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Stem Cell Injections Pioneering Step Forward?
sanspeak writes "Indian Doctors at All India Institute of Medical Sciences have performed a radical new operation of sorts by pioneering the method of stem cell injections. Ishika Gupta, a seven month old girl child who was suffering from cardiac myopathy, was treated by injecting stem cells into her heart from bone in her own leg. AIIMS has marked a global first in pioneering stem cell medicine by the "injection method''." From the article: "There will now be a national stem cell centre at AIIMS which will coordinate the research and its applications. The statistics speak for themselves. After six months, 56% of the affected (dead muscle) area injected with these cells had shown improvement." Additional details on this therapy available from the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel and Medical News Today.
The attractive thing about these results to many is that is identifies a built in population of stem cells in adult individuals that could be harvested for some applications which gets around certain issues related to the Bush administrations religiously imposed dogma on science and progress.
The problem with this approach is that often, they really do not know what cells they are injecting. Sure they are harvesting cells from the bone marrow which do contain some stem cell populations. But here is the deal: These cells are already partially differentiated. They are not totipotent. Certainly there will be some applications where you can take partially differentiated cells and inject them into some systems that will show positive results, such as the cardiac improvements observed in these studies. However, this will not be generalizeable to other disorders such as vision loss or other degenerative diseases.
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My wife is pregnant right now and we are going to have to make the choice if we want the 'stem cells' harvested from the cord after birth. I realize that there are costs involved, but is it worth it? Gut feeling says that if I don't I could regret it later. Any thoughts?
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
injected stem cells tend to transmongrify into tumors.
this tech is not ready for hospitals.
Directly on-topic? Well, no, but I guarantee there will be several positively moderated messages in this thread that don't get it right.
- This article isn't talking about embryonic stem cells, so any references to the Bush administration embryonic stem cell policy are utterly irrelevant
But for those who still don't get it:
- There isn't a "ban" on any kind of stem cell research in the US. There is a restriction on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research - entities are still free to perform embryonic stem cell research (see California's recent US$3 billion bond initiative to support such research in the state)
- The Bush administration is the first administration to allow any federal funding at all for embryonic stem cell research. Granted, this is partly due to timing, but it's still a point of information.
- When is an embryo "life"? At some arbitrary time? When it's in a woman's womb? When it's "wanted" by someone as the product of actions to create a child? When and how does it become life? What's the magic cutoff? When and why is it ok to destroy it? When it can exist on its own? What does "exist on its own" mean? I'm not saying any of these things necessarily should preclude embryonic stem cell research, and indeed, federal funding for it. But doesn't it seem that those ethical questions should be addressed or at least considered? It may well be that society collectively decides that the benefit outweighs ethical concerns. But bear in mind, too, that farming more developed human life for research would no doubt yield untold answers to questions that might hold great benefit. Does that mean we should do it? If not, why is that any different? Scientifically, it would seem clear that it's a life the second the embryo comes into being...
(Note: No, I am not anti-abortion, but do think we should acknowledge that abortion isn't just a "woman's choice" or a "medical decision" (unless it is a decision in relation to the safety of the mother). It is, essentially, the state sanctioned ability to end a life when it is not wanted by the mother. Let's at least acknowledge what we're doing instead of hiding it under the blinders of "choice" or "scientific progress".)
And yet federal money can't go to stem cell research?
And yet again someone missinformed. Bush DID NOT BAN Federal Funding of Stem Cell Research. He banned Federal Funding going to Embryonic Stem Cell Research on new lines. This research used Adult Stem Cells. Something that Federal money can go to.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Yeah, but Californians just voted to spend 3 billion dollars on stem cell research. It's already starting to look like a feeding frenzy; I just hope that at least half the money ends up going to real research.
the only country to not get the benefits of these advancements will be the US.
How so? Please elaborate. I didn't know that it was against the law to privately fund this type of research in the US. Or, like California did, publically fund it.
Another question: Are Zonk and Mike Sims brothers?
This shouldn't be modded "funny". We need a "sad" option.
Although the U.S. article identified the applicability of stem cells harvested from (adult) bone marrow and other sources, the Indian article discusses the successes achieved from utilizing umbilical cord stem cells...
mmm... yeah... You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out...
And yet federal money can't go to stem cell research? I'd rather my tax money go to that than a stupid war....
You've got that wrong. It may not be your fault though, many people have said what you just said - maybe you heard it from them and assumed it was true.
Federal money can't go to stem cell research that doesn't abide by a set of guidelines. THERE IS A LOT OF GOVERNMENT FUNDED STEM CELL RESEARCH IN THE USA RIGHT NOW. It is very common for the government to attach rules to the money it hands out. This is no exception. Why does that have you so worked up?
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Bush banned Federal Funding of Embryonic Stem Cell research on new lines only. If you get private funding, you can do research on new embryoninc lines. Or, you can use Federal Funding on the old lines or Adult Stem Cells. This new technique used Adult Stem Cells. They can get federal funding for this.
There is no outright ban. It is a myth.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
This reminds me of Smallville, where one guy would get bitten by a bug who ate meteor rock, and the guy would develop bug powers. Another guy would fall on a hot meteor rock, and would develop heat powers. I can't wait for the stem cell meteor rock episode.
- This article isn't talking about embryonic stem cells, so any references to the Bush administration embryonic stem cell policy are utterly irrelevant
But for those who still don't get it:
- There isn't a "ban" on any kind of stem cell research in the US. There is a restriction on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research - entities are still free to perform embryonic stem cell research (see California's recent US$3 billion bond initiative to support such research in the state)
- The Bush administration is the first administration to allow any federal funding at all for embryonic stem cell research. Granted, this is partly due to timing, but it's still a point of information.
