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First Embryonic Stem Cell Clinical Trial Imminent
An anonymous reader writes "California-based Geron has announced that the first embryonic stem cell trial may be in the not-so-distant future. Tom Okarma, Geron's CEO, recently announced that the company will be seeking permission from the FDA to begin clinical trials. From the article: 'Geron's plan is to treat people that have acute spinal injuries with oligodendrocyte progenitor cells grown from human ESCs. Oligodendrocyte cells support neurons in the brain and spine by sheathing them in myelin, a fat that helps neurons to transmit signals.'"
Doesn't alcohol inhibit the brain's ability to pass information between the neurons? Though I know the study is not designed for this, it'd be interested to see if the additional 'signal boost' allowed for cells to overcome the added resistance. 2015: More beer, less drunk
...there's nothing to sheathe here.
(I'm sorry.)
"I seem to have mastered a certain amount of control over physical reality."
I believe this was the result of propostion 71 that was passed in California last year. It allocated $3 billion over a period of ten years to fund stem cell research! Way to go California :)
http://religiousfreaks.com/ http://psychicfreaks.com/In Soviet Russia that would be Doctor playing gods.
You can't handle the truth.
I don't. I believe to create life and then to destroy it for the sake of harvesting it's cells is wrong.
Personally, I think we should just cut to the chase and start growing humans specifically to harvest the organs. Why not? As long as they don't achieve consciousness, what's the harm?
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Unless know of a manner in which you can transplant a spinal cord from one human to another.
For example, will this lead to a cure for MS?
I agree with you that creating embryos simply for the purpose of harvesting stem-cells is morally ambiguous at best. I also think that as long as abortion is legal, those stem-cells should be put to the best medical/scientific use possible instead of simply tossing them away. If I am murdered (which definitly is illegal), it doesn't make any sense to toss all my organs in the furnace just because someone's decision to end my life was wrong.
Lose: misplace or fail || Loose: not bound together
What do you eat? (Assuming that you consider animals and plants alive)
But seriously, this can set up some pretty interesting dilemmas, assuming you value highly the life of both, say, a sick child and a fetus (even ASSUMING that the stem cells come from fetuses). Even if you value them equally, there's no reason to make such a decision in favor of the fetus by default. Either way you're killing something.
But what I'm really afraid of is that, despite whatever scientific significance such a trial could have, the religious right will immediately jump on this and squelch it without giving it any sort of chance. At least, hopefully, we can get the scientific advances later from countries that are more willing to do the research.
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
With the babyboomers being the first generation (in history) to be at the threshold where science and technology is unlocking the secrets of how cells work and with the increased competition, it is no longer simply okay to accept that when you reach your early 40's that you can be let go because there are younger workers able to do your job (simply because you suffer fron the what is now "natural" aging process)
t ransfer pills and much like todays generation (with ipods, pc's,internet etc.) not be able to imagine a time when this technology did not exist.
With these new upcoming technologies (stem cells, bio/nanotech) we will be able to, in the next couple of dacades, to slow and reverse the aging process so that in this competitive world enviroment, you won't be tossed out on the junk heap when you reach 40.
The only way this is going to happen is for people to push science and technological research forward and demand that this be done (instead of, say invading other countries).
Remeber, in the future, when we can reprogram cells and easily as we write programs today, people growing up will be taking their nano-reguvination/enhaced intelegence/memory/internet-connect-mind-thought-
Enjoying that burger? Oh wait the lettuce is OK... DOH! Next you'll be bitching because some Penecillium gave it's life for the evil human overlords...
Faith: n. -- That human impulse that drives them to steal appliances when the power goes out
Then you should take the time to understand exactly what it is that this company is doing.
They are cloning embryonic progenitor stem cells, and while you might at first glance think they are killing babies or mothers to obtain those initial cells, they might not be. I'd be exceedingly surprised if they were, because there are laws against that sort of thing.
