Stem cell 'immortality' gene found

New Scientist ^ | Dec 12, 003 | Shaoni Bhattacharya

[taxcontrol]

Exciting news in stem cell research. Implication is that embryonic stem cells will NOT be needed in the future. A person's own stem cells may be used.

[sourcery]

[Cicero]

This would end the need to destroy embryos to harvest the cells for new medical treatments.

Excuse me, but there is no NEED to kill babies in order to help the sick. Nothing excuses the murder of one human being to help another. A better word would be GREED. The GREED to kill babies. The people involved in fetal experimentation hunger for prestige, research grants, and money. They cannot legitimately cliam to be concerned about saving human lives. The other group eager to support fetal experimentation is the abortionists and their allies. They think it will help sugar over abortion if they can claim that the "fetuses" are used for beneficial purposes. In fact they are desperate to find some medical purpose for aborted babies, so they can gain more allies, as support for abortion continues to shrink. Experimentation with adult stem cells is legitimate, and that is evidently where this discovery came from

[Blood of Tyrants]

Umbilical cord blood is rich in stem cells and there are literally thousands of babies born each day where the cord blood is simply thrown away with the placenta.

[longtermmemmory]

Will such immortality (if possible) medicines be available to the general public? Will the left scream that long life is only available to the rich.

What happens to social security when a life is youthful through age 500? Work for 20 years collect a pension for centuries.

How about just compounded interest for a century and the party.

A two year trip to mars is not so far any more. hmmm.

Will women be able to "replenish" their eggs?

[MainFrame65]

Well stated - thank you.

[smith288]

So Christopher Reeves can shut his pie hole about the halt of federal funds to support the research of fetuses regarding his selfish dream of walking again...

Because honestly, would Christpoher give two rat farts about stem cell research if he never broke his neck?

[PatrickHenry]

Lurking ...

[Salgak]

Reading the article, it looks more of a factor in taking "ordinary" stem cells and returning them to a juvenile state, equivalent to a fetal stem cell in potency and specialization potential, but not requiring to harvest a fetus to do so.

Aging appears linked to telomeres, another structure in the cell. . .

[RightWhale]

ESC - Embryonic Stem Cell

We can continue to ignore most of the moral issues with this, but you won't recognize humanity in 100 years.

[Skywalk]

Sorry, jack, if it came between my mother/wife/child and a friggin EMBRYO I'm choosing the person born into this world EVERY SINGLE TIME.

An embryo is not a baby. You have a better argument for the later stages of development, but I'm not going to view a damn embryo as something worthy of equation with living,breathing sentient human beings.


And make no mistake, it is intelligence and sentience that is the ultimate value, otherwise your concern would stretch to include cockroaches, rabbits and other life-forms.

You likely have no problem with killing sentient apes in experimentation to further medical knowledge which helps humans, am I right?

[Cate]

Please do not subject me to 300 childbearing years. I'm barely surviving the current ones, hahahaa. This would make the old woman in the shoe look sterile.

[Dr.Deth]

Uh oh. This is going to start the holy war on this thread.

FWIW, I agree with you. Potential for life != life is the equation that keeps getting missed. Symbiosis is another relative grey area. Can it be said a virus is alive without a host? How about a tapeworm?

[RJCogburn]

Good news and a good example of why one does research, to find out.....

[Cicero]

I'm afraid that I consider that human beings belong to a special class, which is the traditional view of things.

You can argue that a chimpanzee is more "intelligent" than a week-old child, and that it can perform tasks of which a baby is incapable. Nevertheless, killing a chimp is not murder; killing a child is. I don't believe in cruelty to animals, but human beings come first.

I too would be concerned if I or one of my family were ill, but I wouldn't consent to the death of another human being if that's what it took to cure them. Nor would any ethical medical practioner. That was the Nazi way of medicine. Doing otherwise would destroy our society, because things would soon devolve into the strong or the privileged killing the weak to ensure their personal health.

[Cicero]

Obviously I have no objection to using adult stem cells, umbilical cord, or placenta for medical purposes. And many doctors have argued that stem cell research can do just fine using these resources. Only the abortionists clamor for research of fetal stem cells, because they are desperate to legitimize abortion by any means necessary.

[Billthedrill]

Please do not subject me to 300 childbearing years...

Well, I'm looking at 100 years of pimpled adolescence. I might be immortal, but I'd have to shoot myself...

[Old Professer]

Looks like I'm never going to get that new roof.

[snowstorm12]

Bravo. Ditto.

[TheDon]

The Abortion Holocaust is indeed a black mark on our generation.