- When is an embryo "life"? At some arbitrary time? When it's in a woman's womb? When it's "wanted" by someone as the product of actions to create a child? When and how does it become life? What's the magic cutoff? When and why is it ok to destroy it? When it can exist on its own? What does "exist on its own" mean? I'm not saying any of these things necessarily should preclude embryonic stem cell research, and indeed, federal funding for it. But doesn't it seem that those ethical questions should be addressed or at least considered? It may well be that society collectively decides that the benefit outweighs ethical concerns. But bear in mind, too, that farming more developed human life for research would no doubt yield untold answers to questions that might hold great benefit. Does that mean we should do it? If not, why is that any different? Scientifically, it would seem clear that it's a life the second the embryo comes into being...
All Bush did was say no government funding of Fetal Stem Cell harvesting. A good choice to make if you aren't sure when life begins or if you think it begins at conception. Harvesting Fetal Tissue from an embryo killed for the purpose would be wrong and evil if life begins at conception. Wisdom isn't always recognized as such though.
If you see spelling or grammatical errors don't blame me. I tried to preview but IE here at work borked the CSS
It doesn't have to be true, it just has to be read.
BTW, this would be perfectly legal here in the US.Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I did a stem cell donation for my brother last week. It cost about $6000 and involved hooking up veins in both arms to a continuous centrifuge that pumped blood out of one arm, centrifuged it to remove the stem cells, and then injected the plasma and red cells back into the other arm. I had to get injections of Neupogen for four days prior to what the docs called the "harvest".
I didn't have to have long needles stuck into my bone marrow. The worst part was not being able to move my arms for 5 1/2 hours for any reason because of the needles in veins in my elbows.
They got 3 times as much material as they need and I am trying to arrange to have the rest stockpiled in case I need them at some later date. They needed 8 million cells per kilo of body weight for a cross donation, but only 4 million for self-donation.
I can't let this one go.
(1) The Bush Administration does not have a "religiously imposed dogma on science and progress". There is a significant segment of the American population that is concerned about scientists initiating the process of conception for the sole purpose of ripping apart the component stem cells while receiving federal funding to do so. Corporations and universities are welcome to continue studying embryonic stem cells, just not while using federal research grants.
(2) Unlike the aformentioned Embryonic Stem Cells, this process is another form of Adult Stem Cell research, which is using the patient's own stem cells to culture and augment existing organs. There has never been any political problems with this branch of stem cell research, and the Bush Administration has advanced this research alternative several times as the preferred path.
(3) Bone Marrow has long been known to be a source of red blood cells as well as muscle stem cells. If they are partially differentiated as marrow cells, they are still in the same family as cardiovascular muscles, and thus are a prime candidate for this type of injection research. It would be like taking neurons from the brain and injecting them into the spinal column, to see if the cells can merge and augment the spinal tissues.
Part of the problem of degenerative diseases is that there is a genetic problem with the adult, so transplanting cells with the same genetic makeup within the same adult will not magically create a missing protein... that is where we need to initiate aditional research with inter-adult stem cell research, and proceed from there.
I believe federal money can go to stem cell research. It just can't go to stem cell research where the cells come from lab grown embryos that are then killed and harvested. At least that's my understanding. Regardless, there is so much private money floating around in stem cell labs that government money, while helpful, wouldn't make as much of an impact as people would think.
Regards,
Steve
The thing most people don't realize and some people have a partial grasp is that the federal government funds most of the leading edge research in the U.S.
The federal government does not fund new stem cell research and as a result you have organsizations such as the pentagon which has to fund it in Sweden instead because new cell lines are the key to actual breakthroughs in the field. So effectively Bush has banned stem cell research even though there is no law against it.Right now the only stem cell research happening in the U.S. is occuring at pharmaceutical companies and they will be great when they get the patent on anything and everything resulting from this potentially explosive technology. Stem cell research has the potential to be the biggest technological advancement in medicine since the electron microscrope.
Adult stem cells do have many uses. But, contrary to your second statement, embryonic stem cells have far more, simply because the former are partially differentiated, while the latter are completely totipotent.
The answers to these questions are all arbitrary. A million different people can come up with a million different answers. Which leaves us to a few making the distinction for us, which inevitably will alienate a vast majority who don't believe the same thing. You're right, it's more than a womans choice and a medical decision. However, it is not our place to judge or deside for people as to what they can and can not do in this regard. I think that put into any other terms other than "womans choice" or "medical decision" is imposing a belife onto somones person. I just think that people are entirely too quick to pick up the flame of moral superiority instead of just letting people live their lives. I guess I'm kind of an anarchist in that sense. And my opinion doesn't matter to anyone but myself. So I won't voice my opinions here. All told, I agree with you that there's more to it, however, I think people should be left to make their own decisions instead of having them imposed on them. Also, I sit corrected on the state of the stem cell research area in this country. The point I was trying to make wat that the Bush administration (not bush bashing here) won't fund new line stem cell research due to religious beliefs, rather than scientific reasoning. That is all...
I haven't lost my mind. It's backed up on disk somewhere.
I think Life began a few billion years ago, it seems to me the main reason any one would believe that life began at conception is if they believed in something like a soul.
I think science is fairly sure that conciousness, which is really what we are talking about here, is unlikely to begin until the brain has developed which doesn't happen until well after conception takes place.
It's good to decide that research is not necessary.
Discuss.
I just want to make sure we're clear.
That also means that a baby grown outside of the womb has no protections.
That also means we can farm developed fetuses for destructive research that might yield great benefit. You could even go further and grow them beyond any arbitrary period (e.g., 9 months for example). Since they've never been "born", and have never been wanted by a parent, it's not a "life" by your definition. And if such research could hold untold answers to questions and benefit for mankind, why should we not do it?
