Thread by topher.
WASHINGTON, DC, August 3, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Following an announcement on Friday by U.S. biotech firm Geron Corp. that it received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration to carry out clinical trials using stem cells derived from human embryos, the mainstream media has been awash in stories that acknowledge the success of adult stem cell treatments, and the absence of any positive results from embryonic stem cell research.
AP reported the fact that adult stem cells have the ability not only to differentiate into bone, cartilage and blood vessels, but have also been shown to stimulate tissue repair.
"That gives adult stem cells really a very interesting and potent quality that embryonic stem cells don't have," Rocky Tuan of the University of Pittsburgh told AP.
Harvard University’s Dr. David Scaden, on the other hand, told CBS News of adult stem cells: “That’s really one of the great success stories of stem cell biology that gives us all hope. If we can recreate that success in other tissues, what can we possibly imagine for other people?”
In one prominent case that is being cited by the mainstream press, a patient had a broken ankle that would not heal, despite multiple surgeries. Dr. Thomas Einhorn, Chairman of Orthopedic Surgery at Boston University Medical Centre, drew bone marrow from the man’s pelvic bone, and condensing it he then injected the four teaspoons of rich red liquid into his patient’s ankle.
Four months later, the man’s broken ankle had healed, which Einhorn credits to the adult stem cells in the marrow injection. Einhorn said he tried the procedure based on published research from France.
"Adult stem cells are being studied in people who suffer from multiple sclerosis, heart attacks and diabetes. Some early results suggest (adult) stem cells can help some patients avoid leg amputation. Recently, researchers reported that they restored vision to patients whose eyes were damaged by chemicals," AP reported, adding that adult stem cell treatments "have become a standard lifesaving therapy for perhaps hundreds of thousands of people with leukemia, lymphoma and other blood diseases."
According to CBS news, U.S. scientists at biotech companies and at the Pentagon are devising potential treatments that use adult stem cells rather than embryonic stem cells, news that is being welcomed by those who oppose the destruction of human embryos, both for moral reasons and based on the fact that embryo research has not resulted in a single positive outcome.
Stories of "catastrophic" results from the experimental use of fetal stem cells abound.
Last year a report by Israel's Public Library of Science journal said that a young Israeli boy suffering from a fatal genetic disease was injected with fetal stem cells that resulted in the development of brain and spinal cord tumors. Tests revealed that the tumor tissue was composed of fetal cells.
A study published in the March 2001 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine describing the use of fetal tissue to treat Parkinson's disease, said that the treatment resulted in what the researchers themselves described as "disastrous side effects."
The study said the treatment caused patients to "chew constantly" and "writhe and twist, jerk their heads, fling their arms about."
Dr. Paul Greene, a neurologist at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, said that the results of the experiment were "absolutely devastating ... It was tragic, catastrophic. It's a real nightmare. And we can't selectively turn it off."
Earlier this year California's Institute for Regenerative Medicine quietly changed its focus, after years of fruitless work and the expenditure of billions of dollars, from embryonic stem cell research to adult stem cell research. The institute cited adult stem cell treatment as responsible for dozens of positive results and all-out cures for maladies ranging from spinal cord injury, to Alzheimer's, to type I diabetes.
Los Angeles-based Investor's Business Daily magazine commented that, "Five years after a budget-busting $3 billion was allocated to embryonic stem cell research, there have been no cures, no therapies and little progress. We are pleased to see California researchers beginning to put science in its rightful place."
The Vatican responded on Saturday to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's approval of Geron Corp.'s clinical trials using embryonic stem cells.
Elio Sgreccia, emeritus head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, told Radio Vatican, "Despite the efforts that are made to deny it, science continues to show us that the embryo is a human being in the making" and condemned the move as "unacceptable."
Thread by markomalley.
(CNSNews.com) – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a Catholic, publicly stated earlier this year that she had a duty to pursue policies “in keeping with the values” of Jesus Christ, the “Word made Flesh.” But at a press briefing last week, when reminded of this statement, Pelosi declined to say when Jesus got the right to life.
“Whenever it was,” said Pelosi, “we bow our heads when we talk about it in church, and that’s where I’d like to talk about that.”
Later, when asked in writing through her press secretary whether the speaker believed Jesus had a right to life from the moment of conception, the press secretary responded: “The speaker answered the question. Thanks.”
Pelosi, who favors legalized abortion, voted against the ban on partial-birth abortion that was enacted in 2003.
On May 6 of this year, at a Catholic Community Conference on Capitol Hill, Pelosi said: “They ask me all the time, ‘What is your favorite this? What is your favorite that? What is your favorite that?’ And one time, ‘What is your favorite word?’ And I said, ‘My favorite word? That is really easy. My favorite word is the Word, is the Word. And that is everything. It says it all for us. And you know the biblical reference, you know the Gospel reference of the Word.”
“And that Word," Pelosi said, "is, we have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word. The Word. Isn’t it a beautiful word when you think of it? It just covers everything. The Word.”
“Fill it in with anything you want,” she said. “But, of course, we know it means: ‘The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.’ And that’s the great mystery of our faith. He will come again. He will come again. So, we have to make sure we’re prepared to answer in this life, or otherwise, as to how we have measured up.”
In the New Testament, John 1:14 states, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we saw His glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth.”
The Apostle’s Creed says: “He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.”
At her July 29 press briefing, CNSNews.com asked Speaker Pelosi: “You said at a recent Catholic Community Conference that your favorite word was ‘The Word, as in the word made flesh,’ and that we need to quote, ‘give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the Word.’ So, when was the Word made flesh? Was it at the Annunciation, when Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Sprit, as the Creed says, or was it at the Nativity when he was born of the Virgin Mary? And when did the Word get the right to life?”
Speaker Pelosi responded: “Whenever it was, we bow our heads when we talk about it in church, and that’s where I’d like to talk about that.”
CNSNews.com then sent an e-mail to the speaker’s press secretary, Nadeam Elshami, seeking to clarify the speaker’s answer. The e-mail said:
“Speaker Pelosi said at a Catholic Community Conference that her favorite word was ‘the Word’ as in ‘the Word made flesh’ and that we ‘need to [give] voice to what that means in terms of public policy.’ We’d like to clarify the speaker’s position on this: Did Jesus have the right to life from the moment of conception?”
In an e-mailed response, the press secretary wrote: “The speaker answered the question. Thanks.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church discusses Christ’s divinity from His conception. It states, “Christ's humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it and made it his own, from his conception.” (466)
The Catechism also states, “From its conception, the child has the right to life.” (2322)