Posted on 08/16/2004 5:57:04 PM PDT by neverdem
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August 16, 2004, 8:25 a.m. A Stem-Cell Defection
Carl Kallsen of Fort Wayne, Indiana, has two granddaughters with Type I diabetes: Kendall, 6, and Kelsea, 13. After they were diagnosed, he got involved with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. In the campaign for expanded federal funding for embryonic-stem-cell research, few organizations have been more active in public than the JDRF. Earlier this year, Kallsen told the JDRF that he was taking his family to Washington, D.C. The family wanted to meet with their congressman, Republican representative Mark Souder, an opponent of the funding. The JDRF set up the meeting, and the family, armed with the information the organization had provided them, went to Souder's office on June 15.
The meeting with Souder did not go exactly as planned. They didn't persuade Souder to support the funding. Instead, he persuaded them to oppose it.
"Kelsea...made the presentation to request federal funding for the research," recalls Kallsen. "She made the presentation and was asking for him to consider making an appeal to the House for more federal funding. She gave her story, told what it was like to be a diabetic, what it meant to her and the family: the trials and nuances, having to stay awake at night and be sure you're okay."
Many congressmen have heard similar presentations, and they have been pretty effective in getting several conservatives to back expanded funding for embryo research. Congressional perceptions of public opinion have of course played a role in building support for the funding on Capitol Hill. But another important factor has been the discomfort that most congressmen feel when people in distress cry in their offices. Rep. Souder handled the situation, however, a bit differently than most congressmen.
Souder was "very, very gracious," says Kallsen. But he said that he supported adult-stem-cell research, not research that killed human embryos. The fact that embryonic-stem-cell research involved destroying human embryos came as news to Kallsen and his family. "Basically, it was a learning experience for us. We were not well informed about all of the issues. We're all pro-life and...we had not done enough research on our own to understand that if we were promoting embryonic stem-cell research that's the opposite of pro-life. We were so interested in finding a cure that we weren't looking at how it's done." Kallsen also now believes that adult-stem-cell research is more promising than he had thought at the time of the meeting.
"I don't believe that...there was any intention to be deceitful or mislead us," says Kallsen of the JDRF. "There's a lot of good people in the JDRF.... I'm not here to bash the JDRF." He says he wants to talk people at the organization into putting more of an emphasis on adult-stem-cell research and less of one on embryo research. Since the meeting with Souder, Kallsen has also broadcast his views on the issue on a Christian radio program he does weekly.
I'm sure that there are plenty of other families suffering from juvenile diabetes who support taxpayer funding for embryo research and would remain adamantly for it regardless of how much they heard about the killing of embryos and the possibilities of other research. But neither congressmen nor the press should assume that all the citizen lobbyists who have gone to the Capitol have the full story on this issue, are deeply committed to funding for embryo research, or are immune to persuasion.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/ponnuru/ponnuru200408160825.asp
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ping
Kallsen is obviously someone who works hard to see the best in others.
It would be interesting to see the donor list of JDRF and NARAL, to see how much overlap there is.
Please let me know if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.
I don't think a full batch of eggs was harvested each time. Almost certainly, a batch was harvested initially to start with, and then a few at a time were implanted. So the quoted "140" figure is almost certainly way off.
The Media is complicit in the miseducation of the public on this issue. Watch any news story and you'll get the impression that stem cells come only from embryos. There's rarely any mention of adult stem cell, and if there is they are dismissed as inferior to embryonic stem cells.
The best article I've seen on stem cells, very detailed and scientifically sound
The Stem Cell Cover-Up By Michael Fumento
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1142855/posts
it looks like many of the people pushing embryonic stem cell research are not disinterested bystanders, but work for companies that would benefit from more federal funding, but the media swallows it hook line and sinker!
Yea, I had the 140 in the title while doing other stuff then I hit post, I did want to change the title into a question.
Since most of the fertility web sites state that 3 live human children embryos are implanted each time, and she had the procedure done 7 times with one implanting and growing to term, I would say that she killed at least 20 of her children not counting any left in the petri dish so the number may be more. Even one is a tragedy. This procedure should not be allowed and is one of the reason why the Catholic Church strictly forbids it. It's just not in God's plan.
Stem Cells Not the Priority for Alzheimer's
Adult stem cells work there is NO need to harvest babies for their body parts.
Adult Stem Cell Research More Effective Than Embryonic Cells
Embryo Vivisection and Elusive Promises Act--California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative
Stem Cells Not the Priority for Alzheimer's
The Stem Cell Cover-Up By Michael Fumento
Lies About Fetal Stem Cell Research [Free Republic]
Stem cells without benefit of embryos
Michael Fumento Interview [DDT, Global Warming, Fuel Cells, Stem Cells, AIDS, Biotech, AD/HD, Etc.]
