells was cut off.
That's correct, but also misleading. The executive order banned embryonic stell-cell research by any organization, group, or researcher receiving federal funding.
Not federal funding for stem-cell research. Federal funding for any research, related or not. Nearly every research organization in the country receives federal funding in one form or another. If the lab across campus doing physics has a federal grant, you can't do embryonic stem-cell research (except using the existing, contaminated lines).
The effect is the same as outlawing stem-cell research for 99.9% of all research facilities, a fact the fundies and Republican apologists like to play down or dismiss entirely. However, it doesn't make distortions like those in the summary any less obnoxious or inaccurate. There is at least one entirely privately funded research facility in California that is doing embryonic stem-cell research, our superstitious, less-than-intelligent, ever-so-less-than-competent president notwithstanding.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I submitted this twice and for some reason it wasn't accepted. Not that i'm holding a grudge, but i have diabetic friends and this is major news for me, and perhaps could change some people minds' about stem cell research (not embryonic stem cell research though, which is a more delicate subject).
It's amazing how many people believe that stem cells come from abortions. The religious right does an amazing job of spreading bad information and nobody ever promotes correct information with as much zeal or money.
Stems cells are very much "byproducts from fertility clinics". When married couples pay for in-vitro fertilization, the clinics fertilize many eggs in a lab. After a certain ammount of time, the healthiest embryos are chosen and implanted. The rest of the embryos are destroyed as medical waste. That's it. No abortions. Those embroys were never destined to be born. Why not help people with them?
-B
Bush was the first President to fund stem cell research at all so those saying that he cut funding are not accurate either.
That is a campaign speech lie. He was not the first president to fund stem cell research. Under previous presidents, stem cell research was undertaken with federal funds for that purpose. However, to prevent controversy, they projects were labled "paralysis research" or such.
So, Bush was *not* the first president to fund stem cell research. He was the first to say that it was ok to call stem cell research "stem cell research" on the grant application.
Learn to love Alaska
There's an astonishing report out of China; it can be read here. (The story, already quite poignant, is made even more so by the realization that the author is himself tetraplegic and is considering the procedure himself.) Essentially, the Chinese have already abandoned stem cells, and have moved onto nasal cells from four month old fetuses. They're working. Read this:
Self-preservation is the strongest instinct, and morality will inexorably be rewritten to allow whatever is required to survive. This is ultimately what will end the abortion wars, and pro-lifers are horrified at this (likely) endgame.
The contaminants cause human antibodies to attack the transplanted cells. This has been demonstrated in experiments. All of this was covered in "TFA." This makes them dangerous and probably useless for human beings without some dubious attempts to remove the contaminants. I say dubious because they are unlikely to succeed, and in addition likely only handle the particular contaminations we already know about.
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Pardon me? From the story:
"The problem is that current stocks have taken up a "non-human molecule called N-glycolylneuraminic acid or Neu5Gc" - probably when they were grown in a lab culture containing animal-derived materials from mice and calf foetuses. Neu5Gc is found on the surface of animal cells, but the human immune system attacks it - the major reason for transplanted animal organ rejection in humans."
But hey, if you say they're fine, they must be fine. After all, you're posting to Slashdot.
Not true. Some Germans cared, some didn't. To say that no Germans thought that mass murder was wrong is simply wrong.
>>The slaveowners actually thought they were doing a service by beating their slaves and forcing them to labor.
Only those who believed their own lies. Just because you keep up a front doesn't make it the truth.
What I find most ridiculous is that the same group of people who said that a black man is less than a white man and that kidnapping and enslaving africans was the "white man's burden" are the same group who pretend that they are the worlds single moral authority, and claim that as the basis for everything they are for. Infanticide has a longer history than civilization. Longer than our species. As far as opinions go, mine is that the fetus isn't a child until there's brain activity. None of this "potential" tripe that so many people bandy about. Until then it's just a lump of flesh.
