First of all, adult stem cell research pays for itself. Companies can invest in it, and make big bucks when it assists in finding a cure.
However, businesses refuse to fund embryonic stem cell research, because it does not yield results. So people want our government to fund it instead, wasting our money.
http://www.stemcellresearch.org/facts/treatments.htm
I don't know about you guys, but I want the government wasting as little of my money as possible. So Liberals, why do you want the government wasing this money??
2007-06-21 05:12:46 · 31 answers · asked by Anonymous in Politics & Government ➔ Politics
I LOVE it when no one reads the question!!!
2007-06-21 05:26:13 · update #1
Because universities and P.H. D's want federal funding - that's how they make a living - on the backs of tax payers. Unlike the private sector, people who receive publicly funded grants don't need to produce results. The private sector expects results, and if the project or research is a dead end, it's canceled. We all know that this rule of common sense does not apply to government sponsored research.
2007-06-21 05:19:39 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
Because if the funding was all private the cure will be astronomically priced in that only rich can afford to be cured (not that it matters, our health care system is in shambles anyway).
Also, other nations are getting far ahead of us in this. Japan just successfully used stem cells to regrow kidneys in mice and we're arguing like school kids about this. Little by little America is falling behind the rest of the world, pretty soon we'll be the undeveloped nation and Japan, China, India will bet he super power.
Bush doesn't really care about the research anyway, he desperately needs to score points with his base and his party so he's using this as an opportunity (this man has a 29% approval rating - lowest for any president, even Nixon did better!).
2007-06-21 05:25:13 · answer #2 · answered by The First 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
To those that want embryonic stem cell research to find a cure...here's a fact for you!!
A family member of mine has Primary Amyloidosis (which is incurable)....has had stem cell surgery to slow the disease and reverse the effects on his heart...and ya know what....IT DID NOTHING!!
10 months later (10/06)....he was in the hospital for a heart transplant. Got the heart....and he's still in the hospital!!! Oh sure...the heart is fine...but the disease had NO reaction to the stem cells....NOTHING
Stem Cell research can do alot....but it's not the 'Magic Bullet' that everyone seems to think it is!!
We need to starting thinking in a different direction...just because the road goes this way...try to make a right or left...you might find something 'different' that you wouldn't have thought of in the other direction.
2007-06-21 05:23:13 · answer #3 · answered by Nibbles 5 · 2⤊ 1⤋
There are no developments due to very little research has ever been done on this.
Investors are scared to put their money in something that is under constant attack from the christian right wing.
There is a push to ban this research so they get no investors.
If they could get at least the research protected from the anti-science nut jobs, then the investors will be on board.
Once the funding is in place the research can actually be done at the rate that adult stem cell research has been taking place.
2007-06-21 05:21:27 · answer #4 · answered by sprcpt 6 · 2⤊ 1⤋
It's often the case that business chases research projects that promise immediate results, while the government has to step in to fund longer term or more ambitious projects.
Embryonic stem cells are unique, and provide avenues of scientific research that adult stem cells do not - thus, governmen funding is apropriate. That is, if the citizens who contitute that government find it morally acceptable...
2007-06-21 17:41:38 · answer #5 · answered by B.Kevorkian 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
lol waste, like your money being spent on war and no-bid contracts to defense contractors, which earn ten times more than your average soldier who needs it more? lol making big bucks in finding a cure? whatever happened to helping people just for the sake of helping? of course the private sector isn't interested because they can care less about people, they just want big earnings and thats where the government steps in since they should definitely care about their own citizens lol. the government should take these measures to conduct research simply because it will help others. unfortunately, some americans are too self interested to consider such efforts. seriously, if we have money to kill people, we certainly have money to help. i'm not suprised about the government refusing the fund stem cell research, apparently they want nothing to do with scientific advancement unless it contributes to their military industrial complex. so if anyone wants the government to fund it, they better create crazy superhumans like universal soldiers lol.
2007-06-21 05:27:25 · answer #6 · answered by Andy A 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I really like the way you framed this question and I totally agree with you. If taxpayers fund the research then shouldn't we reap the benefit of all research done with stem cells? If stem cell research results in a cure for all cancer then I should at least be able to have a cigerette with my beer at the local bar.
2007-06-21 05:21:09 · answer #7 · answered by jeff_loves_life 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
The government has a strong interest in having a healthy and productive population, that's why we have the National Institutes of Health, a Surgeon General, and the FDA for example. Supporting medical research to cure disease is one way to improve the health and well being of the population.
The facts you recite are contrary to the scientific consensus. The embryonic stem cells are undifferentiated and can be used for many diseases, affecting many organs. The adult cells seem to be of limited usefulness.
"As much as we might wish it to be otherwise, no non-embryonic sources of stem cells -- not stem cells from cord blood or from any "adult" sources -- have been shown to have anything like the potential to lead us to viable treatments for such diseases as juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's and spinal cord injury that stem cells derived from very early embryos do. The science here is unequivocal: Access to embryonic stem cell lines is essential to rapid progress in stem cell research."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25071-2004Aug22.html
2007-06-21 05:25:42 · answer #8 · answered by Muscat 4 · 2⤊ 1⤋
The liberals want it because Bush is against it. They also don't want anyone to profit on it. Here is the rub; if it was really the big deal they claim it is then why don't the drug companies want to fund it and reap the billions? The reason is - because they have far less faith in it then the liberals and a few scientists that are motivating them.
PS. California wasted $3 billion on this very item; watch the money get poured into those scientists pockets and the tax payers get milked.
2007-06-21 05:16:44 · answer #9 · answered by netjr 6 · 3⤊ 2⤋
Business does not fund it, not because it doesn't yield results, but because it does not yield money. Curing something does not bring the continued income that a slowly dying person does. They are doing exactly what is expected of business in the free market.
2007-06-21 05:16:46 · answer #10 · answered by U_Mex 4 · 4⤊ 0⤋