Posted on 06/25/2004 7:24:41 PM PDT by Salvation
Code: ZE04062523
Date: 2004-06-25
Adult Stem-Cell Success Stories Hailed
Meanwhile, a Son of Reagan Assails Use of Embryos
WASHINGTON, D.C., JUNE 25, 2004 (Zenit.org).- A press conference focused on two women helped by adult stem-cell treatment, and a bishops' aide hailed their examples as "a powerful witness against the embryonic research PR machine."
The press conference Thursday, conducted by U.S. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, featured the women whose severe spinal cord injuries have been treated with adult stem cells.
Laura Dominguez was a quadriplegic at 16 after a car accident severely damaged her spinal cord, but after treatment using her own olfactory sinus stem cells she can now walk with the aid of braces.
A car accident also left Susan Fajt paralyzed, but she, too, can walk with braces today because of experimental new adult stem cell treatment.
"These brave young women give a human face to the fight for ethical stem cell research," said Cathy Cleaver Ruse, a spokeswoman for the U.S. bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities.
Adult stem cells and other ethically acceptable alternatives have already helped hundreds of thousands of patients, and new clinical uses expand almost weekly, the bishops' conference said on its Web site.
In fact, non-embryonic cell therapies have quickly moved forward to perform many of the tasks once thought to be possible only with embryonic stem cells.
"These and other inspiring breakthroughs in the area of adult stem cell research show the power of ethical research -- and its beauty," said Ruse.
"There is an ugliness to embryonic stem cell research that even its proponents cannot hide," Ruse added. "When we decide to subjugate one vulnerable class of human beings for service of another, we are all diminished."
Meanwhile, Michael Reagan, a son of former President Ronald Reagan, insisted that his father was firmly opposed to embryonic stem cell research.
"I'm getting a little tired of the media's insistence on reporting that the Reagan 'family' is in favor of stem cell research," Michael Reagan writes in an editorial posted by the weekly Human Events.
"The truth is that two members of the family have been longtime foes of this process of manufacturing human beings -- my dad Ronald Reagan, during his lifetime, and me," he states.
"The media should keep in mind that we are also members of the Reagan 'family' and my father, as do I, opposed the creation of human embryos for the sole purpose of using their stem cells as possible medical cures," Michael Reagan continues.
He adds: "Moreover, using the widely promoted and thoroughly discredited junk science argument that stem cell research can lead to a cure of Alzheimer's disease, the media and proponents of stem cell research have suggested that had the research been done a long time ago, my dad might have avoided the ordeal he endured. This is junk science at its worst."
**the media and proponents of stem cell research have suggested that had the research been done a long time ago, my dad might have avoided the ordeal he endured. This is junk science at its worst."**
Love it! Michael tells it like it is!
You are correct. Junk science! Adult stem cell research has made leaps and bounds. Embryonic stem cell research has produced disasters and questionable methods. The testing that was done a couple years ago on Parkinson's patients involving fetal cell injections produced results that were worse than a horror movie. That research was promptly stopped, and the reports quickly hushed.
In fact, it might be useful to use the phrase 'fetal stem cells' instead of embryonic stem cells since the disasters so far trying to use stem cells from embryos have formed uncontrolled growth that has kill at least one patient I've found discussed in the literature.
Put perhaps too simply, adult stem cells work by undergoing transformation initiated by the environment of the adult body (and that applies to the formed fetus as well). Our bodies carry stem cells derived from our fetal construction project, and these stem cells course throughout our bodies in our blood, repairing and replacing other more differentiated cells throughout our lifetime.
Embryo stem cells just beginning the fetal construction project have the plasticity to become all the tissues and organs of the fetal body, during a miraculous program of stem cell differentiation into more than two hundred tissues of the body. Once the form is in place, function allows the body to 'influence' the differentiation of stem cells made for repairs and maintenance. The research on stem cells ripped from embryos is designed to figure out the processes, and perhaps grow organs, someday. But this step will use 'therapeutic cloning' since the immune reaction of more developed tissues necessitates either anti-rejection meds or an identical twin (though even the clone of an individual will not be an exact duplicate).
Whew! Sorry to go on and on so.
Good read regarding this topic.
**The testing that was done a couple years ago on Parkinson's patients involving fetal cell injections produced results that were worse than a horror movie.**
But why hasn't this been publicized? Or have I just missed it?
Could you give us a pro-life ping here?
**The research on stem cells ripped from embryos is designed to figure out the processes, and perhaps grow organs, someday. But this step will use 'therapeutic cloning' since the immune reaction of more developed tissues necessitates either anti-rejection meds or an identical twin (though even the clone of an individual will not be an exact duplicate).**
Thanks for this knowledge. It's all new to me.
