Posted on 06/08/2004 12:42:08 PM PDT by WildReeling
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A leading media watchdog group says journalists covering the death of former president Ronald Reagan are exploiting his passing in order to promote embryonic stem cell research.
According to a report from the Media Research Center, news agencies are using Reagan's death to fuel a rift between President George W. Bush and former first lady Nancy Reagan.
"Serious people have serious disagreements about the balancing of the hope stem cell research holds for curing Alzheimer's versus the misuse of human life, but to leading media figures it presents just another way to bash Bush," says MRC's Brent Baker.
On Sunday, Washington Post television reviewer Tom Shales complained about how "Bush has refused to reconsider his opposition" to providing taxpayer funding for any new embryonic stem cell research, and ridiculed how "Bush thinks he hears Jesus giving him orders."
In August 2001, President Bush put forward an administrative policy prohibiting taxpayer funding of any new embryonic stem cell research.
Although, as a pro-life president, Ronald Reagan would have had a similar policy, Nancy Reagan has joined the stem cell research lobby in pushing for public funds for the research that destroys unborn children in their earliest days.
(Excerpt) Read more at lifenews.com ...
That so many media outlets are pushing embryonic stem cell research on the heels of the death of a strongly pro-life president is offensive to pro-life advocates.
"Leading journalists are exploiting Ronald Reagan's death to push for wider embryonic stem cell research as they emphasize how President George W. Bush is out of step with Nancy Reagan on the issue," MRC's Baker concluded.
Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list
Puhlease!!!
Nancy has always been always pro-abortion, like the two Bush first ladies.
Nancy has made public speeches calling for stem cell research. She disagrees with Bush on this issue, and it makes sense that after watching her husband slowly fade and die over the course of a decade, she would want to look for anything that might be used to stop the disease. I wish she had a pro-life point of view, but I can understand her desire for stem cell research (especially since abortion is legal and being performed in this country anyway.)
I'm with Bush.
Go Nancy!
What a condescending Clymer!
Yeah, that's right. And the promotion of embryonic stem cell research gives some credence for our nation's continual, wanton destruction of human life.
Ignore the fact that umbilical cord blood is rich in stem cells and is just as promising in terms of research. Its completely wrong to take advantage of something which will become medical waste, isn't it? Better to promote the use of the pre-born for scientific purposes, most definitely.
After all, we want to keep the human abbetoirs in business...don't we.
Of course they are, they just want to bash Pres. Bush. They don't have the excuse of staring Alzheimer's in the face every day as Nancy had.
I know Nancy is hurting, and wishes there were something to help others NOT to have to face what Pres. Reagan, she and her family had to endure, but from that I've read, EMBRYONIC stem cell research is not proving to be the answer. There have been better results from adult stem cells and umbilical cord blood cells. I wish there were more information about those two made public.
I know Barbara Bush is pro-abortion, but Laura too??? This is news to me, please elaborate, thank you.
There is not, nor has there ever been ANY need for embryonic stem cell research as each and every discarded umbilical cord thrown out in every hospital is rich in this supply -- much readier for "training" for all types of cures!
Adult Stem Cell Research More Effective Than Embryonic Cells
Lies About Fetal Stem Cell Research [Free Republic]
Stem cells without benefit of embryos
Michael Fumento Interview [DDT, Global Warming, Fuel Cells, Stem Cells, AIDS, Biotech, AD/HD, Etc.]
SELLING LIES (Stem Cell Myths exposed by Michael Fumento)
FREE Book on Stem Cells and Cloning in understandable language
*In 2000, Israeli scientists implanted Melissa Holley's white blood cells into her spinal cord to treat the paraplegia caused when her spinal cord was severed in an auto accident. Melissa, who is 18, has since regained control over her bladder and recovered significant motor function in her limbs - she can now move her legs and toes, although she cannot yet walk.
This is exactly the kind of therapy that embryonic-stem-cell proponents promise - years down the road. Yet Melissa's breakthrough was met with collective yawns in the press with the exception of Canada's The Globe and Mail. Non-embryonic stem cells may be as common as beach sand.
