US Finalizes Stem Cell Research Guidelines

An anonymous reader writes with an excerpt from Cosmos Magazine, to wit: "The US government unveiled final rules for embryonic stem cell research, laying out ground rules for 'ethically responsible, scientifically worthy' studies eligible for federal funds. The new rules, which go into effect today, follow President Barack Obama's March 9 executive order lifting a ban on embryonic stem cell research, an order that went into effect under his predecessor, George W. Bush. ... The US National Institutes of Health's (NIH) guidelines are slightly less restrictive than those outlined in a draft document released in April in that they allow the use of existing stem cell lines, in addition to new ones derived from IVF procedures. ... The NIH received some 49,000 comments from patient advocacy groups, scientists, medical groups, and other interested parties before issuing the guidelines."

Comments

Existing lines

[JobyOne]

I've never understood the opposition to using existing stem cell lines for research.

Assuming there is a moral problem with destroying embryos, the damage is done. At this point you're pretty much saying "don't eat that cow" when the cow is already dead. Once it's dead you can either eat the cow and have a delicious steak or waste the cow and let it rot.

Same thing with a stem cell. Once the embryo is destroyed you can either waste it...or maybe find ways to cure a zillion diseases. Either way the embryo is still dead.

Re:Existing lines

[C4st13v4n14]

If you actually understood the opposition, then you would be neither a Slashdotter nor a sensible person.

Re:Existing lines

[NecroPuppy]

The point is that if the bans were there, then the embryos wouldn't be destroyed in the first place.

This, of course, ignores comepletely that most embryos held by fertility clinics (and other sources) are ultimately destroyed anyway.

My view is simple: Why not recycle? If another use can be found for them, great. If not, that's fine too.

Re:Existing lines

[Anonymous Coward]

Once it's dead you can either eat the cow and have a delicious steak or waste the cow and let it rot.

You SHOULD actually let the cow rot.

Supermarkets (or rather, their butchers) generally let the carcass rot for 21 days, whereas specialty butchers may let it rot for up to 35 days for that extra jucy and tender feeling.

If you let it rot more than that though, you're a sick, SICK individual.

Re:Existing lines

[muridae]

The fear, rational or not, that seems prevalent in those with a 'conservative' mindset is not that the embryos are going to waste, but that if the discarded embryos are going to be used for stem cells it may encourage doctors to create many more than they need. That IVF happens may be something that individuals agree or disagree with, but there is a general disagreement with encouraging doctors to create even more extras.

Re:Existing lines

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think anyone but the most foaming at the mouth religious fanatics had an issue with using existing lines. Even Bush couldn't see any harm in "eating the dead cow". The Bush administration opposed using new lines for federally funded research, even though the cells were going to be dumped anyway. I think the idea there was that there was no way to determine which cells were "legitimate waste" and which were "accidental waste" that was created for the purpose of doing stem cell research.

Re:Existing lines

[NecroPuppy]

Actually, with IVF, many embryos are normally grown simultaniously, with only the best two or three candidates considered for implantation.

Given the inherant dangers of the egg harvesting procedures, it is unlikely that any ethical doctor would purposefully subject a woman to that, just for the purpose of additional stem cell lines.

Re:Existing lines

[sexconker]

Take it a step further:
A zillion diseases ARE cured by stem cells.

Now we have hundreds of millions of people looking for stem cells.

Re:Existing lines

[muridae]

Right, I wasn't suggesting that only 2 or 3 embryos were grown. Just that there is the fear that, instead of growing 20* and picking 2 or 3, the doctors start with 100* or 200* and save the rest for research.

As for how dangerous it would be for the woman, that's why I was suggesting the fear is pretty irrational to begin with. That, however, is not going to stop anyone who wants to believe that a doctor would do so.

*: numbers are just used for scale. I don't have a clue how many embryos are started, I just picked numbers for this post.

Re:Existing lines

[geekoid]

It's because the opposition want to shove there made up religious moral code down everyone's throat. The same reason the want to ban gay marriages, force people to teach lies in school, and make everyone pray to their god.
really no different then any radical religious group. "Do it our way and shut up." pretty much wraps up their whole argument.

Some of these people believe jacking off is the same as killing babies.

The same logic that got a lot of people tortured and burned at the stake.

Re:Existing lines

[0xdeadbeef]

but that if the discarded embryos are going to be used for stem cells it may encourage doctors to create many more than they need

No, it is because the very existence of discarded embryos is the consequence of a sin, and thus tainted, any use of those embryos furthers the sin.

The anti-stem cell research, anti-abortion, and anti-sex education positions of conservatives is primarily motivated by sin.

Re:Existing lines

[interkin3tic]

The fear, rational or not, that seems prevalent in those with a 'conservative' mindset is not that the embryos are going to waste, but that if the discarded embryos are going to be used for stem cells it may encourage doctors to create many more than they need

I was of the understanding that the number of zygotes fertilized was limited by how many eggs they could collect from the donors. I thought (though I am not familiar with the process) that they give the egg donor drugs to produce more mature eggs at one time, then surgically collect the eggs and mix them with sperm, fertilizing in vitro. The sperm cells would obviously be in excess as always, so that all the competent eggs they scraped off of the ovaries will get fertilized.

So if a woman's ovaries produce, say, a hundred eggs when treated with the drugs, and half of them are capable of being fertilized, then you'd get 50 embryos. I'm assuming they don't dump all of them into the recipient's uterus, they'd maybe inject 10 to maximize the chances that one would implant. The remaining 40 are availiable for ESC.

In other words, I don't see where the doctors are modulating the number of embryos concieved right now, or any area the doctors could create more to meet any increased demand. The drugs used to stimulate egg production above normal rates are not without side effects and I've heard there's a risk of cancer with them, they're not going to give the women more, and I'm not sure that would do anything. It's not very cost effective to fertilize eggs one at a time, they're not doing that now. They fertilize all the eggs they can already, I would think.

Re:Existing lines

[zippthorne]

You absolutely should not. They only age it so that you rubes can't tell what it's supposed to taste like. Then they pump it full of carbon monoxide so you don't know what it's supposed to look like either.

But who am I... I'm just a guy who thinks Cabernet is an atrocious joke of a wine, mozzarella tastes better than cheddar, yoghurt is gross, olives should be eaten off the vine, and pheasant shouldn't be eaten at all. You go chow down on your road kill like a good little garbage processor if you want.

Re:Existing lines

[Anonymous Coward]

I slaughter my own cows.

Re:Existing lines

[Starlon]

From my understanding, embryonic stem cells are not necessary any longer, and have issues of their own that make them undesirable in the long term. Also, as far as I understand, adult stem cells can be made to act like embryonic stem cells, and they don't have the biological (and moral) issues that accompany embryonic stem cells.

A researcher out of Japan named Yamanaka is performing what can only be termed as medical miracles. Something to read

Re:Existing lines

[Anonymous Coward]

I think some people don't realize that 200 cells are a microscopic amount. Each stem cell represents a sort of moral hazard, making the whole thing akin to 200 bank bailouts.

Re:Existing lines

[AshtangiMan]

I guess in some cases Flamebait = uncomfortable truth ?

Re:Existing lines

[Anonymous Coward]

Yummy. Babyburgers.

Re:Existing lines

[supermegadope]

Last I checked olives grew on a tree not a vine. Also you probably do not want to eat them "off the vine"... uh tree, because unless you are eating thassos olives ALL other olives are inedible until cured. But what do I know, I am only a "good little garbage processor"

Re:Existing lines

[Anonymous Coward]

"Either way the embryo is still dead."

That is the moral problem. You see, at some point these cells become a living human. Pro-choice says that happens near the end of the pregnancy while pro-life says it happens at conception.

Here is how I look at it. The cells at (or just after) conception fit the definition of 'alive' and they are a body of human cells. It may not live very long outside of its environment (the womb) but none of us will live for long outside of our environment (Earth's atmosphere).

Side note: From what I've read, there have been many more advances from using adult stem cells then from using embryonic.

Re:Existing lines

[Starlon]

Here's a better, more recent article

Re:Existing lines

[Nefarious Wheel]

olives should be eaten off the vine

Oh no, no. No no no no no no. Olives need a long process of acid removal before they're edible at all.

Although if you made a good meal of them (and perhaps mixed with a good selection of raw cashews and uncooked tapioca) you would provide good fertiliser for a tree somewhere, which would be a nice thing to do for it.

And I like a good Cabernet, thank you.

Re:Existing lines

[davester666]

It's a moral issue.

A comparable (for some people anyway) situation would be whether we should use the so-called "research" various German doctors did using Jews and others in the various death camps during WWII. The doctors kept meticulous records on all the procedures they did, much of which would not be permitted to be performed today even on willing participants.

And I have no actual opinion on the use of stem cell lines, and whether and/or which should be usable...

Re:Existing lines

[interkin3tic]

With induced pluripotent stem cells, they wouldn't need to look very far. Or take immunosupressants either. And then we can save hESC for research purposes.

Re:Existing lines

[srothroc]

I don't personally believe this, but from what I understand, a lot of people who oppose the use of human embryos for stem cell research oppose it because they see those embryos as having the human potential or BEING human. Again, I don't personally endorse it -- it's just how I understand the "other side's" beliefs.

If that's the case, then it's not so much like the GP's suggestion that we eat a cow that's already been killed; it's more like... "Well, this guy died in an accident, let's eat him so we don't waste his meat." Or, to put it in more of a medical perspective -- "This guy died in an accident. Nobody knows who he is and we don't have permission on file, but let's just harvest his organs anyway." The first is incredibly abhorrent to a lot of people, right? And a lot of people would probably be disgusted at the second as well -- it's pretty disrespectful. Well, using embryos is probably seen in much the same way by opponents of embryo usage in stem cell research.

Again, not my personal views, but I feel like someone had to speak up for the other side here on Slashdot.

Re:Existing lines

[electrosoccertux]

Fine, run after your society that has no morals; 25 years down the road your country will be on the brink of disaster as corporate greed-without-restraint and political spending-without-discretion leave your country in a heap of political constituent-pandering and a financial wreck that's only half done* when you think it's nearly over...

Oh, wait...

Also, before you mention that the guys who deregulated the banks, and dropped our rates to bubble-creating-levels-- that these people were those who claimed to be representing the Christian America, keep in mind many (all) of us, who are aware of what occurred, are immensely frustrated (to say the least) with what they did. If I call myself a Christian and do evil things, does that disprove Christianity? No, it proves I'm evil. For an example of Christianity, look to the life of love Jesus lived, not to the life of sin many Christians live...

*(Only halfway through; with the Option ARM recasts coming up we'll have _at least_ just as many defaulting on their Option ARMs as we did on their subprimes. 80-90% of these negatively-amortizing loans originated in 2005-2007 were Option A...guess when the monthly payment people make recasts and resets? Four and a half to 5 years from origination...)

Re:Existing lines

[ArcherB]

I've never understood the opposition to using existing stem cell lines for research.

Assuming there is a moral problem with destroying embryos, the damage is done. At this point you're pretty much saying "don't eat that cow" when the cow is already dead. Once it's dead you can either eat the cow and have a delicious steak or waste the cow and let it rot.

Same thing with a stem cell. Once the embryo is destroyed you can either waste it...or maybe find ways to cure a zillion diseases. Either way the embryo is still dead.

The problem many have is that in order to extract stem cells from an embryo, you have to coax it into starting to grow and mature. At this point, it no longer becomes a single cell fertilized egg, but a developing embryo, zygote, baby or whatever you want to call it, that you have to destroy to "harvest" stem cells from it.

IMHO, there are way too many other methods to get new stem cell lines that are more useful and do not involve the destruction of any human life at all to even consider extracting new embryonic stem cells. The scientist that discovered the methods for extracting embryonic stem cells agrees with me (read my sig). The only point in harvesting new embryonic stem cell lines is to jab a thumb in the eye of "pro-lifers" and to try to remove any legislation that shows any respect at all for the unborn. "Pro-choicers" have a constant fear that legislation that provides any protection for the unborn is a step toward making abortion illegal.

Re:Existing lines

[ArcherB]

The anti-stem cell research, anti-abortion, and anti-sex education positions of conservatives is primarily motivated by sin.

Is there a fallacy of stereotyping? Doesn't matter. Let me give you some advice: If you don't know what you are talking about, shut up. As a conservative, allow me to correct you and alleviate your ignorance.

Some of us conservatives are against embryonic stem cell research because it is killing human life for research purposes. I know, it's only a few cells, so it doesn't count right? So, tell me then, when do human beings earn the right to not be destroyed and experimented on? Is it at birth? Is it after the first trimester? How about voting age? Don't have an answer? Me neither. That's why I'm "conservative" in my answer and simply say, "NO RESEARCH ON HUMANS WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT, PERIOD!"

Is the right to not be experimented on so unimportant that you guess when people get this right?

Re:Existing lines

[ArcherB]

I guess in some cases Flamebait = uncomfortable truth ?

No, maybe it's because he's wrong. He's trying to paint those that disagree with him as "radicals". I'm against stem cell research because I don't believe in experimenting on humans without their permission. I don't care to guess as to what age a human gets human rights. No one should. Since when does believing in human rights make me some sort of radical?

Does that mean that jacking off is killing babies? Does that make me want to burn witches and torture heretics? Fact is, I don't give a shit what you do as long as it doesn't harm anyone else. Abortion harms someone else (the baby). Embryonic stem cells harms someone (again, the baby). If you want to blow your uncle while doing a goat in the privacy of your own home, I don't care, provided your uncle is OK with it (don't really care about the goat for that matter).

Re:Existing lines

[iPhr0stByt3]

Hey, let's recycle you... seems you're running a little ineffecient right now anyway. I feel there's an ethical problem with "recycling" human bodies. If stranded in the arctic, I'm not sure I could eat the first person to croak even if it were the only way to stay alive myself.

Re:Existing lines

[The Grim Reefer2]

Given the inherant dangers of the egg harvesting procedures, it is unlikely that any ethical doctor would purposefully subject a woman to that, just for the purpose of additional stem cell lines.

I'm not taking either side here, but I think that you chose to point out that an ethical doctor would not do this may be worth noting.

Re:Existing lines

[Cstryon]

these are the same sort of people who believe that adam and eve rode dinosaurs to church. ignore them.

This isn't always true. I don't condone killing a human, at any stage of life, I am a theist, but I have many atheist friends who feel the same way. So I am against embryonic stem cell research, and it doesn't have to do anything with my religious beliefs. NPR did a story in 2007 about some researchers that got stem cells from skin. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16511934 I am all for that! ;)

Re:Existing lines

[interkin3tic]

Induced pluripotent stem cells do currently look like they're better than embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells for theraputic uses. But for more basic biology, no. If you want to study how cells turn from stem cells into their mature fates, you don't want to study these things, because they're unnatural. You want to study the real things, embryonic stem cells.

A good example are the induced pluripotent stem cells themselves. You know how Yamanaka and James Thompson (they both were publishing at about the same time) discovered induced pluripotent stem cells? By studying embryonic stem cells. They identified the factors needed for iPSC from ESC, they validated the pluripotency of iPSC by comparing them to ESC.

Re:Existing lines

[hamburger lady]

do you believe that evil doctors are going to harvest shit-tons of eggs from unknowing women during IVF treatments in order to create stem cells?

cause that's what the GP was referring to. that fear is irrational and only morons would believe it as some reason to go after stem cell research.

Re:Existing lines

[Martin Blank]

You take a shot at aged meat, and then proclaim yourself to enjoy cheese, a product which is often aged? Hmm.

BTW, simply declaring the mozzarella is preferable to cheddar opens up some questions. What kind of mozzarella? Cow's milk mozzarella tastes different than mozzarella di bufala, and there is a very wide variety of cheddars out there, with taste varying based on ingredients, geography, and aging. There's a cheese shop on my way home (I think I'll stop by tonight, in fact) that sells a marvelous 24-month aged cheddar that I much prefer to that aged only 3-6 months.

Aside from that, I had a Cabernet Sauvignon last week that was very different from every other Cabernet I've ever had. It was lighter and had more of a fruit taste than what I've experienced before. One of my friends is not particularly inclined to drink any red wines, and yet I think she might well have been able to enjoy a glass of this, whereas almost every time I've seen her try a Cabernet, she nearly spits it out.

Everyone has their own particular tastes. It may well be that there is no red wine in the world that you will like, and you may genuinely like all mozzarellas over all cheddars. But by making such broad declarations, you come off as more resistive than knowing.