You want to rail against "child murder"? How about the foetal deaths caused by pollution? How about all those dead kids in Iraq? Conservatives have no moral authority because they have continuously contradicted themselves.
If murder is murder, why have a death penalty? Why start preemptive wars? Political convenience, that's why. It's all a lie.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
Never the less, the executive order in question is reprehensible. Bush is using tenuous, illogical, religious grounds to justify denying a large category of funding to a promising area of scientific inquiry. Hundreds of potential stem cell lines for research are being destroyed daily from aborted fetuses. If Bush is in favor of destroying existing resources (human tissues) instead of using them to advance science and save lives, why not ban organ donation? Does anything in the bible say "thou shalt not help fund researching [new, human, embryonic] stem cells if thou art the [federal] government?" If this research is immoral, why only ban government funding, as opposed to all funding, or the research itself? If this is about abortion, why not oppose abortion, rather than research? Can anyone make sense of this policy? It scares me, not in how sweeping the effects are, but because The President, the "Leader of the Free World," is using executive orders to dictate where scientific research funding goes based on personal, nonsensical, unpopular religious motives.
I think the rest of government should do what the Pentagon does, and ignore it. There's no basis in law for "executive orders" anyway. I doubt any president would allow a case based on violating an executive order to go to court, in case the Supreme Court ruled that Executive orders don't exist. Chances are, Bush can't do anything but get grumpy if the whole Federal Government simply ignores his ban.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. I guess it makes you feel superior to those on the other side of the debate by defining a pregnancy, even one in its embryonic stage as equal to a fully-formed and developed baby regardless of whether or not that pregnancy has developed to the stage where it has a viable chance of life outside the womb.
I find it funny that the same people who are so adamant that abortion is murder are almost always the same people that are opposed to the dissemination of methods of birth control as well as the same people who are quick to make single mothers the scapegoats for all of society's ills.
And what right do you have to tell a pregnant woman, regardless of how her child was conceived, just what exactly she is allowed to do with her own body?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I have absolutely no moral or ethical objections to harvesting stem cells. I don't consider undiferentiated cells to be " a human life". I also have a close family member who has Parkinsons disease. I am strongly-pro stem cell reasearch.
But I take issue with Dr Ajit Varki foisting fake science on the public.
from The Register:
"The human embryonic stem cells remained contaminated by Neu5Gc even when grown in special culture conditions with commercially available serum replacements, apparently because these are also derived from animal products.
The argument for the necessity of harvesting new human stem cells goes like this:
Having established that culturing stem cells in a serum replacment derived from animal products contaminates the cells with Neu5Gc, scientists attempt to rid existing cell lines of Neu5Gc by culturing them in serum replacement derived from animal products. This fails to rid the stem cells of Neu5Gc. Therefore, they conclue that existing cell lines can not be rid of Neu5Gc by growing them in a in serum not derived from animal products. It is therefore necessary to harvest new cell lines and grow them in culture not derived from animal products.
Try growing existing cell lines in serum not derived from animals and see if that rids them Neu5Gc. Then get back to us.
So, logically... If... she.. weighs the same as a duck, she's made of wood!
Same thing, different century.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Abortions are one thing; stem cells are another. Stemcells do not come from abortion; nor do they have anything to do with them. Stem cells are infact harvested when a couple undergoes IVF(in vitro fertilization).
It goes like this:
A couple goes to IVF(in vitro fertilization) clinic; an operation is performed to extract oocytes(unfertilized embryos). These oocytes are all fertilized and then frozen. The (now)embryos are thawed one at a time and incubated. When they have passed a critical point (the stage at which a genetic disease would develop for instance); the embryo is surgically implanted in the female.
The embryos that are unused are very much THROWN AWAY. So all of those activists out there that are attempting to convince you (including the president who said that stem cells crossed a "fundamental moral line by providing taxpayer funding that would sanction or encourage further destruction of human embryos that have at least the potential for life.")
