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Obama's Stem Cell Superstition?

Mike

Well-known member
Barack Obama's stem cell and climate change science is superstition
Telegraph.Co.UK
Gerald Warner at Mar 9, 2009 at 19:00:08 [General]


Barack Obama is earning plaudits from the "science" lobby, militant secularists and other usual suspects for his decision to lift the Bush administration's ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research today. This is being hailed as a new Enlightenment and it is every bit as bogus as the first.

Embryonic stem cell research is a dead end. Embryonic stem cells have not been used successfully to treat any illness, despite inflated claims that one day they will supply revolutionary new treatments for illnesses ranging from diabetes to paralysis. Dr James L Sherley, a Senior Scientist at Boston Biomedical Research Institute in America, has said: "The promises of cures from cloned human embryonic stem cell research are indeed misguided. Whether extracted from IVF embryos or cloned embryos, embryonic stem cells are unable to mend tissues and organs. Only adult stem cells have this ability, and they possess it naturally."

In contrast to the failure of embryo experimentation, stem cells from umbilical cords and placental blood have already been employed successfully to treat leukaemia and anaemia, while adult stem cells have also worked in trials to treat severe heart failure. Most recently, teams of researchers in Britain and Canada have found a safe way of manufacturing stem cells from a patient's skin. The new technology obviates the need to use viruses, which created a risk of cancer, as well as allowing the transformational genes to be removed after performing their function, preventing them from causing any future damage.

By giving a fiscal boost to research that is both ethically controversial and scientifically futile, Barack Obama is directing science onto a negative course. His allocation of federal funds to embryo experimentation makes American taxpayers complicit in the destruction of days-old human beings. In tandem, his embrace of the "man-made" climate change lobby shows that his supposedly enlightened policy is just a new superstition. Presumably, like the Prince of Wales, he believes we have just 100 months to go before climatic Armageddon.

Obama claims that science, not political ideology, will guide his administration. That is transparently not so. This policy is, to the point of caricature, driven by the ideology of junk science, liberal hysteria, and the aggressive lobbying of interest groups hungry for taxpayers' money. Obama is a sucker, impressed by the white-coat pretensions of lobbyists who are the 21st-century equivalents of those seekers for the Philosopher's Stone who plucked importunately at the sleeves of medieval monarchs ("Sire, I have a project...").

This presidency is now firmly set on the road to political, fiscal, cultural and moral disaster. Change we need... Hope... Oh, yeah.
 

Mike

Well-known member
Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research: No Way Around a Scientific Bottleneck

James L. Sherley*
Biological Engineering Division, Biotechnology Process Engineering Center, Center for Environmental Health Sciences, Center for Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
*James L. Sherley: Email: [email protected]

In recent months, the American public has been bombarded with reports of prominent stem cell scientists attempting to run end-around plays against current US government policies that restrict research that requires the destruction of human embryos. These scientists, now run amuck, have derived human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) with nonfederal funding, have announced plans to establish privately funded centers for hESC research, and have been removed from the President's Council on Bioethics after attempting to defame the character of other council members who did not share their views.

As a rule, reports on the controversy around hESC research, since the President announced his administration's policy for restricting the number of approved cell lines in 2001, have only listed nonscientists as critics. The public has been told about the objections of politicians, religious groups, and antiabortion activists, but not those of other stem cell scientists. This situation reflects the homogenization of scientists' views into the political rhetoric of their professional organizations.
The leadership of scientific organizations often errs by presuming that all of their membership think like them, and dissenting opinions are not represented when they politicize their messages to Congress. Although they may hold open forums on this topic at their national meetings, formal polling of their memberships on important science-society topics is largely unheard of. Too often, leading scientists get confused about the difference between defending the free pursuit of science (our livelihood) and serving the public good, which is a responsibility owed for the use of public resources to support our research. When our leaders ignore or fail to acknowledge this responsibility, they destine future scientists to the fallout of public mistrust.

The public needs to know that many expert stem cell biologists are also against research that results in human deaths. We are quite disheartened and disappointed by the attitudes and tactics of our colleagues and mentors who behave as if they were above the democratic process. Do they fail to realize that their so-called private funds are gains from the use of public infrastructure and services and from the work, effort, energy, creativity, and sacrifice of Americans in all walks of life? Though they do not recognize this, be assured, the public does.
Like others who are against research that destroys human life, scientists who oppose hESC research are also compelled by the moral conviction that human life must be safeguarded. In addition, some of them recognize that, actually, hESC research cannot be justified on scientific grounds. Effective, long-lasting cell therapy requires adult stem cells. In the body, natural organ and tissue cells undergo a continuous progression from birth, to maturation, to function, and finally to death. Adult stem cells are responsible for the continuous production of new cells to replace ones that have expired. Without adult stem cells, organs and tissues cannot maintain themselves.

In order for promised hESC-based therapies to be successful, first hESCs must be converted into adult stem cells. Thus far, no one has shown this to be possible. The focus of ESC therapy research has been on making mature differentiated cells instead of their adult stem cell parents. Even if adult stem cells were successfully produced from destroyed human embryos, for effective cell therapies, they must then be stabilized and grown to a sufficient number for treatment. Producing adult stem cells in large numbers while stabilizing their restorative tissue function is a singular challenge in stem cell biology, though some recent progress has been made.

So, why destroy human life (or, for the less certain, risk destroying it) when the essential barrier to effective cell therapies is the need for more research to understand adult stem cells? Adult stem cells can be obtained from informed consenting adults, and they already have examples of successful cell therapies. Bone marrow transplantation is one example of a currently available adult stem cell therapy. Of course, there is still research needed to increase the effectiveness of existing therapies and to develop new ones for chronic debilitating diseases like diabetes and Parkinson's.

Scientists who advocate for research that destroys human embryos are ignorant of the adult stem cell requirement, ignoring it, or hiding it from the public and prospective benefactors. One can only speculate on what motivates our colleagues to do this. I am confident that some have a sincere, though misguided, aspiration to help people suffering from dreaded illnesses. But even this well-intended motivation cannot justify dismissing sound scientific reason.

Scientists promoting hESC research must take care that they do not take advantage of the hopes and fears of people who yearn so desperately for cures that they will regretfully overlook their own moral objections. They do so because they are told that the science is sound and the research will be effective and expedient. The public and potential benefactors must be told that not only is hESC research an eviction of moral thought, it is also a failing of scientific reason.

All the fuss over hESCs has served to reduce funding for all types of stem cell research. The momentum of new growth in knowledge of adult stem cells and their potential for therapeutic application has been very nearly lost due to poor funding as a result of the senseless moral fallout over hESCs. Scientists who aim to bulldoze over the public debate are hurting everyone. It is distressing to hear them give such incomplete accountings of the scientific challenges before promised hESC-based therapies and to ignore the adult stem cell bottleneck altogether. If these problems were discussed more openly, they alone would suffice as the basis for banning any experimentation that requires destruction of human embryos, public or “private.”

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Articles from Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology are provided here courtesy of
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
 
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