New Method Equalizes Stem Cell Debate

NY Times ^ | November 21, 2007 | SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

[neverdem]

News Analysis

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 — It has been more than six years since President Bush, in the first major televised address of his presidency, drew a stark moral line against the destruction of human embryos in medical research.

Since then, he has steadfastly maintained that scientists would come up with an alternative method of developing embryonic stem cells, one that did not involve killing embryos.

Critics were skeptical. But now that scientists in Japan and Wisconsin have apparently achieved what Mr. Bush envisioned, the White House is saying, “I told you so.”

Conservative Republican presidential hopefuls like former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts are breathing a sigh of relief. And opponents of embryonic stem cell research are congratulating themselves.

The discovery that skin cells can be reprogrammed to mimic embryonic stem cells is likely to transform the sticky political debate over the science, a debate that has pitted Mr. Bush against two-thirds of the American public including prominent Republicans like Nancy Reagan and has even helped decide some elections.

The findings have put people on both sides of the stem cell divide on nearly equal political footing. Each side can now say it has fruitful research to pursue.

Each side can even lay claim to the same scientists. The author of the new skin cell studies is James A. Thomson, the University of Wisconsin researcher who extracted stem cells from human embryos in the first place.

Perhaps no one outside...

--snip--

“This is very much in accord with the president’s vision from the get-go,” said Karl Zinsmeister, a domestic policy adviser to Mr. Bush who kept the president apprised of the work. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that the president’s drawing of lines on cloning and embryo use was a positive factor in making this come to fruition.”...

[neverdem]

"New Method Equalizes Stem Cell Debate," so says the NY Times in their "News Analysis." IMHO, we're not out of these ethical woods yet. What if we can obtain the exact equivalent of a totipotent fertilized human ovum, and it can be implanted in a functioning, artificial lining of endometrial cells, i.e, the cells that cover the inside of the uterus, aka the endometrium? I just ask from the viewpoint of regenerative medicine such as regrowing limbs or severed spinal cords.

Science finds new ways to regrow fingers

P.S. pigbladderextract didn't work in a search for it as a keyword.

[denydenydeny]

The Left will demand that “real” embryos continue to be used, just because. I’m serious.

[DManA]

So sweet.

the White House is saying, “I told you so.”

[DManA]

We need to discover how to turn dead babies into adult skin cells.

[Chaguito]

"...I told you so..."

Such a twit journalist. There are so many ways of expressing the truth without making the enemies of the left look like children.

These people simply cannot write the news without bias.

[VOA]

bump

[tnlibertarian]

Conservative Republican presidential hopefuls like former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts

Now, that's funny. Or scary. Maybe both. How about just sad?
Otherwise, good news.

[neverdem]

A Stem Cell Win-Win

The Future Is Now

Flawed Stem Cells Yield Fragile X Clues: Researchers study genetic disorder via discarded embryos

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list or just my stem cell list.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks neverdem. Of course, the use of adult stem cells in successful treatments isn’t mentioned...

[muawiyah]

Re: "Each side can now say it has fruitful research to pursue..." ~ how right you are. The NYT is not going to give their dog up. Although there has been NO fruitful research of any kind in embryonic stem cell research, the NYT is saying they can continue to say they have "fruitful research".

The writers at the NYT who put together this statement are either mentally ill or mentally incompetent. It's quite clear they have not understood a thing they've heard ~ it's not that the skin cells are reprogrammed to immitate stem cells, they are reprogrammed to BECOME stem cells. It's an either/or sort of thing for the cells.

[Wuli]

“The findings have put people on both sides of the stem cell divide on nearly equal political footing. Each side can now say it has fruitful research to pursue.”

This is a half-truth or half-lie, depending on how you want to take it, because the lie is that “Each side” could NOT “say it has fruitful research to pursue” in the past, because there are and were previously many fruitful research pursuits with adult and cord-blood stem cells, which is and that is not the case with embryonic stem cells, which, in spite of their so-called plenipotentiary ability had not proceeded beyond unsuccessful attempts to exploit that supposed greater ability, in practical fashion to a given problem.

The development has put a meat cleaver in the lie, sold to voters in a number of states, that without the ability to use and destroy human embryos stem cell science would not get anywhere. In fact, two US Senate races (Maryland and Missouri) were most likely won, illegitimately, over the selling of that lie.