8mm
Posted on 10/10/2006 4:17:41 PM PDT by wagglebee
Canberra, Australia (LifeNews.com) -- An MIT professor says that embryonic stem cell research is nowhere close to helping patients. He said that's because scientists haven't yet figured out how to stop embryonic stem cells from causing tumors when injected into patients.
Professor James Sherley, a stem cell researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was in Australia to talk with lawmakers about why they should resist backing legislation promoting human cloning.
Sherley said that embryonic stem cells cause tumors and cancers when injected into human tissue and, as a result, they can't be used to treat patients with various diseases. He said the tumors form because embryonic stem cells have the potential to turn into various other kinds of tissues -- including the wrong ones.
“When you put them in an environment where they can grow and develop, they make lots of different kind of tissues,” Sherley said, according to a Courier Mail newspaper report.
Sherley said that the "tumor formation property is an inherent feature of the cells" and warned that the possibility of overcoming it is likely very far into the future.
"And although some might say we can solve the tumor problem down the road, that's equivalent to saying we can solve the cancer problem and we may, but that's a long time coming," he explained.
According to the Courier Mail, the MIT professor said that the tumors embryonic stem cells cause are mostly benign but they could metastasize or produce chemicals that can adversely affect parts of the body.
Sherley also said that numerous American scientists agree with his view that embryonic stem cells cause problems and are a very long way off from helping patients but that they have been reluctant to speak out due to the highly political nature of the debate and worries over losing funding for their research.
He said adult stem cells have been successful in treating patients because they don't cause tumors when injected.
University of Melbourne Emeritus Professor of Medicine Thomas Martin agreed with Sherley's concerns and told lawmakers that a previous review of the science undertaken by the Lockhart panel failed to consider the tumors issue when issuing its report.
Martin said he did not think that embryonic stem cell research would even lead to cures for major diseases such as diabetes or Parkinson's.
Martin, an internationally recognized Fellow of the Royal Society, said the embryonic stem cells produced from human cloning would have the same problems.
MIT is about as leftist as you can get, if they're jumping ship it should be obvious to all that embryonic stem cell research has no future.
Pro-Life Ping
What??!!?? But John Edwards told me that if Kerry was elected people like Chris Reeve would walk again. See evil Bush has taken all the embryonic stem cells and hidden them away so that people have to suffer. The minute that these cells are made available to the poor scientists who want to help people, all the world's problems will be cured.
At least that's what I was told for the last six years.
When Ronald Reagan died in 2004 and Nancy Reagan seemingly endorsed ESC research, we were told it could help Christopher Reeve walk again, but Bush wouldn't allow it. Funny there was no mention of saving President Reagan's life.
In other words, likely "nonexistent."
1. Adult (including umbilical cord) stem cell research has resulted in over SIX DOZEN breakthroughs and cures.
2. Human life is destroyed to create embryonic stem cells.
Another non-sequitur. Research is not, and should not be, confined to any one direction.
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That is the *fact* that I think is most relevant. It is, IMO, unconscionable that we direct so much money to a so-far failed theory (ESC research) instead of directing it toward a field that has been very successful and could do much more.
Fine, then if ESC research has so much potential then why aren't private corporations pouring billions of dollars into it the way they are with adult stem cells? There is no prohibition against it and according to you it would be a lucrative investment.
The main point is that private corporations aren't investing in ESC research, but they do with adult stem cell research, the know the difference between good and bad investments.
They do, albeit not 'billions". There is privately funded research going on.
"MIT is about as leftist as you can get, if they're jumping ship it should be obvious to all that embryonic stem cell research has no future."
That's one professor. Lotta others are still gung-ho.
Mrs VS
Probably about where were when we started, which is nowhere. Contained fusion power is still a ways off. Probably not the best example you could have mentioned.
Makes a GREAT explosive weapon, and and deterent, though, eh, Klaatu?
I'm not so sure that's a good measure at this time. When so much public money is going to ESC research, private orgs don't need to spend their own money for it. The get gov't grants.
With the latest ones we are way ahead from where we have started, - breakeven point within reach, and much better idea of what else is needed. Who knew it would turn out to be so difficult?
It depends on the department. The finance department at the Sloan School, for instance (where I studied), leans right. There are quite a few right-leaning people in the economics department, too. Most people in the hard sciences lean left, but they tend to keep their politics seperate from their science. There's also a few prominent right-leaning guys hard scientists, like the atmospheric science prof who's a global warming skeptic.
The real problem is in the humanities departments; that's where Noam Chomsky is. Nearly everyone I knew in the finance and econ departments were embarassed that he and other "humanists" like him are affilated with the Institute.
I'm against ESC too, but that's a bad argument. Corporations seldom invest in basic scientific research because it is impossible for the funder of such research to capture all of its benefits. Basic research is a classic case of the public goods problem.
That's why, for example, corporations did not fund the research that resulted in the discovery of DNA or quantum physics, despite the fact that both these discoveries have generated benefits whose value exceeds the amount invested in the research by many orders of magnitude.
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