Posted on 03/09/2009 2:41:57 PM PDT by wagglebee
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- President Barack Obama may win applause from some in the scientific community for his expected decision on Monday to overturn President Bush's limits on embryonic stem cell research funding. But some scientists say the controversial research is no longer the hot prospect for patients.
Bernadine Healy, the former head of the National institutes of Health and the American Red Cross says the remarkable advances of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) are beginning to subsume embryonic stem cells.
She wrote in U.S News and World Report that IPSC and adult stem cell research successes have "diminished" the prospect that ESCR is the future of regenerative medicine.
"Even for strong backers of embryonic stem cell research, [Obama's decision] is no longer as self-evident as it was, because there is markedly diminished need for expanding these cell lines for either patient therapy or basic research," Healy explains.
"In fact, during the first six weeks of Obama's term, several events reinforced the notion that embryonic stem cells, once thought to hold the cure for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and diabetes, are obsolete," she adds.
She points to the news in February that embryonic stem cells injected into a patient in Israel caused disabling if not deadly tumors.
Healy says that the news should cause Obama to instruct the Food and Drug Administration to "take another look" at its decision to approve a trial sponsored by the biotech firm Geron to use embryonic stem cells in a clinical trial involving human patients.
"The FDA should now be compelled to take another look: Are eight to 10 patients enough, or one year of monitoring sufficient, to assess safety?" she asks.
While embryonic stem cells are no further along in providing real help to patients, there are ethical alternatives, that don't involve the destruction of human life, that are ready to go or quite close.
"Even as the future of embryonic stem cells has dimmed, adult stem cell research has scored major wins evident just in the past few months. These advances involve human stem cells that are not derived from human embryos," Healy says.
"In fact, adult stem cells, which occur in small quantities in organs throughout the body for natural growth and repair, have become stars despite great skepticism early on. Though this is a more difficult task, scientists have learned to coax them to mature into many cell types, like brain and heart cells, in the laboratory," she adds.
According to Healy, patients who want the best hope for cures should look to adult stem cells rather than their embryonic counterparts.
"To date, most of the stem cell triumphs that the public hears about involve the infusion of adult stem cells. We've just recently seen separate research reports of patients with spinal cord injury and multiple sclerosis benefiting from adult stem cell therapy," she writes. "These cells have the advantage of being the patient's natural own. They do not have the awesome but dangerous quality of eternal life characteristic of embryonic stem cells."
Healy also says the iPS cells that have been the latest buzz are also outpacing embryonic ones.
"Already these reprogrammed cells have eclipsed the value of those harvested from embryos," she explains, "because of significantly lower cost, ease of production, and genetic identity with the patient."
"They also bring unique application to medical and pharmaceutical research, because cells cultivated from patients with certain diseases readily become laboratory models for developing and testing therapy. That iPS cells overcome ethical concerns about creating and sacrificing embryos is an added plus," she continues.
Healy concludes that Obama and people who support his decision ought to be careful to understand that his move isn't really the best for patients.
"Obama stands for transparency, and it's important for him to make sure the public understands his decision, including that all stem cells are not the same or created equally," she concludes.
Pro-Life Ping
Freepmail wagglebee or DirtyHarryY2K to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.
FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
Doesn’t matter — the push by celebs and libs for embryonic stem cells is to provide a “rationalization” for abortion that will allow them to (unsuccessfully) assuage their collective guilty consciences.
**She wrote in U.S News and World Report that IPSC and adult stem cell research successes have “diminished” the prospect that ESCR is the future of regenerative medicine.**
Hooray. The truth is starting to leak out into the lamestream media!
pro-life ping and sound science ping.
despite claims to the contrary this administration has put politics smack in the middle of science.
Anyone else think this may be a sign from God (one of many) that 'yer barkin up the wrong tree'???
Do you have information on what success they’re referring to regarding adult stem cell research and MS?
About a year ago, I read a news story -- I wish I had saved it or saved the URL -- about an experimental treatment where embryonic stem cells were injected into the brain of (I think) a Parkinson's patient.
The patient died gruesomely, as I recall. When the brain was autopsied, hair and teeth were found growing in there.
Embryonic stem cells: 0% success rate, and the failures are horrifying.
Adult stem cells: terrific success rate, and a growing list of conditions/diseases treated by adult stem cells.
Guess which one is the cause célèbre of the pro-abortionists?
Oh my.
That is extremely disturbing.
Try these:
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/adultstemcells/index?tab=articles
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2177456/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2175525/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2038371/posts
Thanks!
I met someone who thinks embryonic stem cell research is going to cure his MS. He’s bought into the whole liberal lie.
This should help me argue my point!
The ONLY thing that embryonic stem cells have been successful in producing is TUMORS.
Wow. That’s disturbing. I pray that escr falls out of favor once and for all.
Whenever someone tells me that they support embryonic stem cell research I ask them why almost no private funds have been invested. There has NEVER been any ban on privately funded research and if ESC showed the promise that the left seems to think private companies would be pouring money into it the way they are with adult stem cell research. Follow the money.
From a scientific standpoint, there never was much justification to use embryonic stem cells.
For one thing, embryos grow extremely rapidly. Their cells are in a rapid growth mode, controlled only because their bodies are swimming with hormones and growth factors directing the whole process. Take cells out of that context, without the hormonal soup giving them instruction, and they grow uncontrollably. Uncontrollable growth is a hallmark of cancer. Cells eventually get signals to differentiate into a final form as the embryo ages; most cells in an adult do not grow. The gist of all this is that cancer is a predictable outcome of injecting embryonic stem cells into a person, because of the biology of those cells.
From another standpoint, if the idea is to generate new tissues from stem cells, it makes more sense to start with stem cells that are already primed to develop into the desired tissue. An adult stem cell is only primed to develop into a limited number of cell types; those types are programmed according to which tissue the stem cell is found in. Early embryonic stem cells are not yet programmed to become any specific cell type. Inducing a pluripotent embryonic stem cell to differentiate into a specific cell type is not only a technically complicated, multistep process, but we don’t know what steps are necessary in the majority of cases. Think of it this way: suppose you want to make a loaf of bread. You’re better off starting with the ingredients that already mostly resemble the finished product: flour, salt, sugar, yeast. Those would be the “adult stem cells.” You could start with the basic components of bread, the “embryonic stem cells” like carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, sodium, chlorine, etc., but making that bread is going to be extremely difficult and time consuming process.
The only actual justification for the push for embryonic stem cell research is to try to get people who are still horrified at the use of abortion as a commonplace method of birth control to accept the practice. The same motives were at play when the big push was for fetal tissue transplantation research, back in the 80s.
Is Healy an idiot?
"Stem cell research" has nothing to do with curing diseases and it never did. It's all about boosting the multi-billion dollar abortion industry and helping it function as a laundromat for Democrat campaign money. Friggin' duh.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.