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Posted on 08/10/2004 2:07:42 PM PDT by xzins
Christian Doctors Call for Support of Adult Stem Cell Study
Mary Rettig and Jenni Parker
Agape Press
August 10, 2004
The Christian Medical Association recently sent a letter to Congress speaking out against embryonic stem cell research (ESCR), and asking the U.S. legislature and the White House to support adult stem cell research, which actually holds promise for improving and saving human lives.
While speakers at the Democratic National Convention were promoting ESCR and so-called "therapeutic" human cloning, the members of the CMA were appealing to the nation's lawmakers to invest in ethical research that is already yielding successful therapies for patients.
Dr. David Stevens is Executive Director of the Christian Medical Association, the nation’s largest faith-based organization of doctors. He was one of more than 2000 doctors nationwide who signed a July 30 letter to Congress urging the President of the U.S. and Congress to invest in adult stem cell research, rather than in ESCR.
Stevens feels the exploitation of human embryos for their supposed medical and scientific benefits must be opposed for several reasons. Besides the fact that ESCR results in the destruction of the embryos, he warns that cloning human beings for stem cells -- the practice Ron Reagan Jr. urged in his recent convention speech -- would produce abnormal embryonic stem cells. He also notes that this research would inevitably result in the exploitation of women in order to acquire to the millions of human eggs needed for human cloning.
"Ron Jr.'s speech was 'political science' of the worst sort," Stevens says. On the other hand, he points out, adult stem cell research can be accomplished without these ethical problems, and it is already yielding encouraging results.
For instance, the pro-life doctor notes, "A patient out in California had a 90 percent decrease in his Parkinson symptoms after his own brain stem cells were harvested, grown in culture in a laboratory, and transplanted back into his brain." And this is not an isolated success. He goes on to describe how, in Germany, patients "have received their own bone marrow stem cells, directly injected into an artery of the heart after they've had a heart attack, and that has caused repair of the damaged heart muscle.."
Stevens notes that adult stem cell research has also yielded encouraging results in stroke patients, and investigators are looking at many more possible applications in the laboratory. All over the nation and the world, in research on adult stem cells, he says "they're looking very promising," and investigators anticipate that adult stem cell research will play a part in many medical breakthroughs "including curing diabetes."
Putting people ahead of profits
According to the CMA spokesman, the doctors speaking out in favor of adult stem cell research have a vested interest in it, simply because they care daily for patients who desperately need cures that could arise from regenerative medicine. At the same time, he adds, these doctors "have the motivation, knowledge and experience to analyze stem cell research without the inherent bias of fund-seeking firms and researchers who have hyped embryonic stem cell research far beyond scientific integrity."
The bottom line, Stevens asserts, is that Christian doctors want the quickest, most ethical, and most economical way to find real cures for real patients. He says adult stem cells are giving results now and providing cost-effective treatments, while embryonic stem cells are "prohibitively expensive" and, at best, any possible help from them is probably 10-15 years away.
Since few private investors will risk funding the quest for the "miracle cures" that ESCR may or may not provide, Stevens says scientists who are after fame and wealth are using outrageous promises and gullible celebrities to help them pick the public's pocket. Rather than be led by the false claims of ESCR proponents' "junk science," the doctor says the government should put taxpayers' money into ethical research that will bring about the most affordable cures for patients in the quickest time.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © 2004 Agape Press.
There is no ban on ESCR....they just want to use your tax money to do it with.
Have them introduce a bill in congress and see if it gets through. If it does, then it's passed the hurdle for forcing upon people things that they morally reject.
If it doesn't, then that's the way decisions are made on controversial items in our Constitutional democratic republic.
ping
Adult stem cell research is already supported. It has a lot more promise than embryonic stem cell research at the moment, but since we have stem cell families derived from long gone embryos, the funding level is currently sufficient. If private researchers want to do more, they can find private funding. Private funding could double federal funding by just asking a few hollywood stars to toss a little bit of money into a research fund.
But as is typical of liberals - they'd rather spend tax payer money for a specific research project that most Americans would oppose if they understood the differences between adult stem cell harvesting and embryonic stem cell harvesting.
Christian Medical Association
Yeah right - Anybody can use any word they want in their name now without ever being challenged by anyone.
How many "conservative ..." or "...for conservative..." or any other "conservative" sounding names are actually fronts for communist organizations?
Who knows for sure, because the media whores will never ask them who they are, nor report it if they do know.
Look them up on the internet and see if they have a website. Then tell us your opinion.
ping
So I've never been able to find and explanation (layman terms please) of why embryonic stem cells would be preferrable to adult ones..
Anyone?
Bump for a later read.
Aside from the well-documented finding that adult stem cells are yielding better results than embryonic stem cells, the short answer to your question is this: Embryonic stem cell research promotes abortion and abortion rights is an all-important issue for the left.
Almost all adult stem cells are already of a particular type of cell (fat, bone marrow, etc.). It takes quite a bit of biochemical manipulation to turn them into other types of cells (heart or brain cells) that do not have stem cells, but it can be done. Once turned, they tend to stay that way during cell division.
Embryonic stem cells should be far more flexible and more easily turned into any sort of cell you want, after all as they divide in the developing embryo they do eventually and naturally produce every type of cell. A major technical problem here is that embryonic stem cells are all too flexible and once they start living and dividing in the target organ they could easily produce anything else (hair, bone, skin) unless extremely carefully controlled.
Of course, the embryonic stem cell control problem is separate from the moral problem of harvesting developing humans
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I'm no biologist, but I believe the embryonic stem cells have a greater potential to be "anything" in terms of cells.
Dobson reported that the anything they become is far too frequently tumorous.
I'm afraid that you don't understand the definition of "embryonic stem cells." These are the cells that are harvested from embryos that are approximately 5 days old, before the differentiation that makes them "fetal" or, subsequently, "adult" stem cells.
There are no embryonic stem cells in cord blood.
If there were, then the thousands of patients who have received cord blood transplants would be growing embryos or tumors in their bodies.
Thank you for the ping on this important subject. I hope that everyone who cares about human rights will call their family doctor and their Legislators to let them know that it is not acceptable to harvest human embryos for their parts.
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Pro-Life BUMP
I wish the republican talk show hosts would go to a Mike Reagan seminar and learn about this issue. They screw it up all the time. Something I have noticed. Between embryonic and adult stem cells.
By the 1950s doctors had turned this horror into hope, transfusing marrow stem cells into humans to treat various blood diseases. By the 1980s stem-cell transplants with marrow and umbilical cord blood were routinely curing leukemias. ASCs now treat about 80 different diseases.
And ESCs? "An inescapable truth is that the adult versions are the only human stem cells so far employed for therapy in humans," writes Parson. She also admits it appears the only advantage of ESCs is potential; that it's widely believed they can differentiate into any type cell while differentiation of ASCs (at least 14 types have been discovered) is more limited. Yet she also concedes this belief may not be true; that one laboratory seemingly showed an ASC to be as pliable as an ESC.
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