By Robert Lanza and Wendy Goldman Rohm Outside View Commentators
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, 847-942-9534, Wwendyrohm@cs.com
Nevermind morals, nevermind ethics, nevermind the rights of the unborn. We've got RESEARCH to do, dammit! And just because Dr. Josef Mengele had a thing for sacrificing the innocents to further his research doesn't mean we can't do it better!!
</sarcasm>
I'm getting tired of this strawman.
I don't go to church and I oppose abortion and cloning and embryonic stem cell research.
Welcome to Free Republic.
KERRY:"'everything is a gift from the Almighty."
Is everything a gift from God? Genesis begins with the story of how things were made and given to man and beast. But, Kerry is as mistaken about this as he is about us all being children of God.(Romans 9:8) Murder is not a gift from God,. He would have known this had he read the Bible.
What greater gift from God could there be than that of the conception of life made manifest by love? No Christian can deny the truth of the Bible.
Jeremiah 1:5
Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee,
and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
Psalm 139:13
For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.
14 :I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
15 :My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
16 :Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written,
which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
Galatians 1:15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace,…
Isaiah 49:1 :
Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.
Matthew 18:5 And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.
Deuteronomy 30:19
"I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and
death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live."
Proverbs 6:16 There are six things which the LORD hates, Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him:
17 Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood
Exodus 20:13 Thou shalt not kill.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal;
that they are endowed by their Creator
with inherent and inalienable rights;
that among these are life..."
It's OK, Wendy. Killing a human embryo is worth any promise of an advance in medicine, isn't it? Just as aborting babies is worth any advance in women's careers, right? Ethics are just so damn constraining.
Of course, ethics never stopped the Nazis in their quest for longevity. Let's just kill anyone who gets in the way of our own nirvana.
NEW YORK, Dec. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Researchers at a small Boston area biotech company have created the most developed human clone embryo yet. The cloned embryo grew to at least 16 cells, a stage of development where it becomes useful for stem cell research, WIRED magazine reports in its January issue. The magazine will be on newsstands on Tuesday, December 23, and is online now at http://www.wired.com/ .Writing for WIRED magazine, Wendy Rohm Goodman witnessed the breakthrough experiment which in pursuit of stem cells yielded both human clone embryos and human parthenotes, embryo-like balls of cells that have only one set of chromosomes.
The company, Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) of Worcester, Massachusetts, has been involved with therapeutic cloning for some time. In 2001, company researchers grew human clone embryos to six cells. Since then, there have been no published reports of human clone embryos surviving more than a few cell divisions.
Although researchers at the company are focused on only therapeutic cloning, the experiment indicates that science has reached a point where human reproductive cloning may be possible.
During in vitro fertilization, two-day old embryos are commonly implanted in the 100,000 procedures done every year in the U.S. In this case, ACT's embryo survived for at least five days.
*This raises the question of whether the cloned embryo could have been implanted successfully in a surrogate womb. ACT Medical Director Robert Lanza, M.D. terms such an attempt "dangerous and scientifically irresponsible."*
Speaking with WIRED about the ethical implications of his company's work, he says, "Our intent is to use this technology to generate stem cells to treat serious and life-threatening diseases, not to create a child. The American Medical Association agrees that this research is constant with the ethical goals of medicine, namely, healing, prevention of disease, and helping alleviate pain and suffering." [excerpt]
*I think the odds are someone's gonna implant a clone. Why should anyone listen to Lanza's warnings?
I don't like having the GOP associated with wedge social issues.
Hawkish on Terrorism.
100% for Israel.
Pro Defense.
Libertarian on economics, taxes. Milton Friedman wing of the GOP.
privatize Social Security.
encourage faith based initiatives.
promote private school vouchers.
reach out to minorities on education and entrepreneurship, ala Jack Kemp.
There is so much more to the GOP than the straw man of pro-life pro-choice. Roe v Wade will never be overturned. Why get so hot and bothered? Work on reducing abortion through churches and other organizations. It muddies the waters of promoting a FREEDOM, OWNERSHIP society.
And by my survey, less than one in ten knows that the ban is only on federal funding, one in twenty knows what a stem cell is, and as far as I can tell, only one person out of the thousand in my building even know that none of the stem cell advances has come from embryonic. This same person was the only one who knew the difference between "embryonic" and "adult" stem cells.
If you and Lanza want my money taken at the point of a gun to fund your immoral, from my point of view, research you should have the guts to come to my home and get the money yourself.
When will it be enough? When we have rows upon rows of living clones and embryos that are grown to support those that never wish to die... Two laws of God will be broken... both life and death. Embryos of living beings created to support experimentation is against the will of God.
A book on cloning by Wendy Rohm is due out next year.
Do you have a passing acquaintance with the word "truth"?
You don't "obtain stem cells from tiny balls of cells...", you mine them from embryos which kills the embryos. Embryos are human life, not potential life Wendy, human life at the earliest stage of the continuum of human life.
Utilitarians such as yourself have learned well from the Josef Goebells of the world, I'll give you that.
Which policy is Bush pushing and when did he begin "pushing it?"
How quickly you forgot
From CNN
Clinton bars federal funds for human cloning research
March 4, 1997
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Responding to what he termed the "troubling prospect" of cloning human beings, President Bill Clinton has banned the use of all federal funds for such experiments to allow time for scientists, the government and citizens alike to consider the issue.
"Any discovery that touches upon human creation is not simply a matter of scientific inquiry," the president said Tuesday at a White House news conference to announce his decision. "It is matter of morality and spirituality as well."
This statement is ideological.
Wendy Rohm may be a pro-death troll, but it's good to know about this.
The United Nations is world HQ for abortion, cloning, euthanasia, population control, forced abortion in China, and all the other projects of the Culture of Death.
One way or another, we have to deal with this problem. If the Euroswine want to spend billions killing off third-world babies to make more room for themselves, that's their agenda. Let them live with it if they can. But the United States should not be involved.
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.