Re:Existing lines

[Starlon]

Right. I wasn't suggesting that embryonic stem cells are obsolete. I have absolutely no background in biology, so I try not to say too much for fear of getting facts mixed up, but when the topic of embryonic stem cells is brought up, I do make it a point to note that these researchers have made a breakthrough with IPS cells. This is where the real medicine in practice will be, and eventually people won't be studying the embryonic stem cells quite as much. If I had to make a somewhat educated guess, I'd say the area of embryonic stem cells will remain in the research labs, not in actual medical practice, especially now that the cancer risk of IPS cells has been all but eliminated

Re:Existing lines

[servognome]

A comparable (for some people anyway) situation would be whether we should use the so-called "research" various German doctors did using Jews and others in the various death camps during WWII. The doctors kept meticulous records on all the procedures they did, much of which would not be permitted to be performed today even on willing participants.

It wasn't just the Germans, the US did unethical "research" on blacks and soldiers.

Re:Existing lines

[harley78]

Ob. "Hi Everybody!"

Re:Existing lines

[Anonymous Coward]

Preventing stem cell research could harm potentially millions, while doing stem cell research harms no one...unless you actually believe a cluster of cells is a human, in which case logical consistency would require you to be up in arms against cancer research. Actually, if you truly believe a lump of cells is as much a person as say a 22-year old college student, you are morally required to do absolutely anything, including killing people, to prevent this. You're not, so you don't.

Oh and your sig is 100% pure bullshit. It should read: "If embryonic stem cell research makes you uncomfortable, you're an unthinking hopelessly ignorant idiot."

Re:Existing lines

[Anonymous Coward]

No need for the scare quotes. Some of what the Nazis did was real research. Real unethical, but still real research. We have a wealth of information about the effects of temperature and pressure on the human body due to those sick fucks. The question is whether or not it is ethical to use that research.

Re:Existing lines

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess it was just a little too uncomfortable for you.

Re:Existing lines

[ppanon]

So, tell me then, when do human beings earn the right to not be destroyed and experimented on?

There's a few possible candidate thresholds but, when it comes to destruction, the ones that make the most sense are:

1. "self-sustaining" viability outside the womb (currently around 22 weeks gestation) or
2. significant nervous system complexity (somewhere between 9 to 20 weeks).

Experimentation is a much broader issue with many more possible scenarios and lots of grey areas. That said, I can't see a significant ethical problem with experimentation if you're dealing with individual cells for therapeutic purposes.

As someone else pointed out, there may be significant ethical issues in how you obtained the embryos or eggs due to the risk it poses to the donor. I think some totalitarian state having "farms" with captive unwilling donor women to produce embryos for export to Western hospitals is definitely a scenario we would want to prevent through legislation, and the source tracking as with the current legislation should address that.

To use your example, experimenting with cells from low-division embryos is not significantly different from experimenting with skin or bone marrow cells. You don't have a problem with donating a few skin cells because, with a local anaesthetic, you wouldn't even feel it. On the other hand, if someone endangered your life by ripping 50% or more of your skin off for stem cell material, I expect you would be pretty upset. Conversely, an undifferentiated embryo has no nerve cells to feel, know, or want anything.

Certainly, if successful embryonic stem cell therapies actually get developed, then there will be an issue with supply vs. demand and access criteria. That said even if we don't find an ethically satisfactory technical solution for solving the supply scarcity problem, we've already got a similar issue with a limited supply in the case of organ transplants. Yet there doesn't seem to be a credible broad movement arguing for the cessation of organ transplants.

Re:Existing lines

[hedwards]

So in other words, the ability to construct a flamebait straw man on pseudo-ethical pseudo-religious lines makes it controversial.

Despite what many think, that's not even the slightest bit apples to apples. It is definitively known that a bundle of cells cannot feel what we know as pain, the portions of the nervous system that can don't develop until much later. And it's still later that those impulses can be properly decoded.

Re:Existing lines

[unifyingtheory]

The objection occurs when the government uses taxpayer money to conduct activities that a great number of people consider to be immoral.

If you like dead cow analogies then perhaps it is like forcing a vegetarian to eat the dead cow.

Re:Existing lines

[cayenne8]

Either way...I'm happy to say I finally found an Obama policy I can agree with.

Now....looking for policy #2 I can get behind....

Re:Existing lines

[OakDragon]

olives should be eaten off the vine

Oh no, no. No no no no no no.

Man, I hope this doesn't erupt in a flame-fest in this otherwise uncontroversial thread.

Re:Existing lines

[Ihmhi]

Aren't a large chunk of the embryos taken from fertitlity clinics etc., basically stuff that's scheduled to be destroyed anyway? If it's going to get shitcanned it may as well do some good.

Re:Existing lines

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi Dr. Nick!!

Re:Existing lines

[ArcherB]

Thank you for a well thought out, fair minded response. However, there are some points I have issue with:

"self-sustaining" viability outside the womb (currently around 22 weeks gestation) or

A newborn is not "self-sustaining". Hell, I know a few 30-year olds that are not "self-sustaining". What about premature babies that require incubation? They are not "self-sustaining". Are they available for experimentation?

Also, embryos in a petri dish can survive outside the womb about as long as newborn.

significant nervous system complexity (somewhere between 9 to 20 weeks).

9 to 20 weeks is a big range. I'm guessing you are setting it so broad because you don't know. I don't either. Let's just say it's 14 weeks, 3.5 days. What about the baby that is 14 weeks, 2 days? Some babies mature at different rates than others. How do you know which babies have a nervous system? What happens in 20 years if we find out that embryos can feel pain without a nervous system? My point is that too many times, we've thought "things" couldn't feel pain or were labeled as not or less-than human with horrific results. We should have learned by now that man is not perfect enough to decide who deserves basic rights or what is human.

To use your example, experimenting with cells from low-division embryos is not significantly different from experimenting with skin or bone marrow cells.

Right. Under a microscope, they are pretty much the same thing. The difference is the donor and what damage it does to the donor. You mentioned skin and bone marrow. I have both. If I want to donate tissue or take part in a scientific experiment, I am free to do so (and I have). If you can find an embryo that will consent to experimentation, then I guess that's OK too. But even with parental consent, I don't feel that parents have the right to give permission to anyone to kill a child for the purpose of experimentation. And would it even be legal for me to volunteer for an experiment when the end result is certain death? It certainly wouldn't be legal to hold such an experiment.

The other point is that donating a few cells won't kill me. Embryos are destroyed in the process of harvesting cells. If you could harvest stem cells while not killing the embryo, then I wouldn't really have a problem with it, provided you have the parent's permission.

Certainly, if successful embryonic stem cell therapies actually get developed, then there will be an issue with supply vs. demand and access criteria.

So far, all the therapies that have been developed have come from adult derived stem cells. There will be no shortage of those as they can be taken directly from the patient.

And, it's nothing like an organ donor. Even as you mentioned before, it's no big deal giving a cheek swab or skin sample. Giving up a liver is nothing like giving a blood, marrow, or skin sample. Something about organs make them a requirement to life. Skin samples? Not so much.

Re:Existing lines

[ArcherB]

Oh and your sig is 100% pure bullshit. It should read: "If embryonic stem cell research makes you uncomfortable, you're an unthinking hopelessly ignorant idiot."

Wow! This AC just called the pioneer of embryonic stem cell research a "hopelessly ignorant idiot." WOW! The irony is too thick to cut!

Here's the whole quote:

"If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough"

-- Dr. James Thomson, pioneer of embryonic stem cells

Don't take my word for it. Google the quote.

Let me reiterate that this AC just called Dr. James Thomson, THE pioneer of embryonic stem cell research, "an unthinking hopelessly ignorant idiot."

Re:Existing lines

[Toonol]

Thank you, anonymous coward, for posting one of the more sensible comments in the thread.

I think a lot of people in this thread believe that the Bush administration banned stem cell research. They didn't; they didn't even ban creating new lines. They simply didn't FUND it. That's not unreasonable, when a significant portion of the population has ethical problems with it.

Re:Existing lines

[HellYeahAutomaton]

Perhaps because you haven't thought of the consequences of the deep bioethical debates behind it. I preface this by stating that I am a fan of regenerative technologies and think a great deal of good can and will come out of them in time.

Eugenics is a sinister topic that deserves a great pause. There are several key issues and parallels at play:

1) Treatments that increase the quality of life effect the population as a whole in mortality rates, and what established medical industries will it harm?
2) Possibilities this work lead to genetically superior "super men" , opening the pandora's box to designer babies and other man-made chimeras and monsters.
3) Life devaluation issues ex: Will people start blending up of lower class/poor/minority babies just to get their stem cells because life has become so "cheap" and abundant?
4) Can we label anyone a "volunteer" for anything that we want to do research on?

Oddly enough this is one thing that Bush got right for all the wrong reasons. He was correct in giving some time for the application of unproven technologies to sink in and let society stew a little on the ramifications.It was important for him to pick a side and get people to polarize their opinions to help along the public policy.

"Either way the embryo is still dead."

As a species, we have a certain amount of respect for our dead, whether or not you agree with it. There are laws on the books about how the dead must be prepared for burial, how casket vaults must be made around coffins to prevent the ground from sinking. Grave robbing laws came about because of the high demand for understanding anatomy by means of dissection. For a human grave we treat it with respect and attempt to protect it from desecration. Organ donation as a choice has evolved as an important act of volunteerism. One really big reason that people take issue with using a dead embryo is because they were not sentient volunteers acting on their own free will -- hence making them victims, and then adding insult to injury. Whether or not you believe them to be victims doesn't matter nearly as much as the idea that *someone else* might, and throw roadblocks up to block your agenda. There are people out there who believe that the means needs to justify the ends.

  I've read many books on eugenics,genetics, and bioethics over the years but none of them stands out so nearly as well as
When Medicine Went Mad I've been spending several months absorbing the debates and came to the conclusion that it is extremely important in terms of public opinion to do your research in such a way that is ethical, professional, and will not raise doubts or fears about the means in which your data is acquired to preserve and maintain the public trust.

Re:Existing lines

[JeanPaulBob]

The point is that if the bans were there, then the embryos wouldn't be destroyed in the first place.

This, of course, ignores comepletely that most embryos held by fertility clinics (and other sources) are ultimately destroyed anyway.

My view is simple: Why not recycle? If another use can be found for them, great. If not, that's fine too.

I take it you are unfamiliar with embryo adoption. It doesn't have to be that way--people killing these human organisms rather than letting them implant & continue developing.

But even if there weren't that option, it wouldn't be meaningless or ignorant to oppose using them for research. Suppose that you lived in a country where street bums were euthanized, and some wanted to use the wasted biological resources for research. They'll be destroyed either way. Is it meaningless to say, "No, we shouldn't do that"? Honestly, it's not a 100% straightforward question to me. But it seems that there would still be a point to making a stand, and saying, "We should not be treating them like this." Because everything that solidifies their dehumanization in people's minds will make it that much harder to resolve the injustice.

Re:Existing lines

[genericpoweruser]

Wouldn't it be more like forcing the vegetarian to fund beef farming through taxes (which we do anyway via farming subsidies)?

Re:Existing lines

[Omestes]

Jumping in here...

A bit of background, I am an atheist, and I am against abortion (except in the cases where the mother could die). I am not against stem-cell research though, because the cells were already extracted, and would be destroyed if otherwise not used. If every cluster was brought to term (an absurdity), then I would be against stem-cell research as well.

The reason I stated I am an atheist is to make it perfectly clear that I don't have an idea of sin, or "ensoulment" involved here, basically this is ethical and not a moral judgment. I bring up my opposition to abortion, because these are related issues, and I am for stem-cell research for the same reasons I am against abortion, and have the same caveats to my support as I do my opposition.

I also agree with the person above you; the "humanity" of an embryo is determined by its neurological properties. Without a brain, or a nervous system above a certain threshold of complexity, you cannot be considered to be human, much less sencient. The caveat here is potential, an embryo may be a person someday, and this must be weighed as well. In the case of abortion, the odds of fulfilling this potential is rather high left to its own devices, wherein the case of stem-cells the odds of reaching the point of being human is completely nill. The cells that we use for research will NEVER turn into people left to their own devices, and thus their potential is much much lower than an organic (in utero) cell mass.

We must weigh the potential here. Being a human is obviously the most important, but we must also balance this with the utility to science, and the well-being of humanity as a whole.

The caveat here is that I will not inflict these opinions on anyone, this should be the choice of the parent or donor. I say this because I am pretty sure I don't know any better than any other person, much less the people effected by these decisions. While being against abortion, I still am pro-choice, as I am towards stem-cells.

If you have a brain-dead dependent, you, granted power of eternity, can pull the plug. This should be no different for undeveloped cell masses in deep freeze. The donor should choose the fate. Not a bunch of self-righteous asses such as me and you (or really anyone else).

Re:Existing lines

[antic]

"If another use can be found for them, great."

Says someone called NecroPuppy! :o

Re:Existing lines

[shutdown -p now]

So, tell me then, when do human beings earn the right to not be destroyed and experimented on? Is it at birth? Is it after the first trimester? How about voting age? Don't have an answer? Me neither.

I don't have an answer to your question, but I can rephrase it slightly.

"When embryos definitely don't have any rights of a human being?"

The answer to that is crystal clear: they do not have any such rights until they develop a brain. No brain -> no conscience. No conscience -> no personality. No personality -> no rights. It's obvious that a bunch of cells doesn't have any of the above. It cannot even think, feel, or suffer.

Re:Existing lines

[interactive_civilian]

A few things:

A newborn is not "self-sustaining". Hell, I know a few 30-year olds that are not "self-sustaining". What about premature babies that require incubation? They are not "self-sustaining". Are they available for experimentation?

Also, embryos in a petri dish can survive outside the womb about as long as newborn.

I suspect that the GPP was saying "self-sustaining" as in "able to survive without being directly attached to the mother's life support". A newborn can obtain oxygen and get rid of carbon dioxide and other metabolic waste without having to be connected via an umbilical to the mother. One's take on that kind of alters the scape of your other questions. A premature birth can survive, grow, and develop without being directly attached to the mother's life-support. An embryo in a petri dish cannot, as we do not have the technology or knowledge to artificially replicate a womb.

significant nervous system complexity (somewhere between 9 to 20 weeks).

9 to 20 weeks is a big range. I'm guessing you are setting it so broad because you don't know.

Again I am assuming the GPP used such a big range for a number of reasons: different individuals will develop at different rates, different people will disagree what constitutes "significant nervous system complexity", etc. Therefore your example using an exact time measurement is inapplicable.

What happens in 20 years if we find out that embryos can feel pain without a nervous system? My point is that too many times, we've thought "things" couldn't feel pain or were labeled as not or less-than human with horrific results. We should have learned by now that man is not perfect enough to decide who deserves basic rights or what is human.

This is a nonsense question. To "feel pain" you need three things: 1.) a sensor to detect damage, 2.) a transmission system to send that information to 3.) a processor to interpret that data. In mammals, this requires a nervous system. It is part of our biology. No nervous system, no pain.

May I ask a question: are you against In Vitro Fertilization? In such situations, as has been mentioned numerous times, several eggs are fertilized, a select few most viable embryos are selected for implantation, while all others which may or may not be viable are destroyed. Is this murder in your eyes? I'm not trying to jump on your case, I'm just trying to gauge your consistency.

Re:Existing lines

[noundi]

You are nothing but a hypocrit. We know that at the very early stages of "life" a human embryo is almost equal to others, such as the chimp or the pig, but even a chicken embryo is almost identical. You justify this by adding a bullshit constant to the equation, the human embryo has a "soul". This complete and utter bullshit "allows" you to isolate "humans" (I put humans in citation marks because "humans" severely differ genetically, up to 12% of the genome) entirely from animals and plants. This bullshit of yours prevents important research to develop safer and more advanced medical treatment. I don't want to be forced to leave my child fatherless one day just because you're a selfish asshole. So you know what? Go fuck yourself.

Re:Existing lines

[Jarnin]

Is there a fallacy of stereotyping? Doesn't matter. Let me give you some advice: If you don't know what you are talking about, shut up.

The original poster is correct in his/her assumption. Great example of ad hominem though; take notes kids.

As a conservative, allow me to correct you and alleviate your ignorance.
Some of us conservatives are against embryonic stem cell research because it is killing human life for research purposes.

I end the quote there because it confirms the parents original statement:

anti-stem cell research, anti-abortion, and anti-sex education positions of conservatives is primarily motivated by sin.

