First ESC Clinical Trials to BeginFollow

Time to start stocking up on your zombie supplies.

Rescinding Bush's stem cell policy should have been a Day 1 executive order. Hopefully it comes soon.

I'll just be happy if they can fix me after a stoke.

It could be it. It would still be nice if he merely cancelled GWB's order right now, and then encouraged congress to draft the bill to actually appropriate the funds.

Congress represents the people. (Stop laughing, they do, at least the ones that pay campaign contributions.)
Presidents come and go, a congressional action/law is a "bit" harder to remove.

Joph nice avatar of Baltimore native Johnny Eck.

I'm fully prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse, have been ever since the first time I read the Zombie Survival Guide. I've got a shelter in the woods stocked with several .22 caliber rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Try as they might, those zeds ain't gettin' nowhere near me and mine!


I'm still making preparations to defend myself against the coming robot uprising. Hopefully the robot uprising and the zombie apocalypse don't happen at the same time; sure there's a chance that the zeds and the bots might fight amongst themselves, but I don't think the robots are dumb enough to keep attack zeds, and the zeds really won't care what the metal not-foods are doing. I shudder at the thought.


As for the new ESC funding... This is something that I feel should have been done eight years ago. Damn conservative moralists will be the first to fall in the zombie apocalypse. Don't hesitate to shoot her in the head, she's not your mother anymore!

Could be. However, the original bill that passed Congress (and was vetoed by Bush) didn't include anything aside from allowing federal funding for ESC.

There's a tax break bill being floated for stem cell research (written by Senator Vitter (R-LA)) but its language would exclude embryonic stem cell research.

We'll find out when the first bills get drafted up in Congress, I suppose.

Lol. While typing Joph just provided an example of exactly what I was talking about! Nice timing... ;)

Chopping up human babies that have already been born is the more popular option judging by recent events.

Apparently its a productive and mature way of solving land disputes.

Every time I see this thread I keep thinking to myself "Why is Jophiel talking about Electronic Speed Controllers"

My helicopter has a shinty one!

Yeah, I guess I stopped finding policy polling relevant after going back four years so I stopped looking that far back. 'Grats on that poll from '04 though.Really? Examples?I think most people are already fairly aware of what it involves. And that, if told about it in greater detail, would be more willing to support it rather than less.

The poll question includes a false dilemma Joph. They're asked to balance "stem cell research" (not just embryonic) against not destroying human embryos. Given that most forms of stem cell research do not involve destroying human embryos, the question lends itself to false results. Since the two options are not clearly opposites (ie: do research using ESC, or don't do research using ESC), it's incorrect to interpret the results as though this is the question being asked (which is exactly what you and everyone else does).


Also, this poll does not ask the more relevant question about whether we should fund this research with federal money. The Bush order didn't make it illegal to do research with embryonic stem cells, it just didn't fund that research with public money. Since that's the actual question here (should Obama fund ESC with taxpayer dollars or not), don't you think that's the more relevant question?

The report I linked was a poll result in which that question was asked. Yours, despite being newer and from a fancy organization, fails to actually address the question at hand (shocker!)...

Edited, Jan 26th 2009 6:20pm by gbaji

Huh? Are you arguing that had they stated that the cells could be harvested up to 6 weeks after the embryo first formed that you'd get lower numbers? Really? Cause I'd assume that limiting the time to the first week of embryonic development would tend to make people more ok with stem cell harvesting, not less...



They're talking about how long after the cluster of cells ceases to be a blastocyst and becomes an embryo Joph. It was pretty obvious from the question. I'm not sure of the exact techniques and timeline involved, but clearly if you're harvesting embryonic stem cells and the embryonic phase lasts about 6 weeks in humans, then you have about 6 weeks to do the harvesting. I'm not sure if all harvesting is actually done in the first week or not, but I don't see how the question at all biases the results towards opposition of the harvesting.


Not like omitting key details like whether we're supporting funding or just research and whether we think research in the entire field of stem cells is more important than protecting embryos. You know. Like the questions in the Pew survey...



The point is that when people are told exactly what is going on, they are less likely to support funding for embryonic stem cell research. Are you arguing that stem cells *aren't* harvested in the first week of embryonic development? Or that if you harvest them later, this will make people more likely to accept it? What exact information in that question was inaccurate?