I can't speak definitively on the physiology here, but I don't think it's really quite that subjective. People respond to intense aerobic exercise with dopamine release, the same way that people release insulin in response to glucose. Some people might have flaws in that system, but overall, this is "how it works". I believe the system is designed to make you able to keep going even when running started being unpleasant, since if you are running, it's most likely (in the long term scheme at least) because something is chasing you, or you're chasing something, and either way, you'd want to keep going even after the oxygen levels in your muscles drop enough to cause lactic acid build up and the accompanying pain. A little bit of brain chemicals will help you ignore it and catch food/avoid being food.
The dopamine release may contribute to "loving the burn" or the "runner's high" but they aren't the sole cause. I love video games, and I also happen to like running. The runner's high I get doesn't work on a treadmill, though. I hate treadmills. Staring at a wall while running ruins the entire experience for me. But if I forced myself to do it, I still get dopamine released afterward. I just didn't enjoy it, because I was too busy thinking "wow this sucks a lot".
I think you just don't like running. Which is fair. I doubt you don't release dopamine after aerobic exercise. You just don't notice it that much because you're thinking "wow this sucks a lot".
And all of the studies refer to it as a "low-cost gaming console". In comparison to traditional rehab, which cost just as much in equipment then add in the billing rate of a physical or occupational therapist, the Wii is dirt cheap.
Drugs can be on trial and named. Like dinoprostone, which is marketed for one application, but is in a clinical trial for another application. Happens all the time.
Prostaglandin e2 is a perfectly valid name for that particular molecule, as is dinoprostone, 16, 16 dimethyl-prostaglandin E2, Cervidil... all perfectly valid things to call the compound in question. Each name just uses a different naming convention.
I am not convinced. A high BMI would give you more mass to haul out of the pool, but it would also make most of that mass much more buoyant. It probably evens out in the end.
I was sort of entertained that in Sims2 they even HAD a BMI. Or at least variation. I always wished I could change their height. A sim version of me doesn't look right unless it's short.
Not to be a jerk, but you should read the study. The researchers in no way, shape, or form present the idea that cord blood, or the stem cells in it, can become nerve cells. Nor do they think that cord blood can reduce symptoms in people with cerebral palsy. They are actually testing whether giving cord blood to an infant with an acute problem at birth (which can CAUSE cerebral palsy later) can reduce their symptoms. Like, within 6 hours after birth. They are willing to stretch it to 24 hours, just to make the study feasible. There are no trials that I can find where cord blood (or the stem cells in it) help people with CP.
There are degrees of differentiation. The cells that you find in umbilical cord blood are haematopoietic stem cells, meaning that they later differentiate into blood cells normally.
Wikipedia is a great jumping off point for more information about most subjects. It's a short article, but they explain how many people have been led to believe that technology exists to cure disease with stem cells from cord blood, which is not really true. It is a source of stem cells. They are not the same as ESC. They are more differentiated, although not nearly as much as a normal adult cell.
Besides, insurance companies have become experts at denying coverage. They are: 1. legally obligated not to discriminate based on genetic information, and 2. totally unhindered by that fact. Why would they bother to start trying to use genetics when they can pay a few doctors to write letters explaining why your requested procedure isn't medically necessary? It seems to work pretty well for them.
Even your math doesn't show a doubling of funding. The link you provided from the NIH's budget actually illustrates the point I was making.
If you look back at the other years included in that proposal, you can see the effective funding levels dropping, as the success rate, or the percentage of incoming grants that receive funding, decreases. If you look a little closer at the budget specifics, you can see that in previous years, even with the funding increases, the actual amount of money going to funding projects decreases. This is usually due to the increasing costs of all the other components of the budget.
I'm not trying to claim that the budget for the NIH was cripplingly low during Bush's terms, or at least not way more than it normally is. But the budget for the NIH hasn't actually gotten smaller since the 70's, until Bush's second term. To say that the Bush years were great for science is a hard claim to make. Science and research took the back burner to Afghanistan and Iraq, in large part, and to a host of other issues here at home. And some people think that's the right choice. I just don't agree.
On the other hand, in the first three months of this year, an additional $200 million was added directly to the grant funding portion of the NIH's budget, which is not reflected in the current budget, as it was awarded after that budget was released. Call me selfish, but I think research is important, and I like it to get funded. And it's being funded better now.
