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The Obama administration on Wednesday approved the first human embryonic stem cells for experiments by federally funded scientists under a new policy designed to dramatically expand government support for one of the most promising but also most contentious fields of biomedical research. The National Institutes of Health authorized 11 lines of cells produced by scientists at the Children's Hospital in Boston and two lines created by researchers at the Rockefeller University in New York. All were obtained from embryos left over by couples seeking treatment for infertility.

Obama Admin Ignored Majority Who Opposed Embryonic Rules Washington, DC -- The National Institutes of Health is drawing condemnation today from pro-life advocates who say it ignored the majority of Americans who opposed the proposed guidelines that would implement President Barack Obama's decision to force taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research. See http://www.LifeNews.com/bio2885.html

Check out the latest video from Steven Crowder

Obama Scraps President's Bioethics Council After Forcing Embryonic Funding The President's Council on Bioethics is no more. With a one-day notice, the members were told in a letter from the President that their services were no longer required. Pack up, get out. Forget the fact that they had a couple of interesting reports coming out soon, one more meeting, and that the Council's tenure would expire come this September. See http://www.LifeNews.com/bio2874.html

April 7, 2009 — Adult stem cells are continuing to promise revolutionary therapies, while embryonic stem cells remain a political football even after Obama’s loosening of restrictions.  Some stories seem to suppress the word “embryonic” and just talk about “stem cells,” but there is a big difference in the ethics of one over the other.  Embryonic stem cells require harvesting a human embryo. Adult Stem Cell News Diabetes:  Sufferers of peripheral artery disease, common among diabetics, may have hope using stem cells from their own bone marrow.  PhysOrg reported that researchers at the University of Western Ontario isolated three types...

Here's the final installment of the E-mail debate between conservative Catholic legal scholars Robby George and Doug Kmiec over whether President Obama's executive order on embryonic stem cell research authorizes federally funded human cloning. In the first E-mail in this post, Kmiec responds to George's point-by-point analysis of Obama's new embryonic stem cell research policy, arguing that Obama's policy will very likely outlaw human cloning. In the second E-mail, George closes the debate by decrying Kmiec's definition of human cloning and invites him to debate the matter in public.

Obama’s anti-life ideology ... Obama is not opposed to restricting adult stem cell research, because the same executive order which gives funding to embryonic stem cell research takes away funding from adult stem cell research. This is a senseless move on the part of the president; the only stem cell research he is interested in funding is precisely the most dangerous kind, the only kind that a large segment of the population is opposed to on moral grounds, and the only one that has consistently failed to produce the promised ‘miracle cure’ results. If he were really concerned about life-saving...

News to Note: A weekly feature examining news from the biblical viewpoint March 14, 2009 In this issue: 1. AP: “More Americans Say They Have No Religion” 2. LiveScience: “Scientists See God on the Brain” 3. ScienceNOW: “Arrest That Chimp!” 4. BBC News: “Obama Ends Stem Cell Funding Ban” 5. ScienceDaily: “Live Evolution Witnessed In Controlled Environment Of Microbial Predator And Prey” 6. Washington Post: “The Genesis of a Debate” (The Washington Post follows along on a creationist journey through the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History) And much more at the following link:

We are having another one of those amazing moments when Barack Obama - acting as a radical leftist ideologue and advancing a leftist political agenda - summons that amazing degree of personal chutzpah that he alone possesses to condemn his opponents as partisan. Sort of like when Obama - caught red-handed having spent 23 years in a racist and anti-American church - proceeded to offer a pompous moralizing sermon on race relations. Most people - even most politicians (which is saying a lot) - would have faded away with shame had they been caught in such a radical and hateful...

Stem Cells Does Their Origin Matter? Preserving life—it is extremely important in the Christian faith. But what is the biblical definition of life, and how does this definition affect stem cell research?God clearly commands in Exodus 20:13: “You shall not murder [the intentional, predatory killing of another]” (NIV; see also Matthew 19:18; Romans 13:9). A big controversy today is that of determining when life begins. In the field of embryonic stem cell research (ESCR), this determination is especially crucial. Because technology is advancing faster than society’s ethics, we are left to solve such dilemmas in the midst of active...