This is the disconnect, folks: For those who believe the bible to be the words of God, the constitution will always come second. It doesn't matter if abortion, or stem-cell research or sex-ed is legal and accepted by the majority of the country. As long as people continue with this "Gods laws first and mans laws second" mantra, we'll continue to see doctors getting shot, kids getting pregnant and people with diseases untreated. But you get 72 virgins, right?

Look, I'm no expert, but when it comes to life, I like to think that it started some time around 3.8 billion years ago and it's an on-going event. The sperm is alive before conception. The egg is alive before conception. There really isn't any "Life begins here" line in human reproduction. It's the chicken and the egg, and it's a very tired argument.

And why is it that only human life is sacred, and only unborn humans? It's weird how fanatics pick their targets.

Re:Existing lines

[ppanon]

You basically got it all right. I deliberately put "self-sustaining" in quotes as an acknowledgement that premature babies, while developing independently of maternal placental support, may still need significant technological support (usually due to poorly developed lungs). I left the time range for nervous system complexity open for both reasons: an uncertainty in the actual appropriate level of nervous system complexity (insufficient data - we'll have a better idea after we develop Artificial Consciousness), as well as possible individual developmental variations (although the first criteria dominates the current error range).

And yeah, while consideration of the impact on donors is one of many important ethical considerations, the most important phrase in that whole post regarding the ethics of embryonic stem cell research is: an undifferentiated embryo has no nerve cells to feel, know, or want anything. If the belief that an embryo has a soul helps someone get to sleep at night in case they should die before they wake, then that's fine. But they can keep their unsubstantiated beliefs to themselves and out of medical/scientific ethics discussions. There are a lot of good reasons for keeping a strong ethical leash on human medical research, but that's not one of them.

Re:Existing lines

[Anonymous Coward]

Soylent Green.
Hey I'm all for food sources that violate thermodynamics & are offensive at the same time

Re:Existing lines

[Schadrach]

The problem with your "what about the day before" argument is that you can keep applying it. At a certain point, we have to try almost every woman between menarche and menopause who isn't currently pregnant with a murder every month for her body expelling an egg during her period. Of course, most males are also committing $BIGNUM murders every time they masturbate or use contraception. We'll be nice and assume that males not using contraception are doing due diligence to not murder endless potential children.

Re:Existing lines

[VariableRob]

I think it is viewed more as:
"Well, this guy was in an accident. We could attach him to a life-support system whereupon he will probably heal up and fully recover, or we could just wait, let him die and harvest his organs."
"We have more use for the organs, let's wait."

Re:Existing lines

[Hognoxious]

A newborn is not "self-sustaining". Hell, I know a few 30-year olds that are not "self-sustaining".

Unless you photosynthesize - and it wouldn't surprise me - neither are you.

Re:Existing lines

[Hognoxious]

Cow's milk mozzarella tastes different than mozzarella di bufala

Indeed. The former has no taste, because it doesn't exist.

Re:Existing lines

[Hognoxious]

My understanding was that they banned any institution that performed stem cell research from recieving federal funding for anything.

That's not unreasonable, when a significant portion of the population has ethical problems with it.

It's completely unreasonable if such people are not the majority and/or are not affected by it.

Re:Existing lines

[Hognoxious]

I guess you shortened it because of the /. sig limit?

It's not like those little words - "at least a little bit" change the meaning much, is it?

Re:Existing lines

[Hognoxious]

I have absolutely no background in biology, so I try not to say too much for fear of getting facts mixed up

It doesn't seem to stop the Texas School Board.

Then again, Arizona is no better. http://www.youtube.com/v/PtzJhTfQiMA

Re:Existing lines

[Anonymous Coward]

> 9 to 20 weeks is a big range. I'm guessing you are setting it so broad because you don't know. I don't either. Let's just say it's 14 weeks, 3.5 days. What about the baby that is 14 weeks, 2 days? Some babies mature at different rates than others. How do you know which babies have a nervous system? What happens in 20 years if we find out that embryos can feel pain without a nervous system? My point is that too many times, we've thought "things" couldn't feel pain or were labeled as not or less-than human with horrific results. We should have learned by now that man is not perfect enough to decide who deserves basic rights or what is human.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loki's_Wager

Re:Existing lines

[gbarules2999]

Oh no, no. No no no no no no.

Hey, look, Shia LaBouf made a cameo today on Slashdot!

Re:Existing lines

[LuvlyOvipositor]

I know a bunch of people with no personality, can I kill them too?

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[Sinbios]

Possibly it has the same stigma as cannibalism or necrophilia? Sure, the person is dead either way and most probably don't give a damn, but some would still consider the above acts morally reprehensible.

Re:Existing lines

[Sinbios]

The world probably would not miss them :)

Re:Existing lines

[mdarksbane]

Yes, I'm completely sure that all of the scientists doing this research would much rather be called baby-killers just to spite a bunch of conservatives than go with the easier and more effective route of not using embryonic stem cells.

Oh wait, except for that doesn't make any sense at all. Other methods of harvesting stem cells have been researched and developed because of these bans at great cost and effort. That doesn't mean they are easier, or even as effective. It also means that doctors were busy just developing those techniques instead of actually finding new ways to use stem cells to treat actual illnesses affecting people who are actually, as opposed to just theoretically, alive.

Believe me, if doctors could be doing this research as effectively without causing all this controversy and testing of their own morals, they'd be doing it in a heartbeat.

The embryos they are working on will never live. They will never grow into a person. They have already been kept for other purposes and if not used for stem cell research will be destroyed. To me this has the same level of moral complication as organ transplants - yes, there could be nightmarish scenarios where people are grown to be harvested, but we have laws and morals preventing that, and they work pretty well.

Re:Existing lines

[Augustine Agape]

The problem with any of this is that the embryo is a human being in it's earliest stage of life. So we are deciding to destroy the life of an individual so that we can make our lives better. Don't see how this can ever be considered a good thing.

Re:Existing lines

[pwfffff]

I think you wandered into the wrong topic. The embryos left over from IVF would be the children of the person getting the treatment. However, since they're LEFTOVERS, the person getting the treatment has already conceived and is on their way to bearing a child. Are you seriously proposing that we force other women to take on these embryos and carry them for 9 months until we get an extra 50 children, just so we wouldn't have to try and cure diseases with these extra cells?

I really hope you do understand the situation and just suck at analogies, 'cause that was way off.

Re:Existing lines

[Arterion]

A lot of things are human life. That doesn't make them a person. Tumors are human life. My arm is human life. Both are removed sometimes.

I would consider the conservative position more, were it at least consistent.

What about capital punishment?

What about drafts and warmongering policies?

What about torture?

What about medical insurance for all?

What about foreign aid, sanctions, and diplomacy to help nations who are victim to poverty, and easily preventable starvation and disease claims the lives of many?

If you kept a consistent opinion on the sanctity of life, then I might take you seriously.

Re:Existing lines

[Anonymous Coward]

Is a human not composed of billions of cells - cells as non-sentient as the cluster of cells we start with? By your logic how can a human give consent to be experimented on? Did my hair follicle give it's consent to have a hair removed? Did the cells at the bottom of my left foot give consent to be battered as I walked across the grass bare-footed? Did the bacteria (another organism) in my intestines give their consent to what I last ate? Oh what's that? You don't consider their opinions worth checking because they are non-sentient? Well that's why embryonic stem cells don't get to choose if they're experimented on. I can tell you for an absolute fact that they are not a human. Just like the dust that blows in the wind isn't a human. Why? Because it requires chemical and physical processes to become a human. Until the item being tested is of human origin and displays intelligence or at least meaningful feedback from stimulus human, life isn't present.

Re:Existing lines

[blahplusplus]

"Is the right to not be experimented on so unimportant that you guess when people get this right?"

You ignore the fact that any woman who has a her period and has not had sex with a man is killing someone without their consent, if my or your mother had been impregnated the month after *our embryo* came up to be fertilized we would not exist.

I agree with your concern and respect your sentiment and that you value human life but nature is passively cruel and doesn't care about us, you have an immune system for a reason yet nature devises ways and methods to try to overcome those defenses.

As much as we would hate to admit it, nature is not nice to us... the whole reason we have to use capitalism in the first place is because of scarcity and our own stupidity in being unable to manipulate reality to prevent our own deaths, diseases, and suffering.

I'm sure any of us given the power of god would not create a universe such as this in which we are weak and powerless that we have to create justifications for exluding people from resources and the benefits of our mutual hard work and co-operation, only the old know: Ideals and principles are guidelines only, and if there were better ways we'd choose them in a heartbeat over the endless bloodshed, stupidity, ignorance and strife that is our world and is constrained and enforced on us by nature itself.

Re:Existing lines

[Anonymous Coward]

wow continue with that and we will not be able to masturbate anymore because sperm is human cells

What about Menstruation? Do you want to prevent women form getting their period at the end of the month because the egg dies?

When does your thinking stops?

Re:Existing lines

[blahplusplus]

sorry, I should have said "only the mature know: Ideals and principles are guidelines only, and if there were better ways we'd choose them in a heartbeat over the endless bloodshed, stupidity, ignorance and strife that is our world and is constrained and enforced on us by nature itself."

Not to exclude anyone who's realized such things regardless of age.

Re:Existing lines

[ArcherB]

I guess you shortened it because of the /. sig limit?

It's not like those little words - "at least a little bit" change the meaning much, is it?

Yes, the sig limit forced the shortening.

And no, I don't think the "at least a little bit" changes the meaning. If anything, it drives the point home more. I really didn't want to cut it.

Re:Existing lines

[sexconker]

Then their argument will be:

"If we can make our own, then why use embryos at all?"

Re:Existing lines

[ArcherB]

Sperm and egg do not have the full 46 set of genes that make up a human being. A fertilized egg, however, does. And that fertilized egg is unique as its DNA matches neither parent.

Re:Existing lines

[omris]

That's why I'm "conservative" in my answer and simply say, "NO RESEARCH ON HUMANS WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT, PERIOD!"

I'm actually with you on this. But you forget one thing: we have all agreed that children cannot give consent, and their parents or guardians get to do that for them. So all of the embryonic stem cell lines are created with the consent of the donors, who are the figures with legal authority to give consent in this case.

All pediatric research uses consent from the parents. Stem cells are exactly the same. Kids aren't able to decide, which is why we don't allow them to vote or buy cigarettes.

When those embryos are allowed to vote, buy cigarettes, get married... then you ought to ask them. Until then, we just ask their "parents".

Re:Existing lines

[drakaan]

I have no opinion to interject on when life begins, etc, but you're ignoring the better results that we're getting from non-embryonic stem-cells. They have a lot of advantages (can be harvested from the same individual who needs to be cured, are an exact DNA match, don't require special storage, for starters), and there's no need to go off in the weeds on the whole morality issue.

It'd be nice if folks would wake up and say "hey, that's cool...stem cells from your own fat!", instead of going off one or the other deep end about morality and embryonic stem cell lines. During early stem cell research, they were important, but not so much today.

Re:Existing lines

[HungryHobo]

I'm all for stem cell research but the "human DNA is only slightly different from animal DNA so why not treat them the same" argument leads to HumanMcNuggets and HumanBurgers

Re:Existing lines

[omris]

I always thought that this argument was so backward. It's the same with stray cats. There are too many cats. We can keep some of them alive and find people to adopt some of them, but there are always more cats that cat adopters, so it consumes net resources. The cats will die, either through being stray (disease, starvation, hit by a car, poisoned with rat poison...) or when the available resources run out for the shelter while they await adoption (either starving or euthanasia, which seems less cruel to me).

Most people can agree that it would be better to not need to kill cats. But unless there are not too many cats, then we need to. And to minimize the number we need to kill, it takes resources. So if resources can be gained after the animals are euthanized, say by selling them to a high school for the advanced biology students to dissect, then the money can go to save more animals later. That's less net cats killed. That's GOOD, right?

It isn't meaningless to say that we shouldn't euthanize cats (or homeless people). But what you're really saying is that we shouldn't get anything good out of it. Which isn't the same. Work to stop the cause: there are too many homeless people, stray cats, unused embryos. Convince people to solve the original problem, not focus in on something unrelated that arises out of the current solution to the problem.

Why the hell do people need IVF to begin with. How about adopting some of the extra babies? There are a lot of extra babies. If people weren't inefficiently making more through IVF, there wouldn't be extra embryos do make stem cell lines out of, and it would be a moot point.

If you oppose euthanasia for homeless people, then oppose that. If you oppose using organs for research, then oppose that (although I hope you don't). But don't oppose using organs for research because you oppose euthanasia for homeless people. That's misguided.

Re:Existing lines

[Martin Blank]

I remember reading something about it back in the 1980s. There was an active ethical debate over the temperature research that was done, and while the two sides agreed on the accuracy of the data, they were essentially opposed on the basis of whether it was ethical to use data gained unethically.

It wasn't just temperature and pressure, though. Surgical and anesthetic techniques were tested first on prison and concentration camp inmates. A number of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and criminals found themselves the subjects of successful treatments to injuries or disease (some directly inflicted by the German government), only to be worked to death, murdered, or gassed before the war was over.

The Japanese did similar things, though with even less care, to the Chinese. Their research focused more on military matters, though. Data like the lethal blast radius of a grenade or artillery shell were gleaned by placing Chinese out on stakes at different distances from a shell to be exploded. The length of time someone could survive an untreated gunshot wound in different parts of the body under different conditions was investigated. Chemical weapons were tested in closed and open air conditions.

As servognome mentioned, though, the US (and quite a few other countries) engaged in unethical research, such as the Tuskeegee experiment (which started out ethically but changed over the years).

Back to the original point, the question is this: Is it ethical to use data gained unethically? If it is not ethical, then the victims suffered for nothing. If it is ethical, it risks a perception of approval of violating ethical guidelines if the results provide some benefit. It's not always an easy call when balancing the value of lives, whether past, present, or future, against the damage inflicted.

Re:Existing lines

[Augustine Agape]

Ahhh... A moral relativist. Well to that I must say that everyone should be able to decide what is right and wrong on their own terms and that we should throw out all of the laws that have been created because we are telling people what is right and wrong by handing out punishment for those things that are deemed to be against the law. Just as I must discipline my child by providing just punishment for things he has done wrong, we also do the same with the laws that are created. Basically the whole system we live under is based on the premise of being a self-righteous ass.

Re:Existing lines

[withoutfeathers]

Can you provide one example of an institution that was banned from receiving federal funding for performing stem cell research?

Re:Existing lines

[Terwin]

Oh, I see: the difference between a real person and a mass of useful cells depends on the available technology. So if I go to an undeveloped country I can experiment on premature babies because they do not have the technology to save them. Can I also experiment on people with (currently) untreatable cancer or AIDS?(if I can get parental permission of course, since that is the requirement we are using, no need to ask the patient)

As far as I know there is no reason an artificial womb could not be created eventually, we just have some problems to figure out first. As such, I see little difference between experimenting on a baby that is not savable by local technology and experimenting on a baby that is not savable by local technology when the local technology is some of the better stuff that is available(FDA testing ensures that by the time something is available for use it is no longer the best in the world because science is always advancing).

A few things:

A newborn is not "self-sustaining". Hell, I know a few 30-year olds that are not "self-sustaining". What about premature babies that require incubation? They are not "self-sustaining". Are they available for experimentation?

Also, embryos in a petri dish can survive outside the womb about as long as newborn.

I suspect that the GPP was saying "self-sustaining" as in "able to survive without being directly attached to the mother's life support". A newborn can obtain oxygen and get rid of carbon dioxide and other metabolic waste without having to be connected via an umbilical to the mother. One's take on that kind of alters the scape of your other questions. A premature birth can survive, grow, and develop without being directly attached to the mother's life-support. An embryo in a petri dish cannot, as we do not (yet) have the technology or knowledge to artificially replicate a womb.

Stick with adult stem-cells, that is where all the successful treatments are and it is pretty easy to get permission from the donor at that point as well.

Re:Existing lines

[Doctor Faustus]

As long as we just grow parts and not people with mostly complete nervous systems, what's wrong with that?

Re:Existing lines

[interkin3tic]

Sadly I think that's coming no matter what. The answer, which they won't like, is that embryonic stem cells are best for basic cell biology studies. You don't want to be using iPSC for that, because they're not true embryonic stem cells.

Re:Existing lines

[bckrispi]

So you're opposed to fertility clinics as well?

Re:Existing lines

[ppanon]

Well, that's where we fundamentally differ. I don't consider a mass of undifferentiated cells as a human being. To assert so is nonsense. Unless you've got plans for their implantation and growing into an adult (in which case they've got added value for their expected potential, but are still not a human being), it's just a small bunch of cells with human DNA and you shed more if you accidentally bite yourself while eating (or even brushing).

