Firm Claims First Patient Treated With Embryonic Stem Cells, Not The Case

http://www.geron.com/investors/factsheet/pressview.aspx?id=1235This is their press release.

the article above makes one think they are rushing this to help 1) Themselves 2) Obama

http://www.geron.com/investors/factsheet/pressview.aspx?id=1235

I suppose LifeNews is fine that they're only derived from embryonic stem cells?

Obviously not. This is just a "gotcha" story on semantics. Good to see the correction, but silly story.

The point of the story in my opinion is that the Presser by Geron has to be a lie.

the scientist they sited were saying that the science on this had not reached the point of HUMAN application.

I bet if this were in fact true they would be screaming to high heaven.

Sorry to burst your bubble but the Geron press release is correct. Cells derived from human embryonic stem-cell lines will be used in this FDA-approved human clinical trial, for which the first participant has been enrolled.

“Cells derived from human embryonic stem-cell lines will be used in this FDA-approved human clinical trial, for which the first participant has been enrolled.”

TOTALLY disgusting! May God have mercy....

I think you're missing the way LifeNews is trying to sucker people...one of their "moral and ethical relativism" moments, those times when a fib or two can get them a reader or a buck.

First, they scream: "These aren't embryonic stem cells!" (True..they are oligodendrocytes, derived from embryonic stem-cell lines.)

Then, they take you to a researcher who says that embryonic stem cells aren't ready for humans.

See the dishonest sleight-of-hand? (If they aren't embryonic stem cells, then that has nothing to do with it.)

Note...no embryos will now or in the future be killed for this clinical trial. Do you get upset if a bone of someone long-dead (e.g., an unearthed murder victim) is tested scientifically? Yes, there's a terrible history behind HeLa, but do we discard the cancer research because of that?

ping

Frankly, I can’t stand the thought of stem-cells coming from the murdered unborn. Yeah I’m one of those.

However, I see no problem with getting stemcells from embilical cord.

Also I have read. (but can not site at this moment) That adult stem cells are just as effective. Don’t take me to deep into this, my knowledge is limited at best.

In 1991, a 5-year-old girl in Missouri, Tonja R., needed an operation. To prepare for the surgery, her blood was banked at the hospital and Tonja’s mother, Mrs. R., gave consent for her daughter’s blood and organs to be donated in the event she died.

For whatever reason—some think she felt she couldn’t pay her bills, others think she was evil, still others think she was crazy—Mrs. R. came into the hospital one night and killed her daughter who was lying there peacefully.

Anna S. was another little girl who needed an operation and a heart transplant. But, thank goodness, they threw away Tonja’s heart so Anna S. could die.

And just this year, Connor M. was born. He needed blood that had that same rare type as Tonja had. But, thank goodness, they threw away Tonja’s blood so it couldn’t be used by Connor M.

Tonja and Anna and Conner aren’t real, but I wonder if their stories moved you more once it’s not a blob of cells involved. Discarding tissue is simply wasting the good that could come from a life cut short.

Wouldn’t it be nice if people cared about individuals and not just some political stand? And how can some churches stand so strongly against life, letting people die or live in twisted agony or disability, when healing might be available with no loss of life? To me, *that* is sick.

Induced pluripotent stem cells have great promise, and with so much more research done on them than on embryonic stem cells, they are ahead on the research curve. Embryonic stem cells have problems, so maybe they won’t ever be as helpful as we can hope. But in any case, induced pluripotent stem cells from adults wouldn’t have become an option without embryonic stem cell lines in the first place.

And therein lies the difference.

You consider a human being, yes AT CONCEPTION, as nothing more than a collection of tissue. I do not.
You use the example of transplants. I look at transplants as a gift of love from one HUMAN to ANOTHER. Unless ofcourse, there harvesting going on that I haven’t heard of.

I find it interesting that the people (generic) who support all of the “new” science always convienently forget the very source of their science. LIFE.

A little reverence to that fact would be appreciated.

But, just for the record, all of the multimillion dollar equipment, advance degreed wizardry, does not obscure the reality that the likes of Mengele have already thought about these issues. A word of warning for all involved in this field of science (medicine?)

“The Healing-Killing Paradox”

“The Nazi doctors’ immersion in the healing-killing paradox was crucial in setting the tone for doubling, as the Auschwitz self had to live by that paradox. To the extent that one embraces the far reaches of the Nazi vision of killing Jews in order to heal the Nordic race, the paradox disappears. The Auschwitz self can see itself as living out a commendable principle of “racial hygiene” and working toward a noble vision of organic renewal: the creation of a vast “German biotic community” in which one can draw parallels between the vast world-conquering German mission and the smallest physiological intracellular system.¹ Even the term anus mundi can become associated with a positive mission involving the principle of “the necessity to sweep clean the world.”² The healing achieved by killing could also become part of the immortalizing vision, of the “holiest human right and … obligation,” which is “to see to it that the blood is preserved pure and, by preserving the best humanity, to create the possibility of a nobler development of these beings.”³

The Auschwitz self was the means by which the Nazi doctor could bring to his killing the mana of a shaman, a priest, a magician. For in the case of such an ancient healer, “there is no cleavage between the domain of fantasy in which he acts and the world of affairs wherein his mystic acts are efficacious.”4 In that way the Auschwitz doctor-shaman becomes “loaded up with powers”5 in his deadly “healing” (see also pages 481-84). He is a recognized healer with special powers; his killing is legitimated by, and at the same time further legitimates, the regime’s overall healing-killing reversals. Thus it became quite natural to use a vehicle marked with a red cross to transport gas, gassing personnel, and sometimes victims, to the gas chambers.”

You might want to read this book. Maybe it will give you a new perspective on the value of life at all stages.

I'm not the one who refuses to see that the embryo can provide hope for life just like the 5-year-old can. You're the one who is denigrating the embryo.

Of course, the cells of an embryonic stem cell line are not actual cells from an embryo, so it's even further from the embryo itself than you imply, but my point of the scenario is that if you support that "gift of love" from a long-dead 5-year-old, why not from a long-gone embryo--unless you view it as somehow less than the 5-year-old?

Unless ofcourse, there harvesting going on that I haven’t heard of.

Yes, there's harvesting going on from those who cannot themselves consent. Note that in my hypothetical scenario, I noted that it was the mother giving consent, just as mothers of embryos give consent. We discussed lack of consent upthread, with HeLa.

But, just for the record, all of the multimillion dollar equipment, advance degreed wizardry, does not obscure the reality that the likes of Mengele have already thought about these issues.

If you cannot distinguish, then perhaps you're the one having trouble with the concept. This book and the quote is about genocide. In the case at hand, there's not a single killing being committed--except perhaps by those who would deny potential cures. Frankly, your red herring stinks...

So so job on trying to twist the conversation.

I guess being faced with the truth is painful. The book you refer to is something you shoild read. It will open your eyes (hopefully) to how easily a civilized society can be turned it to a nightmare.

You may not want to face the fact that when life is cheapened as it has in America we are already on the slippery slope.

Embryo or 100yrs old. Life must be protected.

“a shaman, a priest, a magician. For in the case of such an ancient healer, “there is no cleavage between the domain of fantasy in which he acts and the world of affairs wherein his mystic acts are efficacious.”4 In that way the Auschwitz doctor-shaman becomes “loaded up with powers”5 in his deadly “healing” (see also pages 481-84). He is a recognized healer with special powers; his killing is legitimated by, and at the same time further legitimates, the regime’s overall healing-killing reversals.”

And you are also wrong about this book it is the PSYCHOLOGY of killing in the name of HEALING.

read it.