They have been successfully extracted from umbilical cord blood, placentas, fat, cadaver brains, bone marrow, and tissues of the spleen, pancreas, and other organs. Even more astounding, the scientists who cloned Dolly the sheep successfully created cow heart tissue using stem cells from cow skin. And just this week, Singapore scientists announced that they have transformed bone-marrow cells into heart muscle.
Research with these cells also has a distinct moral advantage: It doesn't require the destruction of a human embryo. You don't have to be pro-life to be more comfortable with that.
*In another Parkinson's case, a patient treated with his own brain stem cells appears to have experienced a substantial remission with no adverse side effects. Dennis Turner was expected by this time to require a wheelchair and extensive medication. Instead, he has substantially reduced his medication and rarely reports any noticeable symptoms of his Parkinson's. Human trials in this technique are due to begin soon.
*Bone marrow stem cells, blood stem cells, and immature thigh muscle cells have been used to grow new heart tissue in both animal subjects and human patients. Indeed, while it was once scientific dogma that damaged heart muscle could not regenerate, it now appears that cells taken from a patient's own body may be able to restore cardiac function. Human trials using adult stem cells have commenced in Europe and other nations. (The FDA is requiring American researchers to stick with animal studies for now to test the safety of the adult stem cell approach.)
*Harvard Medical School researchers reversed juvenile onset diabetes (type-1) in mice using "precursor cells" taken from spleens of healthy mice and injecting them into diabetic animals. The cells transformed into pancreatic islet cells. The technique will begin human trials as soon as sufficient funding is made available.
*In the United States and Canada, more than 250 human patients with type-1 diabetes were treated with pancreatic tissue (islet) transplantations taken from human cadavers. Eighty percent of those who completed the treatment protocol have achieved insulin independence for over a year. (Good results have been previously achieved with pancreas transplantation, but the new approach may be much safer than a whole organ transplant.)
*Blindness is one symptom of diabetes. Now, human umbilical cord blood stem cells have been injected into the eyes of mice and led to the growth of new human blood vessels. Researchers hope that the technique will eventually provide an efficacious treatment for diabetes-related blindness. Scientists also are experimenting with using cord blood stem cells to inhibit the growth of blood vessels in cancer, which could potentially lead to a viable treatment.
*Bone marrow stem cells have partially helped regenerate muscle tissue in mice with muscular dystrophy. Much more research is needed before final conclusions can be drawn and human studies commenced. But it now appears that adult stem cells may well provide future treatments for neuromuscular diseases.
*Severed spinal cords in rats were regenerated using gene therapy to prevent the growth of scar tissue that inhibits nerve regeneration. The rats recovered the ability to walk within weeks of receiving the treatments. The next step will be to try the technique with monkeys. If that succeeds, human trials would follow.
*In one case reported from Japan, an advanced pancreatic cancer patient injected with bone marrow stem cells experienced an 80 percent reduction in tumor size.
* In separate experiments, scientists researched the ability of embryonic and adult mouse pancreatic stem cells to regenerate the body's ability to make insulin. Both types of cells boosted insulin production in diabetic mice. The embryonic success made a big splash with prominent coverage in all major media outlets. Yet the same media organs were strangely silent about the research involving adult cells.
Stranger still, the adult-cell experiment was far more successful - it raised insulin levels much more. Indeed, those diabetic mice lived, while the mice treated with embryonic cells all died. Why did the media celebrate the less successful experiment and ignore the more successful one?
* Another barely reported story is that alternative-source stem cells are already healing human illnesses.
*In Los Angeles, the transplantation of stem cells harvested from umbilical-cord blood has saved the lives of three young boys born with defective immune systems.
#1) Go to a clinic with your 'better half' and create a fertilized child embryo.
#2) Use that particular embryo for your own research and your own cure or to help others.
OPTION: If you are past the production point ask one of your children or grandchildren to provide(or be) the raw materials for your miracle cure.
Scientists who have been telling Nancy Reagan that embryonic stem cell research could cure Alzheimer's now admit that it isn't true.
But now, Washington Post correspondent Rick Weiss, has blown the lid off of the scam, reporting that while useful abstract information might be gleaned about Alzheimer's through embryonic stem cell research, "stem cell experts confess . . . that of all the diseases that may be someday cured by embryonic stem cell treatments, Alzheimer's is among the least likely to benefit."
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