From Breitbart.com:
It was the kind of breakthrough scientists had dreamed of for decades and its promise to help cure disease appears to be fast on the way to being realized.
Researchers in November announced they were able to turn the clock back on skin cells and transform them into stem cells, the mutable building blocks of organs and tissues.
Then just earlier this month a different team announced it had cured sickle cell anemia in mice using stem cells derived from adult mouse skin.
"This is truly the Holy Grail: To be able to take a few cells from a patient -- say a cheek swab or few skin cells -- and turn them into stem cells in the laboratory," said Robert Lanza, a stem cell pioneer at Advanced Cell Technology.
"This work represents a tremendous scientific milestone - the biological equivalent of the Wright Brothers' first airplane," he told AFP.
"It's bit like learning how to turn lead into gold."
Amazingly, there remain some who STILL insist in destroying human life in embryonic stem cell research--even after this breakthrough, and even after the numerous adult stem cell treatments that have ALREADY helped people.
I knew there were many adult stem cell successes, but had never actually counted them. Well, the Family Research Council has done so, and it turns out the adult stem cell successes to embryonic stem cell successes is a little, um, lopsided:
Let's end our embrace of the culture of death, and choose life. It's not only more ethical, it's more productive!
1 comments:
Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that theoretically can be coaxed to develop into any specified tissue and, in fact, this has been found to be the case when using adult stem cells and these new break-throughs expand the possibilities even further. Adult stem cells are currently being used to treat heart disease, diabetes, rheumatoid diseases, leukemia, cystic fibrosis and dozens more diseases that once plagued mankind.(http://stemcellresearch.org/facts/treatments.htm). Embryonic stem cell therapy has yet to be found useful in treating even one disease and is plagued not only with ethical questions, but with practical problems such as frequent occurrence of cancers and common tissue rejection in experimental animals treated with embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells have little in their favor save a tenuous theory that they may have some greater capacity to develop into a wider range of tissue types---and that is becoming less likely with continued research such as described in this article.
So what’s the debate about? Money! Dozens of ESC labs have pumped millions into lobbying efforts to try to get legislation passed that will allow them to apply for billions from federal coffers. If embyonic stem cell research is so promising, where are all the greedy capitalists clamoring for a piece of the action?
Abortion is another reason for the insistence on federal money for embyonic stem cell research. Pro-abortion groups are fearful of the wave of increasing conservatism in the U.S. and believe that Roe v Wade is in jeopardy of being over-turned by a Bush appointed court (a fear, we hope, that is not unfounded). Many of these groups see embryonic stem cell research as a way to legitimize abortion in the eyes of the public and put a happy face on the gruesome practice of fetocide. If Michael J. Fox were cured of Parkinson's Disease by using tissue from an aborted fetus, wouldn't that make you feel better about ripping babies from the womb and chopping them up?
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