How about if they obtained the initial cells from umbilical cord blood? I don't believe that there is any way to turn unbilical cord blood into a human being, and it is material that might otherwise be discarded -- and usually is.
How about if they were using discarded unfertilized eggs to process and obtain a souce of cloneable material?
How about if they took stem cells from bone marrow and used those as the basis to produce cloneable embryonic progenitor cells?
Because IANAMB (I Am Not A Molecular Biologist), some of the possibilities I have suggested above are either not possible or not practical. But I suspect that more than one of those approaches is.
I do doubt very much that they are taking fertilized eggs from a viable womb to clone their embryonic progenitor cells.
I wonder, do you also oppose organ donors? It seems to me that is exactly what you are describing. An organ donor is life that has been created and destroyed, and then the useful parts reclaimed to allow someone else to continue to live. Granted, they were (probably) not killed in order to harvest the organs (unless you believe that living corpses like Terry Schiavo were "killed" when their life support hardware was turned off), but it seems to me that people in your line of belief oppose more the harvesting than the killing, as they are content to allow fertilized egges to be destroyed by natural means rather than harvested to save the lives of others.
Please research exactly what it is that this company is doing before you leap forward to oppose it.
Sure that's a third eye on your elbow, but it's a feature, for free too.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Actually, I don't think there is anything morally ambiguous about creating embryos for the purpose of harvesting their cells. It is wrong. Also I believe there is a distinction between a person voluntarily donating their organs/cells in the event of their death (whether by murder, accident, etc) and using the cells of those who have been consulted in the choice (victims of abortion).
Perhaps I did jump the gun. But the article refers to embryonic stem cells, which are obtained, I would think from embryos. An embryo is a fertilized egg. I equate that with a human life. But perhaps, as you pointed out, they are from another source. If so, I stand corrected. I do not oppose organ donors, because they are donors. They are freely giving of their cells and organs. Those killed by abortions are not donors.
I hope there is some catalyst that causes a much larger wave of biological research. I want to see "Smart Pills", "Strong Pills" and "Anti-Aging Pills" all with little or no side-effects in my lifetime, I feel like we could have these things if we weren't so concerned with curing the symptoms of diseases as we currently are. I know that our pharmacological community is more concerned with making a buck and keeping us sick then actually curing diseases. I hope that soon enough something is done to halt the concentration on frivilous medical research. Whether it be heavy subsidies to pharmaceutical companies, or offering up huge cash incentives to finding a cure, I just would like to see us move into a future where some of the basic human ailments have been conquered. We as humans have managed to conquer (or destroy as you may have it) our environment to the point of being able to genetically engineer our own food, so it seems ridiculous that we can't have a better understanding of our own body.
Meet new people, and kill them.
Hopefully the programmers are better than the current OS programmers. I know I wouldn't let Linux or Windows control me.
My fellow republicans, it is time we got out our pitchforks and torches. The mad scientists are going too far, and frankly, I think we all know we're overdue for some lynchings. God didn't put us on this earth to suck cells out of unborn babies to heal the sick, but he gave us fire for good reason, and it is time we used some of it!
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
To me there is a clear distinction between plants, animals and human beings.
I saw nothing wrong with that statement. You must have read inflection into it that simply wasn't there. If I had mod points I'd mark you a troll. The autopsy revealed that her corpse had reprocessed/recycled over half of her brain as it wasn't being used. Any religious objection that she should have been kept on life support can be negated just as easily as another religious objection that she should have never been put on it in the first place.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/embryonic 1 - Of, relating to, or being an embryo. 2 - also embryotic (-tk) Rudimentary; incipient: an embryonic nation, not yet self-governing. Could have been 1 or 2, I agree. Despite the ambiguity, it has a much nicer ring than Unwanted Baby Girl cells. Abortions will happen whether you want them to or not. As long the USA is a country of freedom and choice, it will continue to support abortion irregardless of your personal beliefs. If one "unwanted" child can save a dozen lives or a hundred, I think that's much better than throwing it in the trash.
