FRIST COMMENTS ON STEM CELL RESEARCH - Floor Statement -- Remarks As Prepared For Delivery

Senator Bill Frist website ^ | July 29, 2005 | Sen. Bill Frist

[AFPhys]

You seem to know a lot more about this subject than I do.

Are the stem cells from blastocysts identical functionally to those in cord blood?

I've got to run off now, but I'll catch your answer late tonight. Thanks.

[XR7]

How come we haven't already seen these "breakthroughs" in cures for diseases.

You are missing the point.
Read #34 above.

[SierraWasp]

I haven't read anything yet, but something in my gut tells me that something is way off with this fricken Frist!!! He and Trent Lott both have been infected with that D.C. Disease that keeps me ill at ease. I would think it kept the President awake at night, too!!!

The dear Doctor is given us his brand new "aroma therapy," that consists of an aresol room deoderant tryin to cover the smell of the entire barnyard called the Crapitol!!!

[Republican Wildcat]

Stem Cell Treatments

Adult Stem Cells	Embryonic Stem Cells
Cancers: Brain Cancer Retinoblastoma Ovarian Cancer Skin Cancer: Merkel Cell Carcinoma Testicular Cancer Tumors abdominal organs Lymphoma Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Acute Myelogenous Leukemia Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia Juvenile Myelomonocytic Leukemia Cancer of the lymph nodes: Angioimmunoblastic Lymphadenopathy Multiple Myeloma Myelodysplasia Breast Cancer Neuroblastoma Renal Cell Carcinoma Various Solid Tumors Soft Tissue Sarcoma Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis POEMS syndrome Auto-Immune Diseases Multiple Sclerosis Crohn's Disease Scleromyxedema Scleroderma Rheumatoid Arthritis Juvenile Arthritis Systemic Lupus Polychondritis Sjogren's Syndrome Behcet's Disease Myasthenia Autoimmune Cytopenia Systemic vasculitis Alopecia universalis Cardiovascular Heart damage Ocular Corneal regeneration Immunodeficiencies X-Linked hyper immunoglobuline-M Syndrome Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Syndrome X-linked lymphoproliferative syndrome Neural Degenerative Diseases/Injuries Parkinson’s disease Spinal cord injury Stroke damage Anemias/Blood Conditions Sickle cell anemia Sideroblastic anemia Aplastic Anemia Amegakaryocytic Thrombocytopenia Chronic Epstein-Barr Infection Fanconi's Anemia Diamond Blackfan Anemia Thalassemia Major Red cell aplasia Primary Amyloidosis Wounds/Injuries Limb gangrene Surface wound healing Jawbone replacement Skull bone repair Other Metabolic Disorders Osteogenesis imperfecta Sandhoff disease Hurler’s syndrome Krabbe Leukodystrophy Osteopetrosis Cerebral X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy	NONE
References The Facts - Prentice, D. "Adult Stem Cells" Appendix K in Monitoring Stem Cell Research: A Report of the President's Council on Bioethics (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2004), 309-346. The Facts - Addendum, October 2004

[Echo Talon]

I wouldn't have voted for him as POTUS anyhow...
I think congress needs to draft legislation that limits the amounts of "extra embryos" that fertilization clinics can make.
Why do they need to make 20 or 30 embryos or however many to make one child?

[standingfirm]

It was a rhetorical question

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

A heart transplant is not even slightly comparable. That is an argument of distraction, not of honest comparison. It just makes him more suspect.

Regarding the number of lines, it's still an argument of futility. If sucessful, this so-called "ethical" approach would undoubtedly lead to the unethical approach of creating life to destroy life in order to "save" life (cure one disease and the patient will just die another way). So even that argument is unethical. It just buys time. I'm ashamed of Frist.

He has been revealed to be all about money.

[lepton]

Are the stem cells from blastocysts identical functionally to those in cord blood?

No. As a matter of fact, placental stem cells are considered adult stem cells. Any point after differentiation has begun are considered "adult".

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

So why NOT use them?

Then what? Once you find them useful, then what? Demand goes up and then what?

[EternalVigilance]

He has been revealed to be all about money.

Yep. This is about corporate campaign donations.

[Gopher Broke]

Family Research Council statement on Frist's flip flop"

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1453396/posts?page=2

[SierraWasp]

Ok, now I've at least read his statement and I consider it just an exercise in equivocating and rationalization! He wants to be over with Ron Reagan, Nancy Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger and have government funding this highly speculative future treatment of terrifying diseases as if there were ANY certainty that this could come true!!!