I'm looking hard for how you can calculate a doubling from any perspective. When you adjust for inflation, during Bush's second term the NIH budget shrank. It actually got smaller. You can find the change rates as published in the New England Journal of Medicine http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/354/16/1665/F1
During Bush's two terms, the funding rates for the NIH went from about 12% to less than 9%. That's a fairly sizable drop in effective funding.
Those are slightly different. Still stem cells, but not EMBRYONIC stem cells. There are actually a few different kinds, with different types in embryos and fetuses even, much less adults. I think the ones in cord blood are already differentiated enough that they only grow into blood cells. Still cool and useful... just not quite as cool or useful as a cell that could grow up to be ANYTHING.
I don't really care if people wanted to get paid for giving samples of [insert useful cells here]. There is no law against it. There are still some places, though few and far between, that will pay you to donate blood.
But I agree that it's really not necessary. The people I work with frequently need random blood samples to use as normal controls. They just wander around and ask who feels like giving a few vials today. They always find someone.
Actually, my comment was not designed to highlight how all the "good stuff" gets funded better by Democrats. I was hinting at the fact that Bush's administration gave the NIH a really shitty budget. Period. That's what I meant by all research. I meant everything funded by NIH. I really don't care what party you're in, if you cut research funding, I'll label you as short sighted and moronic. In general, Democrats usually have a better track record than Republicans in terms of science funding, but I'll argue against stopping NASA's manned program too, no matter who proposes it.
Honestly, I'm sorry that you, as a white male, feel excluded by AIDS research, but it is a little more pressing on a worldwide scale than the normal flu, seeing as how it's fatal. Rest assured that cancer is still one of the biggest fields, and you get your fair share of cancer.
Also, just FYI, the majority of people in the world who have HIV aren't getting it through random unprotected sex hook ups with people they met in the bar. Look at some statistics. Just read the relevant portion of the HIV page on Wikipedia for a start.
If a species is defined by the DNA- then that frozen liquid has a very special description of an individual in it.
By that definition, every tissue human tissue sample or DNA sample has all of the rights and protections of a living human being. Better not do research on cadavers of blood samples anymore either. That would be unethical.
Which is a database unique key to something. Usually a record. Which has foreign keys to other records.
None of which is available to the scientists. You certainly wouldn't know the names of the people who donated an embryo.
So if the sample turned out to have some deadly disease in it, you'd be required to not notify the patient?
Two things, if the sample was for clinical trial, I would have to explain why I was doing something other than my research with their samples, seeing as how I didn't have their consent for that. If you are testing a new pharmaceutical for migraines, and I ran malaria tests on your blood samples, then I already did something unethical. If the tests were part of the trial, then obviously you would tell the patient. But the data generated from the trials cannot be associated with you, in order to protect your privacy, but also to keep the data from being biased. This is why scientists are blinded: to prevent them from purposely or accidentally influencing the results.
Or at least, divorces the scientist from having to consider the needs of the subject.
Actually, it would be a conflict of interest to have a scientist, who stands to gain something based on the research and its results, be responsible for the needs of the subject. That's why there are independent groups who make those decisions for them. See IACUC, OLAW, IRB.
Which of the stem cells needs are not being met, do you think?
If I believed for a second that the Bush Administration actually passed this legislation to save the lives of embryos and not to get votes, I'd shut up right now.
Oh well.
A lot of the opposition to ESC in the higher levels of government is political pandering, and nothing more. I generally think of politicians as people who would pass a law against sunshine and puppies if they thought it would get them reelected.
I appreciate that you have a moral issue with ESC research, but I don't buy that most people who oppose it DON'T also have a an opposition to scientific research on the whole. Or I'll just say they are generally opposed to the scientific method.
I'm not trying to tear you down personally, but there is a large degree of overlap in the people who are against ESC research and, say, also happen to support intelligent design. The second you claim to support teaching ID, you are now rejecting what science IS at its heart: thinking critically and making observations based on evidence. I could make the same argument based on abstinence only education, young earth, and a slew of other agendas that the far right makes a lot of noise about.
It's unfortunate that there are intelligent, critically thinking people who get lumped into the same category as people who think that science is evil. But you share a view with some whack-jobs. Try and forgive us for mistaking you for one of them. Statistically, we were more likely to be right than wrong about that.
