Posted on 07/13/2004 8:12:11 AM PDT by kattracks
Ron Reagan, Jr., admitted Monday night that embryonic stem cell research will probably be absolutely useless in the quest to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease - throwing cold water on the big media's campaign to sell the controversial science as medically effective in battling the affliction that killed Reagan's father."Alzheimers is a disease, ironically, that probably wont be amenable to treatment through stem cell therapies," Reagan told MSBC's Chris Matthews. So why have he and his mother, former first lady Nancy Reagan, made stem cell research their cause celeb?
"For people to suggest that [Nancy Reagan] shouldnt support this because it isnt Alzheimer's . . thats very small," a defensive-sounding Reagan responded.
He says he still backs the campaign for embryonic stem cell research because it might cure other diseases such as Parkinson's and diabetes.
But Reagan became the nation's foremost spokesman for stem cell research largely based on the notion that it might have saved the beloved fortieth president, something he now acknowledges isn't true.
The revelation could prove particularly embarrassing for the national press, which has printed hundreds of stories in recent days touting stem cell science as a cure for Alzheimer's.
Tuesday morning's New York Times report was typical:
"Scientists theorize that the cells, which give rise to all other cells and tissues in the body, could yield treatments for Parkinson's disease, diabetes and, perhaps, Alzheimer's disease, which former President Reagan had."
Monday night NBC's Kelly O'Donnell noted that, "John Kerry believes the work could lead to new cures for diseases like Alzheimer's."
But now that Mr. Reagan has contradicted the top Democrat, it's not clear whether Sen. Kerry will publicly acknowledge he and Reagan are at odds over the potential for stem cell research as a cure for Alzheimer's when Reagan addresses the Democratic convention at the end of this month.
I heard that drinking the blood of a virgin will keep you young.
Kerry probably thinks he will be able to grow a new prostate if he cuts an embryo in half and sticks it between his legs. No doubt he's anxious to get back out cruising the bimbo and intern circuit.
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Yeah, but whoever told him had to do it just seconds before he walked up to the microphone. Otherwise he would have forgotten it.
"Ironically?" What makes it ironic? Transfusions or iron pills not helping anemia would be ironic, this is just a result that was unexpected by starry-eyed suckers and exploited, grieving families.
"For people to suggest that [Nancy Reagan] shouldnt support this because it isnt Alzheimer's . . thats very small,"
Not nearly as small as expecting a little kid to die for medical results we'll soon be able to get from scraping a 40 year-old's skin cells.
He says he still backs the campaign for embryonic stem cell research because it might cure other diseases such as Parkinson's and diabetes.
Except that there's no serious evidence that either of them will be helped by it, either. Oops.
Heh-heh. Did you ever see the running gag on NewsRadio where Dave kept trying to explain to everyone why nothing in the song was actually ironic?
If karma were real, Alanis Morissette would be reborn a thousand times as a boozie, chardonnay-addicted black fly. And it would be a bitter little pill for her, I'm sure.
It might do this and it might do that. Want to buy some stock in the company?
Yes, but in Ron's world, not funding the baby-killing kind is the same as not funding any...funny world he lives in.
Yeah, what do they think that a crop of stem cells could do about plaque on the brain? Zippo, that's what. And even if Alzheimer's was a problem involving the death of cells or damage to cells, we'd be using stem cells to replace them with brand new brain cells. A brand new neuron doesn't help you remember somebody's face, it's frickin' empty!
Of course, that's assuming that embryonic stem cells are useful at all, which we're not seeing with the data so far. Research in that area is simply killing kids on a wisp of a forlorn hope, or in other words, grant-money-a-rama.
Expect the theme of his speech to be, "they questioned my patriotism" even though it was his judgement that was questioned, and rightly so. It's all these guys have on the foreign policy front: "Shut up! If you question why we're screwing up on National Security you must be calling us commies! McCarthyite!"
First reaction: what a first class idiot.
Second reaction: Even if that quote had "Senator Kerry's policies" in it I wouldn't agree with it. What an idiot.
Third reaction: This is the same O'Malley who stood up to the (IIRC) AFL-CIO prez and chewed him out in public? Did weasels eat his brain in the interim?
Tells me Ron read some of our good educational stuff on stem cells. We need to be encouraged -- keep on educating. We know it, but how will they know unless told?
Also gives me great hope for Ron. If within a few weeks of time, during a tremendously stressful time, he's still able to think clearly upon hearing what he didn't know before, and he's humble enough to clearly, publicly express his new knowledge...those are all good signs of Reagan blood running in his veins. Somewhere.
Four words and their meanings are crucial to understanding these complex issues in a simplified way: organ, organism, form, function.
A sperm or ovum is produced in an organ, a substructure of an organism. Organism is the whole being, organ is a substructure. An embryo is an entire organism at earliest age. The embryo begins cell differentiation very soon upon cell division commencing (building the first ORGAN for his or her survival, called the placenta). The process of embryonic growth is one of form ... the fetal body is formed, then function follows (just as the placenta is formed then begins functioning to exchange gasses and nutrients for the alive embryo that then begins building the body of organs which will support the continuing life once the being exits into the air world)). If embryo stem cells are harvested and used on fully formed humans, these formational stem cells tend to form and form and form, without differentiating into function!
Parkinson's patients injected with fetal stem cells(embryo stem cells) have grown tissue not meant to be located in the brain, and death has followed such abnormal formation. The process of cell differentiation is actually one that continues throughout a lifetime, as repair cells function to replace and support damaged tissues. Stem cells (called MAPCs, for multi-potent adult progenitor cells) are produced in various parts of the body, stem cells that are ready to differentiate into specific tissues when located to a particular formational site, influenced to turn into the tissues of that particular site by enzymes and other influences particular to that formational position in the formed body.
The research with embryonic stem cells (earliest fetal body parts) is undertaken as a means to use cloned embryos/fetuses for harvesting histamine matched functional tissues. Even the researchers admit they look forward to 'therapeutic' cloning in order to conceive embryos as tissue twins to the DNA donor. Cloning is intimately connected to the direction embryo stem cell exploitation wants to go. If the world can be brought along into the cannibalism of 'to be discarded' alive embryos in fertilization clinic freezers, then human cloning will be much easier to slip into place, to slip into acceptance by an uneducated (uneducated as to the technicalities), secular people.
Killing embryo AGED individual human ORGANISMS, for their body parts, is cannibalism as surely as it would be were the embryos placed upon crackers for curative snacks.
Looks like someone finally penetrated Ron's thick head to save the Reagan family further embarrassment and heartache. Remember you read it here first that no stem cells can help Alzheimer's disease and that gene and drug therapies are the research and treatments of choice.
I wonder if Nancy still believes in using tarot cards and astrologers?
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