Posted on 10/23/2004 11:19:46 AM PDT by wendyrohm
Stem-cell 911
By Robert Lanza and Wendy Goldman Rohm
Worcester, MA, Oct. 22 (UPI) -- In an unprecedented move, the Royal Society -- Britain's National Academy of Science -- this week asked the United Nations to ignore President George W. Bush's call for a ban on all forms of human cloning, including stem-cell research.
What hangs in the balance, on the cusp of the U.N. vote and the upcoming U.S. presidential election, is not only the plight of millions of patients, but also the future of one of the greatest medical advances in the 21st century.
It is alarming that the policy being pushed by the Bush administration is not in sync with either public opinion (a recent Harris poll indicates six out of seven people in the United States asked fully support all forms of stem-cell research), or the expert opinions of thousands of scientists and scores of Nobel laureates, both in the United States and worldwide.
The president has also ignored the recommendations of the most renowned scientific and medical groups in the country, including the American Medical Association, National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Indeed, the president's ideological blinders seem to have put him in the same factual vacuum he found himself in at the start of the Iraq war: then and now, he refuses to look at the facts in an objective/scientific fashion.
Even the United States' new ambassador to the United Nations, John Danforth, called a news conference in support of therapeutic cloning and the urgent need for this research. Now, like National Institutes of Health chief Elias Zerhouni, Danforth has had to swallow the Bush policy; he must promote the Bush position to the United Nations that represents neither the scientific facts nor public opinion.
In the United States, Bush's habit of mixing personal religious beliefs with public policy has slowly and subtly eroded the line between church and state. This is inappropriate and damaging to human well-being and public health. If the Bush administration succeeds in extending this to the world via a U.N. ban, it will be a sad day indeed.
Bush's policies in the area of scientific research are as damaging to the public interest as his foreign policies have been to the state of international peace.
In the U.S. arena, a careful look at the record will show that a scientific and factual view of the world has rarely been incorporated into decision-making by this president. Earlier this year, 5,000 scientists (including 48 Nobel laureates) spoke out in support of embryonic stem-cell research and therapeutic cloning, and expressed outrage at the Bush administration's habit of distorting science.
When Laura and George W. Bush state that embryonic stem-cell research holds no near-term promise for helping patients with debilitating diseases, scientists on the front lines know they are flat-out wrong. With adequate funding, we can see the first therapies within five years.
The scientific results so far speak for themselves. In animals, embryonic stem cells already have reversed diabetes and fixed damaged hearts. Nerve cells have been used to treat Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis and to restore function to paralyzed rats.
Stem-cell scientists worldwide have no interest in destroying lives. They obtain stem cells from tiny balls of cells left over in in-vitro fertilization clinics. Some 400,000 of these are either discarded or frozen in the United States. It is puzzling to us that the president believes the potential life of a group of cells -- smaller than a grain of sand -- is more valuable, say, than the life of a living, feeling, 5-year-old with a life-threatening disease.
Leading Republicans like Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, are similarly puzzled. They believe an embryo only has the potential for life when it is a fetus in woman's womb, not a ball of cells in a test tube. The question is whether a microscopic ball of cells warrants the same rights as a parent or a spouse suffering from Alzheimer's disease, or a young diabetic child who may go blind or have limbs amputated.
Even a generous private sector will be hard pressed to fill the government's role. Overcoming the scientific challenges that remain will require a large and sustained investment in this research. The government is the only realistic source for such an infusion of funds, and remains the greatest hope for moving embryonic stem-cell research into the clinic in the next five to 10 years.
Without this support, research progress will be substantially delayed, and many scientists and companies may be driven overseas, to the United Kingdom, Singapore, South Korea, Israel and many others where stem-cell research is more fully supported by government.
Bush's dangerously flawed policy in the United States should not be allowed on the world stage, where it will severely dampen efforts underway to relieve human suffering and disease with emerging stem-cell therapies. Moreover, it should be overturned in the United States; time is of the essence for millions of patients.
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(Dr. Robert Lanza is editor in chief of "Handbook of Stem Cells" and medical director at Advanced Cell Technology. Wendy Goldman Rohm is author of "The Eighth Day: On the Front Lines of Stem Cell Research and the Countdown to a Human Clone," to be published in April 2005 by Harmony Books (Random House).)
