Posted on 06/05/2007 5:16:34 PM PDT by The Magical Mischief Tour
A revolutionary technique being developed by British scientists could cure blindness in millions of people around the world.
The first 45-minute operations could take place within five years and could be as commonplace as cataract surgery in a decade.
The improvement is likely to be great enough to transform lives, allowing the blind to regain the ability to carry out everyday tasks such as reading or driving.
The pioneering stem cell surgery tackles age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common cause of blindness in the elderly. There are about 300,000 sufferers in this country and the number is expected to treble in the next 25 years to around one million as the population ages.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Bump for later.
I’m still looking forward to a Steve Austin bionic eye.
If they are still 5 years from the first try, then the article is BS.
The pioneering stem cell surgery
THERE's the real agenda.
MORAL BANKRUPTCY BUMP
Benefitting the living with the blood of the slain.
The Dialectic at work again. Crisis created that only stem cell research can solve. Force opponents of embryonic stem cell issue to modify position to ‘cure blindness’.
And the article is about EMBRYONIC stem cell research, not adult stem cell research (which I would be all for).
Office Depot - Home Depot — Body Depot
Ginzu knifes?
Ginzu knifes?
bump
fyi
thanks, bfl
“45-minute operation to restore sight to millions”
It’s part of Hilary’s new low cost health care plan.
It involves combining the technology for robotic manufacturing and remote surgery.
Hillary will sit in the White House on live television and demonstrate how this is done.
"The scientists are now working on making such patches, measuring just four by six millimetres, which will be injected into the back of the eye under local anaesthetic in an procedure lasting between 45 minutes and an hour.
The patient, who would have to take drugs to stop the cells from being rejected by the body, could go home the same day. After two to three weeks, vision should start to improve."
Thus establishing that this is a treatment, and not a cure. They speak of the success of homologous transplants, then quickly shift to stem cell injections. If the stem cells aren't dangerous, the "drugs to stop rejection" are.
What happens when you go off the medicine regimen? Do your new macular cells die?
Maybe it's just a new way to save on Socialized Medicine. Treat the old folks so they can see better, then watch them fall off the client rolls because they have no immunity.
Someone please get back to me when they have developed a way to grow macular cells from your own body, and can then treat you with your own personalized cure (not treatment).
“How can you possibly operate on millions of people in 45 minutes?”
He He, well said. But here’s another one:
Somewhere in the world a woman is giving birth every 2 seconds.
She must be found and stopped!!
Bada Bing!
If I were blind. I would have to turn this down. Restoration of a person’s sight by taking another’s life is not an option.
“Does that mean she is impregnated one second and has the child the next?”
Heck, I think I know some women who will claim I impregnated them before their child was even conceived.
Further evidence that the technique is likely to succeed comes from human operations. In these, the researchers restored vision using healthy cells taken from the corner of the patient's own eye.Ah, not embryonic, that part is several years away, presumably if they can overcome the traditional ESC problems. I wonder if they have tried this with adult stem cells?
“MORAL BANKRUPTCY BUMP
Benefitting the living with the blood of the slain.”
How did you arrive at that? There are many sources of stem cells that have nothing at all to do with fetuses.
At least the author of the story had the integrity to include the fact that immunosuppressant drugs are required for using ESCs.
Read the article next time.
Apparently they have done this with adult stem cells from patients and had good results. Adult stem cell success stories don’t fit the MSM’s filters.
True, but, from the article:
"The treatment centres on human embryonic stem cells grown in a laboratory."
The research cell population being used had its genesis in the murder of an innocent, unborn human child. I cannot condone that. Killing one to benefit others? One who cannot choose, to gratify the wants of those who can? Hello, Dr. Mengele? No. Not today, not ever.
There is NO conscionable equivocation for murder.
Now, if you want to do the SAME research using ADULT stem cells -- NOW we're in an entirely different moral universe; one that doesn't require murder. I would bet that this same therapy would be equally successful using adult stem cells or stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood collected postpartum. Both have already shown far greater promise than the highly-touted, and blood-stained embryonic stem cells.
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is slow to learn that Magic has its own rules.
Embryonic stem cells are plenipotent. Their programming tells them to grow all the organs and tissues of a human body. When researchers plant them in a fertile location, they follow the chemical signals as best they can, but they tend to act like any other freshly planted seed.
Adult stem cells are many times removed from this potency. They act like a younger version of the same kind of tissue. If adult stem cells are harvested from the patient himself, and developed along the lines needed for the patient’s problem, their use is no more unethical than having a patient exercise to become more healthy.
It isn’t the money alone that is pushing these researchers to follow such an inherently frustrating path. The use of homologous treatments is automatically more time consuming and expensive.
Another factor that drives their quest is their need to solve the mystery. How to control the program steps. How to deceive the embryonic stem cell into giving up its insatiable drive and internal need.
They are a very long way from understanding these things, but they know it can be unraveled. No matter the pain, no matter the expense or the oprobrium. It is why they became Sorcerer’s Apprentices in the first place.
They want to do Magic.
Understanding how totipotent stem cells limit to become pluripotent stem cells, then multipotent stem cells (a process identified by methylation on the DNA chains) is the holy grail only if the process may be understood so well that the steps may be reversed, to allow stem cells from a patient to be directed back to pluripotency or multipotency of specific tissue lines. Truly, the sorcerer’s approach.
.
As I understand it, there are also umbilical stem cells that could be used. NONE of this REQUIRES a dead baby to do...
Oops. Posted before I finished reading your post....
What we need right now is a way to restore eyesight and hearing to the Senate, they apparently are deaf, dumb and blind.
Did you run out of neighbors to annoy today?
Nice try, but amateurish.
Excellent critical reading of the article. I thought the same thing — this is BS if they are 5 years from the first surgery.
My mother is almost 94 and many of her friends are suffering from macular degeneration. They’d all vote for anyone who promised a cure.But, how can you promise a cure if they will not even have the first surgery for 5 yeras? I hate non-articles like this.
praise the Lord!
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