However, I am in favour of strong protection and limitations on the types of experimentation and uses of human DNA. Having a lot of it floating about in hybrids and chimaera would make it easier for the evolution of new dangerous pathogens that target humans (similar to how overuse/abuse of antibiotics in agriculture has accelerated the evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria).

Re:Existing lines

[bckrispi]

Once you realize that virtually all Universities and most research labs receive at least *some* government subsidies, you'll see the foolishness of your argument.

Re:Existing lines

[Martin Blank]

Cow's milk mozzarella does exist. It's called mozzarella fior di latte, and it is by far the most common mozzarella consumed in the US.

Re:Existing lines

[Toonol]

You don't see the foolishness (and danger) of Universities and research labs slavering after federal funds?

Re:Existing lines

[bckrispi]

!!!News flash!!!

(Wait for it...)

Basic Research is seldom profitable. Capitalists seek to make a profit. They tend not to fund endeavors that will return a loss. So barring perpetual grants from Paul Allen and Richard Branson at an order of magnitude higher than they currently are, the only way of adequately funding Basic Research is through government dollars.

Sorry, but reality kinda trumps libertarian utopian delusions.

Re:Existing lines

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a few possible candidate thresholds but, when it comes to destruction, the ones that make the most sense are:

1. "self-sustaining" viability outside the womb (currently around 22 weeks gestation) or
2. significant nervous system complexity (somewhere between 9 to 20 weeks).

I would say that you missed one: conception. The reason I personally use this point is that it is a solid point, the two you mention are hard to determine (both approximations), what happens in the error margins? At what point does a nervous system become 'complex'? What is special about that moment such that the fetus, which seconds before had no rights should suddenly be granted rights?

Using conception as a block point I can answer these questions. It is easy to tell if a cell is haploid of diploid, and the 'special' thing that occurred at the moment of conception is that the cell ceased to be a derivative of only its mother (or sperm of its father) and in it was created a genetically unique individual.

Re:Existing lines

[Anonymous Coward]

"So, tell me then, when do human beings earn the right to not be destroyed and experimented on?"

Once they begin storing state information (to use the computational parlance) via memory.
Before significant memory development, how can you argue that a human is anything more than an automaton?

(PS: I left out numbers because you seemed to troll a bit with them in your other response. It's a philosophical issue you're dealing with at base, so until you decide what you're looking for there's really no point in examining empirical data.)

(PPS: In full disclosure, I think you're probably a bit loony. Throughout my discussions with anti-evolutionists [not that I'm lumping you in that camp], they seem to have a broken discriminator in regards to "millions of years". Not to put to fine a point on it, but they just can't parse that statement. "Microscopic changes" + "millions of years" invariably returns statements such as, "So one day a fish had legs?"

Point of digression being, it seems the anti-embryo / anti-abortion camp has somewhat of a broken discriminator in regards to "a few cells". They look at a Petri dish and see a baby. Sorry, but no amount of rhetoric is going to make that so.)

(PPPS: As one of the first IVF children in my state [and first of my gender], I'll go ahead and categorically state that, were another embryo chosen for implantation, I would have no qualms about my own proto-tissue being sliced and diced into a medical product used to treat someone else's illness.)

Re:Existing lines

[modecx]

There's a few possible candidate thresholds but, when it comes to destruction, the ones that make the most sense are:

      1. "self-sustaining" viability outside the womb (currently around 22 weeks gestation) or
      2. significant nervous system complexity (somewhere between 9 to 20 weeks).

Mine is thus: If the subject were to be removed from the womb at its current stage of development, would an average human be repulsed/made extremely uncomfortable if he/she were forced to touch and hold it? Supposing it it were given a superficial cleaning, would an average human still have the same reservations? If the answer is yes to both accounts, it's not discernibly human.

The way I see it, humans (especially males) have to have a very sophisticated set of instincts which prevent them from willfully harming their offspring. Let's face it: in the animal kingdom, human infants reign supreme in the obnoxious department. At a fundamental level, we have to think they're cute, or our prehistoric ancestors would have bashed them all against rocks, and that would have been the end of our species.

The vast majority of people have this instinct in place--but it fails in a few of us occasionally, the screaming overwhelms, and you get shaken babies, babies in dumpsters, that kind of thing.

If an embryo, whatever can't pass the cute test, it's not a human.

Re:Existing lines

[Aklyon]

I agree with what you said.

Re:Existing lines

[Omestes]

Well to that I must say that everyone should be able to decide what is right and wrong on their own terms and that we should throw out all of the laws that have been created because we are telling people what is right and wrong by handing out punishment for those things that are deemed to be against the law.

You jumped to an absurd conclusion here, and if you noticed I didn't approach "moral relativism" here, since I applied rules and logic to my decision. But being that this issue is largely dependent on "faith" or your pre-existant ethical system, I cannot make an absolutist judgment.

This is different than murder, for example, since murder by definition of a fellow human being (hence the term homicide), we cannot say the same for undifferentiated cell-masses with any degree of authority though. Thus we must apply other metrics. I refuse, though, to apply religion (since it isn't universally applicable, one persons idea of the divine has no logical bearing on someone who has a different version of the divine), and thus am forced to apply "potential".

Uncertainty is not the same as relativism, if I was utterly convinced of my opinion (if this was possible in these cases), I would wish that it was accepted. Being that this is impossible, I leave it to the individual, who should always be the arbiter of value by default.

Basically the whole system we live under is based on the premise of being a self-righteous ass.

Sadly this is true, and this leads me to be a civil libertarian (albeit not an economic one).

Re:Existing lines

[noundi]

If you want to justify why humans should not be eaten you can do it perfectly well without involving made up information, such as the "soul". From a medical point of view any predator should avoid consuming any animal that has a similar genome. This is because you have a significantly higher chance of catching diseases if your DNA has many resemblances. Avoiding eating other predators also helps. Some religions, such as Islam and Judaism, strictly prohibit its followers to consume any predator. It is known that predators accumulate poisons as well, such as the sharks of the oceans that fish by fish become more and more poisoned from the small amounts of mercury that reside in almost any ocean fish today. The amount that the fishes contain aren't deadly, but you can imagine what happens if you eat 10 sharks that have each eaten 100 fish.

Religion isn't keeping humanity sane, rather on the contrary. We do what we fundamentally do because we know it's how to survive, then we adapt religion to fit that picture. With or without it we still wouldn't eat humans, for reasons that we seem to have forgotten due to the clouds of religion.

Re:Existing lines

[Augustine Agape]

Hmmm... Well I recommend you lop off a few skin cells and try implanting them into a woman's womb. In 9 months if you have a baby then I would say you've got a point. But I think we both know that that set of cells would not form into anything. So unless you can prove to me that that "mass of undifferentiated cells" (i.e. the human embryo) does not 100% of the time form a child if placed in a mother's womb and allowed to grow, then I think you've got it all wrong. The human embryo is the beginning of a human life. Just as a seed is the beginning of a plant's life. Destroy the seed and you destroy the plant. Destroy the embryo and you destroy the human. By the way, all of my cells, and yours, contain human DNA (except for the sperm and egg which only contain half of the human genome), but neither of us are capable of forming another human being from our cells. A human embryo is a set of cells, with unique human dna, that will grow to maturity if not destroyed first. Thus, it is a human being and not just a "mass of undifferentiated cells".

Re:Existing lines

[noundi]

I'm not ignoring other means. They are as useful as any other research. What I'm saying is that this topic is sensitive due to nothing but religion. Embryos aren't humans, they are the material that one day will form a human. The only thing you have in common with an embryo is some pieces of your DNA, so if we remove the bullshit factor "soul" you'd have to define what makes it human. You're a human and since your only connection to the embryo is certain parts of your DNA you can only justify the parallel by claiming that DNA resemblance to a certain extent defines a human. I don't identify myself with this. While I agree that it is a human embryo, it is however not a human being. It has no human traits. It is merely a vessel that had/has a probable potential of one day becoming a human being. Meanwhile real human beings are dying, our families and our friends. It might sound dramatic but it's still the truth. When religion began to intervene with the chances of people surviving I asked myself why I must tolerate it. Struck by logic, I couldn't find an answer. I leave it to the religious whom claim to passively believe while actively intervene with our everyday life, to justify why they should be allowed to deny life saving aid. Unfortunately the discussion always turns absurd when one side is detached from reality.

Re:Existing lines

[Augustine Agape]

Okay, so let's take your "murder" argument here and go with it. I'll make a philosophical argument that abortion is wrong, without appealing to a religion in any way.

We've got four options to look at when dealing with whether abortion is right or wrong.

1.) The embryo is human and we know it is human.

2.) The embryo is human and we don't know it is human.

3.) The embryo is not human and we know it.

4.) The embryo is not human and we don't know it.

-In option one we have committed murder if we abort the human embryo.

-In option two we've committed manslaughter if the human embryo is aborted. Someone may ask why this would be. If you were hunting in the woods and you saw something move, but you weren't sure if it was a human, or an animal, and you shot anyway and killed a human, then you would be charged with manslaughter. You weren't sure if it was human, or not, but you shot anyway.

-In option three we must ask, then what is the embryo. Is it a cat, dog, or possibly another mammal? Biology has proven that we are dealing with a human and I don't know of anyone who has proven otherwise.

-In option four we're looking at criminal negligence or at least a morally reprehensible act. Why is this criminal negligence or at a minimum, morally reprehensible. Let's imagine that a drug company released a drug to the population without first testing it. Now, they didn't know it wouldn't cause any harm, but the fact that they didn't do testing first means that they should be guilty of criminal negligence, or at a minimum they have performed a morally reprehensible act. Putting people's lives in danger because they decided they didn't want to test something is wrong and could be a punishable act.

Well, there you have it. Just about any way you slice it, you're dealing with a criminal act, or at a minimum, a morally reprehensible one. The one other option being that the embryo is not human, but science has proven otherwise in that case, so unless someone has some evidence to the contrary, option 3 is not an option at all.

Please let me know what you think.

Re:Existing lines

[Augustine Agape]

Ahhh... So if someone finds you completely disgusting to look at and decides they want to kill you, then that is okay? So either, you're joking, which I didn't catch on, or you haven't thought this premise all of the way through.

Re:Existing lines

[Augustine Agape]

What about those in a coma? Can we go ahead and kill them? Or how about somebody who was just knocked unconscious? Do we have the right to kill them too?

It seems that it is all to easy for those of us outside of the womb to classify others as having no rights. Anyone ever hear of the Dred Scott decision, or perhaps, ever read anying about Nazi Germany. It is so easy to take the rights from someone when you make them less than you.

Re:Existing lines

[Augustine Agape]

Your human arm and tumor cannot and will not ever grow into a mature adult if allowed to grow. That is the major difference between a human embryo and your two examples. And no neither can a human sperm and a human egg grow into a human. They must join to become an egg.

I'm against capital punishment.

Not all wars are right.

Torture is wrong, but you must define what torture is (most fraternities and soldiers would be guilty of torture, depending on your definition).

Last time I checked nobody is ever denied care in an emergency room (yes our health care system could be improved-but not sure if our government has the right ideas).

We give tons of foreign aid and where does it get the world. Unfortunately it goes to the wrong people, because as you and I know, most of the poorer nations have a lot of corrupt people in power. The money never makes it to the people who need it most. That and we're just throwing money down the drain unless we can jump start their economy in some way. The old saying applies here. âoeGive a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.â

Re:Existing lines

[Augustine Agape]

An egg is not capable of growing into an adult human and neither is a sperm. Therefore a period and ejaculation do not a killer make (the Catholic church does teach against the use of contraception and masturbation for the particular reason you suggest. You are taking your life giving potential out of the mix when you use contraception or masturbate.

God gave us free will. Now we wouldn't be free if we were forced to live in a specific way. And if you read the New Testament you would find that all the answers to are problems are right there. Unfortunately our society has become more me, me, me, over the years and become less about helping out your sisters and brothers (note-This includes everyone, not just your family).

Re:Existing lines

[Omestes]

I, for the most part, agree with your line of reasoning. The problem I have is using the term "human", we can choose to define this in many ways. I'm not choosing to use it as a "genetic lineage", but more as a moniker for a set of attributes which we value as "humanity", the forefront among these being some form of sentience or agency. Being merely of human lineage isn't enough, its too broad to actually work as a basis for ethical consideration.

If my living will has a "do not resuscitate" clause, would a doctor following these be murdering me (or committing manslaughter)? If I pull the plug on a relative in a permanent (persistent) vegetative state, is this murder?

These example relate to the question of abortion and stem-cell research in that the subject involved lacks any sort of agency for consciousness. They are wholly dependent on us, just like an embryo. In these cases these decisions generally fall to the relatives (or whoever has power of attorney), based on the same criteria I'm applying to embryos.

To be blunt, the level in which I value my fellow man (and all living things) is based on its levels of consciousness, self-awareness, and autonomy. You fall pretty high in these criteria, where a microscopic cluster of undifferentiated cells, or a brain-dead person does not.

Taking my criteria of person-hood (mainly the ability to act as such), then we can pretty much say that the early phases of an embryo is not a human yet. Lacking any central nervous system precludes the development of consciousness.

(for a broader idea of this path of reasoning, with a vastly different conclusion, check of Douglas Hofstadter's "I am a Strange Loop")

To restate, I agree with your argument using a purely genetic definition of "human". I find this definition too broad to be useful.

Re:Existing lines

[drakaan]

Okay, you and others differ on when a number of human cells is called human (again, we're off in the weeds on the morality argument, which is unnecessary). I have no opinion on whether embryos have souls. I likewise have no generalized opinion that all other homo sapiens have the requisite characteristics for me to consider them worthy of being called human, regardless of age. It's a natural extension of that line of thought, really.

The argument is about whether the embryos should be nurtured towards becoming possible humans, or whether they should be looked at as medical supplies.

I might not think a particular adult deserves to be cured of anything (maybe they're an incurable asshole), but it's difficult to make the same decision about an embryo (they haven't had a chance to prove that they're an asshole). If stems cells from a person's own body can have the same curative effect, and none of the trans-genomic issues, then both of those sets of emotional arguments are meaningless.

I have no problem with your passion, your point of view, or your explanation, I just want to say loudly that it is a non-issue today. A lack of embryonic stem cell research is not going to be the thing that causes people to die...the argument about it, and the focus that it takes off of existing, non-controversial research *will* be.

Re:Existing lines

[Anonymous Coward]

I had the most sensitive part of my body chopped off brutally AFTER I was born. I had no say in this, and I will never get it back.

Yet circumcision is still legal, and you want to claim the stem cells have the rights of a human being? Get real.

Re:Existing lines

[ppanon]

Using conception as a block point I can answer these questions. It is easy to tell if a cell is haploid of diploid, and the 'special' thing that occurred at the moment of conception is that the cell ceased to be a derivative of only its mother (or sperm of its father) and in it was created a genetically unique individual.

There's a fallacy there. Identical twins are genetically identical. They have different fingerprints, probably as a result of environmental variations during gestation, but they are genetically identical. Yet if I kill one identical twin, the courts aren't going to let me off because there's still another one alive.

So presumably, if we ever manage to successfully clone human beings, then the clone would also be a human being since it's effectively a time-shifted identical twin. So you couldn't kill a clone.

Now, I refer you to the first line of Terwin's post

"Oh, I see: the difference between a real person and a mass of useful cells depends on the available technology."

Well, I don't think so, and in fact that's why I'm not happy with the "viability" threshold for destruction, even though I acknowledged it as one of the possible options (I probably should have included a third option, the beginning of cell differentiation, but I consider ludicrously conservative).

That said researchers are now working turning certain specialized stem cells into types of more general (pluripotential) stem cells. Now suppose that we succeed and keep on going down this road, might we eventually be able to roll back bone marrow stem cells or even general purpose cells back to the embryonic stem cell stage? If so, then every time you have a nose bleed or cut yourself, you might be giving up cells which, with appropriate genetic manipulation and the hypothetical uterine replicators, could potentially be grown into a full separate human being.

According to your arguments, and since genetic uniqueness is not a criteria for humanity (see identical twin argument above), then in a hundred years or less somebody who cuts themselves and loses some blood and flesh might be charged with manslaughter or criminal negligence causing death because those cells were all potential human beings!

That's why I didn't list conception as an option.