An interesting example is as follows:" A fluorescence-activated cell sorter. A cell passing through the laser beam is monitored for fluorescence. Droplets containing single cells are given a negative or positive charge, depending on whether the cell is fluorescent or not. The droplets are then deflected by an electric field into collection tubes according to their charge. Note that the cell concentration must be adjusted so that most droplets contain no cells and flow to a waste container together with any cell clumps."
The empirical scientists that correctly implement such challenging procedures are rarely mentioned.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
I know several people who would *greatly* benefit from stem cell related advances.
I understand that people consider embryos life, and I respect that.
However, I would, without a moment's hesitation, trade 1,000,000 embryos (that wouldn't have been created in the first place if it wasn't for 'stem cell research') for any of my family members or friends.
I just don't consider "their" lives equal to the lives of legitimate people.
can't we have one discussion here that doesn't compare microsoft to a disease?
What in the world do you eat? Do you survive off of just a salt lick or something?
Embryonic stems cell are harvested from fertilized embryos. An unfertilized egg doesn't undergo cell division, so you were correct. I don't know where the notion that these might be unfertilized comes from.
Not that I agree with your values on this issue... but your grasp of the facts is correct.
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
I really don't think abortion has brought "freedom" to the United States. I would think freedom gives life, rather than takes it away. How much happiness and joy has abortion really brought to anyone? What does it say about us that we see unborn children as a potential medical resource instead of a precious humnan life? I don't mean to condemn anyone, but these are questions that need to be asked?
Where did your friends and relatives come from? At what point would you consider them living?
I think this is big and could lead to more trials. I definitely this was a positive result from California's prop 71. Let's hope it gets the bill stuck in Congress passed. I just posted a summary of this and other relevant stem cell science news dating back to December '04 on my blog, http://bensstemcellnews.blogspot.com/ You'll see a lot of advancements are being made. And check out a TV spot I was in for prop 71 called "Twins." If anyone wants to link to me or me to link to them, let me know!
Obviously they came from embryos.
I'm not saying an embryo isn't living. I'm saying I don't consider it an equal to a born child. At some point during a pregnancy it becomes a "person". I can't answer when I believe that moment is. I *do* believe it is well after conception, and well before birth.
If one of your family members is ever afflicted by a debilitating disease that could be aided by stem cells, I want you to look them in their eyes and tell them: "Hey, if I mix semen with an egg I could potentially save your life... But unfortunately when semen gets mixed with an egg an embryo is formed which, under proper circumstances, could turn into a person. Their rights have to be protected too, so I guess you have to die".
thats what Agent Smith thought, and we all know how that turned out..
Well, actually, the embryo is a person according to my beliefs. We are coming at this issue from two different directions. Because of my Christian beliefs, I believe that there are things more important than maintaining physical life. I believe there is a God to whom we are accountable. To me, quality of life is more than just our ability to think, eat, sleep, procreate, etc. It is the quality of the decisions and life we live. Because of this, a "ends justifies the means" pragmatism is not viable.
If the embryos never achieve consciousness, there's nothing wrong in my eyes with creating them to harvest stem cells. They'd never have grown into fully developed babies anyway.
Then how do you explain that a considerable number of pregnancies end in "spontaneous abortions"? A great deal of perfectly viable embryos just don't survive.
l
here: http://www.physorg.com/news67783446.html
or, a site you trust: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jun/06060508.htm
According to the second site there, only 10-15% of preganncies "spontanteous abort", "Ninety percent of all such abortions are due to rejection of a maldeveloped embryo or fetus".
That means 1%-2% of healthy babies are naturally aborted for no reason.
If God considered every embryo that important, and I'm assuming you think this to be more or less under his control, he would make sure that the viable embryoes lived.