I admire the President for keeping this gross misuse of taxpayer funds off the tracks! For goodness sakes... EVEN FDR's MARCH OF DIMES foundation was PRIVATE MONEYS!!! NOT TAXPAYER DOLLARS!!! (I'm yelling because I'm upset, and NOT because I'm a pro-life fanantic!)

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

We shold master this basic set of steps before throwing large scale money into it.

I don't think the gov't should take my money for this. That is the LEAST Frist can do, to make sure that those who are appalled at this don't have to fund it. How dare he decide for the rest of us that WE must pay for it. He could give his own money to it if he so believes in it. But he wants to force ME to fork over MY money to it. SHAME ON HIM!!!!!!

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

Good point.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Any Freepers got some Stem Cell For Dummies links?

Trouble is, it's an extremely complicated field, and even the top researchers who specialize in it don't pretend to know what types of research and techniques will lead to what kinds of medical advances. Most want the freedom to pursue all avenues, and steer their research in whatever direction looks most promising for the particular condition they're hoping to treat.

Any time you hear somebody claim that they know that adult stem cells will work just as well or better, or that they know there's no way to make any significant medical advances without using embryonic stem cells, you can be sure you're listening to an ignorant ideological ranter.

I know a bit about this stuff, and can only say one thing for sure: the line between an adult stem cell which is being manipulated for medical purposes and an embryo which could grow into a full-fledged human being is getting thinner every day, and will fade away quite soon -- almost certainly within the next 10 years. As soon as researchers get an adult stem cell to the point where it can develop into any type of cell or organ needed for a treatment (and I'm virtually certain they will), they'll also be sitting on a cell which can develop into the whole package. It's just a question of which switches they choose to flip. So they've got this cell that came from an adult stem cell, that's beginning to divide on its own, and if they put it in the right medium for a few days, and then drop it into a woman's uterus it will grow into the whole package and come out wailing for a nipple to suck on. But if the flip the switches for "turn into a kidney only", it turns into a kidney only and saves someone from a shortened life filled with endless hours hooked up to a dialysis machine. Did they kill a "baby" when they chose to flip the "kidney only" switch? Or is a clump of cells that has the potential to become a baby not a "baby" if it came from an adult stem cell?

There was news out today of another important discovery by Harvard researcher Jonathan Tilly. He has discovered stem cells in bone marrow (of mice at this point, but most mouse things turn out to apply to humans too) that can travel to the ovaries and start producing new eggs. He's only tried this with females, and only inside an actual mouse body at this point. But it's not hard to see how there may be comparable stem cells which can produce sperm. Or even that the same cells could produce both, if injected into a male and a female, or if put in two petri dishes with the right broth. If you take two adult stem cells and put them in a petri dish and they hook up and start dividing into a regular embryo, is that a clump of "adult stem cells" or is it a clump of "embryonic stem cells"?

[Republican Wildcat]

Because it creates a market for creating more of them to be destroyed - a whole other industry for the abortion crowd to make a buck (which is what abortion is about anyone - not about "women's rights").

[oceanview]

Nancy Reagan is going to be on MSNBC with her son today (I do not know what time).

that's the real sad part about this - the sheeple, especially alot of sheeple seniors, believe that cures for alzheimers and cancer and parkinson are "right there", they there are going to be miracle cures coming from this in just a few years. they are delusional, they have been sold a bill of goods on this, and unfortunately there has been no effective rebuttal - hence we see this political cave-in.

[EternalVigilance]

Brave New World.

Soylent Green is people...

[XR7]

He and Trent Lott both have been infected with that D.C. Disease that keeps me ill at ease.

It's the hair.....

..................

[Txsleuth]

Dang...if Brit was on his show tonight, he would probably point that out...

I do not trust the media anymore....I grew up believing (naively, is seems), that if a newspaper prints it, or a newscaster states it...it must be true, because otherwise they would be prosecuted for slander, libel, etc...

Obviously, that doesn't count for the American people...we can't sue for inaccurate information with which to make our minds up regarding things like this....

AND, the reason I fear, greatly, a Hillbilly Administration, is that the media can and does lie to get the liberal points out there and to cast doubt on any conservative...

There will be thousands of people that read the LA Slimes, that will NOT know that it was an incorrect statement, and base their opinions on that....sigh.