So yeah, I don't know exactly what threshold level of neural complexity is an appropriate bound and we probably won't know for at least a few decades more. I think we can posit some reasonable lower bounds. Something between the neural complexity of a mouse's brain and a cat's brain. I would actually set the threshold at the size of the smallest brain of an adult mammal that would be considered an appropriate companionship pet by an adult human being (as opposed to an exotic pet like a snake). A ferret brain perhaps? How many weeks gestation does that put us at for a homo sapiens fetus?

Re:Existing lines

[Hognoxious]

it is by far the most common mozzarella consumed in the US.

That's your problem, right there.

I can make sparkling wine form root vegetables. Doesn't mean there's such a thing as turnip champagne.

Re:Existing lines

[Hognoxious]

And no, I don't think the "at least a little bit" changes the meaning. If anything, it drives the point home more.

That doesn't count as changing the meaning?

Re:Existing lines

[Augustine Agape]

I'll answer your questions on manslaughter first.

I've you've put down on paper that you do not want to be resuscitated then you have made that decision. The doctor is not making any judgements, instead he is just following your command. Therefore he cannot be charged with manslaughter, or should not be viewed as being immoral.

As far as the person in the vegetative state goes. This is a gray area. It depends a lot on the circumstances and is always a judgement call for those involved.

Now onto the real meat and potatoes. Your decision is much like the rest of the worlds decisions on the value of blacks during slavery. They found something that they could use to define the person (i.e. skin color) and then went on to equate that with a persons worth. Now I agree, a human embryo has yet to form many of the things that we consider to be necessary to live, but this does not change the fact that this is a human being in it's earliest stage of development. If you can prove me wrong on that I would like to see what you've got. Since we know that it is a human being and know that, precluding some unforeseen event, it will develop into an adult human being, then we should not destroy that human being's life because we've established that it does not have all of the qualifications of what some of us consider to be a human being. Your establishing a stage of development as a point at which you become a human being is quite similar to the Dred Scott decision deciding that skin color should determine your worth. If we use your line of reasoning then at some point in time someone else might decide that that line should be moved a little further. Perhaps too 30 days after birth. If you don't like the baby you received you have the right to kill it (philosopher Peter Singer argues for this). A quote from wikipedia "Singer argues that newborns similarly lack the essential characteristics of personhood â" "rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness"[28] â" and therefore "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living."

So by using your reasoning we can move the line around as we see fit. If we decide that a particular stage of human development determines when your life has value, then who knows where we can go from there. Okay wait, Nazi Germany, the KKK, and Nero all know where it goes from there. By reducing the value of any human life, whether it be for development, skin color, religion, or ethnicity, we are destroying what is most precious, the human life. If we do not respect all human life then we should expect a further decline in respect for human life in general (this can be seen in society already).

Re:Existing lines

[Omestes]

I suppose the key difference is that I am basing my definition of "human" on active principles, leading to a range of "human-like" characteristics that must be present to some degree in a subject to be able to fully consider it human, and thus grant it the same accord as I would wish granted upon myself (ala Kant). You seem to be, correct me if I'm wrong, trying to apply a purely binary criteria to define humanity. I'm guessing your using genes or the genetic make-up of an individual, though you haven't clarified this point yet.

Comparing this logic to racist ideologies is rather unfair, and ungrounded. You also are applying a certain criteria to instill human worth upon subjects. We have to, there is no way around it. We need a definition, so there always will be criteria to meet that definition.

Even the Peter Singer comparison isn't quite accurate (and calling him a philosopher is a stretch). I already stated that I am against abortion, so killing born children is even more inexcusable. As stated originally, agency and consciousness is only part of the debate, potential also plays a roll as well. Also Singer has a flaw there, babies are very much alive, and do seek to avoid some form of harm (as do all animals), and thus saying that they do not want to go on living is a rather a silly statement. It also is a rather odd statement coming from the founder of PETA, I'm guessing it was a reductio ad absurdum taken out of context.

As for the Nazi comparison, this also isn't true, we really can't move the line around when we remain objective and not let our ideologies cloud us. Hitler (and other classical morons) didn't use logic to determine human worth, they used it as a post hoc justification to their own pre-existent opinions. NOTHING can stop this. If we accept a purely genetic definition of humanity, a person who really dislikes another class of people can easily say "these people have a malformed expression of gene x, and thus are not people", if they even try for logical justification.

Out of curiosity, what is your views of capitol punishment? Or War (in general), etc?

Re:Existing lines

[Augustine Agape]

Yes, I am using a more binary form of logic. But I think it is applicable in this circumstance. Again, an embryo is the beginning of the human life-cycle. A seed is the begging of a plant's life cycle. If you destroy either one, you have destroyed it's life. What you propose to do is place yourself in God's position. You would like to propose when life begins based on when you feel there is a resemblance to the human form (most normally refer to sentience as being the point that an embryo/fetus should be considered human). This relates directly to racism.

Racism is the opinion that someone because of skin color, or ethnicity, is less than yourself (not referring to you in particular) and others of your kind. Now what most in the pro-legalized abortion crowd would like us to believe is that the child in the mother's womb is worth less than a human being outside of the womb (although babies that are born alive during an abortion are sometimes still considered to have less value than the rest of us - i.e. they do not try to save them from death). So yes, the pro-legalized abortion crowd is promoting the same kind of injustice as racism. They are defining at what point you should receive basic human rights. We all know that the human embryo will grow to become a human baby --> toddler --> adolescent --> adult. Those are the stages of the human life-cycle and the embryo kicks it all off. Without the embryo the human race ceases to exist. You can have all the sperm and the eggs you want to, but if they don't combine to form the human embryo then human life ceases to exist. By deciding when human life matters we are being developmentalist (yeah, I just made it up - not real catchy, but you get the drift). We're deciding at what point in that human's life they actually deserve our respect.

On genetics use in this argument. My using genetics to define an embryo as human, does not invite people to do things they have not already done. I've asked that we respect life from the beginning and do not place ourselves in God's seat when deciding when an individual has value. Ethnic cleansing, racism, and abortion have to assume that they have more value than whomever's life they are taking, otherwise they would have a hard time living with what they are doing (some do have a really hard time with what they have done).

I am against capital punishment and I think a quote from Gandalf explains this quite well. "Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends." -Gandalf (Lord of the Rings)

I feel that war is a different ball game. All wars are not good, but some are. None can argue that we should not have fought against the Nazis, yet some would have us believe that wars should never be fought. If you placed these same individuals in a room with someone else who intended to kill them, I think most, if not all, would fight to the death, so that they may live. Killing is permissible when there is justification (e.g. War with Nazi Germany or killing a man who is about to kill an innocent person).

How many lives have been lost?

[QuantumG]

During the 6 years that this has been banned how much research into life saving treatments has been delayed? How many living, breathing, people have been denied these treatments? How many more will die over the next 10 years that could have been saved?

And all to placate the extreme pro-life fringe, who count fertilized embryos (that would be destroyed anyway) as sacred, and the ignorant who continually refer to "aborted fetuses" whenever the subject comes up.

For shame.

Re:How many lives have been lost?

[CrimsonAvenger]

During the 6 years that this has been banned how much research into life saving treatments has been delayed?

Probably none at all. It's not like the "ban" prevented research, it just prevented Federal funding for research. And it didn't even really prevent that, as long as you were willing to abide by Federal rules.

BLOCKQUOTE>How many living, breathing, people have been denied these treatments?

Zero. Latest guesstimates I've seen say it'll be 20 years minimum before any of these treatments get all the way through clinical trials to general use. So none of them would be ready for use today, even if we'd started six years back.

How many more will die over the next 10 years that could have been saved?

Zero. See above. If we'd started six years ago, best guess says we'd have no usable treatments for another 14 years.

Again, note that President Bush's "ban" wasn't actually a ban. It wasn't even a ban on Federal funding (for that, we have to drop back to Clinton's Presidency, when no Federal funding for stem cell research was available at all).

Was Bush's "ban" a good thing? I doubt it, myself, but it's arguable.

Would we be better off if it had not been done? No, since absent his "ban", we'd have been operating under the old rules (which WAS a ban).

Would we have these miracle cures available now? No. Clinical trials take much longer, especially when we're dealing with "treatments" that might give us novel new cancers.

Would they be available soon? It'll be a bloody miracle if I live that long, but then I'm an old guy with cancer.

Would they be available SOONER? Probably. Probably not soon enough to do anything for me, even assuming they'd fix what I have.

Re:How many lives have been lost?

[QuantumG]

It's pretty obvious that you have no idea what you're talking about.

Bush didn't just ban federal funding for stem cell research.. he also vetoed a bunch of bills that were approved by Congress to enhance and invigorate national research on therapeutic stem cell research.

 

Re:How many lives have been lost?

[Anonymous Coward]

The site is full of lies and misinformation.
The whole thing is one large logical fallacy.
People stopped doing research. on embryonic stem cells, continues on adult stem cells.
SO OBVIOUSLY MORE PROGRESS HAS BEEN MADE ON ADULT.

Of course, if you bothered to read and think for yourself you would now about the serious flaws we have with adult stem cells at the moment, and you would also understand the political realities of banning federal funding on a project.

So get you mother fucking beliefs out of my science, you poor excuse for a limp wristed cum stain.
People of your ilk are way there was a dark ages.

Re:How many lives have been lost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent -1, Kook.

Re:How many lives have been lost?

[sonnejw0]

Yes, precisely none I would say. There are firms in Europe that supposedly inject patients with stem cells that supposedly have cured patients from everything from diabetes to spinal cord injury ... and of course these are testimonials on their website, none of these stories appear in peer-reviewed literature. I am a graduate student of Neurobiology, and I must say, none of the professors with whom I converse are at all interested in doing stem cell research, and I am also completely uninterested in embryonic or adult stem cell research and not because I'm not interested in regenerating brain or spinal tissue. My current research is looking at administering native signal peptides which signal the body's stem cells that are sitting in waiting throughout the body to divide and proliferate in a controlled, local, and specific way. These signaling compounds are being found now, and there are no moral or scientific issues with this approach. There are several labs at my institution doing this work, some for regenerating neurons of the spinal cord in mice, motor neurons (palegics), neurons of the hippocampus and basal nuclei (alz and parkinsonism), etc. This is at this point an established field with therapeutics being designed for clinical trials now. Personally, I cannot understand the desire to inject people with foreign cancer cells, which is precisely what stem cells are, whether they are adult or embryonic. These foreign stem cells have unlimited potential to divide and are in competition with the patient's immune system, providing vast selective pressure on a set of foreign cells with, again, unlimited potential to divide and travel through the body. Sounds horrid to me as a medical scientist and as a potential future patient! Just my quasi-professional opinion and my limited observations in my location.

Re:How many lives have been lost?

[SocratesJedi]

So you claim that there isn't any chance that we will ever discover a use for cells that have the capacity to differentiate into any tissue type found in the body?

If it was already well-understood how to use them effectively, it wouldn't be called research.

Re:How many lives have been lost?

[thejuggler]

You're the one that is misinformed. President Clinton was the first President to deny Federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. President Bush was the first President to actually provide funding for embryonic stem cell research.

Read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell_controversy#Origins

Re:How many lives have been lost?

[Anonymous Coward]

You argue as if the research will result in definite "gain" (in terms of means or quality of life), not "knowledge" regardless of being applicable or not. That point alone, I cannot agree with. Science and scientific research isn't to save lives. It may be applied to do so, but the primary goal isn't to save lives. So your argument for "gain/lost" is not rational but rather emotional (as in "Think of the children!").

I do understand that we lost few years of scientific advantage due to restriction and lack of government funding, but to say that we lost lives because of it, it's dishonest. Another way of looking at it is that because of those restriction, we found other (perhaps better) ways to repair tissues using adult stem cells. If we later (hypothetically) were to find out that embryonic stem cells are useless to do anything useful, how many people do you think were lost? Would you still support funding embryonic stem cell research?

I'd say, anything worth knowing, it's worth doing research regardless.

Re:How many lives have been lost?

[QuantumG]

Ya, I don't disagree with your sentiment. However, what Bush blocked was specifically the immediate and direct clinical trials of therapeutic stem cells. The trial that was supposed to start before the ban has already been started now that the ban has been lifted. If it is a success we will be able to directly measure the people who died as a result of the ban.

Re:How many lives have been lost?

[hedwards]

It tends to be completely arbitrary. Abortion bad, IVF good, Stem cell research bad etc. I for one am willing to go along with IVF being legal if we can at least gain research embryos from the spares. I've felt for sometime that it was egregious to purposely create embryos that wouldn't be given the opportunity to grow or serve any other purpose.

I don't like abortions personally, but I like government interference in ones bedroom less, and most of the time it's not a matter of people not caring enough to use protection anyways.

Re:How many lives have been lost?

[DerekLyons]

During the 6 years that this has been banned how much research into life saving treatments has been delayed? How many living, breathing, people have been denied these treatments? How many more will die over the next 10 years that could have been saved?

If stem cell research had been banned - those would be valid questions. But stem cell research was never banned - rather, the uses to which Federal funds could be applied were limited.
 
 

And all to placate the extreme pro-life fringe, who count fertilized embryos (that would be destroyed anyway) as sacred, and the ignorant who continually refer to "aborted fetuses" whenever the subject comes up.

Someone who repeats the outright lie about stem cell research being banned should ponder very carefully before calling other people ignorant.

Re:How many lives have been lost?

[Anonymous Coward]

i'd love to see some reputable sources here

Re:How many lives have been lost?

[johnsonav]

During the 6 years that this has been banned how much research into life saving treatments has been delayed?

That's a good question; one that may have a terrible answer.

An equally good, but probably unanswerable, question is, "How much good did Bush do--in the long run--for embryonic stem cell research by making the decision he did?" Like it or not, six years ago, a sizable percentage of the US population had strong reservations about embryonic stem cell research. Would pushing the law so far ahead of public opinion have done any good, in the long term?

For example, look at Roe v Wade. It can be argued that public opinion had been slowly moving to the pro-choice end of the spectrum before the case had been decided, and that abortion would have been legalized legislatively in the US. However, by forcing the issue, and legalizing abortion judicially, before the population was "ready" for such a change, we are left with the political climate we have today. Here we are, 36 years after Roe v Wade, and abortion is still a huge issue and the primary consideration for Supreme Court nominees.

The last six years, as stem cell research has slowed as a result of Bush's decision, has given society a chance to "catch up" to the current medical state of the art. Hopefully, that means that 36 years from today, embryonic stem cell research won't be the polarizing political issue that abortion is right now.

I'm not arguing that Bush's decision was necessarily the correct one. But, medical research is a long, expensive process. Thirty six years from now, how many people would devote the considerable time and resources toward research on embryonic stem cells, if their work could be halted by the next Supreme Court appointment?

It may be the case (though we'll never know) that Bush's decision saved more lives than it cost, purely by allowing society to catch up to medicine, and hopefully preventing the emergence of yet another polarizing political litmus test.

Re:How many lives have been lost?

[Poppa]

It was *not* banned. What was restricted was the federal funding for the research.

There was no restriction in private companies being able to do the research. What is truly shameful, is that the Liberals have used this issue for political gain, by obfuscating the issue as you have by implying that all research has been banned.

Liberals think all problems can be solved by sending men with guns to take your hard earned money for their social programs. If the research was so promising, then there are a number of companies that would jump at the chance to make a profit off of it. Pharmaceutical companies have deep pockets.

For shame, Liberals.

Re:How many lives have been lost?

[withoutfeathers]

Completely untrue. There was no ban or "block" on clinical trials of any stem cell therapies. In fact dozens of stem cell therapies became available during the Bush years.

Name the therapy that was held up until "now." Of course you can't because it doesn't exist. The clinical trial that was announced in February (of this year) was for a therapy that had been developed over the previous six years using private money.

As the FDA emphasized in the announcement, clinical trials were approved as soon as the researchers demonstrated that they were ready to begin.

Re:How many lives have been lost?

[do_kev]

How many living, breathing, people have been denied these treatments?

Zero. Latest guesstimates I've seen say it'll be 20 years minimum before any of these treatments get all the way through clinical trials to general use. So none of them would be ready for use today, even if we'd started six years back.

How many more will die over the next 10 years that could have been saved?

Zero. See above. If we'd started six years ago, best guess says we'd have no usable treatments for another 14 years.

Regardless, we have now wasted 6 years of research, and are thus 6 years further away from treatments had we not done so. No lives may have been savable as yet, but in 14 years when the treatments would have been ready (instead of the 20 years when they now will be,) people will start dying who could have been saved.

And yes, you can make the argument that the research will proceed more quickly when we are more technologically advanced, but there will nonetheless have been a significant amount of time that was lost, which will ultimately correspond with lost lives.

