Stem Cell Funding - Obama
Offline PRESIDENT Barack Obama signed an executive order today lifting the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
His entire speech can be read here: Obama's Speech
Don't forget that there is a page 2.
This report left out his remark at the end of the speech: "Let's go sign this."
Just to show how much this man is underestimated by his political colleagues...
I want everyone to remember that HR1(The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) contained provisions for potentially BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of dollars for medical research grants including comparative clinical analyses.
If the ban on federal funding that Fucknut Bush enacted with his first veto, his executive order in '06 and his reaffirmation in '07 had been lifted prior to HR1 being passed then we would have had a horrible debate from the christian democrats.
However, lifting the ban AFTER the funds were allocated to medical research shows exactly how very fucking smart this man is and makes me like him that much more.
Currently, the man could shit on my XBOX and I would offer him toilet paper.
I never thought I would live long enough to see an intelligent, eloquent president that also showed this kind of foresight.
Maybe it's coincidental, but I doubt it.
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Welcome to the world of “feel good” measures. This actually changes nothing.
The whole community of researchers has yet to reach the lofty goal of getting a single thing about stem cells to work in mice. Teeth growing inside eyes is common as are eyes growing in brains. Also, stem cells planted in livers routinely turn into aggressive cancers. All of this happens in lower life forms where the research has not been controversial.
What you are celebrating is on the same level as Meagan's law. Vote for it or your negative vote wll be used against you in the next election.
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Oh yeah.
What was I thinking?
I mean after all if you can't get any results from the existing lines of cells then you should just fucking give up right?
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Well Josh, I don't for one second think that we ought to give up. We should do good science and when we can get the idea on a sound footing, then good science can become good public policy. Personally, I don't really give a rat's ass if we destroy embryos or perform reproductive cloning if that is what we end up having to do. The thing is that we have not yet reached the point where we can do in animals what some people are urging that we try to do to people.
I would love to see the paralyzed walk again but the current state of stem cell research is one that in animals tends to cause horrible side effects such as terminal cancer and the other things that I mentioned above. Basically, we might be able to rebuild someone's damaged spinal cord but at the risk of possibly exposing them to lingering and painful death just a few years later.
So yes, we ought to fund the research but we also need to recognize that all the money that you can throw at a potential problem goes nowhere unless you can get a proposal past the ethics board of the university where the work might be done.
However, when we politicize science we do so with other inherent risks. In this case, I fear that an unintended consequence of this new policy is going to be that it becomes the type of feel good measure that I wrote about last night. Shortly, I expect that congress will want to consider enabling legislation to go from an expressed policy of the new administration to being established law. And nobody can express any concerns on the matter. If they do and they decide to run for reelection, they do so at the peril of being the person who voted to let cripples stay in their wheel chairs.
I think that President Obama is right to observe as he has that a lot of this goes nowhere. I would also like to observe that we don't really know what will come of this. I am reminded of the 80's when genetic engineering was going to save us from from all the ills that beset us. It has helped in many ways but not automatically in every way. People still get juvenile onset diabetes but today, the insulin they take is real human insulin produced in huge vats of bacteria with the relevant bit of human DNA inserted.
Other types of basic research have produced similar legacies. Nuclear science has not managed to produce the fabled “energy to cheap to be worth metering” but it has produced Parmalat, the milk that you can store in a closet for years before drinking it.
Well, I am digressing here but let me observe that we do this at the risk of further prostituting science. Seriously, check google scholar for the phrase “consequences of global warming”. Scientists have learned that putting the words “global warming” in a grant application can open up funding opportunities. Dou you want to study the mating habits of lobsters? Submit a grant application on how global warming alters the mating habits of lobsters and you stand a better chance at getting funding.
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Only reason im happy about it being gone is because i think it was stupid to limit research into something that could provide results. Correct me if im wrong but those fetus's were just being thrown away anyway.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
Tapey,
It isn't fetuses. Embryos past the blastula phase of development are already specializing into types. By the time it reaches fetus, it is already too late for
Embryos are fertilized eggs. Nothing more than a cell.
Gene,
It strikes me as odd that you seem to be discounting the research not done yet.
Also, IF something comes from it then I don't see why the politicians in support of it shouldn't be recognized for that support.
Conversely, if something does come from it then I would be the first person to call for a medical embargo of services performed upon its detractors.
That is my answer to the 'ethical' objections.
I may share my list of people whom I consider to be unworthy of any medical breakthroughs in possible future stem cell therapies by virtue of their hindrance to the research.
Fuck Hippocrates.
Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server, which houses Celebrity Atheists.
just proves how little I know about the subject.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
Um, how do you figure that i said that?
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Tapey, allow me to clue you in.
First off, it is bordering on negligence to say that stem cells are one thing that you get one chance at and done. The fact is that there are lots of things that are stem cells and there is and has been for ten+ years, quite a bit of research going on in the broader field. The EO that Obama signed the other day only refers to one very narrow category of the field.
Two major divisions of the field would be into adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells.
Let me cover adult stem cells here. That area of the research in not embroiled in any controversy of any significance. Basically, you have cells all over your body that have not yet developed into a final form and can divide in such a way that one of the cells becomes a “final” form such as a white blood cell or a red blood cell while the other of the pair remains undeveloped.
One major advantage of the adult line stem cells would be that they can be taken from your own body, worked on in the lab and returned to you. To the extent that it should be possible to turn adult stem cells into useful tissue, they should be implantable to you with essentially no risk of tissue rejection.
Another major advantage of adult stem cell research is due to the fact that the research has proceeded for ten or so years without major controversy. As it stands, two universities have managed to produce “nearly embryonic” stem cells from skin cultures. Also, the cells that are probably going to be needed to heal damaged spinal cords and cure such diseases as Parkinson's and juvenile onset diabetes have been made in the laboratory from blood samples. Also, researchers have found that they can get perfectly good stem cells from umbilical cord blood and amniotic fluid.
Quite literally, we are standing on the verge of being able to do all of the things that stem cells are supposed to be able to do right from adult cell lines.
Against that, there is the politicizing of science that I wrote on above. It is largely based on a snapshot of where the science was a decade ago. It arises, from what I can tell, not from the current state of science but rather from base political polarization. From where I stand, it does not matter if you come from the right or the left, if you are a political wing nut, then you are not helping.
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