Posted on 01/17/2005 1:55:50 AM PST by nickcarraway
The state should invest $1 billion in stem-cell research over the next 10 years to keep scientists from leaving New York for California, three state senators said yesterday.
On Nov. 2, California voters passed Proposition 71, which mandates the state spend $3 billion on stem-cell research.
"If the state of New York does not recognize the competitive need, our research scientists are all going to change their tune from 'I Love New York' to 'California, Here I Come,' " Deputy Minority Leader Eric Schneiderman (D- Bronx) told a press conference at City Hall.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Bon voyage, have a nice trip.
Depends on what sort of stem cells we're talking about.
Anyways, all this euphoria about stem cells is starting to remind me of cold fusion.
:-)
Cool fusion: the realm of possibility
Sorry: Cold
It will be useful for all of us
About as useful as an abortion.
Read this (and the other links):
http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics4.asp
Bye.
Do you know what's STEM-CELL RESEARCH, or (as I suppose) not?
I can tell by your grammer (Do you know what's STEM-CELL RESEARCH)
?:o(
How?
There are many areas in medicine where stem cell research could have a significant impact. For example, there are a variety of diseases and injuries in which a patient's cells or tissues are destroyed and must be replaced by tissue or organ transplants. Stem cells may be able to generate brand new tissue in these cases, and even cure diseases for which currently there is no adequate therapy. Diseases that could see revolutionary advances include Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, diabetes, spinal cord injury, heart disease, stroke, arthritis, cancer, and burns.
Stem cells could also be used to gain a better understanding of how genetics work in the early stages of cell development. This can help scientists understand why some cells develop abnormally and lead to medical problems such as birth defects and cancer. By understanding the genetic basis for cell development, scientists may learn how to prevent some of these diseases.
Finally, stem cells may be useful in the testing and development of drugs. Because stem cells can be used to create unlimited amounts of specialized tissue, such as heart tissue, it may be possible to test how drugs react on these specialized tissues before trying the drugs on animals and human subjects. Drugs could be tested for effectiveness and side effects more rapidly.
Read also: message n. 9, here
Fetal stem cells have not produced a single positive result.
Nonsense. Only adult stem cells have shown success in humans.
It is somewhat difficult to have a discussion with a static website.
There are many areas in medicine where stem cell research could have a significant impact...
That is the usual marketing spin since weasel words like "could", "might", "may", "possibly" seem to decorate each praise of this line of research. From the bulk of material I have read so far, there is the camp of optimism (your camp), and another not about pessimism, but of educated scepticism. The abortion thing, though I believe yet another Liberal media thing to stir up controversy, and egged on by those seeking donations to stop it, is a bit overblown but still embryonic stem cell research is immoral.
The evangelists of this are convincing the public that the limbs will be healed, all disease will be cured and the dead will rise again if only we can kill more babies. For those actually in the trenches doing the work, it may not be their intention, but they certainly aren't willing to correct any public misconceptions since this is a wide open public trough of money that they want.
Ok, I am from the cynical camp that says that this all about money, since the few honest opinions one gets from the evangelists say that this is a pipe dream and at the very best will take fifty years or more to come to fruition. Then again, that is what they said about air travel.
In my research of the topic, and filtering out the MSM tainted dreck is the hardest part, this is akin to cold fusion research. Sexy, promises of Utopia, helps women and children, great way to make careers through publications, yada, yada but it really is all about money.
This explains why traditional cultural deconstructionalists say lets kill whoever and whatever it takes to cure Alzheimers and then pins the blame for not having Alzheimers cured on the pro-life lobby. It is this very predominate tactic that makes me openly wonder if this is in a bigger scheme to further devalue innocent life.
But it doesn't matter what the results are, its all about the possibilities and the theory.
This is an oversimplification, but basically when the DNA reproduces itself, it can't create new information, it can only lose information. That is why you can take a poodle and breed it with another for the remainder of eternity and you will never get a Great Dane, all of the genes necessary for making a Great Dane are gone.
In terms of adult DNA, as it reproduces itself with each new cell, it can lose information and be corrupted. This is why Dolly the sheep quickly got arthritis and was put down only after a few years of life because the cloned sheep had corrupted DNA of an older sheep and thus quickly became "old" and adopted the same signs and characteristics of age as her "mother". This continual process of corrupting of the DNA explains why your body is falling apart with age.
So the theory goes, lets kill the baby and take its cells before they get corrupted. The theory works fine, but it is based on the idea that Alzheimers just happens, not that a person is genetically predisposed to having it.
This is where theory clashes with reality. In reality, it is easier to spot the problem as it develops in adults rather than try to find it in infant material. Its like looking at a brand new car and saying, "ten years from now th brakes will fail due to the master cylinder seals giving out" rather than looking at a ten year old car with bad brakes due to a master cylinder seal failure and trying to figure out how it got that way.
Two things. One party wants to kill babies and has latched on to stem cell research as their vehicle to get a moral voice under the idea that it is more immoral to let someone get Alzheimers because a scientist couldn't slaughter babies than the immorality in abortion. The other party just want a constant life-long paycheck and be published in trade journals.
That being said, I have seen reports of limited successes with adult stem cell use in SCI patients. Just recently there were reports out of Taiwan of a woman who regained partial feeling in her upper extremities.
From what I have read, fetal stem cell research is a vacuum taking valuable funding from promising adult stem cell research. Which makes it morally and scientifically wrong.
I like the idea of cool fusion. Cool.
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