Would they be available SOONER? Probably. Probably not soon enough to do anything for me, even assuming they'd fix what I have.

While I am very sorry to learn of your condition, if the criteria by which you evaluate this issue are inherently self-interested, then I think you're missing the whole ethical portion of the debate.

Bad Summary

[CorporateSuit]

There was no ban on embryonic stem cell research. There was a ban on the federal government using tax dollars to fund embryonic stem cell research.

Re:Bad Summary

[NecroPuppy]

Which, for more than a few labs or research centers, was effectively a ban.

While some locations were able to get private funding (and thus get around the relatively useless lines approved by the Bush govt), this sort of blue sky health research has generally seen a lot more money from the government.

Because of that ban, for example, DARPA couldn't effectively spend money on research into experimental treatments for spinal cord injuries involving stem cells. Now they can. And, quite likely, will.

Re:Bad Summary

[DaHat]

By that logic... the federal government is banning me from owning a poney.

Damn it man... I want my (government paid for) poney!

Re:Bad Summary

[NecroPuppy]

If you can't spell it, you can't have it.

That's the law... that I just made up. (Thanks to Eddie Izzard for the line.)

Re:Bad Summary

[jo_ham]

It was effectively a ban, since if you ran any privately funded stem cell research in the same labs as any work (even with nothing to do with stem cells), the federal funding would be withdrawn for that research.

Re:Bad Summary

[interkin3tic]

There was no ban on embryonic stem cell research. There was a ban on the federal government using tax dollars to fund embryonic stem cell research.

Sounds nice when you put it like that, but in practice it's extremely difficult to make sure you're not spending federal grants on your HESC research projects. And, you know, there's just not enough red tape and bureaucracy with medical research. The ban on federal funds didn't ban research, sure, but it was definitely an obstacle designed to hinder the research as much as possible.

http://today.ucsf.edu/stories/ucsfs-kriegstein-says-bush-veto-disappointing-but-field-advancing/

Re:Bad Summary

[oldhack]

Mod this puppy up.

Much basic research is funded publicly, but when it comes to medical research, fogetabatit. Check out the federal budget for science research, and see the proportion for NIH. DARPA, NASA, etc. can't hold a candle.

Re:Bad Summary

[DaHat]

You assume I am looking for a run of the mill pony... oh no! I want one of those genetically engineered super pony's... unfortunately 'Super Pony' just doesn't have a good enough ring to it so we call them "Poneys" given the amount of money required to create them ;)

Re:Bad Summary

[ricree]

As I understand it (and I'm sure someone will correct me if i'm wrong), the ban didn't just mean that researchers were unable to receive grants for stem cell research. They were also forbidden from using any equipment that had ever had been paid for with federal funding. For many labs, then, this was effectively a ban.

Re:Bad Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

It was effectively a ban, since if you ran any privately funded stem cell research in the same labs as any work (even with nothing to do with stem cells), the federal funding would be withdrawn for that research.

That's not true at all. You just couldn't use equipment paid for with federal funding to run embryonic research using a non-approved cell line. In a couple of labs, work was even done in the same physical location, just some of the equipment had labels to say which equipment was which.

Re:Bad Summary

[amilo100]

You are correct, except for the fact that federal funding could still be used for embryonic stem cell research if it was one of the presidential lines. It is sad to see that the policy is so completely misrepresented.

I prefer to look at it another way: Why not ban federal funding (tax dollars) for that part of stem cell research that 50% of the population finds wrong?

Re:Bad Summary

[argStyopa]

I call complete Bullshit on that.

If the cures were so certain, so promising, so inevitable as you state, then private research dollars would have been forthcoming. But see, venture capitalists don't rely on vague handwaving and (honestly) politically-motivated criticism to invest their $$, they rely on facts.

Let's be clear - academia hated GW Bush, and this was just another way that they could pile on.

Moreover, you're asserting, then, that without US GOVERNMENT FUNDING no other country in the WORLD is capable of making technological breakthroughs in stem cell research? The US was the only country with such a ban...yet none of these absolutely certain therapies seemed to materialize, despite fervent research by the Chinese, the British, the French, the Germans, and the Koreans - and those are just the ones I've been following closely.

No, I call that utter hyperbolic bullshit from the 'addicted to sucking from the government teat' crowd.

Meanwhile totally disregarded is the fact that researchers have been successful in generating untainted, pleuripotent stem cell lines from other sources...obviating the need for foetal sources ANYWAY.

Re:Bad Summary

[Hognoxious]

In a couple of labs, work was even done in the same physical location, just some of the equipment had labels to say which equipment was which.

It's still under the same roof. Did the stem cell researchers have to enter through a different, non-federally funded door?

I've seen the duplication of equipment you mention, but I'm sure most labs just thought it wasn't worthwhile and gave up. That's what the government intended all along.

Re:Bad Summary

[Gogo0]

So then if I cant afford to purchase a Lexus, then Im BANNED from driving one?
No, if they cant afford to do stuff without federal funding, then maybe they should do something else.
Why does EVERYONE deserve federal funds for EVERYTHING? Federally funded swine smell research in ohio (or wherever it was) benefits people, but it was decried as wasteful spending.

There was never a ban on research

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people refuse to get this right? There was never a ban on embryonic stem cell research, just a ban on federal funding of such research... Geesh. Personally, I wish there was a ban on a lot more federal funding of a lot more things. If our politicians would actually READ the Constitution and abide by it, maybe we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

Re:There was never a ban on research

[MightyMartian]

Why do people refuse to get this right? There was never a ban on embryonic stem cell research, just a ban on federal funding of such research... Geesh. Personally, I wish there was a ban on a lot more federal funding of a lot more things. If our politicians would actually READ the Constitution and abide by it, maybe we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

No kidding. All them negroes would still be working in the cotton and tobacco fields like they were meant to, and any finding their way to the free states would be sent back in shorter order to their rightful masters.

Re:There was never a ban on research

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. All them negroes would still be working in the cotton and tobacco fields like they were meant to, and any finding their way to the free states would be sent back in shorter order to their rightful masters.

Fortunately, in the case of slavery, someone DID read the Constitution. They used the process that is built in to it to AMEND it! They didn't just decide to interpret it, they changed it. That's much different than just ignoring what it says.

Re:There was never a ban on research

[Nefarious Wheel]

All them negroes would still be working in the cotton and tobacco fields like they was meant to

There, fixed that for you.

(Yes, I know you were applying sarcasm, couldn't resist ;)

Re:There was never a ban on research

[MightyMartian]

After the Confederacy had been beaten into the ground. That's rather like saying "Germany legally surrendered on May 7, 1945". Well yes, it did, but only because the Allies occupied the entire bloody country, having beaten it nearly to a pulp. You'll still get the Ron Paulites saying that Lincoln was the biggest enemy the Constitution ever had.

Re:There was never a ban on research

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, the good old days.

Let's be accurate here.

[caladine]

The new rules, which go into effect today, follow President Barack Obama's March 9 executive order lifting a ban on embryonic stem cell research, an order that went into effect under his predecessor, George W. Bush. ...

In the interest of accuracy, I wish people would stop calling it a "ban on embryonic stem cell research".

While calling it a all out "ban on embryonic stem cell research" makes a great sound bite, it's horribly inaccurate. It was only a ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research for stem cell lines created after August 9, 2001. If you were willing to fund it yourself, you were free to do so. Bush's executive order didn't change that part at all which the misleading sound bite alludes to.

Now, with that interjected, back our regularly scheduled flame wars on this topic.

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[QuantumG]

And the MJF foundation did exactly that. Thing is, about 12 months after the ban there was no-one in the US willing to do the research. They saw the writing on the wall and declined to martyr themselves.

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[caladine]

And the MJF foundation did exactly that. Thing is, about 12 months after the ban there was no-one in the US willing to do the research. They saw the writing on the wall and declined to martyr themselves.

Maybe I'm being a bit of a prick but I translate what you've just said to be this:

And the MJF foundation did exactly that. Thing is, about 12 months after the ban there was no-one in the US willing to do the research. They were too busy whining about not being able to dip into taxpayer money to do any work.

The fact of the matter is that they could have done work on existing cell lines with taxpayer support, or done work on new cell lines with someone else's money. They elected to whine about the funding rather than spend time doing actual research. Any real "ban" was self-imposed. Declining to martyr themselves? Please, that's just more whining from the purely anti-Bush crowd (you know the type, no matter what Bush does, it's pure evil). For the record, I'm pro-research, but I just can't bear the whining on the subject.

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[QuantumG]

Understand this, any institution that took federal funding for any research was banned from doing stem cell research.. so basically what you're saying is that they should have started a completely new lab, separated themselves from the rest of their scientific community, to do underfunded research. Well obviously they're just whiners.

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[caladine]

Yes, they're whiners.

Corporations set up separate legal entities all the time to mitigate liability. Software companies will do this to mitigate losses when working with open source, for example. If they believe that new embryonic stem cell lines really are the holy grail, then why didn't they? It seems to me this is just someone chafing against a restriction rather than doing anything about it.

Understand this, any institution that took federal funding for any research was banned from doing stem cell research with new embryonic stem cell lines .

Fixed, emphasis mine. What exactly was stopping them from using the existing stem cell lines? I don't believe I've ever received a satisfactory answer for this other then "They just couldn't!" To be fair, I don't think anyone ever really got past the word "ban" to even look at problems with existing cell lines, but that's no excuse. I'd actually appreciate if you have a link of some kind to why existing cell lines were insufficient (I'm being serious.).

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[jo_ham]

Yeah, so they find some private funding and start working on those stem cells... and then all of their buddies doing work on, say, wind turbines, or new battery technology, or any other scientific research of any discipline in any field would have their federal funding removed because there was private funding of stem cells going on in the same institution.

I'm sure that wouldn't have upset anyone, eh?

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[QuantumG]

If you would like me to direct you to some recommended reading, Wikipedia is always a good starting point:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embryonic_stem_cell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell_controversy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_Cell_Research_Enhancement_Act

But you seem to just want to pretend you know what you're on about, and make obviously ignorant arguments, rather than actually learn anything.

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[maxume]

The ban on federal funding limited interest, but no-one is an overstatement:

http://www.news.wisc.edu/11985
http://www.news.wisc.edu/15508

(The second article talks about iPS cells; My take is that they are also willing to work with hES cells.)

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[rhakka]

it's called research rather than developement because when you do research, you don't know if your research is going to be useful or not.

That is why private money prefers surer bets, of which there is usually enough to justify investment in preference to actual research.

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[interkin3tic]

Corporations set up separate legal entities all the time to mitigate liability.

If we were talking about a paper issue that would be great, assuming researchers could afford the cadre of lawyers that corporations use (which they can't). But we're actually talking about physical labs, not imaginary companies.

What exactly was stopping them from using the existing stem cell lines? I don't believe I've ever received a satisfactory answer for this other then "They just couldn't!"

Some labs may have been heavily invested in a line of stem cells created after that date. For example, switching to another cell line is incredibly wastefull if you've already spent millions on microarray analysis of a new stem cell line that happened to have been made after the magic date.

Some necessary stem cell lines have not yet been created. If you want to study an inherited disease, say one that causes brains to be malformed, you might want to study how neurons differentiate. Generating a stem cell line from an embryo that would have that disorder would be more convinient, not to mention more humane, than having carriers of the disease continually reproduce and harvesting the fetuses after they've started growing brains.

There's no guarantee that the existing stem cell lines are good for all things that ESC could be used for.

And it's an artificial distinction that pointlessly limits research in a developing field. If you have an ethical problem with ESC, using existing lines is still problematic. If not, there's no reason for the ban.

Not an exhaustive list, and I think if you searched there are plenty of people who have better answered questions like yours.

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[ring-eldest]

A "ban on federal funding for X, Y, and Z" is effectively a ban on X, Y, and Z.

Take abstinence only sex-education for example. I'm not sure what the current situation is, but for a long time schools either taught abstinence only sex ed (no instruction about condom use. No mention of birth control at all, unless it paints the users as morally bankrupt) or they had to stop taking certain funds from the state and federal government. There aren't too many school boards that will vote to turn down money... Even if it hurts the kids.

If you control the purse strings, you control the outcome. Are you surprised people see this as a ban?

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Look stupid, it's simple: most basic research in the US is funded by federal tax dollars. Hell it very well could be a majority in the entire fucking world. The problem with Bush's restricting research to the 60 stem cell lines is twofold: stem cell lines are not created equal, and it wasn't actually 60 cell lines. It was actually only 11 stem cell lines, when you removed minor modifications, duplications, non-genetically viable lines, contaminated lines, and the like. That's not enough, and put a black cloud over highly promising work in all stem cell-related work, setting back important science by a decade. Any resulting deaths from treatments delayed are on Bush's already blood-covered hands.

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[caladine]

Thank you, this is exactly the kind of response I was looking for. QuantumG spent his entire "conversation" trolling me rather than answer my questions. I don't understand why some people have to get so hostile just because they're hiding behind a handle.

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[caladine]

None of which answer the questions I was actually asking. I know what stem cell research is (embryonic and otherwise), thank you.

Thankfully, interkin3tic posted below some well reasoned arguments to answer what I had been asking from the beginning. Suggestion: Take a look at that kind of reply, it's actually useful! I know I will, since I'm nearly as guilty as you are about making pointless replies. :-p

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[jnaujok]

Which would be a wonderful argument, if the "magic date" wasn't the date that Bush announced the ban on federal funding. So you'd have to be heavily invested in researching a stem cell line that was harvested... tomorrow. Doesn't seem like that was a high likelihood. Your straw man is a bit weak there.

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[interkin3tic]

QuantumG spent his entire "conversation" trolling me rather than answer my questions. I don't understand why some people have to get so hostile just because they're hiding behind a handle.

Asking questions that have been answered elsewhere is a favorite tactic of certain trolls. Creationist trolls for example often say things like "Let me ask this: do we have any proof that macroevolution happened and made humans" and if you actually answer they'll launch into their standard arguments... I kind of thought you were doing that as well and mostly wanted to see what the arguments against the above points were going to be.

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh so sorry, it was just "effectively a ban".

What's the point of your fucking semantic argument?  It was, in actuality, a nearly complete ban.

Dumbfuck.

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[argStyopa]

...nor did Bush's executive order have any impact on funding for such research in any other country, yet THEY haven't produced any of the purported and inevitable 'miracle' cures in the meanwhile....

So either:
- the assertion that embryonic stem cells were critical to medical breakthroughs and that the lack of Federal funding has caused people to die from otherwise treatable conditions was just politically-motivated hyperbolic bullshit, or
- every other country in the world is incompetent in the field of stem cell research, and unless US researchers using government dollars are able to find the use for stem cells, nobody will.

Go ahead, pick one.

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[Attila Dimedici]

The new rules, which go into effect today, follow President Barack Obama's March 9 executive order lifting a ban on embryonic stem cell research, an order that went into effect under his predecessor, George W. Bush. ...

In the interest of accuracy, I wish people would stop calling it a "ban on embryonic stem cell research".

While calling it a all out "ban on embryonic stem cell research" makes a great sound bite, it's horribly inaccurate. It was only a ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research for stem cell lines created after August 9, 2001. If you were willing to fund it yourself, you were free to do so. Bush's executive order didn't change that part at all which the misleading sound bite alludes to.

Now, with that interjected, back our regularly scheduled flame wars on this topic.

Actually one further nit, George W. Bush's executive order did change that part...it made funding available for that part.

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[Straif]

So, following your logic, ALL meaningful research in the world can only be done in the US through Federal funding so ANY research denied funding should be held against Bush (since no other President ever denied anyone anything in the far left world you seem to exist in), even if most treatments resulting from that research are only in the realm of pure hypotheticals with no proof of viability, even in countries that have no such 'ban'.

And how does the fact that Bush was actually the first President to ALLOW ANY federal funding for stem cell research, overriding an actual ban from the Clinton years (that was the leader of the US from the 'before time', that dark mysterious past from which you, and most media organizations, apparently have no records) fit into your narrative?

Only in far left academia, and the MSM can a person be made the poster boy for anti-stem cells by actually giving hundred of millions in new funding to reseach.

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[Dr. Impossible]

As we all know, breakthroughs in medical science occur almost instantaneously, so since nothing has yet happened I say we forget about this stem cell nonsense.

Re:Let's be accurate here.

[argStyopa]

A quick googling shows that Salon's article titled "Bush's Stem Cell fumble" is dated August 2001.