Yes. I will definitely tell you that stem cell research would be better off without Bush. In fact, I would bet that if we had a time machine, ALL research would probably do better without Bush, with the exception of "research" done to support abstinence only programs and homosexual conversion therapy.
Although it is true that it was during Bush's term that the first funding actually got passed out, Clinton and Congress actually allowed the NIH to fund stem cell research.
Bush ended the legal arguments that were holding up the process, but only by crippling the scientists.
First of all, that seems unethical from the standpoint of the fact you're dealing with human beings, not just "cultures".
You're really not dealing with humans. You're dealing with a tiny plastic tube with some frozen liquid in it. And it's probably labeled with a short series of numbers and letters, like T-F96.
If I was doing work on a clinical trial, where I was running samples on a patient, I would in fact be required to remove all identifying information about the person.
In contrast to the internet, anonymity in science actually PROTECTS both the subject and the data.
I don't think we HAVE to answer the question of whether an embryo is a person or not. At the end of the day, there are some regulations that dictate what can and can't be done with that embryo, be it a person or not. You can implant it in a uterus and make a baby, or throw it on the sidewalk, or donate it to science.
You can argue that Bush felt it was morally wrong to use embryos to develop cell lines. I personally think that Bush doesn't really care what you do with embryos, so long as you vote for him, and he pushed for something that would convince people to vote for him. And that is not a decision based on whether making stem cells is right or wrong. It's just self-preservation.
If he really felt that embryonic stem cells were evil, he wouldn't have funded them at all. And if he really wanted to make the 'right' choice, he would have done what he swore to do, and uphold the will of the people, who seem to want stem cell research to happen.
And if they were making stem cell lines out of embryos without consent, you'd have a point. As it is, they are making them WITH consent, and they are now making the consent form more specific. It isn't the same at all, really.
A right to privacy based on information in your genetic code is already a BIG DEAL in bioethics. While it really has nothing to do with stem cell lines, it is scary to think that your health insurance company could refuse to cover you because you carry genes that make you susceptible to cancer.
But really, it's more of a question of grandfathering in people who gave consent that their embryos were to be used in research with a form that was less specific as to HOW they might be used.
So long as the change is positive at all, we should be happy there was a gain. Pay no attention to the fact that all future gains will now be cripplingly slow as we struggle to make up for the fact that we've been hobbled. At least we are allowed to make SOME progress.
I think their point was that we've been left in the dust by the rest of the science world. The reason that there are 700 cell lines despite having no federal funding is not a sign of the availability of non-federal funds, but a sign that there is research outside of the US, most of which is light years ahead of us in this field. That is definitely a negative, not positive outcome.
Yes, embryonic stem cells exist DESPITE Bush's legislation, not because of it.
Now, I don't disagree that that would be an upsetting situation, but I have a question.
Would it be upsetting because it was your DNA and you wanted it to get thrown away, or because it was used to create this offspring with needs and attached responsibilities and long lasting and expensive legal obligations that you didn't have a say in? Because really, would you be so upset if they used it to condition their hair instead?
You can discard something that you don't need in a lot of different ways. And some of those ways have consequences. Throwing sperm out implies that it should not be used for anything. According to the consent form, donating it to a sperm bank means anyone who wants it can have it to make a baby. Using sperm from the garbage to make a baby is wrong. But I think that this case is more like adding a line to the consent form that says "If checked, only hot chicks, no ugly girls can have my sperm" but expecting that all previous babies born to ugly girls should be abandoned immediately. The sperm donor may or may not have been cool with ugly girls, but to be safe, let's assume not, and lets just stop supporting all of these babies, since the person who donated their sperm might not have realized that by anyone, we meant ugly girls too.
Also, in my analogy, there might be a lot of orphanages, but only two will accept babies born to ugly girls, and they're run by really mean nuns named Pfizer and Merck. This scenario would suck a lot.
You get my point though, right? Garbage babies are wrong, stem cells still cool.
At issue here are the NIH's proposed guidelines regarding a woman's consent to stem cell research when her donated eggs and embryos are used to create a cell line. I can understand that because I sure as hell wouldn't want cell lines made from my genetic material without my consent.