SELLING LIES (Stem Cell Myths exposed by Michael Fumento)
FREE Book on Stem Cells and Cloning in understandable language
Unborn Children May "Cure" Mothers' Diseases Via Fetal Stem Cells
Alzheimer's gene therapy trial shows early promise | Drug slows advanced Alzheimer's disease |
*In 2000, Israeli scientists implanted Melissa Holley's white blood cells into her spinal cord to treat the paraplegia caused when her spinal cord was severed in an auto accident. Melissa, who is 18, has since regained control over her bladder and recovered significant motor function in her limbs - she can now move her legs and toes, although she cannot yet walk.
This is exactly the kind of therapy that embryonic-stem-cell proponents promise - years down the road. Yet Melissa's breakthrough was met with collective yawns in the press with the exception of Canada's The Globe and Mail. Non-embryonic stem cells may be as common as beach sand.
They have been successfully extracted from umbilical cord blood, placentas, fat, cadaver brains, bone marrow, and tissues of the spleen, pancreas, and other organs. Even more astounding, the scientists who cloned Dolly the sheep successfully created cow heart tissue using stem cells from cow skin. And just this week, Singapore scientists announced that they have transformed bone-marrow cells into heart muscle.
Research with these cells also has a distinct moral advantage: It doesn't require the destruction of a human embryo. You don't have to be pro-life to be more comfortable with that.
*In another Parkinson's case, a patient treated with his own brain stem cells appears to have experienced a substantial remission with no adverse side effects. Dennis Turner was expected by this time to require a wheelchair and extensive medication. Instead, he has substantially reduced his medication and rarely reports any noticeable symptoms of his Parkinson's. Human trials in this technique are due to begin soon.
*Bone marrow stem cells, blood stem cells, and immature thigh muscle cells have been used to grow new heart tissue in both animal subjects and human patients. Indeed, while it was once scientific dogma that damaged heart muscle could not regenerate, it now appears that cells taken from a patient's own body may be able to restore cardiac function. Human trials using adult stem cells have commenced in Europe and other nations. (The FDA is requiring American researchers to stick with animal studies for now to test the safety of the adult stem cell approach.)
*Harvard Medical School researchers reversed juvenile onset diabetes (type-1) in mice using "precursor cells" taken from spleens of healthy mice and injecting them into diabetic animals. The cells transformed into pancreatic islet cells. The technique will begin human trials as soon as sufficient funding is made available.
*In the United States and Canada, more than 250 human patients with type-1 diabetes were treated with pancreatic tissue (islet) transplantations taken from human cadavers. Eighty percent of those who completed the treatment protocol have achieved insulin independence for over a year. (Good results have been previously achieved with pancreas transplantation, but the new approach may be much safer than a whole organ transplant.)
*Blindness is one symptom of diabetes. Now, human umbilical cord blood stem cells have been injected into the eyes of mice and led to the growth of new human blood vessels. Researchers hope that the technique will eventually provide an efficacious treatment for diabetes-related blindness. Scientists also are experimenting with using cord blood stem cells to inhibit the growth of blood vessels in cancer, which could potentially lead to a viable treatment.
*Bone marrow stem cells have partially helped regenerate muscle tissue in mice with muscular dystrophy. Much more research is needed before final conclusions can be drawn and human studies commenced. But it now appears that adult stem cells may well provide future treatments for neuromuscular diseases.
*Severed spinal cords in rats were regenerated using gene therapy to prevent the growth of scar tissue that inhibits nerve regeneration. The rats recovered the ability to walk within weeks of receiving the treatments. The next step will be to try the technique with monkeys. If that succeeds, human trials would follow.
*In one case reported from Japan, an advanced pancreatic cancer patient injected with bone marrow stem cells experienced an 80 percent reduction in tumor size.
* In separate experiments, scientists researched the ability of embryonic and adult mouse pancreatic stem cells to regenerate the body's ability to make insulin. Both types of cells boosted insulin production in diabetic mice. The embryonic success made a big splash with prominent coverage in all major media outlets. Yet the same media organs were strangely silent about the research involving adult cells.
Stranger still, the adult-cell experiment was far more successful - it raised insulin levels much more. Indeed, those diabetic mice lived, while the mice treated with embryonic cells all died. Why did the media celebrate the less successful experiment and ignore the more successful one?
* Another barely reported story is that alternative-source stem cells are already healing human illnesses.
