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Cell Transplant Allows Paralyzed Man To Walk
New submitter tiberus sends word of a breakthrough medical treatment that has restored the ability to walk to a man who was paralyzed from the chest down after his spinal cord was severed in a knife attack. A research team from the UK, led by Professor Geoff Raisman, transplanted cells from the patient's nose, along with strips of nerve tissue from his ankle, to the place where the spine was severed. This allowed the fibers in the spinal cord to gradually reconnect.
The treatment used olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) - specialist cells that form part of the sense of smell. ... In the first of two operations, surgeons removed one of the patient's olfactory bulbs and grew the cells in culture. Two weeks later they transplanted the OECs into the spinal cord, which had been cut through in the knife attack apart from a thin strip of scar tissue on the right. They had just a drop of material to work with - about 500,000 cells. About 100 micro-injections of OECs were made above and below the injury. Four thin strips of nerve tissue were taken from the patient's ankle and placed across an 8mm (0.3in) gap on the left side of the cord. ... Two years after the treatment, he can now walk outside the rehabilitation center using a frame.
This is truly great!
If only our daily "news" was filled with more with these types of stories than the typical FUD and propaganda perpetuated by these organizations.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
I can walk! But now the only thing I can smell is back sweat.
I read some time ago that the olfactory cells are one of the few nerve cells that maintains the ability to reproduce and create new connections, then it seems that the researchers basically created a "hard hack" with that. Interesting, and hopefully it will be applicable in many similar cases.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Whoa! Settle down there buddy.
There have been several medical procedures that were piloted with embyronic stem cells first, then later they figured out how to do them with adult stem cells or other cells from the patient.
The point wasn't to use embyronic stem cells for treatments, that leads to immune compromise and rejection. The point is that embryos that were unused from IVF procedures and slated for disposal were able to provide some benefit before destruction, in the form of research.
Unless you're willing to volunteer your womb to implant these embryos then they never had a chance of becoming people anyway, and were one refrigeration accident away from being lost anyway.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I dunno, I still think the ignorant asses are the people arguing that a clump of cells without so much as a functioning brain stem can somehow be so special as to deserve special consideration.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Nice to see breakthrough research like this coming from a single-payer healthcare system like the UK. When people start saying that the only places that can afford groundbreaking medical research are the ones where the "customers" pay a fortune, it'll be good to be able to point them to things like this.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Where is it illegal? Certainly not the US. Social Conservatives argued that federal funds were not to be used on embryonic research. That's not making it illegal. It was only illegal to create, grow and harvest embryos for the purpose of research - that's not the same thing as making it *illegal*.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Operation was performed in Poland by team led by Dr Tabakow. Professor Raisman developed his method enough to perform test on rats.From TFA: "In 2005, Prof Raisman was approached by a Polish neurosurgeon who had begun researching how to apply the technique in humans. Dr Tabakow carried out an initial trial involving three paralysed patients who each had a small amount of OECs injected in their damaged spinal cords."
Correlation does not imply causation.
(ducks)
I've heard a rumour that he can also smell things behind him too!
(yes I just started that rumour)
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
I don't think that was ever promised. Embryonic stem cells were seen as very promising for research and possibly treatment.
There's been one notable success:
http://healthland.time.com/201...
Other therapies have been significantly hampered by Government policy, but despite this some researchers went ahead. They found unforeseen obstacles like tumor formation, and unstable gene expression.
The problem with the Embryonic stem cell debate hasn't been the ethical concerns. Those are real, and should be address. But you need to know that there are those out there that used the debate not to fight Embryonic stem cell research, but to fight science itself. You don't want your tax dollars to go towards stem cell research? Fine, that's a reasonable request. But what happened was they not only pulled funding for Embryonic stem cell research, they also said that researcher couldn't receive ANY federal funding at all. For any other project. You were basically blacklisted if you even touched the topic. That had nothing to do with moral concerns, that was an attempt to use the governments muscle to kill the research entirely.
Embryonic Stem Cells had, and still have great medical promise. If your kid died from some disease, then a few years later research into stem cells lead them to some new drug that would have cured him, how would you have felt about the way this had been handled? Does it matter that they didn't find the cure? What's the next research they'll try to kill? Will it be the one that could have cured you?