I don't believe in God, but I respect people that do. The problem I have with this situation is that people like you are attempting to stop my friends and family members from getting the treatment that could be possible.
"I don't. I believe to create life and then to destroy it for the sake of harvesting it's cells is wrong."
Look man. I know you are hungry, but the plants will stop screaming after you eat them, I swear it......OK, it's probably not what you meant. But then I don't think you could have stated what you seemed to be meaning as then you would have had to define terms like human and life. Unfortunatly, I can't define them either, so we're stuck at this point.
I reserve the write to mangle english.
A spontaneous abortion is just that "spontaneous." A regular abortion is done because someone decides to do it. That is a moral choice. As far as God's involvement in this, I do believe God is in control. However, I would rather have Him making these kinds of decisions rather than humans. I mean no disrespect by this.
As a side note, and as a potentially good or bad analogy (I've been known to make very poor analogies)...
I consider a pregnancy like baking a cake. It takes a couple of ingredients. You mix them together, put it in an oven for a while. When you are done you have a cake.
At some point it turns into a cake. It is certainly a cake after it comes out of the oven. 5 minutes before it comes out, it is also clearly a cake (just not as good of one, but no one would mistake it for anything but a cake). However, just placing the ingredients in a bowl would certainly not constitute a cake.
No, because the church she and her family belonged to, the Roman Catholic Church, objects only to disconnecting one from life support. The Roman Catholic Church does not teach that a given person should have never been placed on life support.
You might say, "Well, I and my religion object!", but with all due respect your own personal religious beliefs are of little importance to devout members of another church trying to act in obedience to their tradition in continuing their daughter's life.
I'm just saying - if God is okay with spontaneous abortions, who are you to supercede him and say that every embryo's life is important?
And I know this argument can be used in reverse... "Why can't we give people cancer?" etc.
I also mean no disrespect - I (unlike many people I know) know that there are two sides to this argument and everyone feels very strong about this.
I am often distressed at the people I see protesting in front of planned parenthood. I understand they mean well, but the situation is often very complicated. I know someone who has a rare disease, where the pill and pregnancies are EXTREMELY dangerous. (Either could kill her) Needless to say, she is very pro-choice. And I agree with her. It'd be nice to say "All babies should live", but reality isn't that simple.
What do you say to that situation?
Actually, that might be a good analogy supporting Intelligent Design, but in my opinion, not the present discussion ;)
I would question the advisability of her having sexual relations in that situation.
An organ donor chooses to donate his organs if he dies and they are usable. He is not killed. I do agree that if a stem cell would otherwise be discarded it is okay to use it for research, but using it to directly cure a patient is a slippery slope.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
The life of a human being is not equitable with a cow, vegetable, or bacterium.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
Well, I base my distinction upon the teachings of the Bible, so it is obvious where we part ways to me. I'm not going to get into a discussion of differences/similarities based on physical characteristics or even mental abilities of humans versus animals. Humans and animals are different because humans have an eternal soul. They are made in God's image. As far as hate speech is concerned, you are making a connection which isn't there. Animals belong to species; humans belong to races.
I know this is a standard Slashdot joke, but it's really not funny.
whenever people say competitive world environment, i wonder if they are aware of who is enforcing its competitiveness.
Either evolution made humans superior than animals and inclined to eat them, and with an abhorrence towards killing our own kind, or God did. Either way, it is nature. I wouldn't want to eat a dolphin, dog, or ape but I have no problem with eating a cow. They were created/evolved for us to eat.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
Spoken from the lofty heights of genetic perfection, I trust
Faith: n. -- That human impulse that drives them to steal appliances when the power goes out
Where did your friends and relatives come from? At what point would you consider them living?
I'm not qualified to answer that concretely, but I will say at what point I don't consider an embryo living. At the point of conception. Here's a sperm, here's an egg. Here's a chemical reaction. There's a zygote. This is all well and good, but that alone is not enough to make me grant what were previously two small single cells the full distinction of "human being" I afford to my friends and neighbours.