I think that what is really at issue is whether or not they already gave consent. No one argues that they shouldn't have to give consent before donating an embryo. But when you sign a paper that says:
"I agree that my embryo might be used for any of a variety of research and scientific purposes including, but not limited to: blah blah blah, saving babies, curing cancer, finding out why lolcats are so popular... and I can't have any say in which if any it actually gets used for..."
are you really trying to argue that people didn't consent to having an embryo used to derive a line of cells? Yes, I'm sure that there are people who are too dumb to understand that this embryonic stem cell thing they've heard so much about and are VERY against has anything to do with the embryo they are about to donate, and they would never have done it if they had only known. But I'm willing to chalk that one up to the cost of being stupid. Absolutely add in specifically, in bold letters, that THESE EMBRYOS MIGHT GET TURNED INTO STEM CELLS... OMG PANIC and weed these people out in the future, so as not to force the unfortunate fate of saving lives on their poor helpless proto-offspring.
But lets not risk the loss of a whole lot of useful cell lines just in case the consent form wasn't specific enough in its list of possible embryo uses.
I mean, I think you agree with me here in terms of what you hope the overall outcome will be, but I really hate to even CONSIDER that they might NOT use any cell lines where it didn't specify stem cells on the consent form. Are we really going to let them hobble science because we're too dumb to understand how broad the scope of "well we might do anything" is?
Although in the past, people did go a little crazy with this idea (see CANE TOADS), there are cases where it works great. Introducing a foreign species to kill off the real problem species does not have to end in tragic failure. There are ways to test how this new species will react in an environment. Especially with insect. An imported insect was very effective in getting rid of some of the Purple loosestrife problems here in RI.
This website talks about four different species of insect that were potential candidates. One was not used because it carries a nematode that could infect other insects here.
It just has to be planned a little bit better than "Hey, toads eat bugs, right?" There are ways to ensure that the risk of the flies, in this case, parasitizing other species is slim to none. The species already introduced have not spread beyond the area where they have this fire ant problem.
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I can't speak definitively on the physiology here, but I don't think it's really quite that subjective. People respond to intense aerobic exercise with dopamine release, the same way that people release insulin in response to glucose. Some people might have flaws in that system, but overall, this is "how it works". I believe the system is designed to make you able to keep going even when running started being unpleasant, since if you are running, it's most likely (in the long term scheme at least) because something is chasing you, or you're chasing something, and either way, you'd want to keep going even after the oxygen levels in your muscles drop enough to cause lactic acid build up and the accompanying pain. A little bit of brain chemicals will help you ignore it and catch food/avoid being food.
The dopamine release may contribute to "loving the burn" or the "runner's high" but they aren't the sole cause. I love video games, and I also happen to like running. The runner's high I get doesn't work on a treadmill, though. I hate treadmills. Staring at a wall while running ruins the entire experience for me. But if I forced myself to do it, I still get dopamine released afterward. I just didn't enjoy it, because I was too busy thinking "wow this sucks a lot".
I think you just don't like running. Which is fair. I doubt you don't release dopamine after aerobic exercise. You just don't notice it that much because you're thinking "wow this sucks a lot".
Well in this study, they mention that they see significant improvements in depression symptoms and dopamine levels, which you don't see with normal exercise, and the researchers hypothesize that something about the video game component is causing this. There are actually quite a few studies finding that using the Wii is an incredibly effective form of rehab. One case report: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18689607?ordinalpos=13&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
And all of the studies refer to it as a "low-cost gaming console". In comparison to traditional rehab, which cost just as much in equipment then add in the billing rate of a physical or occupational therapist, the Wii is dirt cheap.
I always thought similarly, but my science mind went to "porcine" instead of "pig". Also it nips the pesky Pig-fu martial arts confusion in the bud.
Drugs can be on trial and named. Like dinoprostone, which is marketed for one application, but is in a clinical trial for another application. Happens all the time.
Prostaglandin e2 is a perfectly valid name for that particular molecule, as is dinoprostone, 16, 16 dimethyl-prostaglandin E2, Cervidil... all perfectly valid things to call the compound in question. Each name just uses a different naming convention.
See, having a high muscle mass, I always felt like I was getting cheated.
You mean I'm fat AND I sink? Way to go, physics.
I am not convinced. A high BMI would give you more mass to haul out of the pool, but it would also make most of that mass much more buoyant. It probably evens out in the end.
I was sort of entertained that in Sims2 they even HAD a BMI. Or at least variation. I always wished I could change their height. A sim version of me doesn't look right unless it's short.
'I'm sorry sir, but your worker's comp doesn't cover eye bleach. Stop asking your employer to purchase nudie mags.'