I'd prefer that embryos continue to be worthless. If people really want to donate ESC's, they can be obtained without destroying embryos, non-functioning brain stem or otherwise. But it's all irrelevant. ESC research was not illegal before, it's not illegal now, and we still don't have any treatments I'm aware of that require the use of ESC's. It's almost as if some people just really want it to be legal to destroy human embryos.
Nah.
People coming in and demanding proof of things their politics made illegal to study are really annoying.
It's similarly illegal to study gun violence under a US public health research grant, even though every other class of mortality is nominally okay.
In my state, it's illegal to use state funds to research the effect of global warming on coastal water levels.
People who ban researching things for political reasons(rather than say consistency with existing laws outside of research) are harmful. There's something very wrong with the notion of not researching things that might reflect negatively on your ideology.
This is great. Now if we could only get a cell transplant that would allow idiots to think.
Proverbs 21:19
It's almost as if some people just really want it to be legal to destroy human embryos.
Since they're not your embryos, why do you care?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Can someone clarify the discrepency here?
Dr Tabakow carried out an initial trial involving three paralysed patients who each had a small amount of OECs injected in their damaged spinal cords. While none showed any significant improvement, the main purpose of the study was achieved, showing that the treatment was safe.
Prof Wagih El Masri said: "Although the clinical neurological recovery is to date modest, this intervention has resulted in findings of compelling scientific significance."
Darek Fidyka, who was paralysed from the chest down in a knife attack in 2010, can now walk using a frame.
So the doctors think that going from paralyzed to walking is modest and insignificant? Were they not talking about the same patient? Something doesn't make sense here.
This is not a debate worth having again and again and again and again.
Presumably because you keep losing it, again and again and again?
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Since it's not your money, why do you care? Since it's not your wife or husband, why do you care? Since it's not your dog, why do you care? Since it's not your house, why do you care? Since it's not your city, why do you care? Since it's not your book, why do you care? Since it's not your life, why do you care?
It's almost as if some people just really want it to be legal to destroy human embryos.
In your imaginary land where any people are this hostile, what do you think is done with leftover embryos from fertility treatments, right now?
Do you think they're all frozen forever, just in case someone needs a spare implanted in their uterus?
Do you think that maybe they get grown in secret cloning vats that let them turn into human beings?
Or do you join us in reality land where they're put in a nice clean chamber labeled "biohazard" and hauled off by a medical waste company to be sterilized and destroyed. You're just going to have to learn to live in a reality where huge numbers of embryos are destroyed by the human body, excreted out unnoticed, and untold others are created in a lab so that desperate people can have children, only to be disposed of for a host of reasons, like in-viability or that previous implantations "took". Reality just doesn't treat them the way you imagine they are currently treated.
How does he smell?
Terrible.
(Forgive me. The first image that came to mind when I read this story was the movie "Sleeper", when they were trying to clone the assassinated leader using his nose.)
It's similarly illegal to study gun violence under a US public health research grant, even though every other class of mortality is nominally okay.
More pointedly, the US keeps statistics on deaths from gun violence, except the number of people killed by police. From: List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States
Although Congress instructed the Attorney General in 1994 to compile and publish annual statistics on police use of excessive force, this was never carried out, and the FBI does not collect this data either.
Note: This was recently covered by The Daily Show on Comedy Central.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Or, and this is crazy. I'm totally aware of your argument, made that clear, and also made my contempt of the exact nonsense you spewed readily apparent, and I don't want have anything more to do with it.
We keep statistics, yes, but only in the context of criminal law.
To study, say, gun ownership as a matter of public health, as a risk factor for overall mortality, is illegal(with public funds).
It wasn't me that made the statement that you responded to. And if you don't want people to call you out when you are blatantly lying, you probably should start telling the truth, rather than throwing a temper tantrum.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
In all of these examples, there's somebody else that's much closer that cares. But the embryo doesn't care, and if its mother doesn't care, why should I ?
They are incinerated as worthless biological waste. They are not bought and sold so some corporation can profit from them.
Just the stories should be more accurate.
The research was mostly in UK but surgery was in Poland:
"Our team in Poland would be prepared to consider patients from anywhere in the world who are suitable for this therapy. They are likely to have had a knife wound injury where the spinal cord has been cleanly severed"
We should also incinerate our crops as worthless biological waste so that no corporation can profit from them. Because, you know, profit is evil.
The man was from Poland, the operation was in Poland and was conducted by polish team in hospital in Poland.