So when does "life" mysteriously emerge? Not really a scientific question, but I can tell you this: Most people would probably not be able to distinguish between a human embryo and one from another species during the first eight weeks of development.
Your milage may of course vary.
May the Maths Be with you!
Um, right. So because some people (you) don't like some aspects of the cycle of life, the rest of us must reject it also?
If it's not living at the point of conception, then what is it?
Oh yeah, Cancer is not a death sentence. Life certainly is, though.
Finally, somebody I can agree with. If I had mod points and that good stuff, I'd mod you up for sure.
But with Linux, you'll be able to edit your DNA as you see fit. Join the OpenGene Revolution!
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
And with enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow. So just edit your DNA to give yourself a thousand eyeballs, and it should be bug free!
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
And yet, that is the only clearly definable event in the entire process. (well closing the oven door if you want to be pedantic). It is the only clearly definable instant prior to which you definately won't have cake, and after which there's a pretty good chance of cake.
Between the closing of the door and the removal at then end, there is a continuum of states of varying cakiness, but while a cake cooked for a half-hour might not be done enough, a slightly smaller cake cooked for the same time might be.
Since the correlation between cakiness and time cooked is not strictly 1:1, if you want to count your cakes early, you need either some objective and nondestructive way of determining "percent done" to set an appropriate limit. Or you can play it safe and just pick the clearly definable event at the begining.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
A friend of mine is trying IVF with donor eggs, and got five embryos this cycle. Four of them will be destroyed. Is she participating in mass murder?
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
What if she gets raped?
Would you rather her die than have an abortion?
If I mix flour and eggs and all that stuff together, there's only a good chance of cake because I put it together in the hopes of making a cake.
However, while making cakes, I often like to eat cake batter. It's delicious. Is that cake? I think it could be cake, but isn't.
I'd rather have a cake than the batter. If you ever bake a cake, give me a ring, and I'll put together some cake batter and we'll trade.
Well, I base my distinction upon the teachings of the Bible, so it is obvious where we part ways to me.
Except that the Bible doesn' directly speak to the point of human life beginning. If anything, it implies that human life has an immortal soul, but give no indication at what point a developing human gets a soul, nor if that's the determining factor. Even now, the Catholic Church has no position on exactly when ensoulment happens, and common law had no punishment for abortion before "quickening" -- when the mother can feel the baby move. (Ramesh Ponnuru claims "In an age without ultrasound or sophisticated home pregnancy tests, quickening was the way pregnancies were known to exist." Apparently he has never actually seen a pregnant woman.)
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
me too. In fact, I'm an advocate of not removing the cake from the oven early unless there's a problem with the oven. I also like cake with frosting. Which is added after the cake has been removed from the oven. Some people might even say it's not really a cake until you've added the frosting.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Hypothetical questions work both ways. How do you know she would die? Doctors can be wrong.
I always figured it would be gods playing doctors.
Karma: 2.71828182846 (Mostly due to small, fun pills)
To me there is a clear distinction between plants, animals and human beings.
.... and to paraphrase in terms of the food chain, plants are what food eats :-)
Absolutly
What if it's a really, really stupid person? I'm not trying to troll here, I'm really wondering what you believe makes the life of a human worth more than the life of, say, a cow. Under what circumstances would the life of a cow be worth more than the life of a human?
I would think freedom gives life, rather than takes it away.
Nope. Freedom does not give life but it makes life worth living. We'd probably live much longer if we took away our freedoms of deciding what to eat (replacing it with a health plan that has been tested thoroughly to guarantee maximum health) or to drive cars individually (enforcing use of public transportation instead, which of course would be more developed in such a scenario). Giving up guns would reduce the number of gun-related deaths, banning all unhealthy substances (including alcohol and tobacco) would increase health, surveillance everywhere would greatly reduce crime.
How much happiness and joy has abortion really brought to anyone?