I just want to make sure you're being logically consistent here.
The key word here being think. And no I don't think conciousness is what we are talking about. I'm talking about life period. If conciousness is your defining characteristic of being worthy of living then you have to decide what level of conciousness. do senile people deserve to live? how about those with a lower mental capacity? And as far as the soul goes. Are you sure there isn't such a thing? cause in that case why should any human life be valuable? If it is not of use to society then just get rid of it. I'm not sure you really want to go that route.
If you see spelling or grammatical errors don't blame me. I tried to preview but IE here at work borked the CSS
Futurama was (almost) Right!
Well, the problem that most people have is that this specific set of guidelines were motivated by religion, rather than the promotion of the best interests of the citizens of the United States.
There is some truth to that. But as members of a democratic society, we are free to be motivated by whatever we choose. If I choose to vote according to my faith, I am free to do so. If you choose to vote according to a magic eight ball, you are free to do so. If you choose to vote according to what you view is the best interest of science, you are free to do so.
As for the best interest of the people of the United States - you'll find that to be a very subjective term. Most everyone will say they are for the best interest of the people. But what exactly that means varies widely.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Please list for us the therapies under development that use embryonic stem cells.
Clear, Dark Skies
Preface: Your point to the grandparent poster about these being adult stem cells, and Bush comments not having any bearing on this conversation are correct. I'm not trying to argue against them. Having said that, here's why many of us don't see his decision as "Wisdom". There goes my karma. *sigh*
Someone has their (rare typed) blood stored for a surgical procedure. There is less bleeding than predicted. Would it be morally wrong for the excess blood (with the patient's permission) to be moved to the local blood bank, for other people with the rare blood type, instead of disposed of as medical waste? Many of the fetuses that would be used in this situation come from fertility clinics whose patients have moved on, and have no more use for the embryos. Those of us who do NOT believe that life begins at conception, but rather later in gestation, see the fetuses as portions of the woman's body, more like blood cells than individuals. And they are cells that are to be destroyed anyway. Denying Federal funds to scientists whose research uses these cells is a problem for us.
You may disagree with me, and that's fine. But hopefully you'll have a better idea where we're coming from.
Somebody actually noticed that non-embryonic stem cells are being used to treat diseases today. Kind of ironic that while adult stem cell therapies are being tested in clinical trials, the Bush administration is taking heat because they didn't fund ethically suspect embryonic stem cell research - research which has yet to produce even a single cure.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I agree with you, basically. The opinion I stated wasn't my own.
Or rather, it was my own. I do think the policy is religiously motivated, but I don't feel its necessarily a bad thing to have politicians with principles, even when [as in this case] they're not principles I share.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
The NIH even publishes guidelines on how to keep your embryonic stem cell research from impacting your other funding.
Clear, Dark Skies
these are "adult" stem cells. I quote adult because they come from the patient's bone marrow, not from some lump of cells that could become a human if it was not abandoned and left frozen and forgotten.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
its not that pionering...
o rter/0,19125, VGC0-2703-4724-3,00.html
Here stem cells injection are being use in juvenile diabetes, lupus (resulted in complete disappear in some patientes, but may not be considered a cure) and multiple sclerosis, heart and cerebral vascular accidents.
There is a tv program transcription from 2005-01-14 here, in portuguese:
http://redeglobo6.globo.com/Globorep
Somehow, the issue of abortion has changed from the actual basis of the Supreme Court decision into something else entirely. The reasoning behind the decision in Roe v. Wade is that what happens between a Doctor and a patient is and ought to be a private matter.
Now, one could very easily argue that the Constitution of the United States does not guarantee one's privacy and I can agree that there is no privacy right enshrined in the Constitution or any of the Amendments, including the Bill of Rights. Certainly what the Supreme Court did in Roe v. Wade was to "make law" or legislate from the bench and this single decision is the reason why the right drones on in their rhetoric about "activist judges" and "strict interpretation" though I challenge anyone to find either in the decision handed down in 2000 in the case of Bush v Gore.
Both the left and the right are talking about things like the "sanctity of life" and "a woman's right to choose," when niether was considered by the Supreme Court in their decision and these issues were not discussed in the opinion and the dissenting opinion.
The use of stem cells, either adult or embryonic is blue sky science presently and the cures that may be effected are still theory. I wonder whether or not the child so treated will eventually develop a tumor at the site of the "treatment." Frankly, I would treat this patient as a potential cancer patient, not claiming any cure until five years (the standard for non reoccurance of cancer) after treatment.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
if women laid eggs and then walked away from them, never to return, then the anti-abortion crowd would be 100% ethical and moral in their stance
however, mother nature has designed us mammals so that for a moment in time, 2 lives are interconnected biologically, and then, 2 lives are socially connected for years
what this means is that you can not consider either the rights of the fetus or the rights of the mother in a vacuum and consider yourself to be moral or ethical
therefore, to fall 100% on the side of fetal rights is to basically consider a woman to be nothing but a breeding pod chamber
and to fall 100% on the side of maternal rights is tantamount to considering infanticide reasonable
but, of course, exactly where you draw the line, exactly when you draw the line: 3 months old fetus... 3 day old fetus... whatever, that becomes the critical question
and the problem is that no outside panel of people, no matter how reasonable or passionate about the issue, can decide the issue to satisfaciton on each individual case
there is, however, one person who can make such a passionate, reasonable decision: the mother
it seems that the anti-abortion crowd thinks women are all out having one night stands at raves and then aborting a month later and going to another rave to have one night stands the same night
as if women don't have any feelings about the fetus?! why do anti-abortionists have such a dim view of women?
so let the mother decide, and the mother ALONE decide, and all of us hyperconcerned but UNINVOLVED third party members should learn to BUTT OUT
this is the ONLY moral and ethical stand you can take on abortion: the mom decides, no one else can possibly have a say
is it superior to force a woman to have a child she does not love with no father there to support it?
are we only in the business of punishing women for acts of sex outside of marriage? what about the man's responsibilty?
the more you examine the issue, the more you realize anti-abortion stances are simply anti-women
let the mother decide, it's her body, and you cannot assume she doesn't care about the fetus, unless you have some sort of psychological problem with women
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is why there should be no ban on jew gassing research. People's own personal beliefs getting in the way of science.