Where is it illegal? Certainly not the US. Social Conservatives argued that federal funds were not to be used on embryonic research. That's not making it illegal. It was only illegal to create, grow and harvest embryos for the purpose of research - that's not the same thing as making it *illegal*.
If you say "Gov't has decided to not fund project X"... yawn, boring. Not newsworthy.
Better to say "Gov't BANS X and makes it ILLEGAL to study X" (with a tiny disclaimer at the bottom saying "while using federal funds"). Now it sounds like gov't is teh evil, spawning much outrage.
Oh, look, an article objecting to a specific methodology, that in no way was made illegal.
Okay. Those are equal. Yep. Look, your objection requires people to believe in a huge-criminology wide conspiracy to suppress data, whereas my objection just references a law on the books.
I'm not even going to refute what you're saying, because, hell, Straus is a criminologist, and I'm not. But I will accuse you of willful false equivalence. Don't do that.
Since it's not your money, why do you care?
I don't.
Since it's not your wife or husband, why do you care?
I don't.
Since it's not your dog, why do you care?
Since it's a living, breathing creature, unlike a blob of cells, mistreating it shows ones lack of civility, humanity and general lack of morals.
Since it's not your house, why do you care?
I don't, up to the point where your negligence in keeping your property maintained interferes with my property because critters from your area migrate to mine.
Since it's not your city, why do you care?
I don't.
Since it's not your book, why do you care?
I don't.
Since it's not your life, why do you care?
I don't. But then a blob of cells isn't a life.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
So... now you're the person who wants them to be destroyed. You know, the evil, mustache twirling villains from your own post not 20 minutes ago. I mean... you were presenting that as outright evil. And now it's the highest calling?
Really?
I'm pro-choice and an atheist but I don't think that being pro-life is a sign of being a religious fanatic. What outrages pro-life people are late term abortions, which, by the way, were not sanctioned by Roe v Wade. Roe v Wade kept abortion illegal after the first trimester (13 wks). Medical research on stem cells were not opposed by the socons - only embryonic stem cells.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
REALLY?!? So they cannot do any of the things necessary to actually have a sample of embryonic stem cells but it's perfectly legal to do the research should such a sample magically come into being because someone wished real hard?!?
I'm not a socon so I'm not defending them. I'm only saying that it's hyperbole to state that this research was illegal. It wasn't.
I'm an atheist and for stem cell research but demonizing people who disagree with you is not the best way to go.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
He has also recovered some bladder and bowel sensation and sexual function.
I'm happy to not be paralyzed and certainly hope to stay that way. But, if I was... I think these functions might be even more important to me then getting my legs back. Don't get me wrong, not being able to stand or walk would really suck. But.. a person with no leg function might get along in a wheel chair. Shitting oneself and not being able to enjoy sex... there just isn't a chair for that.
I always thought they went to Taco Bell.
You don't find the idea of fertilizing an egg just so you can harvest the embryo creepy, and morally dubious? Seems creepy to me - if the problems can be solved a different way, lets do that.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Such a success is nothing to sneeze at.
So you're argument, as I understand it is: "I don't care that it wasn't actually illegal, because this is really about why Bush was bad"? Or was it "I'm going to insist on my own private definition of illegal and yell at anyone who uses the normal meaning"?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
every time he smells food his legs start shaking.
Mostly random stuff.
*If you want to argue against this point on minutia that ignore the reality of how preliminary medical research is performed, please just shut up.
No. I think I'd rather join the chorus of those correcting you. I'm not sure how you got marked insightful; your post was both rude and inaccurate. Embryonic stem cells are not illegal to study or experiment with in the United States.
Some men brought to him a paralyzed man, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”
At this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, “This fellow is blaspheming!”
Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” Then the man got up and went home. When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to man.
--Matthew 9:2-8
I would totally have told this guy his sins were forgiven.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
but....why?
They are just cells. I just took my fingernails, scraped some from my body, and tossed them on the floor to dessicate and die. Human cells! So what?
The only thing special about am embryo is what it is capable of doing under very specific conditions, it is only really special after it has done those things and created a living being capable of participation in a society. Until it does that, its really no different from an apple seed.
Why does it matter either way?
That is the thing... if there is any reason for moral outrage here, then that reason necessarily extends to taking the cells in the first place. If destroying an embryo has any moral outrage attached to it at all, then it can ONLY be permissible when there is a reason for it that negates the outrage.... the old "for the life of the mother" argument.