Correspondent Lisa Stark’s report on ABC’s World News on Sunday almost completely slanted in favor of President Obama’s decision to overturn the ban on federal funding of stem cell research which destroys human embryos. Stark minimized the controversial nature of the research, devoting only one sound bite out of four to a critic of the president’s move. Anchor Dan Harris introduced Stark’s report by selling the apparent promise of embryonic stem cell research: “President Obama is going to fulfill one of his campaign promises by ending restrictions on federally-funded research using embryonic stem cells. This could lead to better treatments...

Elect Obama, Get Embryonic Stem CellsMarch 8, 2009 — President Obama is about to fulfill one of his campaign promises: lifting restrictions on creating new embryonic stem cell lines (see Fox News).  The question now is, are they really needed?  They have yet to show any successes, while adult stem cells are enjoying an accelerating boom of amazing discoveries that could provide hope for some of mankind’s worst disorders. (Note: ESC = embryonic stem cells, ASC = adult stem cells). Muscular dystrophy:  Children and adults plagued by the muscle-wasting malady of muscular dystrophy may now have hope thanks to...

Here it comes again. Stem cells. We hear about them a lot, and if the hype is to be believed, stem cells will be the reason why cancer and the common cold are finally cured. President Obama has signaled his intention to reverse the Bush Administration policy against federal funding of any institution that engages in embryonic stem cell research. No real surprise there, as he indicated during his campaign that he would do precisely that. Again to no surprise, the media, led by WaPo, is eating it up. As the media and other left leaning "intellectuals" like to frame...

“Mark Crutcher, president of Life Dynamics, Incorporated, says Brownback -- a self-professed pro-life Catholic -- "abandoned" the unborn by backing Sebelius... Crutcher says Brownback's desire to become the next governor of Kansas may be driving his support of Sebelius. "All of Brownback's flowery words in the past don't really mean much," he says. "When push comes to shove, he'll throw the unborn under the bus for some political advantage -- and that's what's happened here." http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=437992 I must say that this doesn't surprise me in the least. Throughout the primary debates I remember saying to my wife that this guy...

Even for strong backers of embryonic stem cell research, the decision is no longer as self-evident as it was, because there is markedly diminished need for expanding these cell lines for either patient therapy or basic research. In fact, during the first six weeks of Obama's term, several events reinforced the notion that embryonic stem cells, once thought to hold the cure for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and diabetes, are obsolete. The most sobering: a report from Israel published in PLoS Medicine in late February that shows embryonic stem cells injected into patients can cause disabling if not deadly tumors.

In reality, evolution has done nothing to help real science, and has actually hindered it in many ways...

Any day now, as he promised, President Obama will likely lift funding restrictions on embryonic stem cell research imposed by former President Bush. Bush had sought the council of leading scientists and ethicists before making his decision. Obama, by contrast, will be yielding to the opinions of the scientific societies who have clamored for years that they need and want access to these morally-questionable cells. It’s a good time to ask if the research to date has been promising. .... Rats given the adult stem cells recovered significant motor activity one week after injury, Live Science reported. But ES cell...

During a segment on Friday's Newsroom program, CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen heralded the FDA's approval of the first human clinical trial involving embryo-destroying stem cell research. Cohen then gave a soft interview of the president and CEO of the company involved in the trial, who made the bizarre claim that new medical breakthroughs, including corneal transplants and anesthesia for women in childbirth, were supposedly "always met with concerns from the Religious Right" in the past. Cohen did not follow-up to this statement by the CEO. The segment, which began 17 minutes into the 11 am Eastern hour of...

Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) have, for the first time in history, derived authentic embryonic stem (ES) cells from rats. This breakthrough finding will enable scientists to create far more effective animal models for the study of a range of human diseases. The research will be published in the Dec. 26 issue of the journal Cell.