You know, even some atheists like myself tend to think human life is important, and more than a commodity. Assuming that some abortions might be killing actual human beings, then using their tissue might compound the immorality of it. Has nothing to do with god, rather, it's the same reason I don't murder you in the night to harvest your transplantable organs.
But it's more complicated than that, even. Some people who feel very strongly about having children, but have trouble doing so naturally, often turn to IVF. And the most successful IVF methods have the lab technicians creating many such embryo's, so that the strongest can be chosen, and so that there's a fallback if the first isn't successful. The little buggers can be kept on ice for years, it would seem. And after you've had (one of the most expensive) children this method, you often have several left over embryos.
What do you do with them, if you don't plan on having extra children? Are they still tissue, or are they babies? It's not like some crackho is having an abortion after 8 months. No one intended to create them just to see them die. But yet I feel bad about using them this way. Maybe they deserve more dignity. My own beliefs are that it only deserves protection after implantation on the wall of the uterus... using a morning after pill therefor, is potentially not equivalent to abortion (and not immoral because of that). These things are still in a petri dish though! So I dunno. But even if they deserve no protection, I would be horrified to think that people might start creating them just for this purpose.
And add to that, that it's only useful as a research tool, and not the end product. You don't want stem cells from some crackho's embryo, ideally, you want those genetically identical to your own. But those are harder to come by, harder to work with. And there are many areas of medicine where it would be easier to test on humans, if immoral. You think this latest AIDS vaccine would work? Kidnap 20 people, inject them, and then repeatedly expose them to HIV. Would prove it once and for all in a matter of months.. and hey, if it works, they're not even harmed! Why not do this?
There is no ban on stem cell research or even funding stem cell research - there is a ban on funding /embryonic/ stem cell research which has nothing to do with the original article - which people have pointed out over and over again.
The value of adult stem cells has been shown over and over again. The value of embryonic stem cells has never been shown and, in fact, embryonic stem cells cause all sorts of havoc when injected into another individual. Havoc like sudden cancers caused by the embryonic cells not adapting well to life in a grown host.
Clear, Dark Skies
Conciousness is my defining characteristic for living and you have already put your finger on why that would not lead to senile people being killed off or people with a lower mental capacity being shot, because we as a society have decided that is an unethical course of action.
I am not sure of a lot of things but unless you can prove that something is the case it's pointless taking it into account or letting it influence your decision making one way or another.
Human life is valuable to other humans, we are all valued members of a human society and it's down to every member of that society to decide how it wants the society as whole to act.
The fact that human society is still a functioning and effective system after hundreds of thousands of years of evolution is a good indication to how successful this policy has been.
At the moment of conception and for a good period afterwards there is no conciousness and nothing which is recognisably human, the fact that it will develop into a human at a later date is as irrelevant as taking special precautions with sperm would be.
Certainly when something is recognisably human it should be treated as a human but not until that point.
A news googling reveals pending bills that would create a ban in Missouri. Other states might try similar measures.
There was a case in Royal Oak MI where a 16 year old with severe heart damage was treated with stem cells from his bone marrow. This was almost 2 years ago and seems to have been a complete success, but you never read about it. It saved the kid from needing a heart transplant.
m ai n542962.shtml
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/03/06/tech/
or google for royal oak heart stem cell
If the only thing of value is that more lives were saved than lost, then the same argument can be applied to therapies derived from embryonic stem cells.
If more lives are saved than lost, what do you care if a few embryos were harvested for this treatment.
Clear, Dark Skies
Thanks for that link. Very, very well put together.
-Daniel
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
As a quick google would have told you.
Clear, Dark Skies
If the only thing of value is that more lives were saved than lost, then the same argument can be applied to therapies derived from embryonic stem cells.
Um, yes, that's kind of the converse of the point I was making.
I don't have any problems with my own logical consistency, here, as I support both, for the reasons you (and I) stated.
If more lives are saved than lost, what do you care if a few embryos were harvested for this treatment.
I don't. Did I ever say I was opposed to embryonic stem cell research or federal funding for it? No? Ok then.
It's too bad that the majority of the replies to this article on novel Indian research revolve about Bush embryonic stem cell policy, which is completely and utterly unrelated to the Indian research, which is using adult and umbilical stem cells, neither of which are restricted in any way in the US.
Well....
In the past year i've read a dozen articles on stem-cell successes. ALL have been adult or umbilical.
I have yet to read a single success of embryonic stem cells. Most of what I have heard about them is the tests result in tumors.
So thanks to Bush there is $500 million extra dollars dedicated JUST to stem-cell research.
Thanks to Bush, life won't be killed to benefit other life.
Question...if I discovered that people with a special gene could produce a chemical to be harvested that would make others live forever. Should we harvest that chemical. Now let's say you have that gene. Should we kill you to and all like you to keep others alive longer?
Are you willing to die? If not...than please don't be so ignorant.