However, I see no reason for such an outrage, so whether they are destroyed or used, sold or given away, created or harvested opportunistcally....these are ALL morally exactly the same.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
You guys are slipping and got scooped this morning. I usually hear about these things on the local news-traffic-n-weather radio station 2-3 days after I read about it on Slashdot. This story must've languished in the queue for a long time.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
A research team from the UK, led by Professor Geoff Raisman, transplanted cells from the patient's nose
RTFA.
UK team researched it TOGETHER with Polish team. TFA mentiones both teams, and two leading doctors, one in UK, one in Poland.
Polish team performed the actual transplantation (practical part). It was led by a Polish doctor.
It's $%&^ Enigma all over again, "solved" by British who conveniently forgot it was Polish team who solved it first.
There has been a lot of dubious research in this area. Studies where only a small minority of the subjects of the experimental procedure had their results published, and a lot of work with patients where the spinal cord was not actually completely severed. At least some of the results are likely to come simply from insufficient retraining prior to the experimental procedures.
Hopefully this one is actually true. We could really do with some good news in this area.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
I dunno, I still think the ignorant asses are the people arguing that a clump of cells without so much as a functioning brain stem can somehow be so special as to deserve special consideration.
YES! That's the core issue, and I get sick of proponents of stem cell research (and pro-choice politics) who are too timid to stand up and say it!
It wasn't even that. It was illegal to create new embrionic cell lines using federal money. In other words, if you wanted to do stem cell research you could use one of the existing lines, or you could use private money.
The whole controversy was just red meat for abortion supporters. Didn't have anything to do with science.
Oh, look, an article objecting to a specific methodology, that in no way was made illegal.
It's a paper, not some smear of a blog entry.
Okay. Those are equal. Yep. Look, your objection requires people to believe in a huge-criminology wide conspiracy to suppress data, whereas my objection just references a law on the books.
My objection requires people to believe in well supported research, and I don't really give a shit what you're referencing. Want more? Here you go: http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert...
I'm not even going to refute what you're saying, because, hell, Straus is a criminologist, and I'm not. But I will accuse you of willful false equivalence. Don't do that.
Get fucked.
And yet there are tons of firearms statistics available to anyone who wishes to seek them out.
Then they're opposed to Roe v Wade.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Well, in the end, you are really just a cluster of cells like an embryo. Who are you to think you are so special. Consciousness is just a series of chemicals and electrical impulses moving through organized cells. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't mean anything at all.
I could take an embryo from a toilet in the Bronx subway system straight to a research lab and they could test it and harvest it all they want. It is not illegal and it never has been. They just can't use tax revenue to fund the research.
Nope, fertilize an egg in a petri dish, harvest cells or not, what's the outcome?
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
To infer that gun ownership is matter of public health shows that you are bringing YOUR politics into this.
We keep statistics, yes, but only in the context of criminal law.
To study, say, gun ownership as a matter of public health, as a risk factor for overall mortality, is illegal(with public funds).
Cite?
It seems to me that the main obstacle to such studies is detailed information on gun ownership, because mortality information is readily available, and not just from law enforcement. The CDC tracks it closely.
In any case, I'd love to see this research done... though I suspect that I anticipate a different result than you expect.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Seriously, this is totally a non-issue when you think about it.
The "Oh, I cant make embryos in a dish just to smash them up in a tissue homogenizer! Oh woe is me! I guess I cant get any new cell lines now!" argument is not even wrong-- it's not even right. It's as close to a classic false dichotomy as you can get. (Can't harvest cells specifically for research, so no embryonic cell research!)
Tissue collection happens routinely for diagnostic reasons from perfectly healthy embryos created for IVF.
The easy solution? Non-destructive collection from these IVF embryos, with a consent form to release some of the tissue samples for research from the parents. Collect the sample for testing, then any remaining left over from this collection, (Collected for diagnostic testing, not research purposes) you then provide to ESC researchers with appropriate consent forms.
(For those who are willfully ignorant about this kind of thing, Pre-implantation genetic screening provides a perfect opportunity to collect these cells.)
PROBLEM FUCKING SOLVED.
That solution has been tendered by IVF lab workers for at least 15 years that I know of. Has it gained much traction?
No.
Do people still honestly believe that the only way to get ICM cells from an IVF embryo is to run the thing through a homogenizer?
Yes.
Why?