If the mother wants to get rid of the child she'll get rid of the child. I'd rather have a surgeon do that with the appropriate tools before the "child" is alive than the mother doing that with a tyre iron when the child is crying too much. Even if the mother does not kill the child she can (willingly or unwillingly) cause severe psychological damage to an unwanted child.
What does it say about us that we see unborn children as a potential medical resource instead of a precious humnan life?
Well, it's still better than the lion who kills other lion's babies in order to get laid.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Of course she could survive. Jump in front of a car, there's a chance you'll survive!
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
And with enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow. So just edit your DNA to give yourself a thousand eyeballs, and it should be bug free!
:-)
Ehmmm, yes. One word: shampoo. In all 1000 eyeballs at once. Enjoy
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
"Because IANAMB (I Am Not A Molecular Biologist), some of the possibilities I have suggested above are either not possible or not practical. But I suspect that more than one of those approaches is."
IAAMB (Usually describe myself as just biochemist - people have a clearer idea what that is). This isn't actually my area of expertise but it's close to the periphery of what I do (Immunology).
The simple answer is that some of these technologies are being investigated - not least because of the ethical concerns of ESCR. For the time being, however, ESC is the only usable technology for these kinds of experiments. All is not lost because when some of the other technologies advance to the practical stage, we can use them as the starting point and *these* techniques to follow on. ESC tech is probably doomed in the end, because of the immune rejection problems mentioned. For now, it's all we have.
"I do doubt very much that they are taking fertilized eggs from a viable womb to clone their embryonic progenitor cells."
Sorry - effectively, that's exactly what they do.
At this point I feel I should point out that I am *very* unhappy about ESCR for personal reasons. My wife had a hydatiform molar pregnancy.. with twins. One was hydatiform - the other wasn't. We had to abort both to save my wife's life. Not logical, true. But I'm not Mr Spock or a computer. Anyway, I would still have grave moral reservations about using embryos.
"Please research exactly what it is that this company is doing before you leap forward to oppose it."
Please research exactly what it is that this company is doing before you leap forward to defend it.
A couple of years ago, I developed sciatica (which presented literally as a pain in the a**). Sciatica is an irritation of the sciatic nerve, which is about as fat as a finger and snakes from the spine through the hip to the leg. While some sciatica comes from collapsed discs, mine was a result of trying to train to quickly for a marathon and so damaging the myelin sheath. After surveying the available options (surgery, drugs, sleeping with a special pillow strapped between my knees) I decided to give lecithin a shot. It's an all-purpose bio-lube good for your heart, hair loss, etc. Also, it is cheap, natural, available over the counter, and non-toxic (your body burns off any excess as food). It worked for me. The science is out there (e.g., http://www.jcb.org/cgi/content/abstract/68/3/480) but don't expect to hear much about it because nobody is going to make money off lecithin. It comes from soy beans. A big bottle is just a couple bucks.
I don't. I believe to create life and then to destroy it for the sake of harvesting it's cells is wrong.
Well I suppose it is good then they aren't destroying life. Embryonic cells are obtained from fertility clinics which would have thrown them out anyways.
Secondly, embryos don't have sentient life nor do they have counciousness.
And lastly, if you believe in a kind loving god, then we can be assured no embryos are going to hell for something they have no control over.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Isn't hyphenation, or the lack thereof, a wonderful thing?
... which, if I recall how one plays Doctors from my early teen years, involves a bit of exploration of the anatomy of a "patient", preferably in private and without your mother finding out ;-)
That sentence says that God is playing "doctors"
I can't imagine most people who believe in God welcoming him playing doctors!
ITYM: I, for one, welcome our God-playing doctors.
-Jim
Other segments? Are little specs of goo with no nervous system and less interactive personality than a lab rat, a "segment of society?"
If Yes, then I guess I see the point.