I'm sorry jgardn, but that line gets crossed every time an embryo from an IFV clinic gets thrown away. So your problem is not with stem cells but actially with in vitro fertilization.
Here's a good primer:
http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics3.asp
George II -- Spreading Freedom and American values, one bomb at a time.
A zygote in a Petri dish is not part of a pregnancy. Without a pregnancy, you cannot have an abortion. It's patently obvious that the attempt to classify the discarding of unused IVF zygotes as "abortions" has nothing to do with the facts, and everything to do with political posturing to an ignorant public. This resembles Humpty Dumpty redefining "glory" to suit his whim of the moment; it debases the very purpose of language, which depends on agreed-upon meanings.
I could get rich mining irony ore here. If you mean that it's an issue (and a problem) that a large part of the American public is taking a highly-emotional political position based on what amounts to a large number of partial truths and outright falsehoods, then you begin to understand. Your problem is that the facts are opposite the stance you appear to be backing.Sustainability and energy independence essay
"The potential of embryonic stem cells became apparent in the late 1990s, and in 2000 the National Institutes of Health announced that it would fund stem-cell research as long as the actual extraction of cells from embryos was done by someone else. President Clinton strongly supported this policy." [Source]
And if you think Slate is too liberal a source to trust on this, here's a venom spitting concervitive to back me up.
"the feds are not going to actually get involved -- will not spend appropriated funds -- until after the pluripotent stem cells have been already recovered from the process." [Source]
I think we can safely take the above paragraph to indicate that Clinton approved the use of federal funds to research embryonic stem cells, though did not approve said funds to actualy extract the cells.
Anything else you need me to prove?
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
I've seen about a hundred posts arguing about why or why not the research is something that is equivalent to killing babies, and as many arguing the federal research ban only stops institutions asking for money for the research...
First, to get it out of the way, the "ban" is not a law against research, but a funding rule that is implemented such that any facility receiving federal dollars (every public hospital, college, reasearch center, ~99.9% of the US research facilities) is barred from conducting the research on new lines. If you get federal dollars for anything at the facility, you can't do the research, period.
Now, the type of stem-cell reseach being debated uses discarded eggs from In-Vitro Fertilization. Regarding the radical right religious regime's belief that a Day 5 blastocyst is a person, complete with a soul, etc... Sure, if they want to 'believe' this, they can. The problem arises when they try to selectively (read: politically) apply laws to support their religious beliefs.
Apparently, many people (including a bunch of folks here on
So, shouldn't the radical right religious regime be even more adamantly against IVF ? While a handful of cells used in research seems to get them in a panic, they ignore the simple fact that thousands of fertilized eggs are destroyed every month as part of normal IVF treatments. Why aren't they calling for the elimination of fertility clinics ? Are these couples who pursue IVF mass-murders ?
Where's the logic here ? If stem-cell research should be banned because allowing a Day-5 blast to arrest is killing a baby, why do they not have any issue with, or even debate over the effects of the IVF treatments where the stem-cells for this research are obtained ?
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
Not really true.
The ban (in place since 1995) was pushed through as a rider on an appropriation bill by the GOP. NIH sought help from HHS on how the ban applied; in 1999, HHS responded that research on stem cells can be funded by NIH (public funds) so long as the stem cells themselves were produced via private funds. In short, so long as government funds weren't used for the first step, any ethical research could be conducted. Government funds *were* going into research on these cells, just not at the creation stage.
However, under the Bush guidelines, this is changed. If the stem cells are not part of the original "64" lines (not really 64 lines, but that's beside the point), no government funding can go into research involving them. So, apart from the fact that it doesn't change the fact that government funds couldn't be used for the creation of stem cell lines, it bans research on any line that hasn't already been created - in short, making it a more restrictive policy, not less.
Here's some details about the history of the lines and their current status:
AAAS Policy Brief: Stem Cell Research
It also explains why there is animal contamination.
People said I was dumb, but I proved them.