Free Republic

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI stressed the church's opposition to abortion and stem cell research in his first meeting with President Barack Obama on Friday, pressing the Vatican's case with the U.S. leader who is already under fire on those issues from some conservative Catholics and bishops back home...Afterward, the Vatican said the leaders discussed immigration, the Middle East peace process and aid to developing nations. But the Vatican's statement also underscored the pair's deep disagreement on abortion. "In the course of their cordial exchanges, the conversation turned first of all to questions which are in the interest of...

Every reporter covering the election should, after the second presidential debate in St. Louis, be demanding of Kerry an answer to the following question: Who are the scientists who told you that "we have the option" of curing Parkinson's, diabetes, spinal-cord injuries, or any other disease using embryonic stem cells? If they won't ask him, the Bush campaign should defy him to name the names. He won't be able to do it. No scientists — even those most pro-Kerry and aggressively in favor of the federal funding of embryo-destructive research — ever told Kerry any such thing. What Kerry has...

Gene, stem cell combination rebuild damaged livers in miceTUESDAY, Sept. 28 (HealthDayNews) -- A combination of gene therapy and stem cell therapy may offer a new way to correct inherited diseases, says a University of Florida study. In research with mice with damaged livers, the scientists removed liver cells called progenitors that have the ability of stem cells to rebuild damaged organs. These progenitor cells were equipped with a healthy human gene and then placed back in the mice. The progenitor cells than began to rebuild the liver with cells that expressed the healthy human gene. "The idea is that...