*In Los Angeles, the transplantation of stem cells harvested from umbilical-cord blood has saved the lives of three young boys born with defective immune systems.
This [isolating stem cells from fat] could take the air right out of the debate about embryonic stem cells, said Dr. Mark Hedrick of UCLA, the lead author. The newly identified cells have so many different potential applications, he added, that it makes it hard to argue that we should use embryonic cells. -- Thomas H. Maugh II, Fat may be answer to many illnesses, Los Angeles Times, 4/10/01
With the newest evidence that even cells in fat are capable of being transformed into tissue through the alchemy of biotechnology, some scientists said they are beginning to conclude theyll be able to grow with relative ease all sorts of replacement tissues without resorting to embryo or fetal cells Its highly provocative work, and theyre probably right, said Eric Olson, chairman of molecular biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas Like many biologists, Olson believes that adult, fetal and embryonic stem cell research all merit support its heartening, he said, that almost every other week theres another interesting finding of adult stem cells turning into neurons or blood cells or heart muscle cells. Apparently our traditional views need to be reevaluated. --Rick Weiss, Human Fat May Provide Stem Cells, The Washington Post, 4/10/01
In a finding that could offer an entirely new way to treat heart disease within the next few years, scientists working with mice and rats have found that key cells from adult bone marrow can rebuild a damaged heartactually creating new heart muscle and blood vessels Until now researchers thought that stem cells from embryos offer the best hope for rebuilding damaged organs, but this latest research shows that the embryos, which are politically controversial, may not be necessary. We are currently finding that these adult stem cells can function as well, perhaps even better than, embryonic stem cells, [Dr. Donald] Orlic [of the National Human Genome Research Institute] said. --Robert Bazell, Approach may repair heart damage, NBC Nightly News, 3/30/01.
[Dr. Donald] Orlic said fetal and embryonic stem cell researchers have not been able to show the regeneration of heart cells, even in animals. This study alone gives us tremendous hope that adult stem cells can do more than what embryonic stem cells can do, he said. --Kristen Philipkoski, Adult Stem Cells Growing Strong, Wired Magazine, 3/30/01
Like several other recent studies, the new work with hearts suggests that stem cells retrieved from adults have unexpected and perhaps equal flexibility of their own, perhaps precluding the need for the more ethically contentious [embryonic] cells. --Rick Weiss, Studies Raise Hopes of Cardiac Rejuvenation, The Washington Post, 3/31/01
Umbilical cords discarded after birth may offer a vast new source of repair material for fixing brains damaged by strokes and other ills, free of the ethical concerns surrounding the use of fetal tissue, researchers said Sunday. --Umbilical cords could repair brains, Associated Press, 2/20/01.
"PPL Therapeutics, the company that cloned Dolly the sheep, has succeeded in reprogramming' a cell -- a move that could lead to the development of treatments for diseases such as diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The Scotland-based group will today announce that it has turned a cow's skin cell into a beating heart cell and is close to starting research on humans... The PPL announcement...will be seen as an important step towards producing stem cells without using human embryos." --"PPL follows Dolly with cell breakthrough," Financial Times, 2/23/01
Because they have traveled further on a pathway of differentiation than an embryos cells have, such tissue specific [adult] stem cells are believed by many to have more limited potential than Embryonic Stem cells or those that PPL hopes to create. Some researchers, however, are beginning to argue that these limitations would actually make tissue-specific stem cells safer than their pluripotent counterparts. University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Glenn McGee is one of the most vocal critics on this point: The emerging truth in the lab is that pluripotent stem cells are hard to reign in. The potential that they would explode into a cancerous mass after a stem cell transplant might turn out to be the Pandoras box of stem cell research. --Erika Jonietz, Biotech: Could new research end the embryo debate? Technology Review, January/February, 2001.
Thanks for those facts, Coleus.
There are so many better ways to cure diseases, ways that do not involve creating life for the sake of destroying life.
Embryonic stem cell research is human experimentation, such as Mengele engaged in at the death camps. It is the first step in growing human babies for the sole purpose of harvesting their organs. It is abominable.
How does the probability of any particular in-vitro-fertilized egg implanting compare with the probability of a naturally-fertilized egg doing so?
Thanks for the link.
Yes, how nasty of the other poster to place the number at 140! The real number is much lower.
She only had 20 of her kids murdered - not 140!
Shame on that other poster!
Given that leftists will grab at any untruth, no matter how slight or incidental, and use it as a basis for discrediting their opponents, I think it important to avoid anything resembling exaggeration on such details.
Re-elect this guy!
True enough, we are held to a higher standard.
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