Thank you...I once saw a bumper sticker that said "If you don't believe in abortion, don't have one". This seemed to make a lot of sense. As humans we tend to see the negative side of things many times. Someone asked me if we allow fertility clinic embryos to be used for research, then won't we need to regulate this so that researchers do not start paying women to go to the fertility clinics? As with any new idea or procedure there are people ready to jump on it, while others fight to maintain what has always been...luckily, in our societies, we do think about it, talk about it, look at every side of it...this is probably the reason that we humans have not destroyed ourselves...we don't move to fast.
And here people want to talk politics OVER Technology? Stem cell research is the first glimpse we humans have at a significantly longer life .. with more importantly .. the opportunity at a better quality of life.
Having had family members with significantly reduced quality of life as a result of macular degeneration and loss of hearing .. its not simply a matter of living longer. We will live longer, but what good is it if we can't read, see our monitors, and even listen to a good ol mp3 along the way.
Quit with the politics .. and focus on the science folks. Sure, its tough I know .. but lets let the research pan out.
Jason Key
Stem Cell Research Geek
http://www.stemnews.com
Today's Stem Cell Research
The key word here being think. And no I don't think conciousness is what we are talking about. I'm talking about life period. If conciousness is your defining characteristic of being worthy of living then you have to decide what level of conciousness.
If you truly want to minimize the life destroyed, please kill yourself now. This will preserve the lives of all the animals and vegetables you would normally consume, as well as the millions of microorganisms your body automatically kills each day. Stop killing life you murdering bastard!
I think you are missing a lot of points here.
Most scientists would agree that no one is being killed in stem cell research.
Then you pose the most magnificent straw man argument which manages to entirely miss the distinction between implementation of research and research it's self.
Finally you end with what can best be described as an utterly non sensical question and a rather weak insult.
Technically, it's true--technically, states were free to set the drinking age to whatever they saw fit, and technically, research labs are free to conduct embryonic stem cell research on new cell lines.
[...]
There exist only a bare handful of labs who can afford to lose government funding. When the government says "Do this or you'll lose your federal funding", a PI can either do what the government says or close up shop--which means losing years of research, losing his livelihood, and firing a group of highly trained, carefully sought-after and brilliant scientists.
I'm sorry, but you're completely and utterly wrong.
Research institutions with federal funding are already easily working around the federal funding restrictions.
For example, the University of Wisconsin - currently the number one recipient of federal research grant money in general, and recipient of the greatest number of R01 NIH grants - launched the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, a private research institute, in part to work around these restrictions. The institute can pursue embryonic stem cell research without affecting federal funding at the University of Wisconsin in any way. The NIH even has guidelines and recommendations about how institutions can work around federal funding guidelines for embryonic stem cell research, so as not to jeopardize other funding. California is doing the same sort of thing.
"Acknowledge the reality of the situation," indeed.
Let them do the embrionic research elsewhere than the US. If my tax dollars can't go toward a religious cause I support, then I don't want them going to another religious cause that I don't support, namely, one that says embryos are not life.
(This is not a reply to the parent post)
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
The ban is in harvesting fetal stem cells only. Which is of questionable ethics and unnecessary...
No the ban is on federal funding for any labs that research fetal stem cells aside from the already established strains. As to whether or not the ethics are questionable, they are mostly questionable to uneducated morons who either think people are killing babies in their mother's womb or just parrot a bunch of uninformed tripe about how sacred life is. Life at the stage we are talking about is about as intelligent as broccoli, which few people are trying to ban the killing of.
Bush Administration is the first administration to Federally fund stem cell research, just not fetal stem cell research.
That is completely untrue. Stem cell research was conducted with federal dollars long before Bush was elected.
Please go educate yourself....thank you.
Mr. Pot, please meet Mr. Kettle.
Think of it this way. You probably don't want govt mone going to religious causes. Like if my church wants to open a bible school, you wouldn't like it if they got federal money. On hte other hand, I don't like the idea of a belief that says fetal life is there for the harvesting to get federal money.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
If more lives are saved than lost, what do you care if a few embryos were harvested for this treatment.
I don't. Did I ever say I was opposed to embryonic stem cell research or federal funding for it? No? Ok then.
Damn. I am amazed at how stupid the people are around here. So, the experiments on Jews in concentration camps are justified as long as more people benefit than suffered.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
A complete change of life.
They now can line up to get their mojo injected.
Yeah baby. Yeah!
I think that put into any other terms other than "womans choice" or "medical decision" is imposing a belife onto somones person.
[[[I think people who believe as you should die and their organs should be used to keep other people alive. Now why should I not be able to kil you and harvest your organs?]]]
First of all, I understand that purely by my original post you have no reason to think I may know a thing or three about this issue. But assumptions are dangerous.
I worked as a researcher for many years. I firmly believe the current policy, which is driven by politics and not sound scientific reasons, is bad for all forms of stem cell research in this country.
1)The policy currently bans Federal money from being used for creating or using embryos for stem cell research. Even though there are plenty of extra embryos that will be destroyed in fertilization clinics all over the country, we can't use them. These are embryos that will never get the chance to become a full human life. The cell lines that do exist are effectively unusable and no new ones can be created by people doing basic research. This means the researchers in academic institutions across the country cannot apply for grant money to do this type of research. There will be some very smart people driven away from doing any stem cell research because they don't have the freedom to conduct the experiments necessary.
2)Allowing other funding of the research (such as California or private) will keep critical data out of the hands of basic researchers. Private investment will not allow "trade secrets" to be published in a peer-reviewed manner. This is not a method of doing science that I put much trust in. Go research Celgene and Thalidomide. Go look at the "research" done by tobacco funding. I can't wait for the future day when the same people currently saying "not my tax dollars" will complain that the cell procedure they or their kid needs is too expensive. They'll be complete hypocrites that will be more than happy to have a procedure done that came from this research but not want to pay to have funded it in the first place.
