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Scientist Pushing for Early Use of Stem Cells
hzs202 writes "BBC News is reporting that Professor Ian Wilmut is pushing for stem cell treatment to be offered to people with terminal illnesses. Professor Wilmut told journalists that the treatment could save lives or at least speed up the pace of research, however it is yet to be fully tested." From the article: "If we wait until things are totally tested and analyzed in animals, it will deny some people treatment"
And would starting to treat terminally ill patients right now provide as much scientific value? Or would it divert funding from possibly cheaper or at least more informative on a dollar by dollar basis animal testing, so that in the long run we might save X people but not develop effective stem cell therapies for Y years longer, thereby losing another X+N people who might have been saved had we gone a more orthodox route?
(Seriously, I'm asking. I have no idea what the answer is.)
Here's a stronger argument, the Fable of the Dragon Tyrant.
It argues that it is immoral and lethal for us to delay our work into longevity reasearch.
I need fifty healthy volunteers immediately. You'll have your kidney's chronically instrumented, then will be fed a variety of drugs that will raise or lower your blood pressure. When we're done you will be sacrificed and your kidneys will be inspected.
There is research that cannot be done on terminally ill volunteers. Not all medical research is simply new-drug-to-treat-terminal-illness testing.
Research animals are treated better than the grad students who work with them, and are euthanized in much more humane ways than the US uses to execute prisoners. Chances are you, or someone you love is alive today because of animal testing, whether you like or realize it or not.
They've got a great poster down by the animal resource centre -- it's a bunch of people protesting animal research and the line at the bottom says "Animal research has given these people 20 extra years of life to protest."
My wife and I had considered this--if it wasn't for the $2000 down payment and the $100/year fee beyond that, we probably would have signed up yesterday. It actually involves harvesting stem cells from the umbilical cord blood.
http://www.cordpartners.com/
http://www.cordblood.com/
http://www.corcell.com/