Dec 17, 2008 — Amazing treatments continue to spring forth from adult stem cells – the stem cells with no ethical qualms attached. With adult stem cells easy to obtain doing so much good, why would anyone want embryonic stem cells (the stem cells with ethical qualms attached), when no usable treatments have yet been found? Here are some recent success stories with adult stem cells:

Republican presidential nominee John McCain debuted a radio ad Friday designed to declare his unequivocal support for stem cell research. McCain voted in the Senate to expand federal funding for the controversial research but Democrats and advocates of the science have expressed concern that McCain’s support has wavered. Not so, according to the radio spot and a McCain spokesman. The ad does not specifically refer to embryonic research, which is opposed by most politicians and activists who, like McCain, do not support abortion rights. The omission is not a signal that McCain is backing away from his record in favor...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Two consumer groups have filed an appeal with the U.S. Patent and Trade Office contesting its March ruling upholding the exclusive patents for stem cells. The office said the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, which holds the original patent on embryonic stem cells, can keep its patents. The patents cover all embryonic stem cells used in the United States and any scientists or research firms wanting them must pay WARF's hefty prices for them. The California-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights and the Consumer Watchdog Foundation are the groups behind the lawsuit and it said WARF...

Governor Paterson announced $109 million in funding for stem cell research yesterday as part of a $600 million initiative approved in last year’s budget. ... Yesterday’s announcement coincided with a convocation ceremony at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. “Human embryonic stem cells offer an unprecedented opportunity to study all aspects of human development,” the hospital’s president, Dr. Harold Varmus, said in a statement.

Throughout his presidency, the Science Intelligentsia has castigated President Bush for placing limits on the federal funding of embryonic-stem-cell research (ESCR). Acting as if he had a banned ESCR, which of course he hadn’t, “the scientists” and their camp followers in the media and on Capital Hill accused the president of withholding cures from the ill in order to impose his religious beliefs on a reluctant public Little noted in all of the caterwauling, was that ESCR and human-cloning research (SCNT) have been funded bounteously — to the tune of nearly $2 billion. Not only has the National Institutes of...

John Edwards had a lot he wanted to say at the Democratic National Committee's fall meeting on Nov. 30. In a fiery speech, he ran down a litany of issues such as Iraq, health care and workers' rights, going well over his allotted 10 minutes and stepping on the other presidential candidates' time. But as lengthy as his remarks were, there was one issue he never mentioned: stem cells. He wasn't alone. Barack Obama didn't address the topic in his speech, either. Nor did any of the other candidates present. Stem cells also slipped the minds of DNC chairman Howard...

The perfect liberal dream! "Now that summer is over, things are really heating up here in New Jersey – The Garden State! November is rapidly approaching and a $450 million stem cell bond question will be on the ballot for us to answer “Yes” or “No.” The question does not inform voters on what stem cell research will be performed. As we all know adult stem cells are highly successful – and do not require millions of dollars since they can be derived from bone marrow, umbilical chord blood and even from skin etc. However, this is not the type...

Research reported this week by three different groups shows that normal skin cells can be reprogrammed to an embryonic state in mice. The race is now on to apply the surprisingly straightforward procedure to human cells.

GAINESVILLE, May 14, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The American College of Pediatricians (ACP) has called for an end to embryonic stem cell research and recommends the exclusive support of already proven effective adult stem cell research. "Not only does embryonic research require taking the life of human embryos, it also prolongs needless suffering by delaying the development of more promising adult stem cell treatments and cures," stated Michelle Cretella, MD, Fellow of the American College of Pediatricians. Research using non-embryo sources of stem cells, including amniotic fluid, umbilical cord blood, placenta and adult blood, fat and various organs, have yielded impressive...

WASHINGTON — After months of meetings with people on both sides of the stem cell debate, Sen. Bob Casey said he will oppose a bill that would clear the way for government financing of new embryonic stem cell research. Legislation coming up for debate today in the Senate would lift President Bush’s 2001 ban on taxpayer-funded research of embryonic stem cells developed after that time. In an effort to win the support of lawmakers like Casey who have backed the ban, sponsors included a provision stating that Congress endorses all types of stem cell research. A similar bill passed Congress...

SIOUX CITY, Iowa - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Monday defended his opposition to embryonic stem cell research despite its scientific promise to cure diseases like multiple sclerosis that afflicts his wife, Ann. In an interview with The Associated Press, the former Massachusetts governor said he was confident that research on adult stem cells could eventually provide the medical answers. "I believe that science is able to receive the stem cells necessary for research through means that don't represent a serious, moral problem," Romney said. Scientists say embryonic stem cells hold the most promise and the research may eventually...