Thanks, JB
Michael Reagan ROCKS...MUD
Adult stem cells work there is NO need to harvest babies for their body parts.
Adult Stem Cell Research More Effective Than Embryonic Cells
Embryo Vivisection and Elusive Promises Act--California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative
Stem Cells Not the Priority for Alzheimer's
The Stem Cell Cover-Up By Michael Fumento
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
| Alzheimer's gene therapy trial shows early promise | Drug slows advanced Alzheimer's disease |
*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.
“‘This [isolating stem cells from fat] could take the air right out of the debate about embryonic stem cells,’ said Dr. Mark Hedrick of UCLA, the lead author. The newly identified cells have so many different potential applications, he added, that ‘it makes it hard to argue that we should use embryonic cells.’” -- Thomas H. Maugh II, “Fat may be answer to many illnesses,” Los Angeles Times, 4/10/01
“With the newest evidence that even cells in fat are capable of being transformed into tissue through the alchemy of biotechnology, some scientists said they are beginning to conclude they’ll be able to grow with relative ease all sorts of replacement tissues without resorting to embryo or fetal cells…‘It’s highly provocative work, and they’re probably right,’ said Eric Olson, chairman of molecular biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas…Like many biologists, Olson believes that adult, fetal and embryonic stem cell research all merit support…it’s heartening, he said, that almost “every other week there’s another interesting finding of adult stem cells turning into neurons or blood cells or heart muscle cells. Apparently our traditional views need to be reevaluated.’” --Rick Weiss, “Human Fat May Provide Stem Cells,” The Washington Post, 4/10/01
“In a finding that could offer an entirely new way to treat heart disease within the next few years, scientists working with mice and rats have found that key cells from adult bone marrow can rebuild a damaged heart—actually creating new heart muscle and blood vessels…Until now researchers thought that stem cells from embryos offer the best hope for rebuilding damaged organs, but this latest research shows that the embryos, which are politically controversial, may not be necessary. ‘We are currently finding that these adult stem cells can function as well, perhaps even better than, embryonic stem cells,’ [Dr. Donald] Orlic [of the National Human Genome Research Institute] said.” --Robert Bazell, “Approach may repair heart damage,” NBC Nightly News, 3/30/01.
“[Dr. Donald] Orlic said fetal and embryonic stem cell researchers have not been able to show the regeneration of heart cells, even in animals. ‘This study alone gives us tremendous hope that adult stem cells can do more than what embryonic stem cells can do,’ he said.” --Kristen Philipkoski, “Adult Stem Cells Growing Strong,” Wired Magazine, 3/30/01
“Like several other recent studies, the new work with hearts suggests that stem cells retrieved from adults have unexpected and perhaps equal flexibility of their own, perhaps precluding the need for the more ethically contentious [embryonic] cells.” --Rick Weiss, “Studies Raise Hopes of Cardiac Rejuvenation,” The Washington Post, 3/31/01
“Umbilical cords discarded after birth may offer a vast new source of repair material for fixing brains damaged by strokes and other ills, free of the ethical concerns surrounding the use of fetal tissue, researchers said Sunday.” --“Umbilical cords could repair brains,” Associated Press, 2/20/01.
"PPL Therapeutics, the company that cloned Dolly the sheep, has succeeded in ‘reprogramming' a cell -- a move that could lead to the development of treatments for diseases such as diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The Scotland-based group will today announce that it has turned a cow's skin cell into a beating heart cell and is close to starting research on humans... The PPL announcement...will be seen as an important step towards producing stem cells without using human embryos." --"PPL follows Dolly with cell breakthrough," Financial Times, 2/23/01
“Because they have traveled further on a pathway of differentiation than an embryo’s cells have, such tissue specific [adult] stem cells are believed by many to have more limited potential than E[mbryonic] S[tem] cells or those that PPL hopes to create. Some researchers, however, are beginning to argue that these limitations would actually make tissue-specific stem cells safer than their pluripotent counterparts. University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Glenn McGee is one of the most vocal critics on this point: ‘The emerging truth in the lab is that pluripotent stem cells are hard to reign in. The potential that they would explode into a cancerous mass after a stem cell transplant might turn out to be the Pandora’s box of stem cell research.’” --Erika Jonietz, “Biotech: Could new research end the embryo debate?” Technology Review, January/February, 2001.
Thanks for being a warrior for the truth.
He does indeed, Slim! He is more like his Dad than Ron or Patti, that's for sure.
"Like many biologists, Olson believes that adult, fetal and embryonic stem cell research all merit support." That one bothers me, Coleus, because the embryonic stem cells these people want for research ARE FETAL STEM CELLS.
Thank you for staying on my ping list and putting up with my repetitions.
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