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Stem Cell Therapy Causes Tumors
SpaceAdmiral writes, "Using human embryonic stem cells, researchers have cured a Parkinson's-like disease in rats. Unfortunately, the Parkinson's cure causes brain tumors." From the first article: "...10 weeks into the trial, [University of Rochester researchers] discovered brain tumours had begun to grow in every animal treated... By definition, human embryonic stem cells have the almost mythical, immortal power to grow and divide indefinitely as they become the various tissues that make up the body. As a result, scientists have always known that any stem cell therapy could result in an uncontrolled growth of cells that could give rise to cancer."
This is the same thing, in reverse. It's an interesting, frustrating animal result in a pretty good journal, not a crashing doom for stem cell research.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
...And biology research has been proven to cause disease and death in rats...
Seriously though... It doesn't necessarily follow that the cure (especially a cure that is still in its infancy - 'scuse the joke) is better than the disease, and the idea is to do the research now so that we can use the stem cells to cure terrible illnesses (and repair missing limbs and all the rest of it) without the side effect of the stem cells going out of control.
Of course medicine has side effects. Many of the drugs given to a person on chemo and radio therapy are to keep them alive while the actual cure goes ahead and kills their cancer. As yet we are still learning how to control the stem cells, and they are doing what cells do when uncontrolled: making more of themselves and living life to the full. We'll get better at controlling them if we research them. That's why it's called stem cell research...
Vote Democrat... because the current Republican administration wants people to have Parkinson's disease.
Vote Republican... because Democrats want to give you cancer.
Vote Libertarian... because the government shouldn't be deciding for you if you want cancer or Parkinson's.
Where exactly did they obtain "human fetal midbrain tissues"?
Well now... IANASTR, but I'll go out on a limb and say "from the midbrains of human fetuses", with a pretty high level of confidence in my answer.
I cringe in disgust at how far this slippery slope is progressing...
What slippery slope? We have a significant portion of the population that deliberately aborts unwanted pregnancies. If someday we benefit from the use of their medical waste to cure Parkinson's or Alzheimer's or even just slow down plain ol' ageing - Good for me, good for you, good for everyone!
This doesn't require any sort of moral relativism to accept. It can provide nearly miraculous benefits for no (extra) cost. Sounds like a win/win, even if you take the FUD spewed by its worst opponents (tempered by a small dose of reality).
The fact that it causes tumors I consider an exceedingly inconvenient (if somewhat predictable) complication, but one we can hopefully overcome with continued research.
As an aside, I also fully encourage continued research into adult stem cells... Though not for any squeamish "oooh, no dead babies" line of BS. Nope - Simply for the far more pragmaic reason that tissue rejection doesn't present a problem after the cure itself takes effect.
Not every attempt at something new works the way you want the first time. The first heart transplant patient didn't live very long. The first medications for aids didn't work as well as what is out there now. That's why this kind of research is done on rats. *cough*eatshitpeta*cough* If medical research stopped the first time there was this kind of result, we'd all still be dying of yellow fever and polio. There are entirely too many people getting their shorts in a twist over this. Sheesh!
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
IAASCR (I am a stem cell researcher)and while adult stem cells are indeed useful in certain cases, at the current level of understanding and utilization, they are not as proliferative, nor multipotent as embryonic stem cells. ES cells do have a lot of issues, but this tumor issue is pretty old news for those of us who work with stem cells. I think an increased level of availability and funding there is a better chance to overcome some of the negative issues associated with ES cells as opposed to alterting and manipulating adult stem cells into becoming more potent
I think you meant Edward Jenner and smallpox, not Pasteur and rabies. True, Pasteur did give a rabies-vaccine to a boy and did so at some risk to himself (he wasn't a licensed physician), but the boy would have died if he had done nothing. You can't really say that what he did was unethical, he didn't really have a choice!
Edward Jenner however gave a 9-year old boy cowpox, which made him sick for 48 days. After that, he injected him with the smallpox virus, "just to see if it would work". This is hugely unethical, but it did eventually lead to the eradication of one of the worst diseases ever to plauge humanity.
The ethical problem is that, if the raw material is "medical waste" and the results are successful, how long will it take before the demand out-strips the supply and people start looking for ways intentional generate the raw material? I'm already concerned about the outsourcing of pharmaceutical testing to thrid world countries - whether the test subjects are actually giving informed consent. Are we going to find out in ten or twenty years that these new wonder drugs are being produced by intentionally impregnating women and then harvesting their fetuses?
Before you respond that I'm being ridiculous, do a little research into the blood diamonds mined in Africa or children forced into the sex industry in southeast Asia. People will be "farmed" if there is a market for it, and it cna be hidden behind enough shell corporations that the big biotech firms have plausible deniability.