BOSTON -- A black MIT professor began a hunger strike Monday to protest the university's decision to deny him tenure, which he claims was based on race. James Sherley, a stem cell scientist, said he tried for two years to persuade administrators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to reverse the department head's rejection of his tenure bid. "I'm not actually doing this to get tenured," Sherley said. "I'm doing this for the reason that I wasn't tenured -- which is racism -- and I want this institution to admit that that is the problem and make plans to do...

James Sherley, a biological engineer whose opposition to embryonic stem cell research has been controversial among his peers, charges he has been denied the same freedom to challenge scientific orthodoxy afforded his white colleagues.

Just four days before the House took up the issue, the journal Nature Biotechnology published a study showing that cells from amniotic fluid, collected in the course of routine amniocentesis during pregnancy, could have many of the appealing properties of embryonic stem cells, without requiring the destruction of embryos.

The state would pay for stem-cell research, including studies using cells harvested from embryos, under a bill filed Tuesday in the Florida Legislature that might have new hope because of backing from Gov. Charlie Crist. The proposal has failed before, but its chances may be enhanced this year with the support of Crist... "I think it's important, and we talked about it during the campaign, because of the promise it has for maybe the curing . . . of many diseases and maladies that exist for a lot of our citizens," Crist said. The bill (HB 555)...would require the state...

Daniel Kerner sits in his Portland hotel room, laughing as two characters argue in the film "Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius" and moving in time to the music. Hair is growing over the scars on his scalp, where Oregon Health & Science University doctors last month injected brain-making stem cells. It was the world's first such procedure, his doctors say, a risky and experimental trial to fight Batten disease, the brain-wasting illness killing the California boy. In the four weeks since, his parents say, the 6-year-old has grown more lively each day. The milestones are small: More smiles, more eye contact,...

A typical one sided embryonic stem cell news commentary appears again in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Reporting on a recent gathering of embryonic stem cell research advocates in New York, the article quotes Douglas Melton, PhD from Harvard who stated that “If you feel there’s a race to get as fast as you can to the clinic, it would be idiotic not to consider embryonic stem cells.” Huh?

The meeting was almost over when Roman Reed steered his wheelchair to the microphone. On the table before him sat a 149-page book of budget charts and timetables, the first concrete outline of what California's voter-approved stem cell institute plans to accomplish in its 10-year lifespan. "I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart," Reed said to the institute's staff and 29-member oversight board in October. "I promised my son that one day I would be able to walk, stand next to him and go hold my wife's hand. And seeing this road map to cures, I...

Medicines and other medical treatments can produce adverse side effects in some patients. The penicillin that could save me from a deadly infection would have killed my mother who was allergic to it. Stem cells (adult and embryonic) which are being touted as possible treatment for various ailments have a dark side. They are the leading suspects as the source of cancer cells. Some recent research indicates that with some cancers activation of what biologists call a "signaling pathway" named "hedgehog" has been found active in various cancers (esophagus, stomach, pancreas, basil cell carcinoma, a deadly lung cancer and the...

http://www.angelfire.com/blog/stemcells/

Below is an illustration from the Family Research Council to help explain the dizzying science behind embryonic stem cell research

Ouch! I'm pretty confident that Michael Steele is going to beat Ben Cardin in Maryland's Senate race, in part because Cardin keeps shooting himself in the foot. He's now running one of those disgraceful Michael J. Fox embryonic stem cell research ads, which misrepresents Steele's position on the issue (as well as President Bush's). Here is Steele's devastating response, in his own ad: STEELE: I’m Michael Steele, and I approve this message. TURNER: I’m Dr. Monica Turner. Congressman Ben Cardin is attacking Michael Steele with deceptive, tasteless ads. He is using the victim of a terrible disease to frighten people...

The progress of science is paved with stories of high hopes and heartbreaks. But in a busy lab at the University of Rochester the two extremes have met in one dazzling yet devastating experiment. Researchers there have for the first time essentially cured rats of a Parkinson's-like disease using human embryonic stem cells. But 10 weeks into the trial, they discovered brain tumours had begun to grow in every animal treated. "Here we have this method that works so well to reverse the symptoms of Parkinson's," said lead investigator Steven Goldman, "But no matter how you look at it, it's...

