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Draft Stem Cell Guidelines Threaten Research
Death Metal suggests we peruse a piece up at Wired on how the Obama administration's draft guidelines for stem cell research could invalidate hundreds of cell lines. "Under the Obama administration's proposed rules for funding embryonic stem cell research, hundreds of existing cell lines could be ineligible, even those that qualified under President Bush. The guidelines were written by the National Institutes of Health and are currently in draft form and expected to be finalized in July. But in their current state, they restrict funding to stem cell lines produced according to new rules that are only now being established. Few existing cell lines will meet those requirements. 'The so-called Presidential lines aren't suitable for actual medical application,' said Patrick Taylor, deputy counsel at Children's Hospital Boston, who criticized the NIH guidelines in a paper published Thursday in Cell Stem Cell. 'But we're talking about many, many more lines. The new lines were created with extensive ethical oversight. They're at stake here.'"
It's the same old business as usual.
That's not true. The people in charge now are less interested in telling us who we can sleep with and more interested in telling us what kinds of foods we can eat. Yeah, the Government is still trying to micromanage our lives like an obsessed baby sitter, but hey, it's still change you can believe in ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Allow me to explain.
The world is pretty big, so pharmaceutical and other research companies like to shop around before doing anything.
So outside of the fact that some areas have more local expertise than others, public money is key to attracting research. (The US also has a natural advantage with its market size and anything goes marketing regulations)
Let's just say that Bush's finance strategy didn't really hurt the global stem cell research effort, it just hurt the stem cell research community inside the US.
Pushing embryonic stem cells is more about justifying abortion than actual stem cell treatments. Adult stem cells have shown the best treatment options while embryonic stem cells would have the same issues as organ transplants. Cord blood would likely be as effective as embryonic but does not help the abortion stance. Pharmaceuticals benefits as well in making drugs to prevent rejection from treatments made with embryonic sources.
It is more about politics and money at the cost of ethics and good science.
I think what P was suggesting is that you can have absolute freedom to harm yourself, or socialized medicine. Choose one. Me, I'd choose the second, but by failing to choose you have effectively given up your right to criticize either.
I've never wanted socialized medicine, because I fail to see how having a Government ration my health care and stick it's nose into my business is any improvement over having a private company do the same. At least the private company doesn't have well armed goons to enforce it's edicts and I can choose to do business with whichever one I'd like.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.