Two research groups on two continents say skin cells do better than stem cells. Was Bush right on this one?

Question

So now adult stem cells and skin do better than embryonic stem cells. Why were some groups so intent on using federal funds for embryonic stem cells?

The report was posted right here on yahoo.

Here is the link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071120/ap_on_sc/stem_cells

For those of you who wrote "read further, there is an increased risk of cancer", I say to you, read further. "But the DNA disruption is just a byproduct of the technique, and experts said they believe it can be avoided."

Is that not important?

Answer 1

The abortion rights groups pushed that one as a way to make sure life isn't defined as beginning when the sperm and the egg meet.

President Bush had talked with many scientists who said adult stem cells showed more likelihood of success than embryonic. This was a way of marginalizing the fertilized egg. It was certainly political. And it is a dangerous political game. They wanted to take money from a program which was showing results and put it in a program which was going nowhere, all for political reasons.


Addendum - It is kind of funny, those of you who say the President did this for political or religious reasons, not scientific. Why take money from adult stem cell research, which is getting results, and put it into embryonic research, which has given us nothing? Sounds very political to me.

Oh, I get it. If you agree with the decision, it is scientific. If you disagree, it is a political decision.

Answer 2

You have an interesting mix of opinions there. You favor eugenics claiming that if you are going to die anyways you should just die... But you are dead set against a type of research that uses the remains of something that is going to die with or without the research. I find it interesting that you support creating a master race by just letting people die out (or killing them, as eugenics has been practiced in every instance in the history of humanity that it has been applied to society), but are crying over "babies" that never would have been babies regardless of embryonic stem cell research. Interesting that you would never want to save your own life at the expense of someone else, but support creating a master race at the expense of those who dont match up. I wonder if you know where embryonic stem cells actually come from. People arent getting paid to have abortions or getting pregnant to have an abortion for embryonic stem cells. They cant. By the time a pregnancy could be confirmed to even have an abortion in the first place, its too late to get embryonic stem cells. The embryos come from IVF clinics. When a woman goes through IVF, her eggs are surgically harvested. Eggs by themselves cannot be frozen and stored viably, so they are fertalized with sperm in the lab and then the embryo is frozen. They create multiple embryos because they know upfront that several embryos will not survive the freezing and thawing process, and because they know it will take multiple tries to acheive a pregnancy. When the woman is done trying to conceive, any embryos that were not viable after thawing as well as any extra embryos are discarded in the medical waste dump and incinerated. The embryonic stem cell research salvages the trash of IVF to use embryos that are dead with or without embryonic stem cell research. The research was directly born out of the trash of a legal and socially acceptable medical procedure. These embryos are not little babies either. They are human, yes, just as the skin cells you shed are human. But these embryos have less cells than the number of skin cells you shed in a second, they have absolutely no organ formation, no brain, no cns, and no consciousness. What if I had been a stem cell baby? Then hopefully my short life would have went to helping new medical procedures get developed. I wouldnt be here to have any feelings about it. I wouldnt have had any feelings about it then either, because the embryos die at 5-7 days old, about 10-13 weeks before the fetus has consciousness.

Answer 3

It has been known for a long time that adult stem cells are far more useful and promising than Embryonic stem cells. Those who support embryonic stem-cell research like to talk about its promise and blast Bush for not funding it. However, they have either forgotten or are completely ignorant of some facts:

1.) The only research program which does not receive federal funding beyond existing lines is Embryonic Stem Cell Research.

2.) While it receives no FEDERAL funding, there is plenty of Embryonic Stem Cell Research going on in the private sector. If proponents of this research really wish it to quickly move forward, the best thing is to keep the incompitent government's hands off of it.

3.) Embryonic Stem Cells, in spite of all the rhetoric being thrown around, have not cured, nor have the promised to cure any debilitating disease.

4.) In spite of #3, George Bush is the first president in American history to allow federal funding on ANY Embryonic Stem Cell Research.

