Posted on 03/17/2009 7:31:39 PM PDT by Born Conservative
WASHINGTON: For all the past week's headlines about embryonic stem cells' medical promise there is a sobering reality: The science to prove that promise will take years, probably too long for many of today's seriously ill.
On his desk at Children's Hospital Boston, Harvard stem cell researcher Dr. George Daley keeps a file about 3 inches thick of e-mails and letters from patients and families who hope his work could help them. They are both inspiration and caution.
"It took much of the 20th century to figure out how to deliver chemicals as drugs," noted Daley. "We should be humble and appreciate it may take us the better part of this century to truly harness the power of cells as medicines."
Nor is there any way to know which kinds of cells ultimately will work — embryo-derived ones that elicit heated moral debate, or some of the many other types of stem cells that scientists are studying furiously.
President Barack Obama last week lifted restrictions on taxpayer funding of research using human embryonic stem cells, widening the field. The Bush administration had limited taxpayer money for that research to a small number of stem cell "lines," or groups that were created before Aug. 9, 2001, lines that in many cases had drawbacks that limited their potential use.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Ping
The reason we can’t drill in Anwar is because it will be ten years or more before we see results...
Obama Signs Law Banning Federal Embryo Research Two Days After Signing Executive Order to OK It.
And that research that Bush promoted paid off with much bigger break thrus than the embryonic research, despite all the 'experts' telling us it was a waste of time.
Oh, please.
There has been normal stem research ongoing all of this time.
Its just that the Federal government - read American taxpayers - didn’t fund it.
Its all about the money; being able to put your hand out for it, and the ability to tax for it.
This “research” is about jobs and money. Of course it’s going to take “decades.”
Embryonic stem cells product to date has been to grow cancer.
Funding this crap is criminal.
Let the markets decide which products deserve money.
This article pretends that ESC research is just starting.
The fact is it’s been a failure for 20 years and that’s why Federal money is being thrown at it and why it’ll continue to be a failure.
If there were ANY scientific or medical potential for embryonic stem cells, then government money wouldn’t be necessary.
Adult Stem Cells have proven effective as have iPPCs and neither require tax dollars because there is plenty of private money to fund the research.
Depends whose ‘payoff’ you are referring. Those on the government dole are going to get their payoffs within a year or two.
Notice that they don’t say “Embryonic” stem cell waits decades.
Adult stem cells are already providing cures. Embryonic stem cells cause cancer.
thanks, bfl
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