I'd say it's not a high enough profile solution to such a high profile "Problem." Not enough controversy, and somebody doesn't get forced to eat crow, so the press does not cover it. People remain ignorant that there are non-destructive ways to collect these cells for procedures that are not principally ESC research related, and the media profits from people being ignorant but highly opinionated about "Killing babies".
This has been a solution sitting on that table for quite some time now.
Human embryos are apparently more human than you are. When you declare "let's kill people out of convenience because they don't know any different!" you forsook your own humanity for some shitty rationalization. Embryos ARE life, you fucking idiot. That's not even debatable.
They are closer than you think.
http://health.ucsd.edu/clinicaltrials/sanford/Pages/default.aspx
False dichotomy is false.
Embryonic stem cells CAN AND ROUTINELY ARE HARVESTED WITHOUT DESTROYING THE BLASTOCYST.
http://www.ivfnj.com/preimplan...
Educate yourself. Stop spreading FUD.
You don't find the idea of fertilizing an egg just so you can harvest the embryo creepy, and morally dubious?
No. Not in the slightest.
You don't want your tax dollars to go towards stem cell research? Fine, that's a reasonable request.
No, it's not. Democracy--any form of government, really, but especially democracy--requires that citizens accept the democratic will within broad constraints. These constraints are usually called "rights" or similar. In Canada we have the "Charter of Rights and Freedoms", In the US you've got the Bill of Rights. In the UK you've got "a marshal nobility and a stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property", at least in theory.
Within those constraints, though: anything goes. I don't get to withhold my tax dollars from enterprises I don't support. Neither does anyone else. Do my tax dollars go to things I don't approve of? You're damned right they do, and at times those things cause the death of other human beings, including adult human beings (our current federal government in Canada is spending some of my tax dollars to fight harm-reduction as an approach to drug use, for example, and people are dying because of that.)
So it is not a reasonable request to withhold anyone's tax dollars from any publicly funded enterprise so long as due process has been followed in the funding. Don't like it? Get involved in politics and change it.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Just to level-set, do you find camps where undesirables (defined however you like) can be sent creepy, and morally dubious?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
and yet, without it nothing at all matters.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Embryonic stem cells are derived from embryos that develop from eggs that have been fertilized in vitro—in an in vitro fertilization clinic (i.e. in a laboratory)—and then donated for research purposes with informed consent of the donors. They are not derived from eggs fertilized in a woman's body. I've love to see that embryo develop into life in a dish when its mixed with mouse cells.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
oh jeez, is that the best put down you can think of? its been done millions of times, try something original. in the mean time, stick your fetid cock in a vice and tighten it up as much as it can go, i'm sure "I kan read" will tighten it for you
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
a primer for you http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/...
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
When criminality problems are being made fun of in comedic talk shows, you know your government has a big denial issue.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Age, martial status, income, sexual orientation, home size, the location of the home, car ownership, and car driving distance are all factors relevant to public health. So is gun ownership. It may be a correlative factor, or it may be causative factor. Forbidding it from being included in statistical analysis is dumb - it just leads to worse decisions and worse analysis.
And yes, it may end up informing policy in a way you don't like - or it may end up informing policy in a way you *do* like. If you're afraid of the research, you're probably afraid that the results will not be to your liking. I personally have no liking to results in this area - I find shooting guns entertaining, but I want to have a correct, research based background for how to deal with them as a society.
Captcha: rampage
A woman has developed a nose-like growth eight years after a stem cell treatment to cure her paralysis failed. At the Hospital de Egas Moniz in Lisbon, Portugal, the unnamed woman, a U.S. citizen, had tissue from her nose implanted in her spine. Doctors hoped the cells would develop into neural cells and help repair the nerve damage to the woman's spine. But the treatment failed. However, last year, eight years after the stem cell operation, the woman, then 28, complained of increasing pain in the area. Doctors discovered a three-centimetre-long growth, which was found to be mainly nasal tissue, as well as bits of bone and nerve branches that had not connected with the spinal nerves.
Thanks for posting that, as well as the other link later in the thread. Wish I had mod points right now.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't mean anything at all.
Since meaning is as subjective a thing as can be, consciousness actually tops the list, for it provides the very substrate for meaning.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
i kan reed apparently assumes others can't read, because he consistently gets busted lying and yet keeps deploying that same doomed tactic. He already got called out on it more than once in this discussion alone. As the approach is clearly failing, yet he persists, one must suspect a pathological origin of the urge.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
No kiddin'. Just look at the buckets of BS he spilled in the comments on gun violence statistics above.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
He knows, and he's doing it on purpose. i kan reed is a well known pathological liar on slashdot. The best approach is the same one as with trolls: don't feed it.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Oh, look, you responded to the side points of my post with mindless detail quibbling on points I acknowledged as valid, which is fucking petty
And then you responded to the central argument of my post with brainless hostility.
