Stem CElls: Promise and Promise

Investor's Business Daily ^ | Oct. 15, 2010 | Investor's Business Daily staff

[raptor22]

Science: After decades of promises, the first clinical trial using human embryonic stem cells has begun. Again, the success stories using adult stem cells are ignored as ideology, and profit, triumph over science.

The announcement by Geron Corp. on Monday that the first clinical trial using its embryonic stem cells to treat an actual human patient was under way sent its stock up 6.4%. Geron has the first FDA license to use embryonic stem cells to treat people, in this case a patient with a spinal cord injury.

We wish the patient well, but using stem cells to treat disease and injury is not new. It's in the area of adult stem cell research that new discoveries are being made every day. Hundreds of conditions and diseases are actually being treated using adult cells drawn from umbilical cord blood and other non-embryonic sources.

You wouldn't know this from the media or liberal politicians. They talk about "embryonic stem cells" or just "stem cells," but the phrase "adult stem cells" never crosses their lips.

[raptor22]

There's monet to be made in the human sacrifice business.

[Peter from Rutland]

Pssst: It’s a cell. Get over it.

[raptor22]

So were you once. Would you have preferred to have yourself turned into someone else’s body part?

[utherdoul]

personally I’d rather go the Heinlein route. Brainless clones grown and kept in cold storage incase I need a liver or lung or something.

[Peter from Rutland]

Harvesting cells for a VERY worthy cause != abortion

It just isn’t.

[Fred Hayek]

It’s in the area of adult stem cell research that new discoveries are being made every day. Hundreds of conditions and diseases are actually being treated using adult cells drawn from umbilical cord blood and other non-embryonic sources.

Add to that most experiments with embryonic stem cells tended to go out of control. Tumors, instead of repairing damaged areas, have been the typical outcome.

[ArrogantBustard]

Killing an embryonic human is abortion.

It just is.

[so_real]

So ... by your definition ... harvesting cells for an unworthy cause is abortion, but harvesting cells for a worthy cause is not abortion. You believe the ends justify the means. That's ethical relativism; it just depends on what your definition of "worthy" is. (Recalling Bill Clinton's word smithing.) You could make the same argument and find the Soylent Green plot line morally just. It is sick and perverse. I pray some day you will gain the wisdom to understand this.

[RickB444]

“Pssst: It’s a cell. Get over it”.

If it is harvested from a human skin cell or from the placenta I would agree. But if you put a fetus to death to harvest it then it is more than a cell. It is a sacrifice of a human life to provide a rather iffy chance that something good may come of it. The jury is still out on weather this treatment will bring anything useful.

[Peter from Rutland]

Nobody is killing babies to harvest stem cells. That is hysterical blathering that really does nothing to support your point.

[so_real]

Nobody is killing babies to harvest stem cells. That is hysterical blathering that really does nothing to support your point.

No one is? Really? Are you certain?

20/20 Exposes Trafficking in Fetal Body Parts

Do the research or fall in line with the sheeple. The choice is yours.