Posted on 07/28/2004 10:29:36 AM PDT by hocndoc
Ron Reagan Misguided on Embryonic Stem Cell Research, Cloning
Chicago, Illinois - July 27, 2004 - Tonight, Ron Reagan, Jr. addressed the Democratic National Convention promoting research on stem cells taken from living human embryos.
In his remarks, Reagan said, "We may be able to put an end to...suffering. We only need to try." He also described the way this research will work is by cloning human beings.
President of The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity John Kilner, Ph.D. responded, "History is littered with misguided attempts to relieve suffering by cutting ethical corners. All that Ron Reagan advocated can be achieved through adult stem cell research. But he amazingly never mentioned adult stem cells. Instead, his misleading language covered up the fact that producing the cells he seeks requires cloning human beings and then destroying them. Cloning and killing are too high an ethical price to pay, particularly when there is another safe way to develop the same cures."
Daniel McConchie, Director of Public Relations and Public Policy at The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity said, "The federal government is spending about $28 million on embryonic stem cell research this year and the Administration is proposing to add another $18 million. More money would better be spent on adult stem cell research where 45 diseases are currently being treated and new treatments are on the way. Embryonic stem cell research has yet to be used as a treatment in even one disease. We should prioritize spending limited taxpayer dollars on research that is getting real results."
It is important to note the connection here between cloning and embryonic stem cell research, since a majority of Americans oppose creating cloned human embryos even for this purpose. Adult stem cell research can often use stem cells from a person's own body achieving a genetic match without using ethically controversial methods. Reporters: For Interviews
For reporters wanting interviews with John F. Kilner or Daniel McConchie, please call The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity at 847-317-4097. About The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity
The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity is a 501(c) 3 non-profit think tank located in Chicago, Illinois. Its mission is to develop reasoned perspectives on all of today's bioethical issues and to disseminate them to health care professionals, academia, cultural and church leaders, public policy makers, and the media in order to protect human dignity. CBHD
This organization supports the dignity of all human lives. Dr. Kilner and the rest of the Fellows and Staff at CBHD do good work (take a look at the other articles on the website if you have any interest in bioethics).
Ping for better science and ethics - and human dignity.
Ping for better science and ethics - and human dignity.
Ron Reagan also first said that Embryonic Stem Cell Research did not kill a viable zygote ... and then said it did. He said he wasn't going to make a political speech ... and then told folks how to vote at the end.
He's a lying weasel. Which is why you find him speaking for the Dems.
Little Ron Reagan has been misguided half his life. What a great opportunity he had with a father as great as his, and he started wearing Tutu's. Sold out to the Dem party. What a waste.
BTW, I feel pity for Ron Reagan. He has lost his way. I hope he finds his place one day as a "Prodigal Son".
Thanks for this. I was debating with an extremely (can you say EXTREMELY liberal group) today about this and they were all goo goo eyed over Ron's speech. Cause you know that big ole meany Bush is making this country a Christian State and keeping people in horrid diseases because he won't allow them to do stem cell research. Not one person actually knew (well a few said they did, but from the wording before I informed them, they didn't) that Bush didn't OUTLAW stem cell research and the only one people are complaining about is the EMBRYONIC stem cell research. But thier favorite phrase (besides the good ole' "You are so dumb, does your husband do your thinking for you) is "EDUCATE YOURSELF". Blah blah blah.
Well, no. I'm sure the profit margin is much greater for a fetus farm.
You know, I frankly don't even care what Ron Reagan's view on this is. He's entitled to be wrong. But the fact that he pimped himself out to the Dems under the guise of stem cell expertise is what's really sickening. It makes me believe everything I saw of him at his father's funeral was merely a cheap show. What a pathetic lack of character, to pander to the very people who mocked your father's illness, who would as soon he had died of that gunshot wound, who most probably cheered at the news of his death! Disgrace doesn't even come close to describing this sorry little man.
At least Lil' Ron has stopped citing stem cells as a cure for Alzheimer's.
Only the Dims would get medical science info from a failed ballet dancer.
What is interesting is that few real advances have been made with ESC research. Adult stem cells are showing great promise however.
I knew someone who once said she supported embryonic stem cell research, because her dad had diabetes and she say it as a way to prolong his life. I asked her how many murdered children's lives was her dads worth.
Haven't talked to her since.
"You are so dumb, does your husband do your thinking for you"
Don't you just love that one? It's a personal pet peeve.
The "stem cell" vs. "embryonic stem cell" language confusion is deliberate, I think, in order to cover up the real issue.
And somehow, it's very rarely mentioned that cloning for research is necessary to the future of embryonic stem cell use, that the embryonic stem cell research is just that - research and not for therapy - and that "therapeutic cloning" or cloning for research is really clone and kill.
And that women will bear the burden of producing the oocytes or eggs for all of the above.
(this should be my last post of the day: I'm on my way to Crawford with some local Republican women)
Real results? Where are the subjects for this? Source? I waited for ronnie boy to give us examples of these "results."
Joe Scarbourgh seemed to buy all ronnie boy said.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1142855/posts
the Stem Cell coverup, embryonic cells unproven, adult stem cells already used to cure humans of many diseases
By the way, every bone marrow transplant is a transplant of ADULT stem cells! Has the media told you any of this? Of course not!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1172792/posts
The latest-- ADULT stem cells were used to cure MD in mice
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,125873,00.html
Steve Milloy says Ron is wrong
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,43880,00.html
from 2002--the people pushing for embryonic stem cell research are in biotech companies that would profit from it and can't get private investors, so they want taxpayer money
How misguided is Ron Reagan?
He still thinks Gore won Florida.
(Personally, I don't think he's misguided. I think he's a liar.)
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
Unborn Children May "Cure" Mothers' Diseases Via Fetal Stem Cells
| 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.
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