Not to be a jerk, but you should read the study. The researchers in no way, shape, or form present the idea that cord blood, or the stem cells in it, can become nerve cells. Nor do they think that cord blood can reduce symptoms in people with cerebral palsy. They are actually testing whether giving cord blood to an infant with an acute problem at birth (which can CAUSE cerebral palsy later) can reduce their symptoms. Like, within 6 hours after birth. They are willing to stretch it to 24 hours, just to make the study feasible. There are no trials that I can find where cord blood (or the stem cells in it) help people with CP.
It's hype. Get a better doctor.
There are degrees of differentiation. The cells that you find in umbilical cord blood are haematopoietic stem cells, meaning that they later differentiate into blood cells normally.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbilical_cord_blood
Wikipedia is a great jumping off point for more information about most subjects. It's a short article, but they explain how many people have been led to believe that technology exists to cure disease with stem cells from cord blood, which is not really true. It is a source of stem cells. They are not the same as ESC. They are more differentiated, although not nearly as much as a normal adult cell.
Besides, insurance companies have become experts at denying coverage. They are: 1. legally obligated not to discriminate based on genetic information, and 2. totally unhindered by that fact. Why would they bother to start trying to use genetics when they can pay a few doctors to write letters explaining why your requested procedure isn't medically necessary? It seems to work pretty well for them.
Even your math doesn't show a doubling of funding. The link you provided from the NIH's budget actually illustrates the point I was making.
If you look back at the other years included in that proposal, you can see the effective funding levels dropping, as the success rate, or the percentage of incoming grants that receive funding, decreases. If you look a little closer at the budget specifics, you can see that in previous years, even with the funding increases, the actual amount of money going to funding projects decreases. This is usually due to the increasing costs of all the other components of the budget.
I'm not trying to claim that the budget for the NIH was cripplingly low during Bush's terms, or at least not way more than it normally is. But the budget for the NIH hasn't actually gotten smaller since the 70's, until Bush's second term. To say that the Bush years were great for science is a hard claim to make. Science and research took the back burner to Afghanistan and Iraq, in large part, and to a host of other issues here at home. And some people think that's the right choice. I just don't agree.
On the other hand, in the first three months of this year, an additional $200 million was added directly to the grant funding portion of the NIH's budget, which is not reflected in the current budget, as it was awarded after that budget was released. Call me selfish, but I think research is important, and I like it to get funded. And it's being funded better now.
I'm looking hard for how you can calculate a doubling from any perspective. When you adjust for inflation, during Bush's second term the NIH budget shrank. It actually got smaller. You can find the change rates as published in the New England Journal of Medicine http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/354/16/1665/F1
During Bush's two terms, the funding rates for the NIH went from about 12% to less than 9%. That's a fairly sizable drop in effective funding.
Those are slightly different. Still stem cells, but not EMBRYONIC stem cells. There are actually a few different kinds, with different types in embryos and fetuses even, much less adults. I think the ones in cord blood are already differentiated enough that they only grow into blood cells. Still cool and useful... just not quite as cool or useful as a cell that could grow up to be ANYTHING.
I don't really care if people wanted to get paid for giving samples of [insert useful cells here]. There is no law against it. There are still some places, though few and far between, that will pay you to donate blood.
But I agree that it's really not necessary. The people I work with frequently need random blood samples to use as normal controls. They just wander around and ask who feels like giving a few vials today. They always find someone.
Actually, my comment was not designed to highlight how all the "good stuff" gets funded better by Democrats. I was hinting at the fact that Bush's administration gave the NIH a really shitty budget. Period. That's what I meant by all research. I meant everything funded by NIH. I really don't care what party you're in, if you cut research funding, I'll label you as short sighted and moronic. In general, Democrats usually have a better track record than Republicans in terms of science funding, but I'll argue against stopping NASA's manned program too, no matter who proposes it.
Honestly, I'm sorry that you, as a white male, feel excluded by AIDS research, but it is a little more pressing on a worldwide scale than the normal flu, seeing as how it's fatal. Rest assured that cancer is still one of the biggest fields, and you get your fair share of cancer.
Also, just FYI, the majority of people in the world who have HIV aren't getting it through random unprotected sex hook ups with people they met in the bar. Look at some statistics. Just read the relevant portion of the HIV page on Wikipedia for a start.