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CONTACT: Wendy Goldman Rohm, author, 847-942-9534, Wwendyrohm@cs.com
yeah, it's better to throw a ball of undifferentiated cells into the garbage can at an IVF clinic than to use them to cure a living, breathing child who is about to die !
So the ends justify the means in your world, hm?
What's it like to live a life so devoid of ethics and morality?
Why is using a ball of undifferentiated cells-- that is about to be thrown in the garbage an at IVF clinic-- to save lives of sick patients "murder," but killing living, breathing, adults in the electric chair or in unjustified wars,
not??
There. Fixed it.
And take your whiny, pro-abort crap to Dr. Josef Mengele. Like you, he too saw nothing with sacrificing the innocents in the name of medical research.
People like you make me sick.
I hope she appreciated the inflammatory 'right-wing' quote from Clinton.
400,000 leftover embryos are "killed" in IVF clinics in the US alone. thrown in the garbage or put in the deep freeze. most right to lifers don't object to IVF. why is that ??
Orrin Hatch believes the potential for life is only from an embryo in a woman's womb. There is no potential for life from an early stage embryo generated in a test tube. it has no potential for life and has not differentiated into any body cells at all. the Vatican used to define life as the moment of "quickening," when a woman feels the fetus moving inside her womb. who gets to define what a life is??
the public is uneducated. people do not even know the difference between an early stage embryo and a fetus
Trolls rarely reply. They just toss in white-hot incendiaries, make a bunch of foolish statements, then bail (or get banned).
Besides, she reeks of Eau de Trolle (that's French, you know). ; )
Orrin Hatch also believes that immigrants should be able to run for President. Try again, stupid.
$20 says she'll use the quote in question and attribute it to you instead of former President Clinton. That's just the way these Leftists work. Truth, morality and ethics are just unnecessary inconveniences to them.
400,000 leftover embryos are "killed" in IVF clinics in the US alone. thrown in the garbage or put in the deep freeze. most right to lifers don't object to IVF. why is that??
I do object, just for the reason you have stated. Human embryos are killed. No "quotes" required around the word killed.
Orrin Hatch believes the potential for life is only from an embryo in a woman's womb.
Who is Orrin Hatch and why should I care what he thinks? Not to be flip about it, but what weight does his opinion hold and why do you choose to believe him and not, say, Archbishop Charles Chaput?
There is no potential for life from an early stage embryo generated in a test tube. it has no potential for life and has not differentiated into any body cells at all.
No potential for life? Is that why when they are implanted during IVF they continue to develop as human babies and not baby pigs? Embryos are living human beings. They are human. They are living (or we wouldn't be having this discussion about the ethics of killing them.) And they are beings.
the Vatican used to define life as the moment of "quickening," when a woman feels the fetus moving inside her womb
But they don't anymore, do they?
who gets to define what a life is??
Bingo! (to use a Catholic phrase) Who gets to determine when human life DOES OR DOES NOT begin? If there is a chance you are wrong, Wendy, then you are taking a horrendous chance, aren't you? You may be advocating killing people to 'help' save people. Now you have to decide which person is more deserving of survival.
the public is uneducated.We'll work on that.
people do not even know the difference between an early stage embryo and a fetus
What is that difference, Wendy? At what stage are we safe to kill the embryo?
Regards,
A_R
"undifferentiated"? They are different from either the mother or father in that they have a distinctly diffierent genetic code. Why don't Kerry and his ilk simply practice the black witchcraft method of direct consumption of the unborn in order to extend their evil lives? What do they need billions of dollars taken from the economy to experiment on human beings?
Define unjustified war! I suppose you mean not actually declared by Congress as our Constitution requires.
Damn it, I haven't hear of one cure using stem cells. As a matter of fact, stem cells can be harvested from blood. It is the same cell from any other source once processed. And if the blood is taken from the same adult, it will not be rejected by that person. Stem cell research has been going on for years and at a fast pace. Private industry will find something that it could be used for a cure, and you can bet it will be worth trillions. There would be no greater incentive that that, for sure. So, get life, and if you still have the headache, I would suggest a couple aspirins and a good nights sleep.
Could they possibly ameliorate conditions in the short term??? perhaps, but they will not grow new limbs or miraculously heal central nervous system lesions.
Give it up! This is a totally bogus issue!
Ping
God does. Not you.
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