3)Did you ever stop to think that maybe we can only learn certain things from embryonic stem cells? They could have the 'rosetta stone' of how to make use of all other stem cells. Yet, because of the funding ban some other country will get this prize. I know the article wasn't about embryonic cells. The point is, unless we do basic research on all possible forms we aren't doing it right and in the long run we'll lose because of it.
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
Why not create cryogenic archives a few across the world in underground missile silos with small nuclear reactors that can keep them frozen for hundreds of years.
In the case of global catastrophe and the eradication of much of the world's populace these could act as a genetic "ark". We could also store animals in as well. Yes...kinda reminiscent of Titan A.E. (minus planet maker) or the recent Sky Captain.
Anyways, it doesn't kill them (intentionally, I am sure some will die/lose vitality) and it also serves an added benefit.
Also...it's probably the best way to ship humans to the stars...as embryos...much more cost effective. *lol*
- Jason
> Damn. I am amazed at how stupid the people are around here. So, the experiments
> on Jews in concentration camps are justified as long as more people benefit
> than suffered.
It's not stupid to raise the question - it's a perfectly valid ethical question, as is the question of whether it's satisfactory to torture the children of, say, terrorist suspects if doing so raises the possibility of saving very many more lifes.
Why is the left so dead set on using embryonic stem cells? Do they like the idea of slaughtering unborn humans to do research? They call us (christians, conservatives, red staters...choose your term)dogmatic in not allowing it, but they are wildly advocating something that hasn't produced a single treatment. THAT is dogmatic.
Why not push for research using non-embryonic stem cells? It's safe, not controversial, and has had quite a bit of success so far.
I don't get it.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
"Indian Doctors at All India Institute of Medical Sciences have performed a radical new operation of sorts by pioneering the method of stem cell injections...There will now be a national stem cell centre at AIIMS which will coordinate the research and its applications..."
So, despite the assurances of U.S. politicos, once again the U.S. is NOT the world leader in science and technology. Another country leads (gasp! A THIRD-WORLD country!), and the U.S. has a flat tire.
Standard U.S. knee-jerks:
"Stem-cell" == "abortion"
"nuclear" == "bomb"
"food" == "McDonald's"
"Britney Spears" == "music"
"language" == "English"
"Don't blame the log for the fire." --Andrew Ratshin
I imagine the reason why not, is the same reason that a woman would rather have an abortion than to carry a baby to term and put it up for adoption. Whatever that is.
This is getting ridiculous with all the posts trying to use this to justify the effective ban on embryonic stem cell research. IF you belIeve that this research is immoral that's fine - I do understand your opinion and I have no problem with it though I disagree.
BUT stop claiming that the denial of federal funds doesn't make embryonic stem cell research in the US very difficult. Stop claiming that there is no merit to embryonic stem cell research - that is just patently untrue (yes I am a scientist and I have worked with EC but not ES cells). Look up Parkinson's and Diabetes and get a developmental biologist to explain to you why embryonic stem cell research provides hope for a cure to these diseases. Or read NIH's own summary on stem cell research
http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics1.asp
Like I said if you have strong opinions that embryonic cell research is immoral - stand up for yourself and just say so. I respect that much more than trying to trick other people into accepting your agenda with naked FUD.
The concept of injecting bone marow derived cells into the heart is not new. It was featured a couple of years ago in a PBS special on stem cells and described as an experimental therapy being tested in Germany to help adult heart attack victims recover heart muscle function. It had impressive results. The specific application of injecting into the heart of a child born with a heart malformation is new but it is really a logical extension of previous work. Please don't let the hype about anyone's little corner of the stem cell field deny the real innovators their due.
Maybe because we'll need thousands of dead embryos to treat a few people?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
On the contrary, it's all coming back to that central question of when life begins, how much we value it, and whether, if we believe a being to be human, it's ethical to kill them to aid others. Yes, stem cells aren't directly related to abortion, but they have the same root ethical quandry.
Although, interestingly enough, when the partial birth abortion (breech birth followed by a pair of scissors and a vacuum to the back of the skull before the baby can get its head out), the media did associate it with stem cells, as the idea of using fetal stem cells to curze Alzheimer's (or was it Parkinsons's?) by direct injections to the brain was in vogue. I suspect somewhere along the line, people got confused about what stem cells were and assumed that the vacuumed neural matter of the baby was equivalent.
Incidentally, last I'd seen about the Alzheimers/Parkinsons cure, experiments had shown that the results seemed largely a combination of a placebo effect along with that any needles injected directly into the brain did something to stimulate the nerve cells to improve.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
*Now with 10% more stem cells!*
No one else thinks this is scary? This is foundation upon which some of the most horrifying events of our time we built.
Social Darwinism: If more lives are saved then lost, everything is ok. So if we just round up people how have undesirable traits, genetic faults, dreadful diseases, etc and kill them, the society as a whole benefits, so it's ok. We did evil, but it was a net good, so we're good people...
Naturally, we should take into account the benefits versus the costs, but "the ends justify the means" is a scary statement...
Think of it this way: So Saddam Hussein is a leader that should be taken out of power for the good of his people. Let's pretend that the UN actually stood a chance of taking him out of power through political means (without war.) (I really don' think they did, but let's pretend.)
Then the idea of going to war would clearly be wrong. (it may or may not be wrong as is, but that's a different story.)
So we have ways of obtaining stem cells without harming any children, so the idea of harming children to obtain stem cells should clearly be wrong.
Nothing is ever clearly anything, but I thought I'd put it out there......
I am an organ doner. And if I die, I would hope that my organs would be taken to keep somone else alive. So let's not be hastey. The least you could be is a little civil instead of being extremely accaustive and instigating because I'm not going to bite. You believe what you want and I'll believe what I want.
I haven't lost my mind. It's backed up on disk somewhere.