You. Are. Stupid.
Your central point is that it's not okay for one group to do it, but okay for a group you bray your support for endlessly to do it. And then you have the gall to start complaining about false equivalency and of all things hostility, particularly hilarious given your own penchant for leaping in with both boots on. So once again, get fucked you fucking hypocritical little fuck.
No my central point was clearly that you were making a false equivalence. The end. You can live in an imaginary land where I said something different, but you have to know that's bullshit.
And George W. Bush and the Republicans, pandering to their funnymentalist base, close to stopped all stem cell research...
And killed Superman.
Hmmm, Dick cheney *does* seem to channel Lex Luthor....
mark
All of that means nothing to me. Quoting scriptures to a non believer is useless. I see though someone got a little butthurt what with the expected down mods. If you're right and I'm wrong, then your god is an asshole who doesn't deserve my worship.
... It's similarly illegal to study gun violence under a US public health research grant, even though every other class of mortality is nominally okay. ...
That wasn't really politics, it was because some people at the CDC, which is supposed to be professional, were caught falsifying result data.
The reaction was so negative from so many, that it was stopped for now.
That may be the case in your country, because you let the religious idiots be in charge of the politicians. That's not the case in the rest of the world.
Ah, following the traditions of Slashdot by not RTFA, or WTFP (Watching TF Programme), or knowing WTFYWOA (WTF You're Wittering On About). Yes, the study did use stem cells. Specifically, the stem cells that continually regenerate nerve cells in the nose, to re-connect olefactory nerves to the central nervous system, after the CNS nerves get broken by environmental damage. Didn't you understand the point that the olefactory nerve is the only bit of the CNS that is actually directly exposed to the environment?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
All of that means nothing to me. Quoting scriptures to a non believer is useless.
I'm not penguinoid, but am the (now GP) poster you've replied to. I feel sorry that the sorry state of the world makes so many of us feel that way about God.
Quoting scriptures is valuable because "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16)
Some non-believers start to believe, even when you personally may not yet do so:
"Now there was a man named Simon, who formerly was practicing magic in the city and astonishing the people of Samaria, claiming to be someone great; and they all, from smallest to greatest, were giving attention to him, saying, “This man is what is called the Great Power of God.” And they were giving him attention because he had for a long time astonished them with his magic arts. But when they believed Philip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized, men and women alike. Even Simon himself believed; and after being baptized, he continued on with Philip, and as he observed signs and great miracles taking place, he was constantly amazed."
(Acts 8:9-13) The parable of the seeds and the different types of metaphorical soil also comes to mind, about the ways the message is received differently due to pressures of daily life.
If you're right and I'm wrong, then your god is an asshole who doesn't deserve my worship.
It's common to talk about human law enforcement in a similar way, and it is a normal reaction to curse the persons of authority who aren't stopping our suffering immediately. The scriptures show that we're in the wake of the problems a select few allowed to enter into the picture. Man's willing disobedience started all this, not without a caring God's warning against it. Adam and Eve know death was the result of choosing the road of rebellion even knowing that we'd all be nonexistent today if the God had simply executed them on page one of our book of humanity. (Gen. 3:1-6) But his plan is to deliver results to those who want to follow. This will also prove that all other choices away from God will fail as man tried to direct his step for thousands of years without conquering suffering and death. (Jeremiah 10:23)
God isn't at fault. My last scripture in the GP post shows a small part of what He'll do. The same God was willing to go through a ransom to pay Adam's bail despite man's original betrayal:
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him." (John 3:16)
This highlights we each have a choice, with future blessings that won't end or permanent death in sight. As Morpheus said, the freedom to take the steps comes from us, who are being shown the door via the bible's message. It is much easier to "believe" once we the "signs" of the last days get to the point of the war of Armageddon, but it may be late to reassess what steps to take flat-footed. I hope that this can help see why some Christians will continue to be eager to share the message even going as far as following Jesus's directions to go house to house to people despite the dangers lurking behind each new house that is dissatisfied with false followers' actions. Many are already glad of what they have found and what God will bring after death and suffering are out of the picture again.
Cheers.