5.) Many other forms of Stem Cell Research exist and are currently receiving federal funding. These have produced cures or are promising cures for at least 75 debilitating diseases. These include:
1. Brain Cancer
2. Retinoblastoma
3. Ovarian Cancer
4. Skin Cancer: Merkel Cell Carinoma
5. Testicular Cancer
6. Tumors abdominal organs lymphoma
7. Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma
8. Hodgkin's Lymphoma
9. Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia
10. Acute Myelogenous Leukemia
11. Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia
12. Juvenile Myelomonocytic Leukemia

These are merely cancers, and merely a dozen examples where ADULT Stem Cell Research shows promise. There are other major areas where this research shows promise, such as cardiovascular, immunodeficiencies, auto-immune diseases, anemias and other blood conditions, wounds and injuries (like Limb Gangrene), and the list goes on, and on, and on.

What do we have with Embryonic Stem Cell Research? Uncontrolled cell growth. That's right: Tumors/cancer, et al.

So why does President Bush not fund Embryonic Stem Cell Research beyond existing Stem Cell lines? The above should help to explain it a bit, not to mention that other forms of Stem Cell research, which have shown far more promise, do not encounter the same ethical questions/controversies as Embryonic Stem Cell research.

Answer 4

This has been common to the stem-cell debate since the beginning.

What I've always marveled over is why so many libs suddenly forgot that America's private-sector was throwing money at stem-cell research.

Answer 5

This is not new information, this has been known for a multiple of years. Embryonic stem cell agenda is attached to the abortion agenda, that is all.

Answer 6

Whoa, stop the presses, two research groups out of the many thousands internationally doing stem cell research!


Stem cells work because they are not specialized. A skin cell has a very different physical structure than say a cardiac cell. This structure, although can be manipulated cannot be fully changed. Cell reprogramming in as the practice is called is possible however highly flawed with mutation being common place. This can result in an increased risk of things such as overgrowth of cell tissues, which is essentially cancer.

The neat thing about stem cells as they are blank specialized cells that mimic the qualities of neighboring cells. This makes them little rapidly producing clone cells. With them you are able to pretty much grow any cell culture.

Embryonic stem cells to not come from aborted fetus, in fact they can be found in placental blood, cord blood and even amniotic fluid. They do not impact a fetus in any way shape or form.As a matter of fact fetal cells have already began to specialize and are of absolutely no use to stem cell research. Limiting access to already existent (and may I say poor quality) cell lines was dare I say ill informed.

Answer 7

because liberals think the only way anything can be accomplished is through government spending. Which is pretty much a joke to anyone with a drop of common sense.

Answer 8

The jury is still out.

But whether adult cells or embryonic cells are better is moot.

The use of embryos should not be tolerated.

Answer 9

No he wasn't "right", unless you count pandering to the religious right for purely theological reasons rather than scientific reasons. They had to turn the skin cells into stem cells to get them to do what they want them to. The irony, of course, is if there was no political firestorm this new technique might not have been discovered until later.

[ Two scientific teams each inserted four genes into the skin cells that switched on a process converting them into a form equivalent to embryonic stem cells. The cells were then changed into heart, brain, muscle, fat and cartilage cells by one team using proven methods for growing tissue from embryonic cells, the scientists said. ]

It just seems to prove that stem cells are NOT babies as the conservatives have claimed.

Answer 10

better? No, that's not correct. They just NOW figured out the technology to make them do the SAME. And great! Glad to hear we can start life saving research now! Too bad we had to wait so long just because cells that were going to be sent to an inferno couldn't contribute to humanity instead... seeing as how that seems to be the part of the argument you have issue with.

Many people just didn't want the government to fund it... and I never really did form a strong opinion on that side of the debate.


Edit: I just reread the article... though you might like this quote.

"There is a catch. At this point, the technique requires disrupting the DNA of the skin cells, which creates the potential for developing cancer"