You're right, medical developments don't happen instantly, but wouldn't you expect that EIGHT YEARS of development by THE REST OF THE WORLD (assuming of course that a) stem cell therapies are as obvious and imminent as suggested, and b) everyone else in the world is charging forward since they weren't cursed with a benighted Flat Earther as a president) might have come up with *something*?

EIGHT YEARS?

At last!!!

[kawabago]

Finally US scientists will be able to use the newest tools in their search for a cure for Republicans!

Re:At last!!!

[Nathrael]

And when we finally found out how to cure them, maybe we could cure the Democrats as well!

Re:At last!!!

[Starlon]

Soon to be mandatory for all politicians -- injections of Ron Paul's iPS cells.

Re:At last!!!

[hedwards]

I think that if we should cure this great nation of Republicans and Democrats that should be the first step towards true greatness.

Re:At last!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mandatory Ron Paulicaust?

NEVER WAS BANNED!

[thejuggler]

"President Barack Obama's March 9 executive order lifting a ban on embryonic stem cell research, an order that went into effect under his predecessor, George W. Bush. "

President Bush DID NOT ban embryonic stem cell research. He did limit Federal money to only the existing lines of embryos that had already been created at the time. No new money was to be spent on creating new embryo lines.

The fact remains President Bush was the first President to ever Federally fund embryonic research.

BTW: Far better research is being done with adult stem cells and there are actual cures and treatments in testing or completed. http://www.stemcellresearchfacts.com/cures_failures.html

Re:NEVER WAS BANNED!

[geekoid]

"BTW: Far better research is being done with adult stem cells and there are actual cures and treatments in testing or completed. "

Completely false. Pulling the federal funding has left us about a decade behind the rest of the world.

And removing federal funding is often effectively banning something. There are a lot of political ramifications when federal funding is pulled. Ca took a lot of political heat for funding it. Neo-Cons are all about states rights until the states don't follow step with you magic man in the sky dogma.

You go ahead and let your group mind religious leader continue to brain wash you and spoon feed you facts. It must be nice to use bullet points and prejudice replace thinking.

Re:NEVER WAS BANNED!

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact remains President Bush was the first President to ever Federally fund embryonic research.

I've never actually taken the time to delve into the details of federal funding of embryonic stem cell research (under any president) so I don't know to what extent your comment is factually accurate.

But let's assume that your comment is correct. Let's assume, as your comment implies, that under Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr, and Clinton no federal funds were used for embryonic stem cell research. Then let's assume, which you state as fact, that Bush Jr came along and started funding embryonic stem cell research for the first time ever.

I may be missing something here but I would assume that, if this were actually, the case then the social conservatives would have been outraged with Bush Jr. But as far as I know the social conservatives actually quite liked Bush Jr.

Further, based on your comment, it seems that, when it comes to embryonic stem cell research, there is no significant difference between Bush Jr and Obama. Somehow I had the impression that social conservatives (and the "pro-life" crowd, in particular) strongly preferred Bush Jr to Obama.

Anyway, if it's really true that social conservatives don't see much of difference between Bush Jr and Obama when it comes to embryonic stem cell research then that's an interesting insight that I wasn't previously aware of.

Re:NEVER WAS BANNED!

[darkmeridian]

Your entire post is misleading. President Bush was the first President who had to make a decision regarding stem cells. He limited federal funds to existing adult stem cells because of misplaced moral considerations. The embryos would have been destroyed by the fertility labs anyway, but when signing the bill, Bush was flanked by children conceived from embryos. There was no scientific reason to limit the federal funding. It's not even clear the moral justification was that great, either.

After Bush crippled competing research, it's no wonder that adult stem cells are ahead in the race. Imagine what would have happened if stem cell research was not limited out of political considerations.

Re:NEVER WAS BANNED!

[jo_ham]

FALSE.

Adult stem cells are useful, but ultimately nowhere near as effective as embryonic lines. The science of this is well understood. The site you linked to there is a shill site that isn't really science, and is just designed to muddy the waters and try to convince people without a science background that what they say is "fact" when really it's just cloaking the agenda it's trying to push (that killing embryos is wrong).

Bush *effectively* banned stem cell research by attaching some really petty, nasty limitations of federal money to *any* research (not just stem cells, not just biology even) in an institution that went ahead and found private funding for research on new cell lines. Even if they did this research with no federal money, all of the federal money for *all other programmes* would be removed because of it.

So, the choice was funding the research privately and doing without any federal money *for any scientific research whatsoever*, or not doing it. Or setting up an entirely new lab just for the stem cell work (very expensive and silly).

Re:NEVER WAS BANNED!

[CannonballHead]

1. I don't know why you insist on calling his moral considerations "misplaced." He stood on them. He said he would. Good for him. I'm glad he was honest enough with himself to actually say when he thought a human was, in fact, a human life.
2. You appear to be suggesting that the U.S. is the only place that really good research can happen. As far as I know, many countries have allowed embryonic stem cell research and not a whole lot has come out of the research in terms of medicinal uses. Either all other countries stink at research, or there is some truth in the idea that embryonic stem cell research isn't all that it is hyped to be.

Yes, hype. That is what I call promises of very great gain with no real evidence of said great gain. It's marketing, advertising, and hype. Do embryonic stem cells have medical potential? I don't know. I don't think many people know, if any. I do know there have been cases of stem cells (offhand, not sure if they are all adult or not) being rejected by the host. If that's a major issue, then embryonic stem cells wouldn't have much use outside of trying to heal the embryo they were taking from.

Short summary: it seems like adult stem cells are ahead in the race and have a significant advantage, medically: you can get them from the patient, you don't have to worry about someone else's stem cells being rejected by the host.

Re:NEVER WAS BANNED!

[interkin3tic]

Far better research is being done with adult stem cells and there are actual cures and treatments in testing or completed.

You wonder then why so many researchers at premier institutions are trying to study ESC when such credible sources as stemcellresearchfacts.com could tell them they're dead ends. I mean, it has FACTS right in the title!

I bet they the research will never lead anywhere so they can keep the gravy-train of state grants coming.

Sarcasm aside, no, the above statment is as wrong as you'd expect from such a biased source. hESCs are being used as research models in labs currently. If you want to study cell differentiation for example, you need to be studying some type of ESC. Studying embryonic cells maturing into, say, neurons will tell you something about how that happens naturally.

If you only care about applied research and think basic science research is worthless, you're in the wrong corner of the internet, and you should also keep in mind that embryonic stem cell research has already given us induced pluripotent stem cells, which are more promising for treatments than adult stem cells OR embryonic stem cells.

Re:NEVER WAS BANNED!

[Anonymous Coward]

"President Barack Obama's March 9 executive order lifting a ban on embryonic stem cell research, an order that went into effect under his predecessor, George W. Bush. "

President Bush DID NOT ban embryonic stem cell research. He did limit Federal money to only the existing lines of embryos that had already been created at the time. No new money was to be spent on creating new embryo lines.

The fact remains President Bush was the first President to ever Federally fund embryonic research.

BTW: Far better research is being done with adult stem cells and there are actual cures and treatments in testing or completed.
http://www.stemcellresearchfacts.com/cures_failures.html

"President Barack Obama's March 9 executive order lifting a ban on embryonic stem cell research, an order that went into effect under his predecessor, George W. Bush. "

President Bush DID NOT ban embryonic stem cell research. He did limit Federal money to only the existing lines of embryos that had already been created at the time. No new money was to be spent on creating new embryo lines.

The fact remains President Bush was the first President to ever Federally fund embryonic research.

BTW: Far better research is being done with adult stem cells and there are actual cures and treatments in testing or completed.
http://www.stemcellresearchfacts.com/cures_failures.html

"President Barack Obama's March 9 executive order lifting a ban on embryonic stem cell research, an order that went into effect under his predecessor, George W. Bush. "

President Bush DID NOT ban embryonic stem cell research. He did limit Federal money to only the existing lines of embryos that had already been created at the time. No new money was to be spent on creating new embryo lines.

The fact remains President Bush was the first President to ever Federally fund embryonic research.

BTW: Far better research is being done with adult stem cells and there are actual cures and treatments in testing or completed.
http://www.stemcellresearchfacts.com/cures_failures.html

"President Barack Obama's March 9 executive order lifting a ban on embryonic stem cell research, an order that went into effect under his predecessor, George W. Bush. "

President Bush DID NOT ban embryonic stem cell research. He did limit Federal money to only the existing lines of embryos that had already been created at the time. No new money was to be spent on creating new embryo lines.

The fact remains President Bush was the first President to ever Federally fund embryonic research.

BTW: Far better research is being done with adult stem cells and there are actual cures and treatments in testing or completed.
http://www.stemcellresearchfacts.com/cures_failures.html

"President Barack Obama's March 9 executive order lifting a ban on embryonic stem cell research, an order that went into effect under his predecessor, George W. Bush. "

President Bush DID NOT ban embryonic stem cell research. He did limit Federal money to only the existing lines of embryos that had already been created at the time. No new money was to be spent on creating new embryo lines.

The fact remains President Bush was the first President to ever Federally fund embryonic research.

BTW: Far better research is being done with adult stem cells and there are actual cures and treatments in testing or completed.
http://www.stemcellresearchfacts.com/cures_failures.html

"President Barack Obama's March 9 executive order l

Re:NEVER WAS BANNED!

[HCaulfield]

You'd be much more credible if you didn't have a habit of confusing 650,000 with 650,000,000.

Re:NEVER WAS BANNED!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush was the first, except for Clinton, Bush senior, Reagan, Carter, Ford, and Nixon. Research on human embryonic stem cells dates back to the 60's and was funded by US federal tax dollars by not later than 1972. Also, all research on so-called adult stem cells is based on actual embryonic stem cell research. Republicans flee from truth like cockroaches from light.

Re:NEVER WAS BANNED!

[jo_ham]

Ha, was that you that called me on that before? I replied that I did indeed mix up and added an extra power onto both figures all the way through my post without realising it. I blamed it on the TV as I remember, due to some story about a billion pound company bailout on the news so I had the B on the brain. I don't mind admitting to mistakes though.

That's the price you pay for not posting AC I guess.

Or is your post essentially saying that people who make mistakes have no credibility?

Or that a single post with erroneous figures is "a habit". I suppose it will be a habit if I make the same mistake when /, posts the dupe article next week sometime.

Re:NEVER WAS BANNED!

[jo_ham]

Oh there we go, I said /, instead of /.

I guess that makes it a habit.

There goes my credibility.

if only

[geekoid]

The NIH received some 49,000 comments from patient advocacy groups, scientists, medical groups, and other interested parties before issuing the guidelines."

if they would have eliminated "advocacy groups" and "other interested parties" we would have got a sane plan.

Waste of resources either way

[xednieht]

So much for good Karma. Not opposed to it for moral OR ethical reasons, but there are too many people on the planet to begin with. The industry that is medicine seems to exist more for the purpose of serving itself than patients. Best medicine in the world that few can afford - remember McAllen http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8137085.stm

Re:Waste of resources either way

[Kabuthunk]

So... you're saying that we SHOULDN'T advance medical technology so that people die off faster?

Good luck getting other people on board with that one.

Re:Waste of resources either way

[CorporateSuit]

You put it extremely crudely, but this is more a problem than most people realize. Hospitals are not a strong business. They lose money on a lot of cases because the current costs of treating patients are ridiculous, and many insurers refuse to pay such costs - so the hospital swallows it. The most common surgery, cataract removal, typically costs its hospital thousands more to perform than they get paid, and they can't just turn the patients away. It's not all going to filthy-rich doctors and their heated pools. So many physicians are being sued for malpractice in some MSAs that the definition of "malpractice" has lost all meaning. I learned from my father (rated the 2nd best physician in the state, at what he did, when he was in practice) that there's more money in being a 100K-a-year engineer than a 400K-a-year physician -- and a much less-stressful life to live.

New technology means better healthcare means more costly healthcare means we either A) Cannot treat everyone or B) must reduce the quality of healthcare we are dispensing to sustainable levels. If these sciences find cheaper ways to fix a broken hip or perform a bicuspid valve replacement then they will aid society. If they simply come up with more expensive (albeit better) ways of current healthcare we have, then we're only digging the hole deeper. When it's 100 times cheaper to give you a 90% chance to live than to give you a 91% chance to live, they are typically compelled to spend 100 times more -- and who is going to pay for that?

Re:Waste of resources either way

[xednieht]

Not trying to be crude, just realistic. Our planet is in fact the First International Space Station. As such both Malthus and Darwin would probably concur that medicine promotes the survival of the least fit to the detriment of the limited resources that were supplied to the First ISS.

While western media treats it's viewers to the greatest illusions that things are just peachy, reality is not as easily escaped as gravity.

Re:Waste of resources either way

[xednieht]

Not die off faster, but die off natural, and with perhaps a little dignity. I wonder how much of the inflated health-care costs are the result of squeezing the last bit life out of a person with one foot already in the grave? Who does that benefit? The patient laying in the hospital bed, or the medical establishment charging more than the cost of a luxury suite at a resort for a bed pan and sheets?

Re:Waste of resources either way

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a better solution to this. Just determine what group of people are "least fit" and move all of them to a gas chamber then turn on the gas. Why leave it to chance?

Re:Waste of resources either way

[johnsonav]

Not die off faster, but die off natural, and with perhaps a little dignity.

You know, I was wondering what that smell was; watching someone with late-stage Alzheimer's sitting in a shit filled diaper and staring vacantly into space. It was "dignity".

Liar

[geekoid]

try again.

http://www.medra.com/

MOD PARENT -1 religion peddled as science

[jo_ham]

The site linked there is clearly an extremely biased site, masquerading as real science, designed to further the religious agenda.

Keep your sky fairy out of my science please.

Discrimination against human-animal hybrids

[greenreaper]

Speaking as a furry, I'm disappointed in section IV of the guidelines. Who will give us our fluffy tails, or make Piccinini's disturbing sculptures a reality now? At this rate I might as well just buy my own island and experiment there . . .

Re:Discrimination against human-animal hybrids

[srothroc]

Is your name Moreau? Do you have a PhD or MD? If so, I may have just the island for you!

cheaper for corporations, not for us

[Anonymous Coward]

Big corporations love technologies that keep costing customers after the customers have made their initial purchase. In the case of stem cell procedures, if a cloned organ or other implant is based off stem cells not derived from the hosts on body, then the big corporations get to profit off a life time of drugs necessary to prevent rejection of said medical treatment.

Don't fool yourself. Big business does NOT want technologies developed that allow stem cells to be created from patients own bodies. Making embryonic stem cells more accessible will lead to miraculous treatments that BTW require a life time of expensive procedures / medications that wouldn't have been needed if the technology for converting patients own cells into stem cells had been available.

Answers to a couple of questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone asked why on earth anyone would object to embryos being used for research - since they would be destroyed anyway.
.
The best way I can answer this is to ask why we don't take organs when people on death row are executed. The people are going to die anyway, so why not take their organs and use them for someone else's benefit.
.
I think the answer to this question is that are afraid that juries might be more likely to pass the death penalty if they are aware that there is a potential benefit to other people from the death of the prisoner. This might not be a conscious thought, but lets say you were 95% sure that the person was guilty, but you weren't totally sure. If you knew that the organs would be used to help someone else, you might think - "Hey, I'm pretty sure this person is guilty, and even if he (or she) isn't guilty, at least someone will benefit."
.
For those who think that embryos have a moral value, it is never right to use them as a means to an end. Using them (and destroying them), even for a good purpose, devalues them.
.
I know that many folks won't agree with that, and that's ok. I just wanted you to understand why people don't want them used for another purpose, even if they will be destroyed anyway.
.
The second thing I wanted to bring up is that researchers have discovered ways to "reprogram" cells, so that adult cells can be made to behave like embryonic stem cells. (See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090227112303.htm) Furthermore, any therapies based on this technique could lead to new organs or tissues that are an exact DNA match for the patient, which would probably eliminate the risk of organ rejection. As I said, these reprogrammed adult cells seem to have all of the characteristics of embryonic stem cells, which means that there may no longer be any scientific need to use embryonic stem cells. In that case, the reverse of the ban could just be a cheap political ploy to devalue the embryo and to make Bush look bad - even though there is not scientific benefit. (I agree that more research may be necessary to make sure that the reprogrammed adult cells do indeed have all of the same capabilities as embryonic stem cells).
.
Finally, I have to point out that even though Obama claimed to eliminate the false choice between ethics and science, he still implemented some ethical rules - specifically a ban of reproductive cloning. I happen to agree with this, but I thought it was disingenuous of him to pretend to get rid of ethical barriers that restricted science. All he did was eliminate the barriers that he disagreed with and retain the barriers that he did agree with. He had the right to do that, of course - he is the president - I just wish that he had spoken more clearly about what he was doing.
.
In fact, I think this whole debate suffers from major political posturing. I think that most American are completely unaware of the advances that I wrote about earlier - for the reprogramming of adult stem cells. If people were aware that there was a valid alternative to embryonic stem cells, I think there would be much less support for the destruction of embryos. Even if you aren't pro-life, I would guess that if you had two equal choices - one which destroyed an embryo, and one which did not - then you would pick the one that did not destroy the embryo.
.
I have probably written too much already. In addition to all of that, I just want to say that I hope that all of the folks who are desperately waiting for cures are able to find some help from the research. I just wish that it didn't have to come at the expense of an embryo.