I've got no problem harvesting stem cells from umbilical cord blood, or existing body parts for one's self....I can even accept harvesting them from embryos at fertility clinics that are going to be destroyed, though I still have some qualms with it. But I'm deeply disturbed by the idea that we should create embryos for the purpose of harvesting stem cells. I know about 90 percent of you are going to rush in and attack this, but it smacks of creating human life for the sole purpose of destroying it so that other human life can benefit. It's a little too close to cloning ourselves for the purpose of of having an endless supply of organs and tissues. Yes, again, so many of you will go "but think of the crippled/diseased children that could benefit!". Yes, I'm a horrible evil man for not thinking of the children. I guess I'm also evil for thinking that it's a bad idea for the human race to cannibalize itself (no, blood donations and organ donations don't count...blood is renewable, for lack of a better word, and organs come from those that are deceased). I guess what it comes down to is your definition of human life, and what it's worth (especially innocent human life). In that regard, some divides shouldn't be crossed.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The Leg bone's connected to the ... Heart bone.
I remember reading in the news a while back about a group of south korean doctors who did this. They restored her ability to walk after being paralyzed for a decade by injecting stem cells into her spinal cord. Can anybody confirm this?
I realize by putting expert into this topic I probably have started a giant flaming ball rolling but ohhh well. To clarify I am a 4th yr Ph.D student who has spent most of my college and grad school career studying neurodegenerative diseases and stem cells. In posting I am not advocating any particular position, merely trying to give to the community at large the current state of stem cell research as seen from one actually doing it. Adult stem cells have shown good potential in treating different conditions arising in tissues from which they are derived (ie stem cells from the brain used to treat brain degeneration, stem cells from the liver treating liver disease). Adult stem cells show little to no evidence of tumor formation and some types can be cultured and expanded for use, though not all (bone marrow stem cells cannot be expanded which is why you have to collect and freeze so many) The ability to turn one type of adult stem cell into a cell from another part of the body is VERY controversial, though many people believe that there are certain conditions that can push adult stem cells into other types, but the functional ability of these cells is still under vigorous experimentation. ES cells on the other hand have a well established history of being able to transform into almost all of the tissue and cell types in the body. Most of these experiments have noted that tumor formation, in the form of teratocarcinomas, is a common occurence, especially in trying to use ES cells to repair brain damage from Parkinson's disease or to replace pancreatic islet cells in diabetes. Bush's stance on no federal funding to derive new ES cell lines, regardless of morality, is hindering the effort. A recent report has stated that current human ES cell lines are likely contaminated with a mouse protein that can cause an immune reaction in human patients. Even with all that being said there is great potential for ES cells and having worked with mouse ES cells I can tell you that they are opeing some exciting doors for being able to repair dmaged brain circuits. I will end on the note that mouse ES cells and human ES cells behave very differently so that those who think we can do all of our work with animal cells and then jump directly to humans are sadly mistaken Also there seems to be a mental association with abortion and ES cell derivation. Most private comapnies deriving ES cell lines are taking previously donated eggs and sperm to fertilize the egg and then witin a few days stopping the cell division to harvest the ES cell. Outside of a human body these blastocyts could not generate a viable human. For one ES cells do not generate the extraembryonic tissue needed for placenta formation. Withou this the blastocyst would lack nutrient and die as they became more developed. As far as I know there is no work being done on any sort of abortion derived material. I am more than willing to provide any other information or references to anything related to the above or any other stem cell or neuroscience related topics...my way of giving back to a community that has brought me so much knowledge and debate.
well, first of all, how does science distinguish an abstract concept of innocence? Second of all, by your very argument, could not a mother who drinks? smokes? engages in sexual intercourse past the acceptable time frame? then be charged with risk of injury to a minor? Are we to control the mothers of un-born children to the point where they will be locked in a room where no harm can come to their fetus at great restraint to their own personal freedoms? I think that such an abstract form of thought as to when is a fetus considered a living being is not something that can be easily answered. One needs to ask themselves, "what's right for me?". I'm willing to conseed if an argument sufficient in detail can be presented to me in a clear way. Your argument, all be it well thought out, wasn't proof enough for me. Also, when I said "kind of anarchist" I was refering to the statement I made, not me personally.
I haven't lost my mind. It's backed up on disk somewhere.
At the same time people stop spreading the FUD that this article proves the funding ban is preventing valuable research.
Clear, Dark Skies
Irrelevent. The Supreme Court decided that Dred Scott was still a slave, and that the law limiting slavery in new states was unconstitutional. Does that mean that we had no business addressing the morality of the institution of slavery?
...of course not. In the same way, a discussion of the morality of abortion is highly appropriate in the wake of Roe v Wade...
(In fact, it's directly applicable here, too, in the stem-cell research debate: it's the question of the "right to life".)
mmm... yeah... You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out...
"Ishika Gupta, a seven month old girl child "
As opposed to CmdrTaco, who is a thirty-something man-child?
I kid, I kid.
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
Thats not entirely true...human ES cell lines are derived from healthy blastocyts, and usually show as much proliferation as mouse ES cell, and cancer to for that matter. The trick has always been that you human ES cells take a very rigorous protocol to grow well and it takes very little to screw that culture condition up. That is why the human cells are contaminated they had to be grown on feeder cell layers from mice in order to grow at all. New techniques are being devloped that can do away with these feeder layer, but you need to rederive the cell line from scratch in order to make sure it was never contaminated previously.
Good point and I agree with you; there is an inherent morality issue. But I think that the morality issue of privacy ought to be considered as well. And that is what I was trying to point out.
