Stem Cell ResearchFollow

My fiance, being Catholic, was firmly against stem-cell research for the longest time. She's also against abortion. She thought of both as murder. I didn't get into the abortion thing with her exscept to say that if a woman is going to get an abortion, which is her right to do, why not use the fetus to cure cancer? She finally came around to my point of view, at least with regards to post-abortion stem-cell collection. She still won't budge on any other type of collection.

Edit: I realized as soon as I hit post that you weren't asking about my fiance or her views on anything, but about the Senate vote and Bush. Yes, I think it will pass a Senate vote, and yes, I think Bush will veto it.

Edited, Wed May 25 12:22:44 2005 by allenjj

I'm for it. Bush is too bible-whipped to really go anywhere that his religion won't allow the country to go. Which is unfortunate.

I love how pro lifers like to spin this as an issue of human dignity when tons of embryos get thrown out each year because the clinics can't afford to freeze them for infinity. I guess a moral person is supposed to believe its better to just throw them away than use them for vital research...

Im glad Im not moral.

If Bush vetoes this, I will not be happy with his actions. I can't do anything about it but post here, but still, I will not be happy.

The embryos are already fertilized, just for sake of accuracy.

Such programs indeed exist and my best friend and his wife donated their remaining embryos to that program. However, embryo adoption is already an option for parents who wish to donate. I haven't looked into it but given Snowflake's claim to be the only program of its type and their number of 212 matched families since the mid-late 90's (or whenever they started, they say they allowed single mothers in '97), apparently it's not a very popular option for whatever reason.

The current rate is about nine excess embryos out of every ten destroyed with the remaining one donated.

Edited, Wed May 25 13:04:00 2005 by Jophiel

there are varrious types of stem cells, some of which can be extracted from umbilical fluid, baby teeth, and birthing fluid. the next time someone says to you that all stem cell research is murder, feel free to prove them wrong.

more info here
http://www.isscr.org/science/faq.htm

Well, there was another measure passed almost unamimously to allow testing from umbilical cord fluid. However most scientists agree that embryonic stem cells offer the best opportunities. So far, umbilical cells have been used to create blood cells and that's about it compared to the embryonic cells' ability to produce any human cell type.

Correct.

While umbilibal stem cells do offer pluripotent cells, the research and technology that will sprout from embryonic stem cells is much larger.

When the male and female gametes merge, they create something called the blastosyst. This consists of the outer layer of cells that will create the placenta, and the inner sack of cells that will specialize to create every other kind of cell.

Thses cells are known as totipotent. Think of them as totaly potential. These cells can be injected into hosts with similar genetic material, and the totipotent cells will hopefully assimilate and help cure whatever genetic defect was cuasing the problems.

the cells taken from Umbilical chords are not totipotent, they are somewhat specialized. They are called pluripotent. Think of them as mostly potent.

Now, I mentioned earlier a host has to be geneticaly similar to the cells being introduced into their body. This is another flaw with pluripotent stem cells. Umbilical stem cells are also known as Adult Stem Cells, and Adult Stem Cells are actually already government funded, I believe $250,000,000 went into this research this year alone.

Now to understand embryonic stem cell research, and why it is better than Adult Stem Cell research is important.

If you have a host who could benefit from stem cells, you can create them on the spot instead of looking for something similar geneticaly.

Take the female gamete, and extract her genetic material, the nucleus. Now take the hosts genetic material, the nucleus out of anything, even a skin cell and implant it into the female gamete. Now you have a culture of cells that have the exact same genetic material as the host. (Or the person who needs the cells to heal them) This process is called Somatic Cell Nuclear transfer. Culturing these cells is what the debate has been about.

It's also more or less a question of religion. Does an embryo created outside of a surrogate have a sole?

Even more benefits can occur when we use totipotent stem cells with current medicines. We can test how to make cells specialize, or even learn how to make them return to a pluripotent or totipotent state. The medical field alone will benefit hugely from embryonic research.

Although adult stem cell research is healing too. A woman in Korea who was paralyzed in a car accident was treated with an injection of Adult Stem Cells into her spine, and can now walk with a cane.

Another example was an adult male treated with adult stem cells on his brain. Instead of curing the disease, they massed into a tumor and killed him.


• The idea here being, if we can learn to correctly direct the specialization of Pluripotent stem cells, we can learn to cure a variety of diseases.
• How do undifferentiated cells become differentiated?


These are some things we need to learn.

o Examples
• Serious medical conditions are due to abnormal Cell Division and Differentiation. In theory, the research in stem cells could provide us with methods of changing how cells work. As a side effect, curing some diseases.
• Testing new drugs on different types of Pluripotent stem cells.
• Take a stem cell from the lab, convert it into a cardiac muscle cell and inject it into a heart that’s been damaged by a heart attack.
• Replacing destroyed dopamine secreting neurons into a Parkinson’s patient’s brain.
• Insulin producing pancreatic beta cells into Diabetics.
• Many scientists believe that embryonic stem cell research eventually lead to therapies that can be used to treat diseases that affect approximately 128 million Americans


So, it's obvious of the benefits.

Now, will George bush veto the idea? We all know he is religious beyond words from this years election. I have little to no doubt he will exercise his beliefs here, much like he has done in the past.

However, since religion seems to be the last deciding factor in this type of research, it's only a matter of a few generations when religion will be taboo and science will be acknowledged.



Yes some of this was cut and pasted, from my last semester in Biology on the Bio-Ethics paper I wrote.

Sigh. Heh. Folks, the reason Bush should veto this is simple. Once embryonic stem cell research is apportioned federal funding, most people will lay off the issue and go concern themselves with something else. This will put in on the backburner, setting us back decades all because the democrats wanted a quick fix. Silly, really, if you ask me.

Not only that, but this will drive a good portion of folks out of the democratic party. You see, despite what the liberal media would have you believe, many democrats are pro-life. Judging by the people I asked in my neighborhood, it's likely in the 95% range. A drastic action like this will scare away all the moderates in yet another appeasement to the radical pinko left. They're really hurting themselves with this one, gonna set the whole party back a few steps. Pretty obvious to me, but if that's what they want...

Because the children up for adoption were done so because their parents were destitute, so those children are overwhelmingly brown.

Now white people rich enough to afford fancy fertility techniques...

It also pales when compared to the amount of embryos we simply throw away... Who is the idiot who thinks that throwing something away is so much better than using it for critical research?

Oh wait, he's the Commander in Chief..

Is Dracoid to old to donate?

Somebody check for me?