Re:Answers to a couple of questions

[Anonymous Coward]

For those who think that embryos have a moral value, it is never right to use them as a means to an end. Using them (and destroying them), even for a good purpose, devalues them.

That contradicts. The means to an end already exists with IVF embryos; they are created to maybe become a human, some are allowed to continue and others are not - so is the devaluing not greater merely by allowing more than one embryo to be created for IVF? Their moral value is increased by using them for genetic material when not selected for fertilization instead of just throwing them away. No?

Unless you're advocating burials for embryos, or presume the worse of human nature and that embryos will have more commercial value than moral value and be mass produced solely for the purpose of experimentation and take IVF out of the picture, I can't see how the moral value is reduced by stem cell research.

The cynic in me says...

[jd2112]

That the opposition to stem cell research will continue even after horrible diseases are cured. But once a cure for baldness or some other cosmetic application is found most of the opposition will dissappear.

Re:The cynic in me says...

[RazorSharp]

I doubt it. I think most opponents of stem cell research have no idea what type of potential this research has in store. They're either doubters, cynics, or they just don't think it will matter within their lifetime (like those who don't care about the environment b/c they see it as the next generation's problem). The Obama administration will fund this research and once people see what can be accomplished they'll demand it. I doubt there are many people who are seriously offended by the research in the first place. It's just in America, with only two political parties, everything gets polarized into two camps.

Re:The cynic in me says...

[petrus4]

Once they use stem cell research to figure out how to make G the new standard cup size for women in particular, I will enthusiastically offer my support.

That's how it goes with tax funding.

[jcr]

Anytime an activity is funded involuntarily, it's going to be a political issue. This is the case whether we're talking about whether or not to fund medical research, or whether to teach science or religion in public schools.

The moral question here isn't whether stem cell research will lead to life-saving cures or whether it's killing babies, the question is whether it's OK for the federal government to take money from us forcibly, and then spend it on any activity that's not within its enumerated powers that we granted to it in the constitution.

-jcr

Re:That's how it goes with tax funding.

[Anonymous Coward]

You actually read that Constitution thing? Mod parent up!

Re:That's how it goes with tax funding.

[KingAlanI]

looks like jcr's friends got a lot of mod points recently...;)

Re:That's how it goes with tax funding.

[jcr]

My friends aren't the only people who mod trolls as trolls.

-jcr

Bimodal politics - a way to address controversy

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish to propose an approach to political controversies that I call Bimodal Politics.
Technology could be used to manage controversial political issues, for which the distribution of voters is bimodal and for which there is essentially no middle ground.

Such issues include abortion rights, stem cell research and gay marriage. Through the system of bimodal politics, voters would live in parallel legal and political worlds, with different rights and obligations to the state depending on how they voted.

In outline, a national database would be maintained of voter preference on controversial issues that are designated bimodal issues. Your vote is recorded by the bimodal voter database. Your vote determines your rights and obligations to the state on that particular issue in parallel with those voters who voted oppositely, and who may have (and probably have) different rights and obligations under the state.

Consider stem cell research. Under the proposed system, stem cell research would be designated a bimodal issue. During an election, your vote on stem cell research would be entered into the database. If you voted in favor of stem cell research, you may be taxed to support it, your embryos may be harvested for stem cells (these may be from embryos slated for destruction in any case) and if you develop a disease that requires stem cell derived therapy for its treatment, you will be eligible for it.

If you voted against stem cell research, you will not be taxed to support it, your embryos will not be harvested for stem cells and if you develop a disease you will be prohibited from pursuing treatments derived from stem cell research.

Bimodal politics and stem cell research

[Vectorius]

I wish to propose an approach to political controversies that I call Bimodal Politics. Technology could be used to manage controversial political issues, for which the distribution of voters is bimodal and for which there is essentially no middle ground.

Such issues include stem cell research, abortion and gay marriage. Through the system of bimodal politics, voters would live in parallel legal and political worlds, with different rights and obligations to the state depending on how they voted

In outline, a national database is maintained of voter preference on controversial issues that are designated bimodal issues. Your vote is recorded by the bimodal voter database. Your vote determines your rights and obligations to the state on that particular issue in parallel with those voters who voted oppositely, and who may have (and probably have) different rights and obligations under the state.

Consider stem cell research. Under the proposed system, stem cell research would be designated a bimodal issue. During an election, your vote on stem cell research would be entered into the database. If you voted in favor of stem cell research, you may be taxed to support it, your embryos may be harvested for stem cells (these may be from embryos slated for destruction in any case) and if you develop a disease that requires stem cell derived therapy for its treatment, you will be eligible for it.

If you voted against stem cell research, you will not be taxed to support it, your embryos will not be harvested for stem cells and if you develop a disease you will be prohibited from pursuing treatments derived from stem cell research.

Interesting idea...

[KingAlanI]

Reminds me of a cartoonist's suggestion for managing flu vaccine shortages: Deny it to those who don't accept the evolution of a virus, the cartoon picturing a bedridden Falwell, Robertson & co.

People want the benefits but don't want to pony up the costs, you see that anywhere and for anything. [The following is a special case of that concept]
So you can probably bet there would be a shitstorm if anyone (especially anyone famous) who railed against stem cell research is denied treatment derived from stem-cell research

Overall, though, seems you have a very interesting idea.
A main problem (in addition to the hypocrisy issues described above) would probably be The Man not liking the Bimodal Politics results for some questionable program, or the "threat" thereof. (and thus interfering with the application of the concept)
The classic economic issue of externalities also creates a problem.

Re:Interesting idea...

[Vectorius]

Charging stem-cell opponents a premium for stem-cell related therapy, should they acquire a disease that requires stem cells for its treatment, is an alternative to denying them treatment outright.

Abortion is another issue that would be designated a bimodal issue under the system of bimodal politics. If you vote against abortion, your tax dollars will not be used to support state-sponsored family planning programs or sex education, and you will be legally barred from having an abortion if you are female. If you are male and you impregnate a woman who has an abortion, and you voted against abortion, you will be held legally liable.

In either case, if you voted against abortion and your fetus or your partner's fetus is aborted, you will be prosecuted by the state. However, if you voted in favor of abortion, your fetus can be aborted, and your tax dollars may go to support state-sponsored family planning programs and sex education.

These examples illustrate the slogan that under Bimodal Politics, you live in the world you voted for.

Re:Interesting idea...

[KingAlanI]

Yes, very nice concept, good illustrated examples. Just trying to see pitfalls. :)

Here we go again...

[KingAlanI]

Funny how your type doesn't seem to want government to do much of anything, and views the Constitution so narrowly that such a course of action (course of inaction?) seems like the only thing that's "allowed".

Re:Here we go again...

[jcr]

Try reading it. There are 17 enumerated powers. Controlling medical research and turning our lives into political issues isn't among them.

-jcr

Re:Here we go again...

[KingAlanI]

Read *what I said*

Don't fetishize that document like it's the Gospel...not that I interpret THAT document literally, restrictively and to-the-letter either

You seem to think "Let them do it only if Article 1 Section 8 (and such) specifically says they can"
I'm more along the lines of "Let them do it unless Article 1 Section 9 (or some other section)" says they can't.

I get the "Congress can do this" part, but not the "Congress can do *only* this" conclusion.

Seems like this is something *you don't want done*, and you're making an appeal to authority as to "you can't do that" rather than discussing whether or not doing $foo is a good idea

(There are some sections of the document that lay out the procedure for carrying out a specific task; those parts are of course obvious.)

Re:Here we go again...

[jcr]

Don't fetishize that document like it's the Gospel

It's not a work of fiction like the bible, it's a contract. It is the entirety of the legal basis for the power of the federal government.

I'm more along the lines of "Let them do it unless Article 1 Section 9 (or some other section)" says they can't.

Read the tenth amendment.

-jcr

Re:Here we go again...

[KingAlanI]

Can't stand your "government shouldn't do much of anything [especially things I don't want it to do]" attitude, no matter what the reason for it is.

The Bible = work of fiction? Well, you're talking some sense there. :P
Ah, here's the analogy I was attempting to draw there: arguing something based on what The Document says rather than focusing on the merits of the thing in question. Also, the mistaken assumption that it's a (near-)perfect document...

The Tenth Amendment, eh?
Often seems to be invoked when states/people wish to be more backward than the Feds, i.e. as a roadblock to progress
That's the Catch-22 of federalism: states would in many ways have to consent to reducing their own power, so it can't really be done even if it would make sense to do so.

I suppose I admit to the same thing I see you doing: interpretation of the Constitution affected by what I want to see done.

Re:Here we go again...

[jcr]

Can't stand your "government shouldn't do much of anything [especially things I don't want it to do]" attitude, no matter what the reason for it is.

It's called the rule of law, sunshine. If you want the government to do things outside the powers we've granted to it, then propose a constitutional amendment to allow it to do so. By merely ignoring the constitution, we get chaos.

-jcr

It's more than that.

[tjstork]

It's really more about setting up a firewall against the commercialization of humans as products. The stem cell argument is essentially, let's experiment on these leftover human embryos to cure these major diseases. So, we start growing human embryos up to some cut off point where, we say, arbitrarily, well, you are human now and we can't harvest you. At some point, in anyone's mind, the mass of cells becomes a "he", or a "she", or a "you", and the only way that that works, really, is if you don't believe in the "human" part of these things. But, what we do with the cells before that point, suddenly, doesn't matter, as they are a commodity. Sure, stem cells might be great for curing cancer, but, if the cutoff line before the embryo is considered human really means that they are just a mass of cells, then, why not use them for anything? Would you feel the same about a stem cell skin jacket, a stem cell bone comb, stem cell beef burgers? We ripped the NAZIs for their experiments in making economic use of the bodies of all the people they murdered. How odd would it be, if barely a century later, we might come to view the human lampshade in a NAZI museum as a sort of an oddity, when everyone has them in their homes.

I believe that at some point, stem cells, embryonic research, and even abortion is going to do far more damage to liberalism than any other opposition conservatives could. The reason is, liberals have essentially made it their business to humanize everything and everyone in order to get human rights. Race, for example, is just as an artificial distinction as birth is, conservatives would say, recalling that in the good old days, the whole reason blacks could not be allowed to have civil rights was largely because they were not human because they were not white. Paradoxically, working with embryos will probably humanize them... people will begin to feel sorry for them as the embryo industry takes off. Even now, pictures of embryos are practically censored for this reason. And some day, just as we learned to admit that blacks are human, eskimos are human, indians are human, chinese are human, women are human (which might actually be not true - just kidding!), we will probably look at the little embryo, see ourselves in it, and think, geez, that little fellow is human too.

There's nothing biblical about right to life at all, its just empathy from an imperfect people.

Simple metric:

[GameboyRMH]

Sentience. If it's not, and never has been sentient it doesn't deserve human rights yet.

How do you test for sentience? I'd say test for brain activity, but it could be simpler than that for the purposes you're after: Apply physical stimulus, check for physical response.

I think that's an extremely safe and generous metric. Some plants would pass it, is that too much to ask of something before granting it human rights?

BTW, on the topic of your sig, I found a source after a long hard googling and in typical right-winger fashion, it is taken out of context:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/science/22stem.html

He says he thought long and hard about it - and decided to continue with his research since it was using cells that would have been destroyed anyway. The article also seems to suggest that his primary concern on working with stem cells was political fallout rather than a personal moral dilemma.

More Misinformation

[pbizannes]

It is ironic that everyone thinks the Bush government banned Human Embryonic Stem Cell (HESC) research when the Bush government was actually the first US government to allow Federal Funding for HESC research. Further, under the Bush Administration, State Governments were not limited by the law on federal funding for HESC. Otherwise, how can you explain the wasteful California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, whose mandate was to do HESC research with 3 billion dollars of tax payer money (which is now run by an Australian scientist, Alan Trounson, who has admitted that he lied to the Australian parliament in order to get Australia to support HESC - I still remember that fake video of the rat rhat he said was cured with HESC which was broadcast all around Australia), and which has been investigated for fraud and money laundering,

Of course, with private funding, which is the main source of funding in the area of stem cells, scientists could do whatever they wanted. It is further ironic that, during the supposed "Bush ban on HESC research", American scientists managed to somehow produce more papers on HESC than all other countries combined.

In truth, America has had a lack of laws to guide stem cell research in general and has only merely limited federal funding to approved stem cell lines. Obama has merely allowed the a;ready existing funding to be used for more stem cell liknes. This is hardly a cause for claiming the U.S. conducts ethically responsible research.

Responses to a couple of answers

[Kaseijin]

I think the answer to this question is that are afraid that juries might be more likely to pass the death penalty if they are aware that there is a potential benefit to other people from the death of the prisoner.

To complete the analogy, the concern is that using embryos for research might lead to the destruction of more embryos.

It doesn't. Embryos left over from IVF are destroyed anyway. The new guidelines allow using cell lines derived from leftover embryos. The Dickey-Wicker Amendment still prohibits federal funding for creating any new hESC line.

For those who think that embryos have a moral value, it is never right to use them as a means to an end. Using them (and destroying them), even for a good purpose, devalues them.

They should be equally concerned with IVF. Some are. Many aren't.

these reprogrammed adult cells seem to have all of the characteristics of embryonic stem cells

Many, not all. These techniques have advantages and disadvantages.

Finally, I have to point out that even though Obama claimed to eliminate the false choice between ethics and science, he still implemented some ethical rules - specifically a ban of reproductive cloning. I happen to agree with this, but I thought it was disingenuous of him to pretend to get rid of ethical barriers that restricted science. All he did was eliminate the barriers that he disagreed with and retain the barriers that he did agree with.

Obama called the Bush hESC rules specifically a "false choice". He never said he was going to ignore ethics.

I think that most American are completely unaware of the advances that I wrote about earlier - for the reprogramming of adult stem cells.

Most laymen who are aware of them seem to think they make perfect substitutes for embryonic stem cells. The ignorance probably balances out.

A ban on funding, not research

[prisoner-of-enigma]

The new rules, which go into effect today, follow President Barack Obama's March 9 executive order lifting a ban on embryonic stem cell research, an order that went into effect under his predecessor, George W. Bush.

This is one of the most oft-misquoted "facts" on stem cell research. The Bush stance was not a ban on research. It was a ban on federal funding for such research. Private companies were free to do whatever research they felt like doing so long as taxpayer money wasn't spent on it. Yes, I'm aware that the lack of federal funding stymies getting research done, but the article synopsis as written is factually incorrect.

Never Was a Ban on Stem Cell Research in U.S.

[withoutfeathers]

George Bush did not impose a ban on stem cell research (of any kind) in the United States. There has never been a ban on stem cell research -- including hESC research in the United States.

In 1998 -- three years before Bush took office -- the Clinton administration prohibited federal funding of hESC research citing the Dickey Amendment as the reason.

In 2001 President Bush lifted the absolute ban on federal funding and implemented a set of rules for the money could be spent, including restrictions on how the stem cells could be obtained.

Please, just stick to the facts on this contentious issue and perhaps we might get to the truth.

"First", by hook or by crook

[Kaseijin]

The fact remains President Bush was the first President to ever Federally fund embryonic research.

Human embryonic stem cells were isolated in 1998. The NIH published final guidelines for hESC research in August 2000. Bush blocked their implementation in 2001, delaying funding until 2002.

Far better research is being done with adult stem cells and there are actual cures and treatments in testing or completed.

Adult stem cells have been studied for longer than embryonic stem cells. Clinical therapies aren't "better" than the basic research needed to produce them. Also, if not for hESC research, we would not understand adult stem cells as well as we do.

Re:killing of the defenseless

[bckrispi]

God (if you believe in God) is pro-life.

You've never read the Old Testament, have you?