In the infamous Dred Scott case, the Supreme Court did affirm that property does transcend State boundaries, which allows you to keep your car if you move from, say Kansas to Missouri, without needing to renew the purchase contract for the car in Missouri. It essentially affirms the full faith and credit provision in the Constitution.
The application had horrible potential until the passage of the 13th amendment, whereupon the affirmation of interstate ownership has a very positive usefulness today. Personally I would not like to see either federal (or State) law or constitutional law take away my right to privacy. And since that right is enshrined in Roe v Wade any threat to that bothers me.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
only completely ignorant people would object stem cell research. Unfortunally, some of them are presidents...
1's and 0's should be free.
Nucular == of or pertaining to nucules. "Nucule" (NEW-kyool) is either a small nut or the diminutive of "nuke", so a nucule must be a small nuke, probably a tactical nuke.
I thnk you may be confusing "current uses" with "potential uses" as in
adult, umbilical- more uses currently
embryonic- more uses potentially
The problem with your assertion that Bush has imparted a tacit "ban" is that there are alternatives for funding. As long as those alternatives exist, it's not a "ban" at all, but a refusal to subsidize. They are not the same, no matter how you try to spin it. Yes, it is very hard to do this research without funding, but claiming that is the same as a "ban" is just not true.
to clairify my position: I believe that life really doesn't start until the child is born. Until then, it's very survival is based on the direct actions of the mother. I.E. the health and well being of the featus is based on the mothers actions. Granted, the child post birth is equally suseptible to the environmental surroundings, however, it's just so much more feasable for the child to be protected. Also, in a social aspect, I would much rather have somone abort than bring a child into this world and not care for it, abuse it, abandon it, or just generally not care... I don't think it's possible to come to a middle ground here because you will have the people who belive that life begins when the sperm enters the egg, and then you will have those who believe that life doesn't begin until birth. I won't pretend to know the answer to this question, all I know is what I feel is right. And let me just say thank you for the debate, you have some good points, I will give you that. But I just have a hard time when it comes to things like this...
I haven't lost my mind. It's backed up on disk somewhere.
This is an interesting anecdote, but bears little or no merit as science. Having a single individual treated, then reporting that 57% of the cells showed improvement is non-informative. How do we know that 57% of the cells would not have improved in the absence of the treatment?
To merit a scientific breakthrough, this needs to be properly designed and researched. You would need to have a sample of individuals that are treated, and another sample of individuals that serve as controls. They would all need to be similarly afflicted with the defect, of similar age, ethnicity, nutritional status, etc. After measuring progress and properly analyzing the data from a well-designed study, perhaps it will be found that this form of treatment is viable.
Until then, this is mere conjecture... Wishful thinking, perhaps. I hope that the report is valid, but would not put any credence in such a one-off claim as this.
Now, back to the polemics...
I think I see your point but you make several tacit assumptions which I don't believe are true.
One is that there is enough available capital out there to take the place of the missing funding. The major source of funding for basic research is the federal government. Corporate funding is pretty much non-existent for this type of risky research which leaves us with other levels of government, foreign govenments, and some charitable foundations to make up the shortfall. Unless the states come through in a big way - I don't think that there is enough capital out there.
Secondly, demand is not going to be constant - but is very soft. It is always a risky proposition for scientists to get proposals funded in the best circumstances. Loss of funding means the end of a research career so the stakes are very high. By making it harder to find funding for EC research many scientists (while stubborn also have VISA bills) will alter their proposals to adult stem cells research even when that is the less likely to succeed.
So I believe the net effect of the Bush policy will be to drive remaining embryonic research overseas, or to the states that specifically set aside money for it (the accounting thing you were talking about) and encourage scientifically inferior research elsewhere.
[That is false.] As a quick google would have told you.
[re: as far as I know, such research cannot be done in ANY FACILITY THAT RECEIVES FEDERAL FUNDING at all whatsoever.]
I googled your reference. I found these salient points:
IANAL. I did serve as a minor bureaucrat in a US Federal health care institution for 9 years and I've had to deal with this kind of language before. This is how the above translates into normal speech:
An institution recieving Federal funds that wants to conduct research that is outside of Bush's proscriptions would have to assure that all costs for the corner of the laboratory that was dedicated to this purpose were not paid for by federal funds. This includes everything from HVAC, phone service, janitorial supplies, and a portion of the janitor's wages. This also extends to administrative items, such as a portion of secretary wages, a portion of the service contract on computer maintenance and so on. How hard-nosed these rules would actually be would depend on agency law, not legislative law, and could therefore be dictated by the White House to any desired level of micromanagement.
The necessary changes in bookkeeping practices had an immediate effect of preventing any institution from doing proscribed stem cell research. The OP was correct in what he said, at the time when these regulations went into effect. Now some institutions have apparently set up mechanisms that they think will meet these new regulations-- but most institutions are not in a position to do this.
Changing bookkeeping systems to meet these requirements is a very costly process, with no productive benefit resulting from the change. And because this is an area mediated by brand-new agency regulations (which have the same force as federal legislative law), there are no precedents that can be used as guidance, or as shield. The enforcing agencies are currently in a position where they can make up the rules as they go along.
The phrase "lip service" comes to mind when I look at how Bush's administration has phrased these laws. On the surface, this issue appears to be a laudable attempt to ease moral concerns about government involvement in embryonic research while still seeming to allow such research to continue. But in practice it screws any attempt by anyone except some private corporations from doing anything in this field.
And perhaps that will prove to be the most significant part of all this-- that the large pharmaceutical houses with their $billions are now effectively the only ones who can explore th
I haven't worked for the feds for ~20 years now, so I'm not used to thinking in terms of how difficult it can be to implement regulations. I saw those statements and simply thought in terms of "keep your budget lines straight" without thinking about infrastructure and so on.
Clear, Dark Skies