Posted on 07/11/2009 6:11:14 AM PDT by NYer
.- GE Healthcare has formed a biotech partnership to develop products based on human embryonic stem cells in hopes that their use will replace lab rats in drug development and toxic drug tests.
The British-based medical research subsidiary of General Electric, GE Healthcare on June 30 announced a multi-year alliance with Geron Corporation to have Geron provide GE scientists with an undisclosed amount of human embryonic stem cells.
According to CNSNews.com, GE Healthcare has said it hopes testing which uses human embryonic cells will spare lab rats from potentially toxic drug evaluations.
"This could replace, to a large extent, animal trials," said Konstantin Fiedler, general manager of cell technologies at GE Healthcare. “Once you have human cells and you can get them in a standardized way, like you get right now, your lab rats in a standardized way, you can actually do those experiments on those cells.”
A Geron/GE news release said that cells derived from human embryos have “similar attributes to their counterparts in the body” and can be used to predict “many pharmacological characteristics of a drug candidate.”
The cells were reportedly derived from embryonic stem cell lines listed on the National Institutes of Health Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Registry. The registry contains stem-cell lines approved under President George W. Bush’s policies established in 2001 to allow and regulate funding of embryonic stem cell research.
The Geron and GE Healthcare said they acknowledge the “considerable debate” and “take very seriously the ethical and societal issues associated with research using stem cells derived from embryonic or fetal tissue.
“We conduct our research in an ethically and scientifically responsible manner," they remarked.
Dr. David Prentice, a senior fellow for life science at the Family Research Council, told CNSNews.com that embryos must be killed before stem cells can be derived from them. He said research on them is “ethically irresponsible and scientifically unworthy, as well as useless for patients.”
Prentice also questioned whether drug testing on animals would really be replaced, as many drugs are metabolized in the liver and other parts of the body.
“Treating just cells in culture will give you some idea of toxicity or perhaps effectiveness on a certain cell type, but will not actually work for the whole organ, or the entire system, or the organism,” he told CNSNews.com.
Yet we must not underestimate the disturbing scenarios that threaten our future, or the powerful new instruments that the “culture of death” has at its disposal. To the tragic and widespread scourge of abortion we may well have to add in the future — indeed it is already surreptiously present — the systematic eugenic programming of births. At the other end of the spectrum, a pro-euthanasia mindset is making inroads as an equally damaging assertion of control over life that under certain circumstances is deemed no longer worth living. Underlying these scenarios are cultural viewpoints that deny human dignity. These practices in turn foster a materialistic and mechanistic understanding of human life. Who could measure the negative effects of this kind of mentality for development? How can we be surprised by the indifference shown towards situations of human degradation, when such indifference extends even to our attitude towards what is and is not human? What is astonishing is the arbitrary and selective determination of what to put forward today as worthy of respect. Insignificant matters are considered shocking, yet unprecedented injustices seem to be widely tolerated.
CARITAS IN VERITATE
Catholic Ping
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
Ping!
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of interest.
Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment
Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
“No Animal Testing”
If only embryonic stem cell was a code word for politician. That is a position I could support.
According to CNSNews.com, GE Healthcare has said it hopes testing which uses human embryonic cells will spare lab rats from potentially toxic drug evaluations.These 'people' are s-i-c-k.
I suspect eventually we will need to take care of the whole pack of barbarians and savages who have seized our legal systems and governments and dispose of them en masse and all at once, as an act of self-defense.
The signs were all there but we were moving too fast to see them. I recall 25 years ago when they stopped testing mascara on rabbits.
JPII and B16 both saw this coming; hence the quote from the new encyclical.
Money speaks louder than words .... how about boycotting GE products?!
I think we are way down the slippery slope already. Not too far away from harvesting babies to do research on.
I must ask if there is a connection between General Electric and PETA.
General Electric GO TO HELL!
And NBC. The one flaw with this plan is aircraft engines. You can't always choose a flight based on who built the plane and the engines.
JPII and B16 both saw this coming; hence the quote from the new encyclical.
*********************
The culture of death seems to be gaining ground at an alarming rate.
*****************
Good question.
I was thinking the same thing.
Money speaks louder than words .... how about boycotting GE products?!I already do and have for
(My Boycott has been for so long, I forgot the original reason, 'I'm series'. But I still will not buy anything by GE)
Much of this testing was redundant and a response to a growing wave of litigiousness. It is little surprise that a backlash developed, condemning it as cruelty in the pursuit of vanity. The result was new lines of cosmetics which were made of nothing that hadn’t already been tested in the past.
The scientific rationale behind using human stem cells for toxicity testing is entirely unclear to me. Has empirical research been done which shows that the results carry over to the results on organisms as a whole? And even if the results did, why aren’t adult stem cells being used?
Was it that GE was one of the earliest and most aggressive outsourcers of labor?
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.