the Stem Cell Debate

note difference of action verb, plus important clarification in the former. obviously these editors know their audiences well enough to report things exactly as sensational as enough to sell papers. hearing that the president agrees with your views just isn't worth buying a paper for, i guess.

But, back to the point, stem cell research is a great thing. It's so damn odd. People who don't seem to know much at all are the first to say it's the beginning of the end with a super race just around the corner. First of all, I don't think so, and even if that's the case, so what? Do really have to pass on your imperfect, defective genes? ;-)

For people who really don't know, but are quick to be afraid, I'd suggest you check out the Stem Cell Primer . I don't see how stem cell research could be a bad thing. Who are we to limit other people in their pursuit for higher knowledge? And Bush was stupid in limiting the research. If Bush said no to the whole thing, someone else would just say yes to the research later. These kind of issue piss me off. It's a good thing and I don't think it should be such a controversy. Just like aborting unwanted babies is obviously a good thing; disgusting maybe, but good. But, that's the beauty of having only one opinion; nobody disagrees with you.

Those who are really 'playing God' are the ones who take it upon themselves to restict others' actions solely on the basis that they conflict with a divine will or principle of nature which, they imagine, they are acting on behalf of.

Embryos at these stage only have about a 50% survival rate anyway, with half of them failing to implant, so we create this type of life naturally all the time only for it to fall on the trash heap of stochastic biology. If god is implanting souls in all these things, limbo is full of human caviar.

Sam Brownback sed so. And Tom Coburn

Opponents of research with embryonic stem (ES) cells often claim that adult stem cells provide treatments for 65 human illnesses. The apparent origin of those claims is a list created by David A. Prentice, an employee of the Family Research Council who advises U.S. Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) and other opponents of ES cell research...

Among the Republicans voting fer:

Bill Frist, John McCain, and, quite amazingly, Ted Stevens (R-AK)

Senator Nelson was only Democrat to vote agin'.

How many votes does it take to overturn a veto? 60? 67?

Mr Bush has said he is against the use of public funds for research involving the destruction of human embryos.

He has also consistently opposed embryonic research on moral grounds.

Mr Bush announced his decision at the White House in the company of 18 families whose children were born after using embryos "unwanted" by other couples seeking fertility treatment.

"This bill would support the taking of innocent human life of the hope of finding medical benefits for others," the president said.

"Each of these children was still adopted while still an embryo and has been blessed with a chance to grow, to grow up in a loving family. These boys and girls are not spare parts."

[...]

Two other less controversial bills received unanimous backing from the Senate, and were signed into law by President Bush.

One encourages stem cell research using cells from sources other than embryos, and the other bill bans the growing and aborting of foetuses for research.

"Fetal farming" = which never actually happens, but god forbid someone go against a bullshit narrative.

So, this means they're gunna go after in-vitro clinics next, right?

Hart: I thank the gentleman from Ohio for alloting me time to speak in favor of sustaining the President’s veto. It’s been a year since this House passed the Castle-Degette bill. In that year, science–not Hollywood–has helped us to debunk the myth of a promise for embryonic stem cell research. Hollywood supports it. Science created fraudulent experiments. Before last year’s vote, they made arguments supporting embryonic stem cell research. They were coming fast and furious from our colleagues. During the debate in the Senate, the same arguments came. They cited Dr. Wong Wuk Suk of South Korea and his research. Supporters of his research said that he had cloned a human embryo; that he had found a way to produce embryonic stem cell lines that could be done routinely and efficiently. What happened later?

All of his research was debunked. The ethics of his research were called into question. It was revealed that his publications were faked, his experiments were unsuccessful, and the treatment of their egg donors as ethically grossly appalling. Mr. Speaker, I urge us to reject embryonic stem cell research as the science is not there. Since it is successful in treating patients using adult stem cells, and cord blood stem cells which we agreed to fund and the President signed and I believe we should support that and I yield back.