But I see the hypothesis as absurd. No segment of society is being used here, no one is suggesting that some underclass be abused (which would be of alarming concern), so there is no scary risk here.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Because other people that have the same disease have died during pregnancy. Some live, some die. The ones that live often have problems the rest of their lives.
I value humans more because I am a human. Generally, if an organism holds value on life, it is on the life of others of it's species. That is nature, and how God/evolution intended/developed it to be. The only species I can think of that equates the life of one of its own with another species is the dog, and they were bred to do so for thousands of years.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
And you think children have given consent for their organs to be harvested? Parents make that decision. Should we disallow organ transplants from people just because they're incapable of making an informed decision? Most people don't have living wills, and while that Organ Donor block is present on most Driver's Licenses, it holds no legal standing -- next of kin still have final say. So basically, we as a society (although perhaps not you personally) agree that the deceased has some influence over the decision, but not total control, and we entrust those decisions to next of kin -- for everyone -- but that's somehow completely different when it comes to embryos.
Makes sense to me.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Are these hypothetical children you're talking about being killed so that their organs can be harvested? And these hypothetical persons whose relatives are making decisions regarding the final disposition of their organ, were they killed so that they're organs could be harvested? No, they are not. I am not talking about people whose desires for what is done with their bodies after death are not being honored. I am talking about persons who are being killed for their organs and or cells. This is entirely two different things. It's one thing not to honor a person's desires for their remains after death; it's entirely another matter to kill them for their organs.
That is, the first US clinical trial. That would be, oh, decade behind the rest of the world?
The first human stem cell clinical trials were done in the early 80's on the "frozen addicts", who got instant Parkinson's from a bad batch of home made fentanyl (see "The Frozen Addicts" by Palfreman and Langston). The first and worst case was mostly cured in a matter of weeks.
To respond to an early reply re: "smart pills". The first one was patented so long ago the patent has expired. It was invented by Albert Hoffman. He's remembered for inventing LSD, but he deserves a Nobel for inventing nootropics.
Speaking of Nobels, Eric Kandel (who got it for his work on dopamine) has started a company intending to invent the world's first smart drugs. How can this be, if it's already been done? Same excuse for the inaccuracy about the first stem cell trials: the originals weren't done in the US.
The stem cell stuff, that's sheer US arrogance and ignorance. The smart drug stuff has an even worse excuse. The patent was wholly owned by Sandoz of Switzerland, and no US pharma company could make or sell it, so the FDA wouldn't approve it despite the fact that it was one of the safest (ie. no interactions, side effects generally beneficial such as regulating high blood pressure) drugs invented.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Yes - of the potentially thousands of people that could have been saved using the stem cells from those embryos. (j/k, but I do think that's more important than the embryos themselves).
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
ESC research is essential and vital.
Won't someone please think of the vi users?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Umbilical cord stem cells are Adult stem cells, not Embryonic Stem cells. Adult stem cells are already in clinical trials in 4 or 5 different incredible areas in the medical field, but don't get nearly the funding of embryonic stem cells because people want to support something that gives them a scientific justification for supporting abortion.
I am talking about persons who are being killed for their organs and or cells.
Nobody suggested that such a thing be legal. Nobody even mentioned it except you. We were talking about the ability to use the remains from abortions which would have occurred anyway. And if you think that there'd be a rush of women getting pregnant just so they could terminate and donate the remains, then you don't know women very well at all. And anybody who would do something like that wouldn't be deterred by the fact that it was illegal.
But even if you only consider miscarriage and stillbirth, those are potential research opportunities being wasted. Squandered, in fact. Sure, it's not palletable to discuss, and it's depressing to think about, but it happens, and there's nothing immoral or unethical about using the remains for the greater good. I, and most people I know (even you, perhaps?) would have no dilemna donating their tissue to scientific research after they're gone, especially if it had the capability to help millions of people, and just because someone isn't old enough to make that decsion on their own doesn't make it the wrong decision.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere