Stem Cells Cultivated Free of Animal Contaminants

qewl writes "In a follow-up to this story, researchers at Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology have created a new method of growing human embryonic stem cells that has overcome the major obstacle of animal contaminants to their use for human treatments. As President George W Bush has restricted federal funding of this research to limited cell lines existing since 2001, scientists have strived to find ways to keep the lines pure. Irina Klimanskaya and colleagues at ACT grew the stem cells from the beginning on a cell and serum-free mixture called an extracellular matrix. "The importance of this work, of course, is that by eliminating contact with animal and human cells, you minimize the risk of contamination with pathogens that could be transmitted to patients and the population at large," Dr. Lanza at ATC said."

Comments

Re:Interesting logic

[Leo McGarry]

Please stop calling things you don't agree with "propaganda."

Whether this makes you happy or not, the majority of Americans are not amenable to the idea of killing undeveloped babies for medical research.

This should not come as a surprise to you. Remember the national outcry when the cosmetics industry was using live animals for testing things like hairspray and eye makeup? Those were rabbits and dogs. These are human babies. Of course the public is squeamish about slaughtering them, even if it were for the best of causes.

When you add to this the fact that embryonic stem cell research is not a promising branch of medical research, the idea of using taxpayer dollars to pay for experiments on babies becomes a pretty hard sell. The only approaches that even come close to working are downplaying the fact that we're talking about undeveloped human children (the "it's just a bunch of cells" approach) and making false promises (the "Christopher Reeve will walk!" approach).

I appreciate the fact that you wish the government were funding embryonic stem cell research. Would it kill you to, in turn, appreciate the fact that most Americans disagree with you?