Injecting human embryonic stem cells into the brains of Parkinson's disease patients may cause tumors to form, U.S. researchers reported on Sunday. Steven Goldman and colleagues at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York said human stem cells injected into rat brains turned into cells that looked like early tumors. Writing in the journal Nature Medicine, the researchers said the transplants clearly helped the rats, but some of the cells started growing in a way that could eventually lead to a tumor. Various types of cell transplants are being tried to treat Parkinson's disease, caused when dopamine-releasing cells...

WASHINGTON -- A new video available on YouTube marks a late attempt by pro-life forces to avert serious defeat in Missouri Nov. 7, with national implications. Cathy Ruse, speaking for Missourians Against Human Cloning, declares: "Amendment 2 is a fraud. It is an attempt to trick Missourians into approving -- in their Constitution -- human cloning, the right of biotech firms to do human cloning in Missouri -- something Missourians oppose by an overwhelming majority." But Amendment 2 is identified for many Missouri voters by the language at the beginning of the five-page, 2,000-word ballot initiative: "No person may clone...

To the dismay of some advocates for the disabled and sick, a draft report issued today by California's $3 billion stem-cell institute says the agency is unlikely to develop cures for diseases or other ailments any time soon. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine's proposed strategic plan, written by a group that included two Nobel scientists, methodically sets out a detailed blueprint for eventually turning stem cells into treatments for a variety of health problems. But the plan -- which must be approved by the institute's board -- cautions that stem cell science remains in its infancy and that much...

The fierce public debate over killing human embryos to create lines of embryonic stem cells is over; tout fini; THE END. It was buried with a stake thrust through its heart by a study published in the world’s most prestigious science magazine, Nature. Trust the media: “Stem Cells Created With No Harm to Human Embryos” (Washington Post) “In New Method for Stem Cells, Viable Embryos” (New York Times) “Embryos Spared in Stem Cell Creation” (USA Today) "“Stem Cell Advance Spares Embryos” (L.A. Times) On second thought, don’t trust the media. In fact none of the 16 embryos involved in the...

WASHINGTON A company that claimed it developed a way to harvest stem cells from days-old human embryos without harming the embryos was accused at a Senate hearing Wednesday of misrepresenting its work. Advanced Cell Technology Inc. of Alameda, Calif., drew fire from Sens. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Tom Harkin, D-Iowa., authors of a bill vetoed by President Bush that would have expanded embryonic stem cell research through government funding. Supporters of such research say it could lead to treatments and cures for a wide variety of ailments, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injuries. Bush and abortion foes,...

President Bush Files for Divorce with Catholic BaseCatholic Pro-Life Leader states: “President Bush’s implied support for the abortion-causing drug Plan B is completely inconsistent with his recent veto of the embryonic stem cell research funding bill”FRONT ROYAL, Va., Aug. 21 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, president of Human Life International, issued the following response to President George W. Bush’s statements today regarding his support for Andrew von Eschenbach and his recent decision to seek over-the-counter (OTC) status for the abortifacient drug Plan B. When asked by reporter Bill Sammon about the situation, Bush stated: “I believe that...

STEM cells taken from mouse embryos have helped paralysed rats move again, US researchers said today. The study was the best evidence so far that controversial embryonic stem cells might be used to treat people with spinal cord and other traumatic injuries, the researchers said. "This study provides a 'recipe' for using stem cells to reconnect the nervous system," Dr Douglas Kerr of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine said in a statement. "It raises the notion that we can eventually achieve this in humans, although we have a long way to go ... We found that we needed...

...Politicians who support research involving the destruction of living human embryos...mischaracterized the bills, misrepresented polling data, launched ad hominem attacks on Presidnet Bush and people of faith, and displayed an astonishing ignorance of the science of stem cells and even basic biology. [snip] How's this for a score: 1181 FDA-approved clinical trials using adult stem cells, to zero human trials using embryonic stem cells? ...Embryonic stem cells have not been shown safe enough for trials wih human subjects, mainly because of their propensity to form tumors and grow uncontrollably...