If a species is defined by the DNA- then that frozen liquid has a very special description of an individual in it.
By that definition, every tissue human tissue sample or DNA sample has all of the rights and protections of a living human being. Better not do research on cadavers of blood samples anymore either. That would be unethical.
Which is a database unique key to something. Usually a record. Which has foreign keys to other records.
None of which is available to the scientists. You certainly wouldn't know the names of the people who donated an embryo.
So if the sample turned out to have some deadly disease in it, you'd be required to not notify the patient?
Two things, if the sample was for clinical trial, I would have to explain why I was doing something other than my research with their samples, seeing as how I didn't have their consent for that. If you are testing a new pharmaceutical for migraines, and I ran malaria tests on your blood samples, then I already did something unethical. If the tests were part of the trial, then obviously you would tell the patient. But the data generated from the trials cannot be associated with you, in order to protect your privacy, but also to keep the data from being biased. This is why scientists are blinded: to prevent them from purposely or accidentally influencing the results.
Or at least, divorces the scientist from having to consider the needs of the subject.
Actually, it would be a conflict of interest to have a scientist, who stands to gain something based on the research and its results, be responsible for the needs of the subject. That's why there are independent groups who make those decisions for them. See IACUC, OLAW, IRB.
Which of the stem cells needs are not being met, do you think?
If I believed for a second that the Bush Administration actually passed this legislation to save the lives of embryos and not to get votes, I'd shut up right now.
Oh well.
A lot of the opposition to ESC in the higher levels of government is political pandering, and nothing more. I generally think of politicians as people who would pass a law against sunshine and puppies if they thought it would get them reelected.
I appreciate that you have a moral issue with ESC research, but I don't buy that most people who oppose it DON'T also have a an opposition to scientific research on the whole. Or I'll just say they are generally opposed to the scientific method.
I'm not trying to tear you down personally, but there is a large degree of overlap in the people who are against ESC research and, say, also happen to support intelligent design. The second you claim to support teaching ID, you are now rejecting what science IS at its heart: thinking critically and making observations based on evidence. I could make the same argument based on abstinence only education, young earth, and a slew of other agendas that the far right makes a lot of noise about.
It's unfortunate that there are intelligent, critically thinking people who get lumped into the same category as people who think that science is evil. But you share a view with some whack-jobs. Try and forgive us for mistaking you for one of them. Statistically, we were more likely to be right than wrong about that.
Yes. I will definitely tell you that stem cell research would be better off without Bush. In fact, I would bet that if we had a time machine, ALL research would probably do better without Bush, with the exception of "research" done to support abstinence only programs and homosexual conversion therapy.
Although it is true that it was during Bush's term that the first funding actually got passed out, Clinton and Congress actually allowed the NIH to fund stem cell research.
Bush ended the legal arguments that were holding up the process, but only by crippling the scientists.
Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell#Funding_.26_policy_debate_in_the_US
for a time line of legislation.
First of all, that seems unethical from the standpoint of the fact you're dealing with human beings, not just "cultures".
You're really not dealing with humans. You're dealing with a tiny plastic tube with some frozen liquid in it. And it's probably labeled with a short series of numbers and letters, like T-F96.
If I was doing work on a clinical trial, where I was running samples on a patient, I would in fact be required to remove all identifying information about the person.
In contrast to the internet, anonymity in science actually PROTECTS both the subject and the data.
I don't think we HAVE to answer the question of whether an embryo is a person or not. At the end of the day, there are some regulations that dictate what can and can't be done with that embryo, be it a person or not. You can implant it in a uterus and make a baby, or throw it on the sidewalk, or donate it to science.
You can argue that Bush felt it was morally wrong to use embryos to develop cell lines. I personally think that Bush doesn't really care what you do with embryos, so long as you vote for him, and he pushed for something that would convince people to vote for him. And that is not a decision based on whether making stem cells is right or wrong. It's just self-preservation.
If he really felt that embryonic stem cells were evil, he wouldn't have funded them at all. And if he really wanted to make the 'right' choice, he would have done what he swore to do, and uphold the will of the people, who seem to want stem cell research to happen.
And if they were making stem cell lines out of embryos without consent, you'd have a point. As it is, they are making them WITH consent, and they are now making the consent form more specific. It isn't the same at all, really.