DeGetter: Of course the gentle-lady from Pennsylvania refers to the South Korea experiment which was not embryonic stem cell research rather it was somatic cell nuclear transfer, not at issue today…

I don't trust Arnie at all but I gotta admit he's got a flair for stickin it to Dubya.

Bush to stem cell community: Drop dead
President's veto of embryonic research funding reflects incoherent policy

....An administration that has shown itself over and over again to have trouble telling the truth is now telling Americans in wheelchairs, those with damaged hearts, babies who are diabetic and those left immobile by Parkinsonism not to worry. The president, whose grasp of science left him unable to identify creationism as a fundamentally religious idea, and his trusty sidekick Karl Rove, rarely seen in a white lab coat but who knows something about rats, having been in Washington for some time now, claim to know best which medical research is most likely to benefit diseased Americans in the future...

No less cruelly deceptive was the photo op staged to sell Mr. Bush’s veto: television imagery of the president cradling so-called Snowflake babies, born via in vitro fertilization from frozen embryos that had been “adopted.� As Senator Arlen Specter has pointed out, only 128 of the 400,000 or so rejected embryos languishing in deep freeze in fertility clinics have been adopted. Many of the rest are destined to be tossed in the garbage.

If you believe, as Mr. Bush says he does, that either discarding or conducting research with I.V.F. embryos is murder, then fertility clinic doctors, like stem-cell researchers, belong on death row. But the president, so proud of drawing a firm “moral� line, will no sooner crack down on I.V.F. than he did on Kim Jong Il: The second-term Bush has been downsized to a paper tiger. His party’s base won’t be so shy. Sam Brownback, the Kansas Republican who led the Senate anti-stem-cell offensive and sees himself as the religious right’s presidential candidate, has praised the idea of limiting the number of eggs fertilized in vitro to “one or two at a time.� A Kentucky state legislator offered a preview of coming attractions, writing a bill making the fertilization of multiple eggs in I.V.F. treatments a felony.

WTF?

As expected, the Obama administration said Tuesday it will appeal the court ruling that temporarily bars federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

For Dr. Curt Civin, who's been fighting cancer in children for 35 years, the court's ruling came as a shock, CBS News Correspondent Wyatt Andrews reports. The ban on federal funds could halt a half million dollar research project both the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University have been using to fight childhood leukemia.

"We have the tool in our hands, and it seems to us, we fear, that this will be turned off," said Civin, an associate dean at the University of Maryland.

The same fear surfaced at Children's Hospital in Boston, where Dr. Leonard Zon could end up losing a one million dollar stem cell project to study Down syndrome.

"To stop this work just seems crazy at this moment, and we're certainly hoping that this ruling can be challenged in some way," Zon said.

The ruling came late Monday, when a federal court in Washington said that in a1996 budget law, Congress was crystal clear that "no federal funds shall be used for research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed," which does happen anytime embryonic stem cells are taken.

The ruling does not apply to private funding or other types of stem cells.

But medical researchers are confused about this question. What about the embryonic stem cell experiments going on right now, where the embryos have already been destroyed? Must those experiments stop or can they move forward?

The National Institutes of Health immediately put 62 pending stem cell projects on hold and warned that more than 200 existing stem cell experiments could continue for now but may not be renewed.

Treating embryos as if they were human beings is a peculiarly arrogant delusion of our age, and it is ironic that this delusion is founded on the successes of science and scientific method, as it appears after it is filtered through ignorance and extreme simple-mindedness.

The court decision was issued by a Reagan appointed judge who has had various ethics issues over the years.

obama signed a bill containing that dumb provision after the bill allowing stem cell research. so it seems more like an executive branch fuck-up than a rogue judge to me.

The case against the US government was brought by two doctors, James Sherely and Theresa Diesher, who use adult stem cells in their research. They argued that the NIH guidelines broke the Dickey-Wicker amendment, and that their careers were harmed by having to compete for government funding with researchers using embryonic cells.

that last part is just o_O

days like this make me wish that there could be a plate tectonic rift splitting the United States into 4 or 5 separate nations.....

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/23/health/stem-cell-research-breakthrough/index.html