A right to privacy based on information in your genetic code is already a BIG DEAL in bioethics. While it really has nothing to do with stem cell lines, it is scary to think that your health insurance company could refuse to cover you because you carry genes that make you susceptible to cancer.
But really, it's more of a question of grandfathering in people who gave consent that their embryos were to be used in research with a form that was less specific as to HOW they might be used.
So long as the change is positive at all, we should be happy there was a gain. Pay no attention to the fact that all future gains will now be cripplingly slow as we struggle to make up for the fact that we've been hobbled. At least we are allowed to make SOME progress.
I think their point was that we've been left in the dust by the rest of the science world. The reason that there are 700 cell lines despite having no federal funding is not a sign of the availability of non-federal funds, but a sign that there is research outside of the US, most of which is light years ahead of us in this field. That is definitely a negative, not positive outcome.
Yes, embryonic stem cells exist DESPITE Bush's legislation, not because of it.
Now, I don't disagree that that would be an upsetting situation, but I have a question.
Would it be upsetting because it was your DNA and you wanted it to get thrown away, or because it was used to create this offspring with needs and attached responsibilities and long lasting and expensive legal obligations that you didn't have a say in? Because really, would you be so upset if they used it to condition their hair instead?
You can discard something that you don't need in a lot of different ways. And some of those ways have consequences. Throwing sperm out implies that it should not be used for anything. According to the consent form, donating it to a sperm bank means anyone who wants it can have it to make a baby. Using sperm from the garbage to make a baby is wrong. But I think that this case is more like adding a line to the consent form that says "If checked, only hot chicks, no ugly girls can have my sperm" but expecting that all previous babies born to ugly girls should be abandoned immediately. The sperm donor may or may not have been cool with ugly girls, but to be safe, let's assume not, and lets just stop supporting all of these babies, since the person who donated their sperm might not have realized that by anyone, we meant ugly girls too.
Also, in my analogy, there might be a lot of orphanages, but only two will accept babies born to ugly girls, and they're run by really mean nuns named Pfizer and Merck. This scenario would suck a lot.
You get my point though, right? Garbage babies are wrong, stem cells still cool.
At issue here are the NIH's proposed guidelines regarding a woman's consent to stem cell research when her donated eggs and embryos are used to create a cell line. I can understand that because I sure as hell wouldn't want cell lines made from my genetic material without my consent.
I think that what is really at issue is whether or not they already gave consent. No one argues that they shouldn't have to give consent before donating an embryo. But when you sign a paper that says:
"I agree that my embryo might be used for any of a variety of research and scientific purposes including, but not limited to: blah blah blah, saving babies, curing cancer, finding out why lolcats are so popular... and I can't have any say in which if any it actually gets used for..."
are you really trying to argue that people didn't consent to having an embryo used to derive a line of cells? Yes, I'm sure that there are people who are too dumb to understand that this embryonic stem cell thing they've heard so much about and are VERY against has anything to do with the embryo they are about to donate, and they would never have done it if they had only known. But I'm willing to chalk that one up to the cost of being stupid. Absolutely add in specifically, in bold letters, that THESE EMBRYOS MIGHT GET TURNED INTO STEM CELLS... OMG PANIC and weed these people out in the future, so as not to force the unfortunate fate of saving lives on their poor helpless proto-offspring.
But lets not risk the loss of a whole lot of useful cell lines just in case the consent form wasn't specific enough in its list of possible embryo uses.
I mean, I think you agree with me here in terms of what you hope the overall outcome will be, but I really hate to even CONSIDER that they might NOT use any cell lines where it didn't specify stem cells on the consent form. Are we really going to let them hobble science because we're too dumb to understand how broad the scope of "well we might do anything" is?
Although in the past, people did go a little crazy with this idea (see CANE TOADS), there are cases where it works great. Introducing a foreign species to kill off the real problem species does not have to end in tragic failure. There are ways to test how this new species will react in an environment. Especially with insect. An imported insect was very effective in getting rid of some of the Purple loosestrife problems here in RI.
http://www.invasiveplants.net/plants/purpleloosestrife.htm
This website talks about four different species of insect that were potential candidates. One was not used because it carries a nematode that could infect other insects here.
It just has to be planned a little bit better than "Hey, toads eat bugs, right?" There are ways to ensure that the risk of the flies, in this case, parasitizing other species is slim to none. The species already introduced have not spread beyond the area where they have this fire ant problem.